It always interests me how the national press likes to perpetuate the "grim oop north" stereotype.
Building, it seems, is no exception. On page 30 of your 20 December issue, by deft use of filters and other photographic trickery, a grainy dark monochrome image of Gateshead's Centre for Contemporary Art is set against bleak, forbidding, northern skies. Even the cantilevered viewing pod at the top of the centre is redolent of the one in the famous Get Carter scene, filmed at the top of Luder's nearby 1960s folly (soon to be razed, we are told).

Then by degrees, on the opposite page, we are taken on a journey south, first to Manchester's No 1 Deansgate (a smidgen more light, pale grey skies and a just a hint of colour), then Clissold Leisure Centre, Hackney, London (a riot of filtered light, positively spiritual) and finally City Hall, London (south bank of the Thames – mellow autumnal sunshine and duck-egg blue skies). By Southampton, if we got that far, I am sure we would be forgiven for thinking the photographer was having a near-death experience.

But what's this? Page 13 shows Newcastle's Westgate Community Centre set against azure skies and fluffy white clouds. Has this one slipped through the net or does the sun shine this far up north? Well strangely it does, quite often – but do whisper it down there …

Postscript

Jonathan Underwood, Carlisle, Cumbria.