"Buses are running well late"

Carr Lane

I was in town this afternoon on a spot of business and ran into a classic Hull gridlock with buses backed up on Carr Lane, Ferensway full in both directions and Anlaby Road looking like a no-go area as well. Marvellous! And not helped by the road works I mentioned  a week ago. The title is what I overheard a bus company man saying to a frustrated passenger. My bus home took 15 minutes to do 300 yards just leaving the station, even I can walk faster than that with my gammy leg and all.

Ferensway

Junction Carr Lane, Ferensway and Anlaby Road

Road Works

For the past few months the orange bollards and safety fencing have been up at one of the busiest junctions in town where Beverley Road and Spring Bank meet Ferensway and Freetown Way. The plan is to widen the junction, renew the traffic lights and make bigger islands for pedestrians to cross over. They'll also throw in some so-called pedestrians light controlled push buttons but as these won't actually do anything until the traffic has been stopped by the traffic lights they are really just for show. As with all road works in this town delays are inevitable; last Thursday, for example, I was on the bus into town and got caught in a jam so slow that we made 50 whole yards in ten minutes. In the end I got off and walked. (If you zoom in real close to the centre of the picture my bus is the red and cream one still stuck on Beverley Road ten minutes after I got off it!) The rumour is that this work will be completed ahead of schedule, that'll be a relief and we'll be back to the natural background rate of delays. I expect, though, that the junction will look pretty much the same as it did before which is to say not very pretty at all..

The Cecil

I can't believe I haven't posted this former cinema before now. It stands on the corner of Ferensway and Anlaby Road. The Cecil was opened in 1955 with a screening of the Seven Year Itch. It has a rather dull looking exterior perhaps because the architects, local firm Gelder & Kitchen, were more noted for designing flour mills than cinemas.  This was where I saw the last film I paid to go watch, (Splash, since you ask, with Daryl Hannah as a mermaid, yeah I know, pathetic!) and as I'm told it closed as a cinema in 1992 that just shows what an avid film buff I am. The building is now a Mecca bingo hall. The picture is a reflection in a window of Europa House which was built on the site of the original Cecil which stood on the opposite corner until May 8th 1941 when it was destroyed by the Germans dropping bombs on it as was the style in those days.

Weekend reflections are here.

Money Hole

Today there's news of an extra £250,000 top up for this place, on top of its annual increased grants from the Arts Council. That's £1.75 million in hand outs in the last four years. In February 2011 I wrote "No doubt there will be appeals for more public money to be spent on this place and no doubt more will be spent." Well I told you so ... Seems there's no-one with the balls to shut this place down, (it should never have been built in the first place!) especially not now there's the city of culture creeping closer.

Klokketårn

This is the Danish Sailors' Church of  St Nikolaj on the corner of Osborne Street and Ferensway. This 1950's building replaced a Victorian building on the other side of the street destroyed in the bombing of Hull during the last war. There are bells in this tower but I've never heard them ring. 

Computers? They'll never catch on ...

First proper computer I bought cost best part of £900 had a pathetic amount memory and disk space and was incredibly slow but this was before broadband, wi-fi and pre-Google and Facebook. It had Windows95 on it and was fond of giving a blue screen of death if the weather so much as changed slightly. By modern standards it was an abacus. It came from a company called Tiny who had store here on Ferensway. Days after the machine arrived Tiny went bankrupt as did so many successors and this store has been empty for years now. So although 21 million homes in the UK have a computer and access to the internet where ever they are getting their kit from it isn't from here.

You have arrived

Should you be wondering where on earth you are when you leave the station this sign will either reassure you or fill you with dread ...either way please do enjoy that end-of-the-line sense of freedom ...

The weekend in Black and White seems to have crept up on us once again, it's here.

Standing room only

Plans have been published for a £25 million revamp of the city centre. On the whole they don't look too bad, a few gripes here and there about minor details but, there is one major fault that screams out from the picture shown. There are practically no seats, nowhere to sit and admire the grand works. Seems this no seats policy is part of a worrying trend.
Back in December 2012 I posted about plans to develop an outdoor café area near the War Memorial on Ferensway.  Well it's up and running and looking every bit as tatty as I imagined. The price paid for all those cuppucinni al fresco is that there are now no seats for members of the public to rest their weary backsides on. Even the seats by the memorial have been removed. If you want to sit down near here you've got to be a paying customer. 

Thanks to marvells of Google Street View or whatever it's called here's what this place looked like before it was cleared to make way for the cafe culture. Clearly we can't have people just sitting around and not paying; what's the fun in that? Mind you it appears that the very thought of sitting down and thinking for a short while is so horrific for some that they would rather give themselves an electric shock so maybe removing the seats eases their stress.... but planners please bear in mind some people do like to sit and admire the view.

Copyright Google, so sue me!

Secured

Always a good idea to lock up your bike and in this case your helmet as well. It is a tad disconcerting, however, to see a grand looking lock lying on the floor with no bicycle attached! This reminds me of a story my father told of his buying a really expensive lock and chain for his bike only to find the thieves took the lock and left his bike ....

All this and so much more ...

Here listed are some of the delights of St Stephens, "Hull's most stylish shopping destination". Here you can fill up on all sorts of franchised fodder before taking in a movie or maybe working off your calories in the gym. Oh and there shops as well selling, you know, stuff.

The wheels on the bus go round and round ...

I wouldn't want you to think I was one of those souls who take pictures of buses for pleasure, no sir, I took these for historical record only. Actually I was bored waiting for someone and well, you know, the devil, idle hands etc etc. So, the buses in Hull are for most part red and cream or blue and white, very occasionally  black and that's just about all I can say about buses, they're not really my thing, honest.

Playtime

Europa House, Ferensway

Do you ever play with graphics programs and wonder what use all those distorts and transformations could possibly have? Me neither.

In case you're wondering it used to look like this.

Little bit of culture, innit.

As the excitement reaches fever pitch for Hull's City of Culture bid, the Minister of Culture, Communications and Creative Industries ( yeah, I didn't know there was one either) paid a visit to the city today to see for himself what exactly is what. So on a suitably grismal day he was touted round all the sites and glad handed by all those who hope to gain something from this potential crumb from the master's table. These street adverts have cropped up recently promoting a new cultural guide . I don't know what good all this does and somehow the cynic in me says that the award will go north of the border to bonny Dundee; there's a referendum on Scottish independence to win after all ... but life is full of little surprises and we await the decision on, I think, the 20^th of this month. Ooh the excitement of it all ....

Where have all the flowers gone ...

What, you might ask, has the brutal murder of a young man in Woolwich, south London a couple of weeks ago got to do with Hull? Well I don't know, I'm sure, but quite a few have taken that horrific event to heart and left bunches of flowers at the war memorial on Ferensway. Presumably it makes them feel better and if doing this  means they are not joining the odious English Defence League marching on our streets and hurling vile racial abuse at Asian shopkeeprs then I suppose it does no harm. But then again that's a big if ....

Hull: City of Culture!

It's over two years since I posted about the Albemarle Music Centre on Ferensway. Pretty soon after that post the place was threatened with closure due to a funding crisis. Fortunately funding for three years was secured last year so it can continue to be one of the country's music hubs providing an opportunity for children to learn to sing or play a musical instrument. Money well spent I think you'll agree and I was happy to read recently that this July three orchestras involving about a hundred young musicians from the centre will play at the Music for Youth festival in Birmingham. So good luck to them.

While I'm striking a cultural note I suppose I must mention Hull's bid to be the UK City of Culture in 2017.  I kid you not. The Council's bid may have attracted some jibes from various quarters but I can see no harm in at least trying to bolster the cultural amenities of the city which are often overlooked in these desperate times. Even if they don't win, making the city a more pleasant place to live and work is surely a worthwhile investment (It's something they should be doing anyway and not waiting for patronising crumbs off the Government's table). And imagine the fun if Hull won!

After this piece appeared over the weekend bookmakers cut the odds on Hull winning to 6-1! Betting, like plagiarism, is basic to all culture. 

Creating space

At long last the 'temporary' shops on Ferensway, put up just after the last war, have been demolished. They are making way for no-one knows just quite what  yet, flats, hotel, more shops, who knows and who cares, 'cos I don't and I'm pretty confident you don't either.

Over at City Daily Photo they're having their monthly theme on 'The Creative Artisan', whatever that is supposed to mean. To me the the guy in the JCB is a worker in a skilled trade, he creates by destroying. Anyhow the link to all this nonsense is here.

Going downhill on Ferensway

In what used to be the C&A store that closed because the parent company withdrew from the UK and later became TJ Hughes' store that went bust in the 'great recession' here's Poundland. A shop where every item costs £1. Do you see any progress here? A mid-range clothing firm becomes a down market retailer becomes the bottom feeder of price-point retailing. Poundland is successful with nearly 3 million customers a week and stores across the UK but then if you get some of your staff free from the Government under the workfare scheme that is bound to help with the bottom line [ 1 ]. 

East wind

Weather vane on Ferensway

“The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly Weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab.”  Joseph Conrad

High pressure over Scandinavia is drawing around an easterly wind that, we are are informed, comes all the way from Siberia. I know a wind chill of -2C is but a balmy day for some hardy folk but for a soft Englishman like myself it cuts through to the bone.

Remains to be seen

There are still some brave people in Hull, people with real vision. They can see that what is needed on this site between the war memorial and the busy dual carriageway that is Ferensway is an outdoor eating experience. Yes, the place will be a "landscaped outdoor seating area for new café bars and restaurants that it is hoped will emerge from the refurbishment of old shop units". First up a new brasserie ...Well good luck to all concerned. On a cold damp day at the end of November I had difficulty seeing the attraction but then I've always a problem with the vision thing.

So much junk

Waiting around near the war memorial on Ferensway I had time to take this detail shot and to notice that the recent stormy weather had played havoc with the Remembrance Day wreaths piling them up like so much junk. My grandfather joined up at the start of WW1 and fought through some of the worst action, his brother was killed in action. When it was over he seldom spoke about it, had no animosity towards the 'enemy' and certainly had no time for poppies, parades and memorials. He was too busy trying to raise a family through the depression years on 12 bob a week in this land fit for heroes.