Reg Keys and Sedgefield

I have only recently discovered that Reg Keys is standing against Tony Blair in Sedgefield, County Durham. Fascinating. I hope Keys wins.

I have just sent an email to the Keys website offering support (no money). But the thing that jumped out at me is the address for the campaign headquarters - Newton Aycliffe. In my dim, distant past, I remember that I spent 3 months living and working in Newton Aycliffe (at the Flymo factory, working on an expert system).

Newton Aycliffe is basically a post-war 'new town'. It looks it, too. Of course, there is an ancient village at its core - or, rather, on the edge, next to the old A1. I have very mixed memories of this place, where I was 26 and doing a summer work placement as part of my MSc course. I spent about 10 days living here, firstly at a woman who provided bed and breakfast to people from Flymo, mainly from Sweden since it is a Swedish firm; secondly, I spent 3 terrible nights in another council house, before moving on to Durham, 15 miles north. The contrast could not be greater; like moving from a cardboard box on the Embankment to the Ritz Hotel.

In the second place, an old woman - a friend of the bed and breakfast woman who didn't want me there on account of her little tax-free scame with the people from Sweden (I needed to claim housing benefit) - let me pay £10 a night to sleep in here flat. It was a total slum. Filth everywhere and 3 Alsatian dogs raring to tear me to shreds every time I moved.

Newton Aycliffe has a population of about 45,000 so it has thrived since its inception (under the post-war Labour government, I presume). But it is full of tiny council bungalows and bereft of any civic presence at all. It is truly drab, its shopping centre a barren concrete jungle not unlike the infamous estate in Tottenham where PC Blakelock got so terribly massacred. Otherwise, it's famous for the largest, most violent youth detention centre in Britain. Don't go there on holiday.

On the other hand, it is surrounded by some of the finest countryside anywhere in Britain. I think once I actually walked all the way from Newton Aycliffe to Durham (about 15 miles) when I walked out on Flymo one day, past Ferryhill and all of the old pit villages.

Anyway, good luck to Reg Keys.

Chelsea versus Liverpool, the Mint

Another epic night of both football and drinking at the Mint. And an Ann Summers party on the pool table.

When you sit down and prepare for the big match - possibly the biggest ever match in English football - and you see a notice on the back of a chair, blocking the pool table, which says 'Reserved' you assume it is a pool match, or something (although the Mint pub is not in any pool league... that's what made me start wondering). Then, ten minutes into the match, you see a whole bevvy of young, attractive women fumbling around bags full of lingerie... What do you do? Continue watching the match or alter your view to the left to look at all of these gorgeous women? I didn't know which way to look.

J is here, down for the night from Glastonbury. A brilliant, pulsating match, 150 people in the place, the atmosphere just electric. A classic night at the Mint. Brilliant.