JUST the mention of the name of the Fiesta nightclub in Stockton takes me back to the days of my youth. It has been in the news recently because, quite amazingly, it is to become a church. I say amazingly because it has been a den of iniquity. I remember four years ago when more than 200 police officers raided it in what is still one of the North-East's biggest drugs clampdowns.
That was when it was called the Colosseum, but I remember it fondly as the Fiesta, Teesside's equivalent to the Cavern in Liverpool. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, all the biggest stars of the day played there: Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison and Gene Pitney.
I remember being 21 and going with my wife to see the Four Tops there when they were one of the biggest groups in the world. Despite their fame, their show was a calm, organised affair. We sat at a little table and watched them perform. I often wonder what became of that cabaret scene. Nightclubs nowadays are just discotheques where people drink too much and flail their arms around wildly.
But that's all in the past. The Fiesta started as a cinema in the 1930s before it became a nightclub and I wonder what it will be in ten or 20 years time. Buildings become part of our lives. The Fiesta is a landmark in Stockton, but I am also sure that it is also a landmark in the lives of many thousands of Teessiders.
IN ten or 20 years time, I wonder what people will say when they look at the Millennium Dome. I hope they will think that although it was an expensive failure in its original use, it has changed to become a useful part of the country.
I am very disappointed that the talk now is of demolishing it. It is an original piece of architecture and must surely be better than bland blocks of offices that would replace it. It is not the building which was at fault, but the content. All it requires is someone with creativity to put the Dome to good use.
The Olympics start on Friday and doubtless there will be all the usual British worries about lack of success. This will be blamed on a lack of facilities. And yet soon the Dome will lie empty. As £800m of Lottery money has been found to turn it into a poor exhibition, a few millions could surely be set aside to use it to train sports stars.
No politician has yet said sorry for the Dome. In fact, I can't think of a politician who has ever said sorry for anything - except, perhaps, John Nott, the Defence Secretary, who resigned during the Falklands War nearly 20 years ago when he made a mistake.
And so it is for the current petrol crisis. It is amazing that so few protestors can bring the country to a grinding halt, but I have heard no politician apologise to us, the people who are caught in the middle, hugely inconvenienced and in some case unable to receive hospital treatment or unable to bury our dead. The protestors have the support of the country but now they have made their point and should call off their action before innocent people get hurt.
Yesterday on television I saw John Prescott being ill-mannered and disrespectful to the interviewer who was asking the question we all want answered: when is this going to come to an end? Governments are elected by the people and must listen to the public. They shouldn't dismiss people's feelings nor carelessly dismiss their own failings.
Regular readers will know my penchant for football predictions, and remember that at the start of the season I said Chelsea would win the Championship. Today, Chelsea haven't even got a manager. They still have the rest of the season to redeem themselves in my eyes, but at least I can say with some satisfaction that I was right that Newcastle would start well. You don't get much better than top of the table
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