The Lair

Installed in what was once a waiting room for emigrants who wanted to make a dream come true in another land is the Tigers Lair, a place for supporter's of the local football club who, I suppose, also want to make their dreams come true. Well, they're playing with the big boys next season we'll see what comes of dreaming.

Buffet car

So what do you do with two old rail carriages and an archway on Beverley Road? Obviously you turn them into a cafe bar, what else?

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 ....

Scenic Route

The usual route to east Hull is a pretty straight forward trip along Clough Road and Mount Pleasant. The last time, however, the taxi driver had other ideas and off we went down the byways of the back of beyond. I managed a few shots as we went along. They're in black and white 'cos the windows had a gaudy blue tint.

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

It's a Hull thing

Patty: a concoction of mashed potato and sage covered in batter and deep fried; sometimes served with chips which are potatoes also deep fried and scraps which are bits of deep fried batter. Often served in a Patty Butty which means the patty comes in a breadcake with butter (the health conscious leave out the butter).

Breadcake: a small round piece of bread  sometimes known as a bap or barm cake or stottie or bun or  fadge or whatever other dialect term meets your fancy.

Obesity Table: one of the few leagues that Hull tops [ 1 ].

This toad, known for some reason as the "Hull Poem Toad" was part of the Larkin Toads thing from a couple of years back. It's not on food shop, oh no, it's on a shop selling doors on Anlaby Road.

Stanley Street: a place of miracles

In this innocuous looking building a privately owned French company (Atos) is carrying out one the most repulsive programs of this government, one that is leading to misery and even death for thousands of the most vulnerable. This is the Department for Work and Pensions medical centre on Stanley Street where the sick and disabled must come to jump or crawl through hoops to show they are unfit enough to receive a pittance of benefit. The inspiration behind places like this is the novel Catch 22; so merely turning up for an interview shows you are well enough to work and not turning up means benefits are stopped. Needless to say the system does not work and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people waiting to appeal decisions based on the the rigid computerised questionnaire used by Atos. These appeals can take over a year to reach a tribunal and when they do up to 70% are successful, clear evidence that Atos are not doing proper assessments (they get paid whatever, needless to say). The human cost is measured in the suicides of mental health patients forced to apply for work, filling in the forms is too daunting for some, cancer patients denied benefits on their death beds and others simply dropping dead days after they've been told they are fit for work. The gallows humour has it that this place works miracles: so many infirm and disabled suddenly able to live an active economic life after a short visit.

The Eagle, Coltman Street and a Cautionary Tale

There has been a pub called the Eagle on or around this site since 1840 [ 1 ]. Now, along with many other pubs, it's closed and up for sale and looking a bit forlorn. It stands on the corner of Anlaby Road and Coltman Street. Now Coltman Street and thereabouts have long had a well deserved reputation for criminality and even murder. A particularly brutal one in the early nineties when a man was shot dead on his doorstep is still controversial. A favourite of mine, if that is the word to use about these things, happened in the early 80's. A man strangled his wife and left her body in the bedroom over Winter, with the windows wide open of course, so the smell would dissipate. The victim in this case was described as being odd because she was quiet ("she wouldn't gossip") and read books, and thus was clearly asking for trouble! The killer was convicted of manslaughter the following Summer, spent a few months in prison and was out before the year was over, no doubt to have a drink in this very pub. That's 1980's by the way not 1880's.

.

I hear there are attempts to do up the street and bring it back to its former glory. I'm not so sure that's such a good idea. 

The Building

Higher than the handsomest hotel

The lucent comb shows up for miles, but see,

All round it close-ribbed streets rise and fall

Like a great sigh out of the last century.

After 46 years Hull Royal Infirmary is beginning to show its age. Chunks of cladding have been coming adrift for a few years and so finally money has been found to repair and rebuild, there's even enough for a new Accident & Emergency Department, so as you can imagine the site is bit chaotic with more builders than doctors. I fear it is going to take more than a few million and a crowd of builders to save our NHS from the predations of this Government but this is not the place for that discussion.

The quote is from that beacon of joy Philip Larkin, (who else?), it ends:

That is what it means,

This clean-sliced cliff; a struggle to transcend

The thought of dying, for unless its powers

Outbuild cathedrals nothing contravenes

The coming dark, though crowds each evening try

With wasteful, weak, propitiatory flowers.

Until tomorrow then, if I'm still here ...

N ♥ L 09

A declaration of love made four years ago, I wonder if the passion is still as strong now and would they carve their names again on an old churchyard tree?

For those who like numbers and so on, Blogger informs me that this is the 1,000^th post. I suppose a modest celebration is in order,

Going to waste

This is the back of Humber Street taken from what would at one time have been Scott's Square. The cleared land was once made up to be a car park but now it's sealed off as even that can't turn a buck and besides those falling bricks might damage the chrome work. 

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Was it Bill or was it Ben?

Readers who do not understand the title of today's post might like to Google 'Flower Pot Men' though on the whole I wouldn't recommend it (see below). This potty character adorns a café on Chanterlands Avenue.

OK for those of you who like to suffer or simply regress back to a long lost childhood here's a whole episode of the Flower Pot Men. I used to watch this during my formative years; it may explain a lot! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin ....

Blue skies smiling at me nothing but blue skies do I see ...

Even a failed and lapsed scientist like me knows the importance of taking a representative sample but yesterday afternoon no matter where you pointed your camera there was only this horrible blue sky, a big old sun and no clouds.  This is only noteworthy because it rarely happens. Hopefully it won't last.

There's more blue sky thinking at Skywatch Friday here.

A green path

This is one of the paths through Spring Bank cemetery, the eastern end that's no longer used. The trees are doing their yearly trick of looking new. 

Windows and mud

Here's the view across the entrance to Humber Dock or the Marina as it's now called. This the old Steam Packet Wharf that I mentioned in a previous post. As you can see it's just a little bit silted up.

Ship No 275

So finally I have clambered aboard the Spurn lightship that has been moored in the Marina for years. I didn't go below decks as I'm allergic to screaming young brats seemingly unsupervised and running amok. Some other time maybe.

The guests are met, the feast is set ...

I came across this wedding reception by the Marina. They had not one but two photographers, stills and video, so not one precious moment would go unrecorded. I don't know who the loving couple were but I wish them good luck they're going to need it. I hope I don't appear in the background of their photos; grey-beard loons and wedding guests, now where have I heard that before?

Big boy's toys

This weekend the P1 Powerboat championships take place on the Humber in what I've read is called the Grand Prix of the Sea. This year there's a bit of local interest after a group local businesses had a whip round and bought One Hull of a Boat [ 1 ]. Personally I take the Miss Brodie approach to fast boats :“For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Postscript: Oh dear! The crew of One Hull of a Boat were taken to hospital after it flipped over and crashed. [1] Still thrills and spills are what this game is all about isn't it?

Decay

The good folks of City Daily Photo have chosen as today's theme the 'Beauty of Decay'. Easy I thought just point my camera just about anywhere in Hull and click. It's all around me this decay malarkey but then on second thoughts there's hardly any beauty in it and the shabbiness that could be mistaken for decay is really mindless economic neglect. No, real decay leads to something new, it's a transformation, a recycling; it has a purpose. So it's back to nature and besides it's prettier than any tatty building in Hull.

A few years ago this  large tree, I think it was a horse chestnut, was felled on Beverley Westwood. Instead of clearing it away in some fastidious manner it was simply left lying. Over the years fungi and insects will no doubt eat it away and I will no doubt take pictures of them doing so.

 

Skyline

Here the high rise delights of Anlaby Road's hinterland punctuate the sky with a gentle toxic glow in the evening sunshine. From this distance it doesn't look too bad but this is probably as close as you'd want to get. It's rumoured people pay rent and taxes for the privilege of living in these places I find that difficult to believe. The über observant amongst you will have noticed that the boat in the foreground is HMS Explorer which I posted about before.

Posterngate from Princes Quay

Well I've looked at this picture for a good five minutes and I still can't think of anything interesting to say about it. So I guess I'll just leave it there and come back tomorrow.

Princes Quay

This shopping centre was once the only one in Hull and was consequently always crowded with hundreds of shoppers. Then, in a move which drew intense criticism, the top floor which used to have dozens of small stalls selling a variety of goods was converted into a ten screen digital cinema. Shortly after that St Stephens opened.  Then the economic depression struck. So now this place seems like a ghost town, you could almost  see the tumble weed drift by. It seems to be turning into a kind of leisure place what with the cinema and numerous franchised eating outlets and maybe that's where it's future lies since I can't see it being a major shopping centre again.

Haircut

As a child I was sent to the barber's every fortnight for a sixpenny (2.5p) short back and sides. Such training put me off barber's for life so that I haven't been in one of these places for decades as my long grey hair testifies. Still, as the guy on the bike shows, there's clearly still a demand to have one's hair cut back to the wood as they say.

First time for everything

Maybe they do it all the time, this sitting on a roof thing, and I have just failed to register it. Anyhow here's my first and positively last picture of a duck on a roof.

Butchery

This old butcher's sign has been revealed on Beverley Road, near to Cave Street. I can't remember a butcher's ever being there, that's going back thirty years. The shop is shuttered and closed along with neighbouring shops all benefiting from the economic butchery that is the government's austerity policy. Cuts here, chops there, free money for all our banker friends, oh well done old boy!

Pictures by Margot K Juby, because she had the camera and I didn't.

Cave Street

I don't know of any caves in this neighbourhood unless we are all in some kind of Platonic cave and only seeing shadows of reality cast upon the walls of our miserable existence. Anyhow this street of immeasurable pleasures runs off Beverley Road and is, as far as I know, unfortunately, only too real.

These pictures were taken by Margot K Juby while I was waiting at the bus stop. There's more monochrome merriment at the Weekend in Black & White here.

The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles

Took myself off to Driffield yesterday afternoon, don't know why I bothered since there's nothing much there but it's a trip out of the house. By the beck I came across this old pump that's seen better times. Why they needed such a tall pump I don't know but the road is called Laundry Lane so that might have something to do with it.

Five houses on Mayfair

I may have mentioned that Hull's Beverley Road had at one time pretensions to posh; there's a Harley Street, Park Lane, Fitzroy Street (with allusions to Fitzrovia) and here's good old Mayfair. At one time these were respectable Victorian town houses for the rising middle classes complete with garrets for the domestic serving staff. Now, as you can see, no-one calls them home. I recall that in Monopoly™, Mayfair goes for £400 with houses £50 a go; that seems about the right price for this little lot.

I'm waiting for my bus

It's never early, It's always late,

First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait ...
I'm waiting for my bus.

(with apologies to Lou Reed)

Hi vis

Seems the neighbouring street was in need of  a bit of maintenance, so a strip about a yard wide was taken off and replaced on both sides. Took this gang of four (three to work and one to watch) two days to do the whole street. Whether all this was strictly necessary I don't know but they provided a colourful interlude.