Hull Fair

So, at long last, we reach Hull Fair which in one form or another has been going on for 720 or so years and is the largest travelling fair in Europe. Apart from this year bringing with it typical Hull Fair weather, cold, wet and windy the fair seemed to my delicate ears to be the loudest ever with every ride turning up the volume to 11. Here's a selection taken at dusk, the fair goes on till late at night but as I think I've mentioned before I'm not allowed out after dark ....

So that's Hull Fair over for another year.

Welcoming signs

Before we get to the Fair we must pass the KC Stadium. Up close the stadium is an ugly brute reminiscent of an overgrown steel can without any of the charm. Hull council splashed out £44 million for this monster in West Park nearly eleven years ago when times were much, much easier than now and the Council was flush with cash from the sale of the local telephone company. The stadium is home to two teams, the Premier League Hull City and the rugby league Hull Football Club, but as neither spherical nor elliptical balls interest me that much I've never been inside and besides they won't let me take my camera in ....(I've just checked and the cheapest tickets for an adult to watch a soccer match is £22. The last match I went to, admittedly going on for 35 years ago, cost less than £3 and I got to see Liverpool beat, I believe, Manchester City 5-0. Kenny Dalgleish scored a hat trick. I think that's enough footy for now.)

 

There's a website for the truly besotted, it's here.

Going to the Fair

So this is Hull Fair week, as I may have mentioned, and for a change I went via a new (to me) route across the rail tracks and scrub land that lies behind the KC football stadium. When the stadium was built this path was also put in to take visiting supporters directly from the rail/bus station to the ground and isolate them as much as possible from the city, much in the manner that Hull treated European emigrants passing through the city in the 19th century, that is as if they carry some contagious disease. It's a frankly stupid policy of shuttling thousands of visitors to the city in and out as quickly as possible when with a bit of guile they could be persuaded to bide a while in the town and perhaps spend a bit of money, but clearly Hull doesn't need their money. 

Anyhow once you're over this bridge the Fair hoves into view along with some spectacular giant Hogweeds, some six or seven foot tall and really rather splendid among the scrubby unkempt landscape. Quite what visitors to Hull make of this I don't know but I rather like it. Then there's one more little bridge to cross and you reach the KC stadium itself, the Fair is just on the other side of this.

Whirlybird

When you're walking along the street probably the last thing you expect to see is a helicopter taking off a few dozen yards away. I was on my way to Hull Fair (about which more later) when the police chopper arose from a patch of grass close by Hull Royal Infirmary. What it was doing there I know not but I took a few piccies for the record. 

Finally a plan ...

Welcome news that at last something will be done with this site that sits opposite the Deep, Hull's major tourist attraction, which must be off-putting to any visitor. This is become a centre for innovative digital companies, C4DI,  with the dry dock becoming a public amphitheatre! (see here). Yes I found it a bit difficult to come to terms with the fact that the Council agreed to this sensible and creative plan. After all there were the usual nay-sayers from the Civic Society wanting that derelict building with no roof saved as it was once a Georgian stable! (I cannot for one minute imagine that the Georgians paused and gave thought to the mediaeval hovels they knocked down to build this in the first place). When finished rumour has it 450 jobs might be created well whatever happens it's right next door to Humber Street and all that's going on down there and with plans for Castle Street to be improved it seems joined up thinking is going on at last. So the timetable is that in 18-24 months and with £14 million spent all this will be transformed. Well I can dream can't I?

Sudden Drop

This sign on the old dry dock near the mouth of the River Hull made me smile I don't know why. I posted about this dry dock some time ago when I mentioned that there were plans for a tourist attraction. Well now there are plans for something completely different but more about that in the next post.

Do you believe in Hull?

When I first saw these adverts I wondered if perhaps it was some silly campaign to drum up support for the City of Culture nonsense then I pondered the possibility that Hull was suffering from ontological insecurity? (After all Hull is no longer even in the worst 50 cities in the UK. If Hull's not crap then what is it?) Truth is neither of these was the case as it happens; this is just the latest gimmick dreamt up by the God-botherers desperate to rustle up some trade by saying Hull is a wonderful place (truly God works in a mysterious way).
Anyhow on a more serious note (am I ever frivolous?) it is reported that the Government is being urged to forget about failing towns like Hull (where I live) and Hartlepool (where I was born) and a host of others. Instead of pouring money into these places (did I miss out on this somehow?) the Government should help people to in effect abandon them or rather move to places where there is employment (the clever ones are doing this already, it's been going on for years). This help involves improving regional transport infrastructure instead of building the grand projects such as High Speed Rail.  In a thought provoking article that has got the Hull-lovers snarling and spitting obscenities The Economist magazine states some rather brutal opinions and some equally forthright solutions to perceived problems of high unemployment, poor education and a dependency on benefits. The Economist, of course, does not have to stand for election so it is free to posit politically suicidal solutions. I did, however, take to the idea that these empty cities would become like the Cotswolds in a few hundred years time because of the people fleeing them, now there's something to believe in.

Morning Glory

Well actually mid-afternooon glory. This little delight was blooming away just outside my front door yesterday afternoon enjoying the warmth of the October sunshine. Today it's turned pink and curled up as they do. Oh and the warmth has gone as well with a biting northerly wind setting in.

Poor little sods

Sometimes it's best not to think about how things got the way they are. So finding a palette of grass turfs on a patch of waste ground raises no eyebrows.

National Poetry Day

I've just found out that the first Thursday in October is National Poetry Day. And since I also just happen to have a piccy of  Laughing Boy Larkin's old place complete with slate plaque and glass fibre toad I thought the two would go nicely together. Now Larkin when he first came to this place thought Hull was "a frightful dump" "smelling of fish" but as the years rolled by and there was clearly no money left in running down the place Hull became "… a city that is in the world yet sufficiently on the edge of it to have a different resonance’. Personally it's still a dump but both Larkin and the smelly fish have gone so it's not all that bad.

Gory details

Quite possibly the remains of a peregrine falcon's dinner dumped unceremoniously outside the Crown Court earlier this year.

More detailed posts at City Daily Photo's theme page here.

Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?

Seems we do in Cottingham at least.

Taken by Margot K Juby

Rubbish

Rubbish is how I've been feeling lately and when you feel that you are surrounded by a city full of trash it's probably not a good time to try to post 'nice' things on a daily photoblog. So until cheerier times this blog is going part-time.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Regular visitors might recognise this as the pub formerly known as the Fishbowl, Hockney's and also Aussie Beach. Seems it was also once called Nostalgia, I missed that. Anyhow it's being disemboweled with a view to who knows what.

Green Light

I wondered how this relic has managed to survive the purge on old lights that the Council carried out some years back. Then I remembered that this is on Newland Park. Let's just say that this is not the poorest area in town, many of the houses are best described as mansions. It's the sort of area where potholes in the road are simply not allowed to exist (I'm sure you could play billiards on the road!) while the rest of the town suffers a rough ride and broken suspensions. I'm sure you know the sort of area ...

Football crazy

Somebody obviously was feeling a tad homesick (possibly drunk, who could say?) and simply had to tell the world of their affection for Zagłębie Sosnowiec, a football team. I somehow doubt that in the fair city of Sosnowiec there's a wall celebrating Hull City Association Football Club but you never know. Speaking of HCAFC the owner wants to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers on the grounds that 'city' is such an "common" word. As you know Hull is a idyllic place with no real great issues to worry about so this has caused uproar and dismay among those who follow this 'club' and pay good money to watch a ball being kicked from one end of a grassy field to the other.

For those of you into 1980's popular music combos this is on Grafton Street home to the Housemartins and later the Beautiful South. 

A little bit of fungi

Came across this rather large fungus sprouting from a what looked like a tree stump near Victoria Avenue.

More monochrome fun over at the Weekend in Black and White here.

Ella Street

Ella Street is the kind of street where they paint trees with crows on the pavement and adorn the bollards with little birds. Where plants grow in drums and in little raised beds with birds painted on them. Where trees have ribbons wrapped round them and birds are fed from cast iron bird tables. And a black and white cat sits on a wheelie bin. It's a real nice street ...

More From the Treasure House

Last couple of shots from the Treasure House. On top we have a distant view of St Mary's and below County Hall, the red brick Victorian offices of East Riding of Yorkshire Council. 

From the Treasure House

 

No, not a cathedral but a mere parish church, Beverley Minster is surely a gothic masterpiece. This is the north side. I think I've shown it from all sides now.

For other posts on this building try here, here, and here.

Treasure House

Tucked away and slightly off the usual tourist paths is the East Riding Treasure House on Champney Road, Beverley. It contains the East Riding Archives and Local Studies, Beverley Library, a Museum and Beverley Art Gallery. There is also an observation platform at the top of this tower with views over the town some of which I'll show tomorrow.

That dead old tree

And while I was on Westwood I had another visit to that decaying tree that I posted in June. The tree itself didn't appear much changed, it's still hard and not crumbling in any way. I did, however, notice a large number of stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) which weren't there last year. Now nettles like acidic soil but the Westwood sits on chalk which is alkaline, indeed this tree is near Newbegin Pits; the old chalk pits. So looking this up on the web I find, as I vaguely remembered from my student days, that the decay of the tree will produce acids that alter the soil around it. So some subtle changes are happening.

That old chestnut

As I was in the neighbourhood I  did what I always do and paid  a visit to this old chestnut which I've posted a couple of times before but only in Winter ( 1 2 ). It and the dozens of other chestnuts on this tree lined road seem to be doing well contrary to tales of a blight affecting them nationwide. 

The Westwood is common land and cattle are grazed on it throughout the Summer and Autumn. They're fairly harmless but you have to watch where you put you feet 'cos they're not house trained by any means.

A change in the weather

Beverley Westwood

The blues skies and fine weather of Summer seem for the moment to have left us. Some really dark clouds looming throughout most of the day brought some sharp showers (and had me sheltering under trees) but not the deluge that forecasters had promised. Indeed it brightened up by evening time.

The Weekend in Black & White is here.