In The City - Manchester - and lovely long chats with the great Seymour Stein, Chris Cowey, Mick McDonagh, little Joe and many others.

Fantastic dinner in Newcastle with Derek Chinnery, former Controller of Radio One, now 83.

Much more in due course when I've had a nice long sleep.

If it's the Mick McDonagh I'm thinking of, he has been sued by every act he's ever represented. A friend of mine has been on the receiving end of his dubious business dealings.

I'm not sure about that but I knew him decades ago for a short period of his promotion stint at Decca.

Please read my diary on this trip at Attitudes & Opinions...

www.kingofhits.co.uk/content/view/756/37/

It's the same Mick McDonagh.

Different strokes for different folks - from the Internet...

www.shanemacgowan.com/articles/oconnell.shtml

I have stayed at the Gosforth Park also. That A1m to the North east, is the ultimate "are we there yet ? road. It`s exhaustive for a traveller from the south.

Yes it goes from M1 to A1(M) and A1 and keeps telling you the dual carriageway is stopping (when it doesn't) and then odd names (surely Bishop Auckland is a religious person in New Zealand?)...

Then at least you get the wonderful Angel of the North (first time I've seen it in person - very big arms or wings)...

Then it tells you to leave the motorway for the Marriott Hotel (Marriott have taken over the Gosforth Park so it's the WRONG MARRIOTT)...

So there is young King, lost and beleaguered in the middle of Newcastle, so I wind down the window in a traffic jam and a lovely man with family and dog says "Follow me" and leads me 20 minutes - well out of his way - to the front door.

I love Geordies. Always have, since Chas Chandler and Eric and Alan and all the other Animals.

About a mile before the Angel of the North, we always spot a building in the distance which we jokingly call the "Acropolis"! I assume that it is a waterworks of some kind, but it looks fantastic in the distance over the green hills.

It`s easy to get lost in Newcastle and best not to arrive at about 5 pm as this makes it worse.

I like to stay at the Washington services, these days, as it`s cheap, then I get a cab in to town.

I have a hilarious story about a visit to Newcastle, which I will tell one day, about two very famous session musicians that I had hired, whose history I had not really checked out (I had given up smoking and was rather, ermm short with people to say the least at the time!), the short version of it, every door was opened by the very friendly people up there to me , when they saw who I was with.(of course I was just going "grrrr gimme a fag somebody!!")

Ah, the mistake you made in the distance is Manchester is closer to Birmingham than Newcastle. (It's not far off being twice as far!) Manchester is almost MIDLANDS! Perhaps that's why the hotel used by In The city is called The Midland? (actually it's because it was built by the LMS - London Midland Scottish - Railway Company.)

Not been to in The City for years. The last time I saw you there was at the year it was in Glasgow, and you made the newspapers when you apparently was not very kind about their country, (or was it the city itself?). You'll probably remember the details better.

I still have the CD of your celebety interview - I featured on it too!

You'll find that this is more accurate.

www.pogues.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&...779&start=30

Astonishing amount of e-mails from people who saw me at In The City.

Strange how, whilst digital and online have taken over, it's the presence of real people that has impact.