A Thing

Someone sat down, or more probably in this town a whole committee sat down, and decided it would a good idea if there was a thing at just this point. Plans were drawn up, consultations held, a contract signed (with Things Inc. no doubt), steel forges fired up, presses squeezed the metal  sheets which were cut and then engraved and welded to give us the glory that is this thing. Now tell me this isn't a worthwhile thing ...

Never saw the sun shining so bright

Here's an odd thing at the marina, I've no doubt it has meaning but I'm damned if I know what it is. This was taken before the EU-know-what and that shade of blue known as Euroblue or Brussels blue will not be seen in these parts again as blue skies come to us courtesy of the sunshine articles of the Lisbon Treaty (tru dat, tru fact innit!).

The Neverendum

Well now two days after the end of the world as we knew it and everything still seems to be going along just dandy. The markets fell then rose to level higher than before the referendum (hardly the financial Armageddon predicted by the remainers). We're still in the EU in case anybody thinks otherwise (despite being told by Mr Juncker to pack our bags  and leave, now, instantly, go on get lost!). We've still got a Tory Government although it is now completely dead in the water with no mandate for Brexit, no Prime Minister and no real majority in Parliament and no respect in the country. The opposition is threatening to rip itself apart again in yet another meaningless leadership challenge (but no-one is listening to them so this doesn't really matter). The Brexiters have admitted (to no intelligent person's great surprise) that their ridiculous claims on immigration and spending on the NHS (£350million a day or was it a week? I wasn't paying them so much attention) were a complete pack of lies. Despite, or perhaps because of, all this the debate-cum-slanging match continues. The losing side now want a re-run referendum ( "We lost, it wasn't fair that we lost". You know the sort of thing that losers say. Perhaps a best of three option will keep them quiet, who knows?). Scotland is making those old fashioned independence noises again (or could that just be bagpipes), the Irish problem is threatening to become a real problem again. The young are thinking themselves betrayed by the old (t'was ever thus). London wants to remain in the EU by a massive margin and what London wants it by and large gets.

Oh and these damn silly flags are still flying. 

Like I say, dandy.

A strange day

I took this on my way to vote in the referendum (voted 'Leave' since you ask because, as is well known, I'm a delusional, knuckle-dragging, xenophobic, racist, piece of shit; yes, the eloquent insults of the losing 'Remainers' still flow ...). Appears even the weeds have UKIP's colours ... It's not every day you have a vote to leave the EU and the PM resigns with a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his foot ... interesting times.

Wake me when it's all over.

When you were young did your mother ever tell you not pick at scabs? That itchy scraped knee with its red crusty wounds just ached to be scratched and picked at only to bleed and start all over again. Well for forty six years the Conservative Party has been picking at its European scab till the damn thing became ulcerous with more than a hint of gangrene. Today the pustulating boil will be lanced and much good it will do anyone. The level of 'debate' has sunk to hitherto unplumbed depths. It's all lies, hyperbole, unbelievable scaremongering and idiotic name calling from both sides (of the Conservative Party!). As for Labour ... well it's a good job no-one is listening to Labour any more; best not to intrude on private grief.

Frankly if we were asking to join the European Union today I very much doubt they'd want us.

The result is tomorrow and I confidently predict half the country is not going to be happy. 

For myself I think I'll take heed of this sign ...

Eleanor Crosses

Spring Bank cemetery has two of these Gothic iron Eleanor Cross style monuments. They are nearly identical. The left hand one is a listed monument  and both were repaired in the mid 1990's when a newspaper from 1868 was found in one of them. Originally they would have had some glazing and a funerary urn positioned within. Of course when new there were no trees and the place would have been kept clear and well maintained.

Skylight

Hepworth's Arcade also has a small but impressive skylight.

Now for something completely different

This striking sign is outside a little shop in Hepworth's Arcade that sells all things occult,  tchotchkes and similar stuff to clutter the home.

Everything is black and white, isn't it?

This month's light and shadow theme has come in handy for those days when I've not got anything to post or I'm utterly depressed by, among other things, the current climate of polarised numptiness that has possessed this pathetic little pimple on the arse of Europe. Still by this time next week it all be over bar the shooting ...

The weekend in black and white is here.

Anania hortulata

Identifying butterflies in the UK is a bit of a doddle as there's only fifty or so of them; moths however are a pain with over 2,500 to choose from. So this little darling, photographed while we waited for the bus into town the other day, is,  I think after half an hour of google faffing,  apparently a small magpie moth, Anania hortulata. A mothy website describes it as "One of the most distinctive and easily recognised British species of micro-moth". Well hmmph.

Res per industriam prosperae ... don't make me laugh

To no-one's great surprise BHS is to close after years of having money syphoned out of the company by its previous two owners. So there's yet another empty store in the heart of town... looking good for the you know what next year. Res per industriam prosperae is the ironic motto running across the store's impressive mural.

Light and shade

Trying something different with the Spurn lightship.

Dangerous Waters

Hull's marina sparing no expense on health and safety ...

When you're in a hole ...

Jameson Street is really under the knife as the makeover makes over.

The guys who are doing all this wonderful work have made a little video of the full extent of their efforts. It appeared in the local paper recently; I'm sure they wont mind too much if I share it here. If the video doesn't work here's a direct link.

Media morte in vita sumus

This old tree, I think it's a lime tree, is huge, not tall particularly but wide; some of its branches must be forty or fifty foot long. And by all that is right and proper it should be dead. Quite apart from this massive gash where a branch has fallen off, three quarters of its branches  are clearly dead and bare. The saprophytic fungi have moved in already. And yet ... and yet there are still leaves sprouting from  a few branches. Clearly not going to gentle into that goodnight.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Hazy with buttercups

I made a brief sojourn to Beverley Westwood on a hazy June day. I don't think I've ever seen so many buttercups. The cattle that roam about this place must have read that buttercups are poisonous and are carefully avoiding them ...

Sailing By

This odd little installation in Bridlington features a transparency of an oil painting, the Great Gale of 1871 by local artist J T Allerston. If you are not from these parts you may not recognise the names surrounding and underneath the picture. These are the shipping forecast areas and to anyone who has listened to BBC Radio 4 as it closes down for the night they will be only too familiar. The forecast was (probably still is, I haven't listened for a while) usually preceded by a piece of light music entitled 'Sailing By'. That tune and the almost poetic recitation of the forecast following was enough to send most people off to sleep; a kind of national lullaby. Some, however, found the shipping forecast altogether more invigorating ... 

Front & Back

Kenworthy House on George Street is a pretty no-nonsense kind of building. If form follows function then you wouldn't expect many thrills and spills from this place and you'd be right. That's because it happens to be Hull City Council offices. I remember it used to be the housing department but now it's children and young people's services. The staircase at the back makes it slightly the more interesting view to me, but only slightly.

Kingston Square

I was going to use these for the 'light & shade' theme at the start of the month but used something else instead. So here's this little offering; better late than never. Kingston Square is a pleasant enough place to while away a bit of time; at least it was before the demolition and building started just recently.

Lexington Avenue is no more

On this cleared site sometime in the late fifties or sixties was built the Mecca Ballroom known rather romantically as the Locarno, a place for stately ballroom dancing. I'm told the Kinks once played there and looked totally out of place. As times moved on it became Tiffany's, a nightclub, a place to go after the pubs had closed to 'dance' (in reality to keep on drinking). I recall nightclubs of the seventies with their glitter balls and extra loud disco noise and groups of young women standing or jiffling around their handbags on the dance floor. Ye gods! What dreadful places! As the seventies slid ecstatically into the Thatcher years Tiffany's became Lexington Avenue (LA's to the cognoscenti), and I'm afraid by then I was too old to be allowed in (I think I've been too old for most things in this life but we pass along on that). Reports of drug taking (No, really?), drunkenness (who ever would have thought?) and antisocial behaviour (well those were the days) drifted past my eyes in those days but I didn't care and I guess neither did anyone else. The place used to be absolutely heaving on weekends ... and then well, autre temps as they say. It closed several years ago and stood empty as is the well known style in this town. Now with la culture approaching and an alleged shortage of hotel rooms in steps Hilton Inc. to pop in a 167 bed hotel. They'd better get a move on.

On Sunday, go to church ...

... I mean shopping, of course. Here's St Stephen's shopping mall, named after a nearby and long demolished church, a veritable cathedral of retail. Since the 1994 Sunday Trading Act  finally put the end to a thousand or more years of terminal weekend boredom this country has become almost civilised, with the Lord's Day Observance people free to observe the rest of us merrily going to Hell, sorry there I go again, I mean the shops.

Welcome to Dull

The above dull and uninspiring ticket office and waiting room at Paragon Station is to be removed to allow an even more dull and uninspiring set of buildings including shops and, wait for it, wait for it, ... a coffee bar! Yes, if permission is granted, all this blandness will be Hull's to enjoy by November in time for the you know what next year. I understand that the Edwardian wooden cafeteria below is a Grade 2 listed building (as is just about the whole station) but that won't stop anyone bolting on a "glass box" to it with the aim of making a fast buck out of 'culture' would it?

Here's a vision of the future brazenly stolen from the council's planning portal. It's just truly stunning and breathtaking isn't it? What a fantastic first and lasting impression of the mediocrity of Hull it will give visitors over the coming years. Where else can one see such sights and imbibe the thrilling ambience of commerce and coffee whilst rushing for the train or bus out of this place? "Just standing in the paradise that was Paragon Station concourse was enough for me" as no-one is ever likely to say ...

Black

The weekend in black and white is here.

Weekend reflections are here.

Soft, strong and unbearably long ...

OK I expect the odd advertisement for the C of C but this one in Hull station put me in mind of a giant toilet roll. Is it sending a subtle message about the dire nature of next year's 'events'?

Un-English Light

Having spent an hour in Cottingham church the other day I have a bagful of photos so I may as well use one or two for the City Daily Photo theme of 'shadow and highlight'. The stained glass in this church is mostly from a Belgian artist J B Capronnier a fact which someone, Nikolaus Pevsner no less, complained about saying he felt like he was in a French church and "It is all totally un-English; and how much truer to the medium English glass is!"  Mr Pevsner's claim to Englishness was somewhat strained being the a son of a Russian-Jew brought up in Leipzig but we'll let it pass, we're all communautaire these days, well at least until the end of the month. 

The church is kept almost completely unlit, so there's plenty of shadow and a good chance of tripping over a pew until your eyes adjust.

Photo by Margot K Juby

Sharkeys

I mentioned in yesterday's post a nightclub that closed sometime ago, well here it is: Sharkeys. Links nicely with yesterday's post is I do say so myself (sharks, bites, no? ... oh suit yourself!). Reports in newspapers say nightclubs are a closing at an "alarming rate" these days, can't say I'll miss them.

Bites...

This former café (or takeaway I'm not sure what it was) is under the grubby multi-storey car park on George Street. I can't honestly say that I ever saw the place open; those black shutters have always been down as far as I'm concerned. So if you're looking for an opportunity in the food retail industry this place, near to a soon to be demolished police station and next to a nightclub that closed down ages ago, could be your first step on the ladder to success (or bankruptcy).

The weekend in black and white is here.

Meet the Burtons

Richard Burton

Due to events that need not concern you I was forced yesterday afternoon to stay in Cottingham for three hours. Now Cottingham has a few attractions but not, even on a good day, three hours worth. And yesterday it was cold and raining heavily, yes I know it's May. So seeking shelter from the elements I ended up in St Mary's church, camera in hand and acres of time to fill. The place was, as usual empty with only the vicar's CCTV cameras keeping me company. Anyway enough of my troubles ..

Tucked away by the entrance are three large (ridiculously large) memorials to various Burtons the people who owned most of Cottignham in the 18th century and indeed lots of east Yorkshire as well. The most notable, if you are into military-history things that is, is the one above to Richard Burton a commander of the British army in North America. He was lieutenant governor of Quebec and then governor of Three Rivers Province back in 1760s or thereabouts. Below are two more memorials to William and Robert Burton who as far as I can tell did little other than have great wealth and do whatever it is wealthy people do. I did not notice any memorial to Napier Christie Burton who seemed to manage to live beyond even the Burton family's means and ended up selling the holdings in Cottingham, even at one stage going to debtors prison. Somehow I couldn't find anything to him, strange that...

Robert Burton

William Burton

2 High Sttreet

I don't why it has two doors maybe the first wasn't wide enough. Anyhow not so very long ago this place looked like this; so it's scrubbed up nicely hasn't it.

Nonexistent walls

If you look at old pictures of Hull (there's one at the top of this page ↑↑↑) you'll see there's a wall runs right around the place. This was to stop the spread of Hull-culturitis, a fatal delusion, during the middle ages. Anyhow today's post, in case you hadn't guessed, was where the north walls stood until President Reagan told them to pull them down in about the middle of the 18th century or so. City walls have a habit of getting in the way of progress ...

Tomorrow I'll show you a house with two doors! Does it get more exciting?

Curbing Desire

I posted this scruffy patch of land before with its desire path crafted over the years by countless feet not wanting to take the long way round. It is well known that government, especially local government, is here to protect us from ourselves and so, in an effort to bring about ultimate happiness, the 'desire' to take a short cut must be thwarted.  Bring forth therefore an elaborate plan involving a knee high fence and surely we are one step nearer nirvana but a few hundred steps further from the shops.

Grave offerings

It seems are the days of just leaving a bunch of flowers by the gravestone are long gone ...

Weeping Ash

Fraxinus excelsior (Pendula)

Coming up to June and every other tree and bush has been busy getting out the greenery whilst the ash seems to be still asleep with barely a bud showing. This fine specimen is on the corner of Spring Bank west and Chanterlands Avenue, in the cemetery as you can see.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Don't be crackers ...

Had a little trip out to Holderness Road the other day and found that the once neglected and most despised of buildings that was the Elephant & Castle pub has become a fish and chip restaurant. All very good; but "Wackers"?

Three fountains and a thingy

I've shown this installation outside Britannia House (the dole office) on Spring Bank before but that was taken from a bus and you don't really get the full sheer tackiness of it from that post. The three hemispheres are little trickling fountains; so far so meh. But what is that naff blue and white column? What is it supposed to be?

When new the idea of adding washing up liquid to the fountains appealed to certain elements but even that minor act of rebellion seems to have died away. Maybe it's so stupid no-one can be bothered to vandalise it.