Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit...

Here again , like a giant game of bar skittles, are more of the wind turbine towers  under construction over in the eastern docks. Last weekend (was it Easter weekend? I don't do religion or Bank Holidays ... anyhow it was warm and windy ...) this country burnt no coal to power the national grid for over 90 hours, coal being a big nasty smelly troll that kills future generations of pig-tailed Swedish children ... This achievement went practically unmentioned in the MSM while what can only be called a paid claque of middle class swivel eyed self-styled eco-protesters were gluing themselves to public transport and blocking off Westminster and the West End of London while the police colluded ( I almost wrote cuddled). I can report no MP was harmed in the making of this demonstration (Parliament was not sitting) though several made asses of themselves fawning over Pippi Longstocking and her doom saying utterances. The idiotic demands of these puritanical "activists" would push ordinary folk back to the stone age while they would just jet off to the next gig ... 

Meanwhile, in the real world, the world's largest off-shore wind farm quietly produced its first sparks of electricity in February all from this modest looking place in east Hull. Well done them!

Also, sans faire de bruit, I notice that Hull and Hereabouts has been going on about stuff for nine years ... what was I thinking?

The metaphysical bus company

To would-be passengers waiting in the bus station with no knowledge of the world outside (no doubt plugged into their phones for safe keeping from whatever reality might be) the arrival of their bus would appear an event occurring without any antecedent cause. "Oh look!", says Davey Hume, "There's my bus! See, I told you it was a logical possibility".

I believe Margot pressed the button on the camera which resulted in this image being formed by some process beyond my very limited ken.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Various Cranes

There are a few old warehouses left in the old town all converted into flats and/or restaurants/nightclubs and so on. These still have wall mounted cranes as a reminder that these buildings once had a different purpose. In my ignorance of things mechanical I was going to call these hoists but I find that a hoist just moves stuff up and down, while a crane moves the hoist around; but then you already knew that.
The robust no-nonsense one above is on 47 Queen Street and the light-weight fancy one below on the Posterngate warehouse I posted yesterday.

Those two are just puny tiddlers compared to this big red whopper close by the Museum Quarter.

Monogram

I've passed the old warehouse/nightclub at the end of Posterngate a zillion times give or take and never noticed this intricate monogram. I'm told it reads JP 1831. Someone will know who JP was and might care to inform me. I've even posted the warehouse years ago but perversely cropped out the monogram.

Gilles de Rais was Innocent, OK!

So not last Sunday but the one before that Ed (with the cap) and Dmitry visited to take even more footage of Margot for a short documentary. They chose to use the paddocks off Snuff Mill Lane which on a Sunday afternoon is dog walkers' rush hour. Film making may sound interesting but unless you're stuck behind the camera or making the decisions it's a just big drag so I walked off and left them to it. Which is a shame because on their way back they encountered some native youffs who entertained by "mooning" them so I'm told.

The reason for this tomfoolery is that Margot has written a book, The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais, about how he was not the devil worshipping, child abusing, mass murderer of French history but rather a bit of a saintly patsy set up and used by the power players in 15th century Brittany. By going over the trial records in detail and asking simple questions (How can Gilles be in two places at once? and how did no-one notice a pile of bones/rotting cadavers lying around in a busy castle?) it is a brilliant and at many times humorous demolition job, nay polemic, on the long accepted 'historical' narrative, concocted mainly by a lazy French cleric and others who really ought to have known better, that bears scant or no relation to the records or indeed common sense ... I may be a bit biased but never forget: ... Gilles de Rais was Innocent, Ok!

And neither was he the inspiration for Bluebeard of folk and fairy tales as so many think. 

You can find out more about (and maybe buy) this book here. 

A touch of camera envy ...

They're smiling 'cos they're going home in one piece ...

Big Hidden Treasures

When they came to build on the farm known as West Bulls just to the west of the Hull/Cottingham boundary they arranged to leave a triangular patch of land about 500 sq yards between the houses to allow for service roads or ten foots as they are known in these parts. In so doing they left behind a pair  trees one much older than the other. I think they are beech trees but don't rely on me. Old maps from 1830s show a big tree at this position, the girth of the larger tree puts it at over three hundred years old ... And for the last ninety years or so they continued to grow, out of sight out of mind, giving home to countless generations of crows until one day not so very long ago some stupid oik(s) with a box of matches and no sense of the fine things in life set a fire to the younger of the pair doing considerable damage to the base. That tree was due to be cut down last year but somehow it has survived and is now putting out new leaves into the chilly April air. If this had been in Hull (which it ain't by a few yards) it would have been long gone. We'll see what East Riding of Yorkshire Council do about it. The trees are according to ERYC under tree protection orders.

C is for ... Carbuncle

C is for Capitalism,  

The bosses' reactionary creed,

                                                                                   Alex Glasgow Socialist ABC

Some may recall Burnett House, how it was restored from dereliction only to stand empty for years and then found not just tenants but a home for a lonely buddleia. It has come to pass that Burnett House now feels it needs to spread its wings with an extension. Fine you might say, the land adjacent has been empty for 40 years or more so build something in keeping with the old building and the low rise Georgian/Victorian neighbourhood, something that respects the area and the view of the medieval church behind. You might say that but the stupid Cs in Hull City Council only went and passed plans for the most hideous, oversized, out of proportion, disfiguring monstrosity. Well see for yourself ...

Image "borrowed" from the Hull Daily Mail

In times past I might have hinted that silver had crossed palms to enable this to go through but after being told, by a Councillor, that such an idea is preposterous I have to conclude the current Council planning numpties are dumb enough to think this is a good thing all by themselves and pat themselves on the back and cannot understand how they might be wrong. Consider how a planning officer, employed by the Council, could say, in advice to Councillors, that the proposal would "preserve the character and appearance of the Old Town Conservation Area and would not substantially harm the setting of Hull Minster".  Clearly such a person is not living  by the same aesthetic standards as mere taxpaying mortals. For the sake of the future appearance of this backwater might it not be a good idea to put the said planning officer out to pasture where he/she will not harm the setting of the town any further.

 

B is for B*****ks!

B's for the Boss who's a Bastard,
A Bourgeois who don't give a damn.

                                                                                              Alex Glasgow Socialist ABC

Today, April12, 2019 might have been (well, it was never really going to be since the bloody Commons took away the only bargaining weapon left; to leave without a deal.)  Brexit Day (Mk2). After a whole two years and more of bungtwaddle from our elected bellends the UK remains as firmly locked onto the Brussels' boobies as ever. We've had bilious backspang and bafflegab from those who treat the majority as something smelly on their boots. All this has left sensible folk somewhat bamsquabbled or bamblustercated if you prefer. It's all a load of buggery-boos, as my old dad would sometimes exclaim.

B-Day Mk3 is pencilled in for Hallowe'en ... no, seriously it is ... Booo!

82 Shades of ....

Just keeping up to date with the latest colour scheme of this bar/restaurant (Bar 82) on Princes Dock Side. You've seen it purple, white and now it can't seem to make up its mind.

Flying the black flag of himself.

A town crow, blacker than ever, treats the Saturday afternoon shoppers and carousers with utter disdain before swooping down on a discarded morsel.

Willow Pattern

 

Staying in Queen's Gardens for no other reason than that it is greening up nicely and the first summer visiting birds were singing madly  in the treetops despite the typically chilly (quasi nithering) April easterly breezes. 

I came across a plaque that either I'd never seen before or had completely forgotten that informs the stranger that this place was once a dock built on the outer limits of the town. In my defence I have to say this plaque is in a very silly place on a wall over a pond, almost as if it was not meant to be seen

The place looks fine from a distance but is actually falling to pieces and bits of it are now fenced off for safety. This is the inevitable and unsurprising result of the Council's lack of care and incompetent management ( I moaned about it two years ago here.)

Safety fencing on left of picture

But enough of moaning. Queen's Gardens is still a grand little park .

A welcome improvement

Almost exactly two years ago I posted that the empty police station by Queen's Gardens was for sale. Well someone bought it (for £1.4 million) and wasted little time (for Hull that is) in turning it into something clad in glass and steel. Two extra storeys make the building look less squat. These new apartments will be a  welcome transformation of the depressing 1950's brick and concrete building that marred the neighbourhood of the gardens.

To Build a Bridge v2.0

I may have mentioned from time to time the inconvenience to the folk of this sleepy little town of having a busy dual carriage way split off a good third of the town centre. Well never let it be said that nothing has been done about it. Lots of plans have been drawn up, many words have been spoken on the matter, numerous ideas have been proposed, indeed a whole mountain range of hot air, wasted opportunity, and best intentions has sprung up and been eroded to dust by the passing thirty or so years. But no more! A few months ago the silly EU flags were pulled down (& put in storage, you never know when they might be needed again things being the way they are just now...) JCBs cleared land and cranes and pile drivers appeared. It seems that at long last a footbridge will span the mighty A63/Castle Street so people on foot or in wheel chairs or on segways, bikes or unicycles or what ever can just waltz from one side to the other without waiting for the little green man. The price of all this fancy liberty? A mere £12 million.

Before I get too carried away I would just caution that the last footbridge built in this town took over three years to build with problems involving the contractor. And, right on cue, the contractor building this has recently gone into administration. There are, of course, promises that this will not affect the construction. Hmmm.

I bet you're dying to know what the bridge is going to look like. I can sense your jealousy ....

(Pictured "borrowed" from Hull Daily Mail)

This is not even the begining of the end ...

Here in the recently renamed town of Inertia things have taken a surprisingly active turn. As you see no actual construction is going on but there's active demolition, the breaking of eggs before the cooking of an omelette perhaps (though I wouldn't set the table just yet). Yep down goes the unused, unloved, effectively unoccupied for a mere forty years former Edwin Davis store. This store was a replacement for one damaged by the Germans in WW2 and that store was in its turn a replacement for one damaged by the Germans in WW1 ( I don't know what Edwin did to rile them  but they had his store on speed dial so it seems.) 

The BHS/Coop building behind is also due to tumble with the Council really wanting to keep the mural if at all possible (the proposed development has the mural poking out atop three storeys of glass like an unwanted inheritance ). We shall see.

Speaking of taking a surprisingly active turn I shall be back soon with more startling developments from Van Winkle City.