After the rain the sun ...

Today we had a cold front pass over (a portent if we are to believe certain newspapers of a cold long Winter) and with it some rain and drizzle. And then, well the setting sun broke through ...

Plane Trees

Something to thank the Victorian planners for: Cottingham Road's mile long stretch of plane trees, really quite impressive at this time of year. Is it my imagination or are the leaves on the trees falling later with every passing year?

A folly or two

I don't know if I've shown this before but it doesn't matter if I repeat myself (a sure sign of creeping old age ...). Anyhow this is or was the top cupola from the old town hall built in 1866 and knocked down to make way for the Guildhall. Clearly there was no shortage of money for public buildings in those days. It now sits among the ducks and geese of Pearson Park.

For those of you who long to see a short film about Hull  the city of culture people have produced a four and half minute encomion. You can see it here and judge for yourself. I suspect Larkin, whose words (taken from an introduction to anthology that appeared over thirty years ago) are used at the beginning, would be laughing his head off  if he could see how much pretentious tosh has been made out of his scribblings.

Little bit of culture, innit.

As the excitement reaches fever pitch for Hull's City of Culture bid, the Minister of Culture, Communications and Creative Industries ( yeah, I didn't know there was one either) paid a visit to the city today to see for himself what exactly is what. So on a suitably grismal day he was touted round all the sites and glad handed by all those who hope to gain something from this potential crumb from the master's table. These street adverts have cropped up recently promoting a new cultural guide . I don't know what good all this does and somehow the cynic in me says that the award will go north of the border to bonny Dundee; there's a referendum on Scottish independence to win after all ... but life is full of little surprises and we await the decision on, I think, the 20^th of this month. Ooh the excitement of it all ....

The next Tesco?

By neatly not quite appropriating the founder of Tesco's slogan this discount store on Holderness Road should go far, possibly as far as Hessle Road, you never know ...

The Eagle Has Flown

Thirty or more years ago I once spent two evenings in this pub. The second visit was to confirm the sheer dismal horror of the first. Even after this length of time I shudder at the thought of the back room of the Eagle, as it then was, a place akin to a waiting room to Hell. Maybe my memory exaggerates the Dickensian squalor and the pallor and hopeless despairing looks of the two or three other silent drinkers but I think not. The years passed and the Eagle became the Tap and Spile (I still don't know what a spile is and don't know anyone who does) and then, by sheer laziness, the Tap. I never went back. Passing the place the other day I saw that instead of selling beer someone was trying to flog furniture, I hurried on by ....

Knotty problem

Something of a problem has arisen as my computer has broken down, needs a new power supply. So until  I get that sorted I´m down to borrowing an Android contraption which is completely unsuitable for any rational person. It may be a while before normal service is resumed.