Simply Buses

I always strive, as you are aware, to be upbeat and positive in my postings about this fair town. So it gives me immense pleasure to inform you that half of Hull's buses, those blue ones run by Stagecoach, have undergone an overhaul. Not the actual buses themselves, no that would be too much, no the routes they run on. Routes have been combined, adjusted and played around with so that now there are just fifteen routes, numbered 1 to 16. For some reason there is no number 15. Mirabile dictu there's now even a service that runs from the west unto the east (and back again) and it runs right past my front door every ten minutes. The old buses were labeled Pronto now in a masterpiece of PR they are to be known as Simplibus. We tried out that new service on Monday and sure enough it went all the way across to Holderness Road; pretty straight forward except when the driver forgot the new route in town and took us on an impromptu tourist ride round the houses to get back on track. Still, early days ...

Weekend Reflections are here.

Samman House

The last in an impromptu triplet of doorways is this on Bowlalley Lane complete with bin bags. The story of the rise (if that's the right word) of Henry Samman from Oxfordshire born cabin boy to Hull shipping magnate, owner of the Deddington Steamship Company, mayor of Beverley and eventual baronet can be read here should you want a good read. Hull's chamber of commerce and shipping no longer resides here and indeed the whole building was recently (2013) refurbished and converted into "eight unique high specification apartments" which I suppose explains the trash. A recent addition, well I've only just noticed it, is the little picture of what I believe is the SS Elf in company colours.

76-78 Lowgate

Just round the corner from yesterday's doorway and within spitting distance of the old Queen's Dock this pair of buildings, now the Lowgate Centre, were built in the late 18th-century as merchants' houses complete with stables and warehouses. The medieval practice of merchants living over the shop, as it were, died out pretty soon after this date which led to the spread of Hull north of the dock into Baker Street, Albion Street and that area. 

Maritime Buildings

Maritime buildings are on Alfred Gelder Street close by the Guildhall and were actually designed by our old friends Gelder & Kitchen in 1900. The doorway is impressive but could do with some tlc and a good coat of paint. A nearby blue plaque informs us that a goodly portion of Finland's huddled masses went through Hull on their way to the land of the free and the home of the whatever ...

Slo-mo demolition

You've seen those demolition videos where a whole block comes down at the push of a button and lies in a neat little heap ready to be swept up and taken away; well this ain't like that at all. The old Clarence Mill is coming down but brick by brick and at this rate we'll still be here by Christmas. Complaints have been received that rubble is falling in the river and causing pollution. This is denied, of course, but the public walkway used to have a safety fence recently erected and that has been crushed by bricks so if some were to have fallen in the river it would hardly be a surprise. There's still a section of wall that runs along a busy road; it'll be fun pulling that down without injury or damage. I've recorded some graffiti for posterity, if you look real close you can see someone (SP) has even tagged the very top of the tower.

A few flags and stuff

A low pressure system over the North Sea was bringing down cloudy Polar Bear breath from Svarlbard or so it seemed on Saturday as I took in a few of the Freedom Festival's goings-on in and around Queen's Gardens. It seemed to involve lots of flags, tying up children in rubber bands (an excellent idea), strange signs, yet more flags and eating cooked pig. The BBC had a big display here as well but you don't want to see that....This is but a mere fraction of the 'attractions' that last for three days (and nights) and take in the old town as well. Just think, in 2017 every day will be a festival day ..... how frabjous!

Afrikan Warriors

So I'm on my way to Tesco when I came across these guys, the Afrikan Warriors if their shirts are not lying, doing acrobatics and strutting their stuff in the middle of Jameson Street. I don't know if they were officially part of the Freedom Festival but who cares, they certainly kept the crowd, particularly the children, entertained.

In the pink

To mark the Hull Freedom Festival  Ye olde black boy  on High Street has been painted pink (temporarily, I hasten to add, it's a listed building and so on and so forth....) Further the question "Does Kolour (sic) Matter?" has been asked. I leave that up to you. I draw your attention to the handsome window boxes, always a  favourite in these parts.

Still life with cone

Church Lane Staithe, Hull

This might have made a contribution to the curiosity theme the other day. It's probably best not to ask too many questions how this installation came together.

Anyone for extras

A film crew was at work on High Street on Monday filming some Victorian costume drama about a woman who poisoned lots of people (charming) and I came across a motley crew of extras tucking into their dinner on the new swing bridge. The lady with the yellow tail was also carrying dinners. 

The circus is back in town ...

...some might say it never left.

Curiosities are this month's City Daily Photo theme.

Day of the Dog

Seems I missed Dog Day last Wednesday so here's a likely mutt that thought I was its owner and ran the whole length of Snuff Mill Lane to meet and greet only to be very disappointed. 

"Some feel the rain. Others just get wet"

and some have enough sense to get out of the rain ...

Margot wishes it to be known that she took the top picture. There now you know.

A little taphophilia

Western cemetery, Hull

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Fly into the light

Ella Street, Hull

Playtime is over

Alexandra Road, Hull

Playground Decoration

Alexandra Road, Hull

The iconic view from from Sammy's Point

I don't know if you local paper has a buzz word that it uses over and over despite the writer not having a clue what the word means. With the local rag here that word is 'iconic'. So every old building becomes iconic, bridges become iconic, fried mashed potato patties become iconic, the very snot from kid's noses is a runny green iconic splurge. So, in the manner of the iconic Hull Daily Mail, we have here on the left in the background the iconic Humber Bridge, moving across Hull's iconic water front, the soon-to-be iconic C4DI building, the obviously iconic Holy Trinity, the newly iconic Millennium Bridge and the gloriously iconic Tidal Barrier. I'm standing in front of the iconic Deep and I realise I forgot to mention the iconic River Hull and iconic Humber with attendant iconic mud. Those clouds passing by, yup, part of the iconic Hull sky ...

"...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood"

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

Susan Brownell Anthony

...or just two women on bikes.

Today's City Daily Photo start-of-the-month theme is bicycles, those things that fish really need ...

This is no country for the young

There you go; that's what's called a proper career choice: sausage or burger. Difficult and depressing when you've had your heart set on being a juicy chop or a succulent sirloin steak but you don't get those opportunities without qualifications, experience but best of all, knowing the right people these days ....

On the subject of sausages and as it's Friday and the end of the month here's the cautionary tale of ambitious Sammy Bell and his misfortunes.

Why not try teaching?

Alfred Gelder Street, Hull

This colourful bicycle advert is for teacher training in Hull (School Centred Initial Teacher Training!) and was one of several around town while the student degrees were being doled out the other week. I suppose if you can make it in Hull then you can make it anywhere. Teaching is not for everyone, and my experience, admittedly many years ago, is that really good teachers are rarer than hen's teeth. I know I couldn't do it, at least not without facing manslaughter charges after each lesson! Now I come to look at that bike again it does look a bit bloody ...

The lightbulb joke

No you won't find me making derogatory remarks about council workers changing lightbulbs, no sir, not me. Cheap shot. Beneath me. I'll simply ask why they came round at about seven in the evening to do this job, surely not on overtime by any chance ... Anyhow banished now are the orange glow neon lights of my lifetime, replaced by moonlight-white light emitting diode thingies that save electricity and leave drive ways unlit and gloomy. Still the stars shine brighter, there's lots of them, did you know?

And while on the subject is it lightbulb or light bulb? 

OK so you want lightbulb jokes, go knock yourself out here. 

It takes two people to make this blog post. Margot to take the photo and an idiot to write this drivel.

Cycle Park

Every year hundreds of bikes get stolen in Hull so any measure to provide a secure place to park your expensive multi-geared mountain climbing machine (how they sell these things in flat old Hull is a mystery to me) from the thieving toe-rags with bolt-cutters is welcome. This is the recently opened Hull Cycle Hub in what used to be the ticket office of Paragon Station. £1 a day will see your bike locked up and waiting for your return. And if you've got a flat tyre there's even a workshop for repairs. You can also hire a bike from the same place for £3.50 a day. There's more about all this here.

The bonny bunch of roses

Saturday's Post

You know those sisyphean tasks that this town gets itself into, bridges that take years to build, piers that are never mended, roads that will never be upgraded, derelict buildings that defy both the Council and gravity; the list goes on and on. Well now that silt you can see in the background, well there's now a plan to shift it and all the other sediments from all the way up to Beverley, some eight or nine miles away, out into the Humber to aid river flow. What's that the poet says about a man's reach ...?

The monochrome fun goes on at the weekend in black and white here.

Penguin prison window

Anyhow here I am pointing the camera outside the biggest fish tank in the country (possibly in the world, who cares?) to capture these well known Hull landmarks in reflection. This place hires a man with a hawk to scare off the pigeons that have every right to be there (well just wait 'til the seagulls find out about that! That'll be one dead hawk!) while incarcerating penguins from the South Atlantic. What a bunch of humbugs!  Oh yeah this place has blocked my account on Twitter ... alors tant pis! Ou tant mieux!

Weekend reflections are here.

Skip this if you like

I bet you didn't know that there are people out in the 'real' world who keep an eye on the number of skips being used. To put a skip out on the public highway you must have a skip licence from the council and councils having nothing better to do keep tallies on this. Just as there are weathermen who make forecasts based on seaweed and pine cones so there are economists who use skips as bell-weathers for the state of the construction industry. More skips means more little building projects on the go. And the latest figures I've seen show that skip use is increasing all over the country; happy days are here again. Truly this is a one nation skip-led recovery in which we will all, no doubt, end up in the skip together.

Need a helping hand

Tucked away in a corner of garden of the transport museum this ancient looking statue gives no indication as to its origins nor its subject matter. We have a lady minus a hand holding on to a shield and wearing a Greek-style helmet.
Well it was difficult to find anything out about this but after asking Hull Museums (thanks to assistant curator Tom Goulder) I get the picture that this is thought to be a statue of Minerva (or possibly Britannia) from the Royal Institute which stood on Albion Street. It was part of a group of three statues. So how did it (and the other two that I have yet to find) end up in these gardens? Well German bombing in 1943 destroyed the Royal Institute and damaged the statues that much is known. The same explosion destroyed records so the story of the statues becomes a bit hazy. At least it was until, by persistence, I came across this link which is quite clear that, yes, this is Minerva and came from the Royal Institute. The poster of that page also states the statue is by W.D. Keyworth, junior and dates from 1883. So mystery solved then ...
Returning to our statue and if it is Minerva then she would have had a spear in her missing hand and would have looked a lot like this.

Old dog, newish tricks

Ah we all shall be saved from wet feet and damp houses as the announcement is made for a £45 million plan to improve the river Hull's flood defenses. But do note the plan has been agreed; not the £45 million! If I prattle on about flooding a lot then well it's the thing that hangs over this area like some wet sword of old what's his name. Most of the Hull valley and certainly all of the city of Hull itself is below sea-level at high tide. Anyhow one of the proposals is to use the tidal barrier more often as a sluice gate to stop the Humber going upstream during heavy rain as opposed to its current use only during very high tides on the Humber. Seems they've already tried it out and it works surprisingly well. So if they get the go ahead and that means amending legislation then the old girl will be in action maybe two or three more times every year. If that doesn't work then proper sluice gates at a cost of £16 million could be built. And if all that looks like a lot of money then think on that it's estimated a good flood of the Hull river basin could do £3.4 billion damage and make my feet wet.

The Moggie and the Maggies ...

... or the cat on a cool slate roof.

We were down the Land of Green Ginger the other day when the normal town hubbub was overwhelmed by a loud repetitive cackling from on high. Turns out a cat had entered the roof top domain of two magpies who were, to say the least, displeased by this development. The cat, as cats do, simply ignored all the fuss and went about its business. That's it really; hardly worth craning your neck to see what was going on.

I think Margot K Juby took this one

Going to seed

Taken by Margot K Juby

The weekend in black and white is here.

Blue barge

This old barge or lighter with the odd name of Poem 25 is a fixture in the old harbour of the river. I've shown it before here but that was before colour was invented.

Weekend Reflections are here

Blade runner

Apologies if this is not the finest quality shot but this cargo ship was nearly two miles away across the old Humber. The odd looking items are wind turbine blades heading to some assembly plant upstream. These may not match the world's longest blades (75m!) but they're still a fair size. News came only last week of yet another big deal for the wind powered industry with Dong from Denmark (I kid you not) signing to build an offshore turbine complex near Grimsby on the south bank, so we should expect to see more cargoes like this.

A little OTT? Perhaps not ...

I have noticed that Hull University's graduation days have become something of an annual bean feast, with town criers and chamber music and so on. All those well dressed ladies in high heels that obviously were hurting like hell. What could they do this year to top the last? Well an over sized CCT screen showing the ceremony from City Hall live in Queen Vic Square was not the most obvious answer but here it is nevertheless. Next year a fly pass by the RAF perhaps? I suppose if you are going to put yourself in debt for twenty five years buying a degree (sorry that's paying for tuition, what was I thinking?) then a little celebration is in order. Good luck to all those newly qualified clever so and sos. I really don't envy you, well not much.