Sharkeys

I mentioned in yesterday's post a nightclub that closed sometime ago, well here it is: Sharkeys. Links nicely with yesterday's post is I do say so myself (sharks, bites, no? ... oh suit yourself!). Reports in newspapers say nightclubs are a closing at an "alarming rate" these days, can't say I'll miss them.

Bites...

This former café (or takeaway I'm not sure what it was) is under the grubby multi-storey car park on George Street. I can't honestly say that I ever saw the place open; those black shutters have always been down as far as I'm concerned. So if you're looking for an opportunity in the food retail industry this place, near to a soon to be demolished police station and next to a nightclub that closed down ages ago, could be your first step on the ladder to success (or bankruptcy).

The weekend in black and white is here.

Meet the Burtons

Richard Burton

Due to events that need not concern you I was forced yesterday afternoon to stay in Cottingham for three hours. Now Cottingham has a few attractions but not, even on a good day, three hours worth. And yesterday it was cold and raining heavily, yes I know it's May. So seeking shelter from the elements I ended up in St Mary's church, camera in hand and acres of time to fill. The place was, as usual empty with only the vicar's CCTV cameras keeping me company. Anyway enough of my troubles ..

Tucked away by the entrance are three large (ridiculously large) memorials to various Burtons the people who owned most of Cottignham in the 18th century and indeed lots of east Yorkshire as well. The most notable, if you are into military-history things that is, is the one above to Richard Burton a commander of the British army in North America. He was lieutenant governor of Quebec and then governor of Three Rivers Province back in 1760s or thereabouts. Below are two more memorials to William and Robert Burton who as far as I can tell did little other than have great wealth and do whatever it is wealthy people do. I did not notice any memorial to Napier Christie Burton who seemed to manage to live beyond even the Burton family's means and ended up selling the holdings in Cottingham, even at one stage going to debtors prison. Somehow I couldn't find anything to him, strange that...

Robert Burton

William Burton

2 High Sttreet

I don't why it has two doors maybe the first wasn't wide enough. Anyhow not so very long ago this place looked like this; so it's scrubbed up nicely hasn't it.

Nonexistent walls

If you look at old pictures of Hull (there's one at the top of this page ↑↑↑) you'll see there's a wall runs right around the place. This was to stop the spread of Hull-culturitis, a fatal delusion, during the middle ages. Anyhow today's post, in case you hadn't guessed, was where the north walls stood until President Reagan told them to pull them down in about the middle of the 18th century or so. City walls have a habit of getting in the way of progress ...

Tomorrow I'll show you a house with two doors! Does it get more exciting?

Curbing Desire

I posted this scruffy patch of land before with its desire path crafted over the years by countless feet not wanting to take the long way round. It is well known that government, especially local government, is here to protect us from ourselves and so, in an effort to bring about ultimate happiness, the 'desire' to take a short cut must be thwarted.  Bring forth therefore an elaborate plan involving a knee high fence and surely we are one step nearer nirvana but a few hundred steps further from the shops.

Grave offerings

It seems are the days of just leaving a bunch of flowers by the gravestone are long gone ...

Weeping Ash

Fraxinus excelsior (Pendula)

Coming up to June and every other tree and bush has been busy getting out the greenery whilst the ash seems to be still asleep with barely a bud showing. This fine specimen is on the corner of Spring Bank west and Chanterlands Avenue, in the cemetery as you can see.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Don't be crackers ...

Had a little trip out to Holderness Road the other day and found that the once neglected and most despised of buildings that was the Elephant & Castle pub has become a fish and chip restaurant. All very good; but "Wackers"?

Three fountains and a thingy

I've shown this installation outside Britannia House (the dole office) on Spring Bank before but that was taken from a bus and you don't really get the full sheer tackiness of it from that post. The three hemispheres are little trickling fountains; so far so meh. But what is that naff blue and white column? What is it supposed to be?

When new the idea of adding washing up liquid to the fountains appealed to certain elements but even that minor act of rebellion seems to have died away. Maybe it's so stupid no-one can be bothered to vandalise it.

Do as the Doukhobors Do ...

If you wanted to take off all your clothes, paint yourself tourquoise and strut around Queen's Gardens in the name of 'culture' then you should have gotten your applications in by yesterday. Mr Tunick may be an "internationally renowned New York based artist" (many dispute this) but his repetitious displays of flesh are tedious in the extreme. (Oh look there's another pile of boobs and bottoms neatly arranged on the sidewalk, bridge, city hall, park, mountainside, glacier ... you name it, he's done it) Thankfully I'm not in charge of the Ferens Trust and I don't have to justify spending (no doubt large) sums of money on commissioning this kind of non-Art sensationalist event that is otherwise known as boring crap.

Milky Way

You can just picture the scene in the Council's road naming department after a new bit of road has been opened up ... at a loss for ideas, scratching their heads (and other bits) for hours until some bright spark pipes up with "Didn't there used to be a dairy nearby?". And so it came to pass.

The weekend in black and creamy white is over here.

Hanse Day

Hull likes to have a little party every now and again in and around High Street celebrating its past whether Georgian or in this case its links with the Hanseatic League back in the middle ages. Whatever is celebrated the result is folk dressing up in period costumes and lots of stalls selling mediaeval pancakes and so on. The guy above was telling a story, a fairy story about a girl spinning straw into gold who marries a king but who must guess the name of the imp who helped her else he'll take her first born child away....but you know how it is some people just can't keep their big mouths shut: "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll go to the king's house, nobody knows my name, I'm called 'Rumpelstiltskin'" (and yes, we all what that means, thank you)

He was good at telling his tale but I guess the kiddies already knew the ending; they looked terribly bored ...

The apothecary's hat kept coming off in the wind.

A small replica of a trading boat.

Some Hanseatic high fashion.

Riverside rubble

I think we can say the old Clarence Mill is now gone, well it ain't coming back. But where did those nice trees spring from ...

Hung with bloom along the bough

Yes it's the annual A E Housman memorial post ...

Daisies and dandelions

Shhh! Don't let the Council know that it's forgotten to mow the verges for a while....

Liddell Street: then and now

Close to the burnt out school I showed the other day is a patch of grass with a few trees and bushes growing on it. They can't build houses on this land on account of the Cottingham Drain running right underneath it. Twenty or so years ago when I used to live in these parts the place was a scruffy dumping ground for fly-tippers and you'd see the occasional wino making his peace with the world. There was a strange bridge that didn't cross anything since the drain had been culverted decades earlier. There'd be weird tyre tracks where joy riders had obviously been having fun. Oh and every November fifth there'd be an almighty bonfire, often two or three leaving scorch marks that didn't really heal 'til the next November. Anyhow now it's become a play area with goalposts for football (that's posh!) and so on and proper seats for the winos and druggies so they don't get their trousers dirty .... and tolerated graffiti. The strange bridge has finally gone. The posts you can see are to stop twockers using the place as a short cut (spoilsports). Oh and the fly-tipping is still a local hazard.

Demolition beasts

The old central fire station, or rather the back portion of it, is no more thanks to the quick work of these magnificent  machines. The front bit which I posted a few days ago is going to stay as it's protected. There's other work going on with the next door New Theatre which I'll show some other time.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Just show him the door ...

Yesterday we had an election for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner for the Humberside Police force. The incumbent, a man who had overseen the force's decline to being the worst in the country was standing again with the slogan of "Let me finish the job!". Chutzpah! I've just heard he's lost.

There were three other candidates (I almost wrote condidates) but none of them bothered to let anyone know what they stood for so I couldn't tell you about them. Me, I voted for ACAB!

Corner House

Someone with time on their hands and a lot of paint has neatly decorated the Cornerhouse on the corner (geddit?) of Percy Street and Freetown Way. The lower half reminds me of the modern craze for adult colouring in books, I suppose it's harmless fun.  Cornerhouse is a place for youngsters to get (free) advice on sex and relationships and so on. I don't know where the oldies have to go for such things, I suppose we just have to make it up as we go along ...

Going to the inevitable

If you have a slightly better memory than me you may faintly recall a post about the old Blundell Street school and its predicament, (here it is). It's had its share of vandalism over the years. The Council is at loggerheads with the owner over a new development, there had been talk of compulsory purchase and well, it's all so sadly familiar. So it was really no great surprise to wake up on Sunday morning to news that this place had been ravaged by a huge fire, no surprise at all; what took them so long?. 

There's some neat drone footage from Octovision Media.:

Blundell School Fire 30/4/16 from Octovision Media on Vimeo.

Typical

Nothing special about today's offering. A typical Hull side street, Grafton Street if you must know, with its typical array of terraced housing, typical array of bins on the pavement (they're an obstruction but no-one gives a toss, which is also typical) and its typical white van parked on a double yellow (but really it's on the pavement so that doesn't count).

Today is a bank holiday and the forecast is cloudy with some rain ... typical.

Hooray, hooray, It's the first of May ...

Cats rely a lot on smelling things out, so I'm told. You've met Bruiser before, here he's pretending to be the great hunter stalking his prey, but it's just another bowl of his favourite slightly rank roast chicken.

City Daily Photo theme for the first of May is 'smell'. Go point your nostrils at what others have done here.