The Roker Pods regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us
Behold I have seen the future for Sunderland's seafront … and it looks remarkably like a wooden urinal on wheels.
"But this will be no ordinary wooden urinal. It shall be spherical in shape and possessing of great stripy paddles that will catch the wind.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Roker Pods."
While they sound like a painful condition afflicting the testicles, the Roker Pods were unveiled in the Echo this week as part of the city's great vision for the coast at Roker and Seaburn.
Was anyone else slightly underwhelmed and perhaps a little disturbed by these impressions?
The talk was of a "Center Parcs-style" paradise and what we got was an artist's impression of these odd orbs clamped to an unwieldy mechanical wind contraption that would have even Heath Robinson questioning its build quality and efficiency.
Oddly, the impressions, rather than being of the usually slick razor-lined computer generated variety, appear to have been embroidered on sackcloth. They wouldn't look out of place on the Bayeux Tapestry.
And why did the artist feel compelled to include a queue of identical men in beards outside the pods in their design? Are there no razors in the future? Surely they could see that these cloned humanoids look like they're waiting for their freaky colleague in the pod to finish his business.
I'm not sure what to fear most: should we fear for the barmy visionaries who came up with this idea or should we fear for the future of our city's artist impression industry?
Maybe we should fear for ourselves.
The description of these Roker Pods in the official blurb ominously reveals that they "will populate the coastline in the same way that people do: moving up and down the promenade and spilling onto the beach."
Beware: The day of pods is almost upon us.
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The latest fashion accessory among footballers seems to be the brass neck.
John Terry's has been much in evidence as he refuses to do the honourable thing and resign as England captain.
It has rather overshadowed the brass neck displayed by fellow defender Ashley Cole who was caught speeding the other day, doing 104mph in a 50mph zone.
His excuse for putting in danger the lives of any people stepping out onto the road as he roared through the streets was he was being chased by a photographer.
What did he think the photographer was going to do? Eat him? Steal his soul?
As defences go it was of the Kettering Town rather than Chelsea variety and magistrates slapped him with a four-month ban and a 1,000 fine. At which point the multi-millionaire donned the brass neck and asked for 21 days to pay!
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Weather for Sunderland
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
