Here you will find links to some of the cool sites from and about Newcastle. Starting with brushing up on your grasp of all things Geordie and the local dialect, to the beverage of the discerning Geordie and then to entertainment. | |
|
Newcastle upon Tyne is in the North East of England about 280 miles from London. Originally
I was tricked by an agency into accepting a job up here. The agency led me to believe
I was going to Newcastle under Lyme (which was 5 miles from where I worked at the time). After my first ever speeding ticket (courtesy of the West Yorkshire Police) while driving up here and arriving an hour late for my interview, I completely and utterly hated the place. Five minutes later and a complete Babe of an interviewer and all that started to change. With most cities you either love or hate them, however, Newcastle is one of those places you can initially hate but with time, grow to love. Don't get me wrong, they do utterly stupid things around here like have a central motorway which isn't really a motorway at all, it has a 50mph speed limit, it doesn't have a hard shoulder and you can turn right off of it??? One of those trick questions I was asked in my driving test was "How do you turn right on a Motorway?" the expected answer is that you can't - But now I know the real answer is "Just drive up the central motorway in Newcastle and pull into the right lane... any more stupid trick questions and the answer will be the same, head to Newcastle" One very peculiar thing with the roads, two lanes or three, is sometimes one lane just disappears (Coast Road and A194), no warning, no signs... It just goes, WTF. The only thing you notice is the cars either side of you getting closer and closer together. I've seen many drives hit the anchors in panic when they are new to the road. Why can't the council just stick some paint down on the road and mark it out properly FFS. Anyway, rant mode off, Newcastle is a very nice city and you soon realise all of the hideous 1970's concrete buildings and buildings on stilts actually add to the character of the place, making it feel truly lived in. Contrast this to some of the historic places like Bath and Stratford, where everything is old and kept that way, tending to make you feel uncomfortable unless you're dressed for the period and smoking a pipe. Newcastle has it's historic culture but spits in the face of this with some newer sh*t as well. One of the most difficult things to sometimes get around is the Geordie Dialect, this is completely off the charts and sometimes more difficult to convert real time to English than is say German or Russian. But I think many a Geordie will revert to a more understandable dialect when they realise you're just not getting it. One of the guys I worked with (a born and bred Geordie lad) would always speak in the deepest darkest Geordie dialect imaginable, but as soon as he answered the phone he switched in an instant to the Queen's MF English mode. One of my favourite Geordie phrases was uttered by the above Geordie lad, while surfing one of the more questionable sites on the web, "That's nee good, ya wanna see it gannin' in" - No other language or dialect would come close to encapsulating that moment. For me Newcastle is as close to perfect as you can get in the UK, It is close to the sea, the river Tyne has a "Speed Zone" (unlimited speed limit on a five mile stretch) which is perfect for all those watersports and it has more pubs, clubs and restaurants than one person could ever need in a lifetime. Not to mention some very tasty lasses indeed... On to the links... | |
| Your first point of call should be the Geordie Pride site, here you will find information on Geordie history, customs and famous people - plus some boring stuff about poetry. |
| Next on to the English to Geordie translator. Here you can enter your own personal choice phrases and have them instantly converted into Geordie speak. Handy for some of those more weird london sayings like "have a good one" |
| Alternatively try the Whoohoo translator, this also allows you to translate to: Ali G, Cockney Rhyming Slang, Irish, Scouse, Yorkshire Chicken Run, Brummie, Scottie and Jolly Well Spoken. |
| The most important beverage from Newcastle - Newcastle Brown Ale. If you're interested in how they make it (fill bottle with beer then take it to the shop to sell) then this is the site for you. |
| Something to read with that bottle of brown, try Viz. What's Viz? click here to find out. Check out the Free Games including Doctor Poo, San Antray (where you can Run your own clubber's resort! Investing in hotels, nightclubs and STD clinics), a Fat Slags version of BUCKAROO and not to forget Roger's Profanisaurus Hangman. (This site is not really for kids) |
| Better not forget the Toon Army, click on the picture for the official NUFC site or click here for the unofficial nufc.com site |
| Best not forget Sunderland. |
|
On to some of them pubs and clubs... It seems most of the pubs and clubs are too busy serving to find time to set up websites, so here are the few online ones I've found | |
| Buffalo Joes is on the Gateshead side of the river and stays open until 1am sometimes 2am - I can't work out which exactly. The place can take nearly 1000 people, strange thing is that it's built on a car park that I'm sure could only take about six cars - Now that's good use of space. With the Baja across the road this is probably the better of the two. Unfortunately both have some dorky dj's but Buffalos at least plays lively tunes. |
|
The Baja Beach Club holds (alegedly) over 1700 people (quite where exactly, I'm not sure). It is
quite alright and worth a visit. Though beware, some nights it's full of pimple faced students and others full of chavs
spending their giro's away. If you want to avoid the teeny bopper trade stick to weekends where it's over 21's (unless of
course you're under 21 and full of zits then don't). The DJ's can be a bit cheesy especially some of the metro radio guys
who seem to think they're still doing a radio show. To be honest and fair Baja Beach Club sometimes plays good tunes, even if
it's spoilt by the "Last song - times to move in guys" retard DJ dialog you'd expect from a 50 quid a nite rent a lappy-carrying-mp3-playing-dj. |
|
What about them Charva's... Newcastle has it's own brand of White Trailer Trash called Charva's. Having heard the word used on more than one occasion I wasn't fully aware of what a charva was until a friend pointed it out to me at the Orange WOW festival in 2002. The following sites give a bit of an insight into the Charva phenomenon. | |
| There's not an awful lot of content here, but I quite like the site. In particular, the Biology of the Charva |
| A magazine for people who can read - plus they have a lot of info on Charvas (check out Charva Central from the site) |
| The Anti-Townie Bible, quite an interesting site covering Townies in general |
| Chava Haters, a site for Charva fashion and other stuff about charvas |
|
Little Charva [no image available] |
Little Charva's "Charva Text Specification", not too much in the way of presentation
but makes up for this with content. In particular learn how to speak Charva in easy steps. |
| I had to include this site, it's about a Charva Rat (well a rat called Charva). What I really like is the sites description - Charva is "...really outgoing and brash, always wanting attention and she will quite happily scream until she gets it." |