et in Argos ego ...

This was for many years an Argos store until it shut a couple of years ago. Before that, I remember it was the Habitat store selling overpriced 1960/70s designed household furniture and lighting, clearly Hull wasn't quite the market for such goods as the store closed years ago. (Obviously this was before "Culture" came to the town.)

Argos is an odd kind of store where you chose your goods from a catalogue that runs to over 1000 pages with many, many thousands of products, write the product code on a slip of paper take it to the checkout, pay for it (declining the offer of buying a warranty, thank you, but I wasn't born yesterday), wait a short while and your stuff appears by magic from behind a counter. Do they make up your item as you order it? or is there the biggest warehouse in the world hiding in the back?

Now, of course, you can browse the catalogue and order/pay online; go to the shop and pick up your goods ... I think they even deliver (we live in wonderful times). Few folk take home their own copy of the Argos catalogue which used to be reprinted twice a year (I think). Hundreds of these thick glossy tomes would be stuffed in boxes outside the doors of each store. They made excellent door stops but mainly they made even better landfill. 

PS I now read that the Argos catalogue has in fact been withdrawn from many stores with a view to scrapping it completely ... which goes to show how much I know about anything.

At least the Weekend in Black and White is still here.

Preventing a Collapse of the Banks

That's river banks in case you were wondering. At long last work is under way to repair, fix and generally improve (upgrade could be the word I'm looking for) the riverside defences. Here the rig is on the stretch running along Tower Street but much work has already been completed upstream on Bankside and Wincolmlee  to the amusement of the many drivers who were unable to use that route as a short cut  ... It's a real big job and costs a mere £44 million but then you've  got to count the cost of losing bits of Hull to floods and the moaning and the groaning and the blaming and so on and so forth for ever and a day ... money well spent.

That river bank doesn't look too bad does it? But a few yards upstream it's much, much worse ...

The Weekend in Black and White will be here at the appropriate time.

"This is summer, you have to make an effort ..."

After the excitement of the Lord Mayor's Hanse Day I was at a loss for something to do and to make things even more interesting it started to rain, heavily. Now a little rain never harmed anyone and a temperature like today's of 11C (I'm wearing two jumpers to keep warm!) is not going to cause any impediment to enjoying the delights this fair city has to offer ... as I was told as a child "You can't put the heating on. This is summer, you have to make an effort!". So I took my own advice on what to do in Hull on a rainy day and shuffled on over to the Streetlife Transport Museum to see what, if anything, had changed since I last visited some seven years ago. The short answer is nothing has changed at all as far as I could tell. Rebuilt railway signalman's hut still there? Check. Red bus with guy still hanging out of window? Check. Blue bus still going to West Dock Avenue? Check. Biplane still swooping low over a typical Hull Street scene as they did so often back in the day? Check, check and checkedy check for all the other things ...
So while Pluvius did his thing outside I had a quick shifty round and took a few piccies, then I put on my old green bucket hat, zipped up my coat and made my way home. You can have too much fun in a museum so best to limit yourself  or so I convinced myself ... oh and in future if it's rainy and cold in Hull I'm just going to go home and have a nice cup of tea while summer pulls itself together.

Looking at this façade I realised it looked familiar, it's a copy of the entrance to Hepworth's Arcade on Lowgate ...

You don't know what you've got till it's gone ...

What you've never had, I suppose, you'll never miss. So future new visitors to Lowgate might wonder at older folks shaking their heads and sighing a little at the loss of the 1970s brown glazed façade of the block opposite Holy Trinity. Gone forever now the near perfect reflections that any and I guess every local photographer and tourist snapped up on their first trip around town ... I know old empty offices serve no purpose and folk need places to live and poor threatened landlords die such a painful death without income ...and all the rest... so anyway here are new apartments whose occupants will no doubt complain about old folk pointing their crooked fingers at their windows, shaking their heads and sighing.

Well, OK then just once more ...  for old times' (and old timers') sake ...

*Shakes head and sighs*