As Mike Ashley and his band of merry men have decided to head to Dubai for a drinking - sorry business - trip I've also taken refuge away from St James's Park.
However, while Mike and his cronies enjoy the high life in swish bars and attempt to persuade an Arab businessmen with more money than sense to buy the club for £400m plus, the rest of us still have to earn a proper living.
So I'm at the cricket at Chester-le-Street where, rather than merely entertain the nation as some sort of cruel joke, Durham actually have a chance of winning something
With two games left to play, Durham have a chance of winning the County Championship for the first time in their history. Win against Sussex at the Riverside over the next three days and they will travel to Kent next week knowing a win should be enough to secure county cricket's most prestigious prize.
And what a relief it is to escape - albeit only for a short while - the depressing and increasingly murky world of Newcastle United, where the fans are busy organising themselves (and about time it is) to plot the next step of their rebellion and the club's board do, well, not very much at all by the look of things other than drink!
Durham have made remarkable strides in the last four years, transforming themselves from national joke to national force under captain Dale Benkenstein and head coach Geoff Cook.
Benkenstein is not a local lad, he is a South African born in Zimbabwe, but he has led his adopted county with intelligence and passion. People from the North East - well at least the sensible majority - do not distrust or dislike people from outside of the region, they just expect them to care as much as they do about what happens in this part of the world once they are here.
That is certainly the case with the man they call Benks and Durham will hope the 33-year-old does not go through with his threat to step down as skipper at the end of the season. If he does, however, what better way to go than with the County Championship trophy held triumphantly above his head!?
Durham won their first trophy last season - the Friends Provident Trophy at Lord's - and have reached the semi-final of the same competition this season, as well as the semi-finals of the Twenty20 Cup. In the Pro 40 League, they were unlucky to finish only third as the weather played havoc with their campaign.
This is a sport club the whole region should be proud of so let's hope they can clinch the ultimate prize in the coming days because its going to be a very, very long time before any of our football club's have a chance to do the same!
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