Queen's Gardens: Back to the Future

I mentioned a few days ago that the collective insanity known as Hull City Council had proposed a series of makeovers for the city centre, at the time I said that I thought they weren't too bad. Well I think I spoke in haste because on closer examination some of the proposals are borderline bonkers. Take, for example, the proposal to reinstate Queen's Gardens as it was planned in the 1920's. Let's be clear this would be an act of pure vandalism. Queen's Gardens is now a place of mature trees and tranquil ponds with pleasing fountains. In the 30's the place looked like a desert with immature trees, boring planted borders and no ponds (see here and here). Is the Council really proposing to remove mature trees and fill in ponds? To top off this lunacy there's the creamy delish proposal to build a retractable stage over the duck pond at the far end, this is to stage 'events' and lies alongside yet another proposed stage to commemorate Mick Ronson, a guitarist with the eminently forgettable Spiders from Mars or so I'm told (this presumably would stage non-events). Very 1920's I must say! So there you have it, vandalism mixed with tawdry tackiness, about par for HCC.

Queen's Gardens is one of the few places in Hull that doesn't need fixing, so kindly leave it alone.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.
Weekend Reflections can be found here.

Memorial Gate

This little oddity, an alley gate as a memorial, on Mayfield has me puzzled. Somebody out there will know something about it I'm sure.

Pauline Gift's Shop

If you peer closely you can still make out the name Pauline gently fading with the passing years. That would be Pauline Gift, who died two years ago. She ran this shop on Princes Avenue for over 20 years and other shops before that. You see I have a problem with this; when she died they kind of made out she was some sort of eccentric legend, they even made a play about her. Now she seemed pretty ordinary to me, shuffling her stock on a bicycle down Prinny Ave seemed normal to me anyways, she was just a nice lady. And this will always be Pauline's Gift Shop.

Film Set

Back in May the streets of the town were taken over and transformed in the streets of 1945 London. The reason was the filming of some  no doubt truly dreadful film about the antics of our own dear queen on VE day/night,  Girl's Night Out is the name of this cinematic delight. Anyhow parts of the town received WW2 makeover with anti-blast tapes stuck to windows. Now whether these windows near Holy Trinity Church were part of the show and were simply forgotten or somebody was simply joining in the zeitgeist I don't know but they were like this long after the show had packed up and left town.

Barber's Shop Trio

Something I noticed the other day is just how many barbers there are on Spring Bank, must be about half a dozen. Now I've not set foot in a barber shop for over twenty five, nearer thirty, years so I can give no appraisal of their services. Anyhow in no particular order and for no particular reason here are a bunch of three. 

Fool, money, soon parted ....

There's this pay-per-view telescope down by the riverside and I've never seen anyone using it. So I thought I'd give it a go and put in my 20p. Well I guess I should have known better. It doesn't work. Now I know why no-one uses it ...

Tenfoot of Trouble

Amid claims that the Avenues area is becoming like "a New York ghetto" a row is simmering about plans to put gates on the tenfoots^*. A fine fellow with no concept of the absurd is seeking to have these passage ways declared restricted byways which would mean that they have be open to anyone and indeed cars would not be able to use them as an ancient bylaw insists that only people on foot or on horseback can use them. I love these little local difficulties they provide whole minutes fun on a dull day. Meanwhile the graffitistas and fly-tippers do their worst. This garbage (or is it trash?) lurks off Westbourne Avenue. My apologies to any New York ghettos who feel offended.

^*A tenfoot for those of you who don't come from these parts is an alley way between and behind houses that allows access to the rear of properties. They are about ten feet wide in case you were wondering.

The old weekend in black & white has come round again; it's here.