A load of codswallop

I don't know about culture (that's probably not come out the way I meant it) but I do know there's a tidal wave of propaganda filling the streets of this incomparable town. And, as any student of physics should know, a wave moves nothing forward but simply shifts stuff up and down often causing destruction as it passes through. Anyhow the hunky hipster fisherman dressed in waterproofs and a sou'wester doing something unspeakable to a dead cod has surely got to win some sort of award for camp cliché of the year. More of this please!

Smile, damn you

I was going to say that today, unlike yesterday, is poets day but then I find that October 7 is Happy World Smile Day! Spread that Joy so it comes back and hits you in the gob.

The weekend in black and white is (thankfully) smiling at us from here.

"A Rumoured City"

Today is National Poetry Day. Yeah, my reaction was 'so what' as well. A whole day of poetry really? ...wake me when it's over. Hull lays claim to being a city of poetry so I thought I'd post Margot's poem about Hull written a few years ago when she used to be a "Hull Poet"; she's given up on all the tomfoolery of poetry, as she calls it, these days. Anyway here goes; it's one of her more cheerful poems, there's hardly any blood in it all ...

 "A Rumoured City"

This is where the poets come to die;
like elephants in their legendary graveyard
they leave their bones, their teeth, but nothing
so rare as ivory.

You know all the stories...
Two of them shared one wife:
one tried to sell his gold tooth, being thirsty:
another drowned in marriage and normality:
a few fled in panic and never dared look back.

You think of it as human, this city.
You think of it as a woman -
decked with flowers, crannied with docks
whose waters have a female, secret smell.

At first she seems to beckon,
to offer you the freedom of her byways,
to twine her streets around you
in a mistletoe embrace.
But her hosts are dependant on her;
they cannot escape, they forget to try,
they learn to love her as she drains them.

Her choice of iconography betrays her.
Here at the place where her heart beats hardest
two copper statues, corroded green -
one a bare-breasted Amazon
threatening with a lethal trident;
the other sexless, nameless, hooded
and draped like death's unbearable face.

You penetrate the vampire streets;
twilight coils you in its caress.
You think of giving it another year
since the city seems to fit you like a glove
and the docks possess your imagination
when sunset shows them brimming with blood.

                                                       Margot K Juby

A Rumoured City was an anthology brought out some thirty five or so years ago; a collection of stuff (some duff some not so duff) by the then "new poets from Hull", a few of them are dead now or left Hull years ago. A Hull poet, it seems, does not have to live in the place. You can get a copy from here but it'll cost you at least £82! Ouch!

Final resting place

Usually fly tippers choose a secluded spot, a back alley or a country lane say. The depositors of this unwanted bed chose the entrance to Spring Bank cemetery on one of the busiest roads in town. Is rubbish dumping at long last coming out of the closet and into the mainstream?

Middle of the road

I know it's been a while since I mainlined you with visions of orange barriers so you're possibly feeling mild withdrawal symptoms. Fear not these colourful additions to the townscape will be around for quite a few months more. We are promised completion in December and then again in March next year. Yeah, I know, two completion dates in case one makes you sick.

Demolished

It would be remiss of me to allow you to gain the impression that it is all abandonment and decay in the City of Culture, by no means is that the case, oh no sirree! Here the old ambulance station is  being gently pulled apart. The car park, too, is coming down if it doesn't fall down first. Roper Street, parts of Osborne Street  and much of Waterhouse Lane [1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ] are also if not already down then soon to be levelled. Since there was no plan to use these old buildings then by all means knock them down and build afresh. But what to build? The fallout from 2008 put an end to Princes Quay's planned expansion. So what to do? "Hmmm I know", says a bright spark at the Council (I'm in a generous mood, we all know there's very little brightness in that place), "let's borrow, oh I don't know, about £36 million and build an arena for "bands" to perform and businesses to hold conferences and such like, (other cities have them so why not Hull?) ... and lets put it where access will cause maximum disruption to traffic, and let's make it too small, and let's make look like a giant yellow slug erupting from the ground and let's force it through planning after it's been rejected and and and ... let's call it, oh I don't know, something like, erm, Hull Venue; how about that for an idea?" See I told you it's not at all doom and gloom.

These delightful images "borrowed" from the Hull Daily Mail.

Vacated

This month's theme of 'abandoned' could have been designed for Hull. It's like shooting fish in a barrel (did anybody ever do that?). Staples had been in this store on Ferensway for donkeys years, the place was always empty and almost never had what I needed and if it did it was way too expensive. Anyhow Staples has moved to a slightly smaller, slightly more out-of-town site on Clough Road (along with the Police, the Fire Brigade and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all ...). This building joins on to the empty computer store I posted a while back making a seriously large vacant ex-retailing space in the centre of town. Maybe it can be filled with 'culture' of some sort for next year's bean feast...

Abandoned

An abandoned doll in...

an abandoned shop in ...

an abandoned street.


Guess what today's theme is at City Daily Photo ...

Lifting the lid

I've noticed two or three of these pan mixers, as I believe they're called, dotted around the town centre; always with this web-like lid lifted up and always standing idle. 

The weekend in black and white is here.

Pleased as Punch

Here's a detail from the ornate exterior of the Punch Hotel on Queen Victoria Square. As the lord of misrule this figure has no doubt been observing the ongoing utter chaos of  the renovation of the town centre with some glee. That's the way to do it!

The simple way to get a parking ticket

It's that time of year gain when prospective debt slaves otherwise known as students turn up for the start of yet another academic year. And for their entertainment there are a few places of nocturnal delight (so they say) and they advertise their wares just outside the University entrance. Now the observant among you may have noticed the small sign informing that parking is limited to two hours and no return within three. Well the top two pictures I took yesterday and it seems these vans just stay there all day for the first week of term. Now that's just asking for trouble which duly arrived today in the form of a parking enforcement officer who probably couldn't believe his luck. Neither could I as happened to be passing on the bus this afternoon.

Wearing white for Hallowe'en

Endyke Lane Dove House charity shop is gearing itself up for Hallowe'en with this appealing twosome.

Margot took this with her phone as we'd left the camera at home on the grounds that "there's nothing to photograph on Endyke Lane". Hmmmph

You might want to be that-a-way →

These compelling signs are at the butt end of Londesborough Street close that special track to the football stadium. What's the deal with the free wood?

On this day ...

"All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs"

                                                                              Enoch Powell on Joseph Chamberlain

Well here's a blast from the past: Enoch Powell opening the then Western General Hospital on this day fifty three years ago. What can I say that hasn't been said about this divisive maverick politician regarded as both a prophet (by those of an anti-EU persuasion) and a racist bigot (by those on the left)? I suppose if, like him, you had set your heart on becoming Viceroy of India no less and the Government of the day then grants  India independence then you've got little left to  hope  for in life other than to become a somewhat eccentric outsider. He was living proof that great intellectual ability, he had a double first in classics and was a professor of ancient Greek at the ripe old age of 25, is no guarantee of being a sensible human being. The quote at the top of this post applied to him with spades.

If you are still here and  wondering where on earth the Western General Hospital is then wonder no more; they changed its name to the grander sounding  Hull Royal Infirmary sometime short time after this stone was laid. That, I guess, is the nature of human affairs.

Broken

Having a grill protecting your window is, as you can see, no real protection at all. This one on Vicar Lane clearly should have had the regulation half inch chip board and mandatory coat of black paint. 

The Weekend in Black and White is still here, why not give it a visit.

Boiler House

This strange looking place is the boiler house of  Hull Royal Infirmary which, as you might expect, needs lots of hot water for heating and cleaning. Nowadays it's powered by gas but when first built, in the early 60's, it ran on coal stored in that massive hopper on the right.

The weekend in black and white is here.

New kid in town

Nature abhorring a vacuum as it does means that the space left by the sad demise of poor Charley earlier this year has been quickly taken over by this smug little thing. We're not going to give him a name and we're not going to get attached; he's somebody else's problem. 

I'm glad that's the neighbour's fence and not mine.

Pictures are by Margot K Juby and while I'm about here's a link to her blog on the innocence of Gilles de Rais.

Oh and finally the year of culture program was announced today but you don't want to know about that.

Tattoo's (sic)

Ah well nobodys perfect.

Hull Arena

The only good use I can think for ice is to chill a strong gin and tonic but it seems there are folk who like to arm their feet with skates and sally forth on ice rinks. This is the place just for those poor souls. I believe there is also a passing interest in playing hockey on a frozen surface and that perversion is also catered for here. Hull Arena was built in the mid-1980's and had an indoor bowling rink at that time but I can find no mention of that now. The place also hosts concerts (apparently there's seating for 3,750) and boxing matches for the sort of people who like to see people hitting each other as well. Such a useful place really; containing all those wonderful odd-ball pursuits in one box as it were and in an out-of-the-way place where little harm can be done to others.

Any Colour You Like

Clear Guidelines

Those thoughtful people who gave us the generous expansive footpath that I posted the other day just can't seem to control their urge to keep us yellow stick figures within our limits. These, though rather cute and silly, are not the daftest markings I've spotted in this town; that honour goes to this piece of barminess.

A red dot in a sea of blue

Ah the pleasures and agonies of rearranging the electoral boundaries! This week has seen proposals to cut fifty seats from the House of Commons, that's MPs voting for fifty redundancies ... well I'll wait while you get over your sniggering fit. 

As far as I'm concerned if it goes ahead Cottingham and a few other outlying villages move from the safe, nay possibly the safest, Tory seat in the country to a proposed marginal seat of West Hull and Haltemprice (where or what is a Haltemprice? I've no idea!) West Hull at present is a totally safe Labour fiefdom (you see the method behind this, create a marginal, lose a safe Labour seat but keep the remains of a safe Tory seat, most excellent!). It also means that Hull may become a smaller red dot in a sea of blue which may be no bad thing. There are the delicious howlings of the self-serving gerrymandered and hopefully soon to be out-of-a-job politicos. I'm not that bothered really they can try living on the pittance of unemployment benefit they voted for, except they'll all have cushy little consultancy positions waiting for them. Does my contempt for politics and all politicians look big in this? 

A small concern is it could be the first move to take over the outlying villages and plonk them in with Hull City Council (just for neatness dontcha know) something that 96% voted against only two years ago.

Paint it black

You might think that being in the unfortunate position of having to board up a window to protect it from hoopleheads and gopniki that you had done enough to safeguard your property. You might think that but you would be making the rookie mistake of forgetting the petty pen pushers who work for the Council's Environmental Crime Unit (a group of mendacious ninnies who pick on the poorest and ignore the rich, t'was ever thus). They will sooner or later come upon your works and inform you that this is far from adequate; you must "Paint it black" or face an enforcement order so to do! Yes a good lick of black gloss it seems is the sine qua non of window protection.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Every Third Sunday

This upcoming Sunday is also this year's Hull Marathon and streets are to be closed so joggers can recreate the ancient Athenian postal service. Let's hope they've measured the course properly this time unlike a few years back. 

Keep to the straight and narrow

Not much chance of doing anything else on this footpath from Albert Dock.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world ...

... this must one of the strangest. For some reason the Minerva has sprouted a mobile Gin Bar. Clearly things are beginning to improve in the city of culture.

A pretty Pickle

Came across this little ship in the Marina today. This is the schooner Pickle and it claims to be a replica or reconstruction of HMS Pickle which brought the first news of the Battle of  Trafalgar back to Falmouth in 1805. In fact this ship was built in 1995 in Russia along with several other similar craft to commemorate the creation of Peter the Great's navy some 300 years ago. Back then it was known as the Alevtina Tuy. Then in 2004 or thereabouts it was further altered to take on a role as HM Schooner Pickle to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of Trafalgar. It was left going to rot in Gibraltar until it was recently bought and rescued by a local businessman. Anyhow for the moment it is now sitting in Hull Marina and you can have a guided trip round it for a fiver should you wish.

Here's a link to a video which is part of a BBC program Boats that Built Britain showing just what a craft like this could do.

You have arrived

Bespoke fencing

The weekend in black and white is here.

That Fryday Feeling

It's Happy Laughing Friday, as my old dad used to say, the start of the weekend. There's some kind of festival thing going on in town so I might pop out and see what's what tomorrow if it doesn't rain ...

Libraries: who wants 'em?

So another month is upon us and as ever the first day is theme day at City Daily Photo and today's theme is "libraries". As I've been quiet for a while I thought I'd give you not one but two libraries. Above is Hull Central Library on Prospect Street/Albion Street. The original bit on the right was built ~1900 and there's been further additions along the way including the startlingly original shoebox on the side added in 1959. I used to live not too far from this place and used it quite a lot until the librarian decided it would be "helpful" to separate paperbacks from hardbacks and to develop a "classics" section (the definition of a classic was quite arbitrary and seemed to be a whim of the shelf stacker). The result was that you could end up trying to find a book in any of three places (Did Melvil Dewey die in vain?). The place seemed to encourage (or at least not stop) children running around playing; all very strange and not at all pleasant. So I'm afraid I gave up and haven't set foot in the place for years (If my sister, a former head librarian,  reads this no doubt she'll have a fit). But it seems I'm not alone in turning away from libraries the number of active borrowers is down by 5 million (!) from ten years ago. Now I know public spending cuts have closed branches and reduced book stocks but this decline seems to pre-date the austerity. We are told by the great and the good that libraries are essential but it seems Joe Public has better fish to fry or Pokémon to catch. If they carry on much longer not providing the sort of service people want then the future is indeed bleak for these noble institutions.

Below is the big boy in town; the Brynmor Jones at the University. I've shown it before but not lit up like this and also I've only just noticed the enormous comma thing in front. How did I miss that? Anyhow this place has coffee bars, an art gallery, WiFi up the ying yang and is open 24 hours a day. Maybe the public libraries could learn a lesson.

A slight change of use

These Victorian offices on Union Street/Albion Street used to be the School Board's Offices but now thanks to the passage of time, progress and what have you this is now a supermarket, in fact it's a Chinese supermarket, Chong Wah, selling all sorts of goodies. It's comes as no surprise to know that back in the day (1898) the Victorians weren't averse to wasting some of the education budget on fancy decoration such as this elaborate window frame. It's a Grade 2 listed property as you might expect.

John Alderson MD

Outside Hull Royal Infirmary on its ashlar pedestal stands this statue of John Alderson MD. And why would such a thing be here I ask myself and after a few minutes on the good ship Google I find that the said Mr Alderson was a very successful physician in Hull in the late 18th and early 19th century indeed he did so well out of his practice that when he was elected Chief Physician at the newly opened Hull Royal Infirmary he gave his services for free. He vaccinated many of poor people of Hull. But that alone wouldn't get a statue. Oh no there's more, much more. He was consultant physician for the Hull Lying-in Charity which provided linen and food for poor reputable married women during pregnancy.  In 1814 he set up a refuge for the insane where it was said “every attempt consistent with humanity will be made to restore the patient”. And then he worked towards the provision of education, was president of the subscription library and the Literary and Philosophical Society. Feeling at a lose end he set up the Hull Mechanics' Institute in 1825. During all this he gave many lectures and wrote several publications. Finally he started the Hull School of Medicine in Kingston Square but died before that was completed. I suppose there's a limit to what one man can do in a lifetime. It is said the fifteen thousand people lined the streets of Hull for his funeral in 1829 ... 

This statue was paid for by public subscription and stood originally outside the Hull Royal Infirmary on Prospect Street before being moved to the Anlaby Road site. Until the smoking ban was enforced more rigorously on the hospital site tobacco fiends (many were patients in pyjamas and dressing gowns with accompanying drip stands, oh it was such a fine sight to see!) would gather around this statue and offer their smoky votive offerings to this remarkable man. At least I'd like to think they did, but most probably they (like me) hadn't the slightest idea who he was.

The Ice House or what's left ...

This is all that remains of the Salvation Army Citadel on Anlaby Road, a crumbling door step. It stood next to the ill famed New York Hotel and was known universally as the Ice House because they had stored ice in it before fridges and what have you. I remember it as a Sally Army charity shop in the mid 1980's and that moved elsewhere in 1989 and demolition quickly followed but not until the obligatory arson attack. (Hull's motto: "Burn in haste, bulldoze at leisure!") The only reasonably good picture I can find of how looked is here though I'm sure there must be many others around. It was registered as a mission hall in 1883 and had seating for 2,500! (Those were the days). During WW2 it became a part-time synagogue for Hull's Old Hebrew Congregation as their place had been bombed as was the custom in those days. The new place is much smaller but the road on which it stands was renamed Ice House Road just to keep the memory going.

Moorhens on Barmy Drain

I post this because it's the first time I've managed to get a moorhen in focus in years of trying.  These birds are fairly common, not particularly shy and hardly quick moving; don't quite know what my problem was ... So, anyway, this little group were on Barmston Drain and I'm pretty sure this is a second brood of the year as another much bigger juvenile was hanging around.

Wellington Street Bridge

This little swing bridge allows you to nip across the entrance to the marina without having to go over the dock gates. For some reason, probably economic, it is often closed (that is open for boats but closed for foot soldiers, you understand) but I guess with the thousands attending the Humber Street Sesh cacophothon on Saturday it was deemed safer to allows folk to cross this way. (But this photo shows I was wrong to think so; this event seals off public streets and charges people to exercise the freedom to pass along the highway. It is in plain words highway robbery! with noise!)
The bridge would have had rail tracks on it originally as part of the Humber Dock rail system. 

There, now you've seen it from both sides, aren't you lucky!.