For such a brief visit, South Shields has taken me through times, creations and memories that I myself never experienced in person, the essence of which lingers on.

Media technology gives us effectively infinite access to share and consume content, but this has not resulted in some cultural golden age, only a culture of permanent re-runs and sequels and throwbacks. So we can reproduce but cannot produce, imitate but not create, and this can only be a bad sign for the health of current Western culture.