Kardomah Set V2.0

I get you might want to make a buck or two out of the fortunate surroundings you find yourself in, and I'm not going to knock any artistic venture that pops up here and there. But this is Hull 2014 and well, pretending that the City of Culture thing doesn't hang around the neck of everything that happens here, why the allusion to Dylan Thomas and the Kardomah set? Did the estate agent who owns this building and clearly can't sell it on to any commercial concern and who once offered to buy the Humber Bridge, think he could get away with this sleight of hand? And those 'artists' who frequent this place; are they getting a cut of the profits? Thought not.

County Court

I've never really looked at this entrance before. It's on Alfred Gelder Street and is part of the Guildhall. It's no longer in use as the County Court has moved on to pastures new. What intrigued me is the little pile of Edwardian baroque nonsense above the door (you might like to click on the image to enlarge it). Amongst the usual symbols of power, a lion head, sword, axe, keys, royal sceptre and the scrolls of law there are numerous overflowing cornucopias of poppy heads. Now, aren't poppies symbols of sleep and death? Is this some ironic comment on the process of civil litigation? Or could it be that whoever paid for this was in the opium trade? Your guess is as good as mine.

Oh what a lovely war

The Government's announcement in 2012 that it was to spend millions on celebrating, oh sorry, commemorating, the centenary of the slaughter of the First World War must have brought tears of joy to meeja types. With just over a week till the start date no doubt they'll be gearing themselves up for a feeding frenzy. All rather sickening really.  Bookshops' shelves groan with the latest WW1 tasteful tomes as publishers seek to cash in. Not to be outdone, in fact, way out in the vanguard as would be of keeper of the nations memories, the BBC is touting this little touring circus designed to "reflect on the dramatic impact the war had on families and communities", nice work if you can get it. And when this bean feast is over we will, to paraphrase Lloyd George, have to go through it again in 25 years and at three times the cost.

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.