Art deco? What art deco?

Many of Mr Burton's emporia built all across the country during the early years of the last century were noted for their fine art deco styling and this one at the top of Whitefriargate is a particularly splendid example with black marble and gold painted windows. Shame then that, when the ground floor was renovated some years back, this was all thrown out along with the baby and the bath water. 

PS: Following a comment from Steffe I've had a root around the web and come up with this not very clear picture from 1953. As was the style back then everything was monochrome and cars drove on what are now pavements, how quaint. Anyhow I hope you can make out what the old shop front, on the left, was like. There's a bigger version here.

Over the shoulder shot

Is there some photographic etiquette about these things? The guy with the expensive camera and tripod and all the trimmings seemed to be taking an age to get it just right, whereas yours truly just pops up points the damn thing, checks it's somewhat in focus and click and moves on. Today's image is from yesterday's Vista Festival on Princes Avenue. I'd never heard of it before but it turns out to be a once every two year thing where they close off the road and have poetry readings, singers, pottery stalls, arty stuff, dancing in the street and so on. Not everything was entirely crowd pulling; this poor guy was playing away and no-one seemed to pay him any attention save  a guy with a tripod and a weird guy who just popped up and took a photo and moved on. 

A goodly crowd turned up braving the Bank Holiday Weekend weather of sunshine and heavy showers. 

Oily Reflections

Attempting to cross the entrance to the Marina my progress was halted by a siren sounding like an alarm clock on steroids, a flashing red light and the little gate across the bridge slowly closing. Hmm, the lock gates were being opened so I'd have to use the other bridge. Still, not before a shot of the oily film on the lock water and another of the open gates showing just how narrow they are. Big enough, no doubt, for  shipping in 1809 and for pleasure craft now but bigger docks had to be built down river to take modern cargo ships.

Weekend Reflections are here.

Work in progress

Do you recall the white van man who got bored and added a splash of colour to his van? I can't be sure but I think he got bored with that as well ...

Breaking eggs

Demolition seems to be the order of the day down Queen Street what with the old Wellington House knockdown and now the clearance for the C4DI scheme by the old dry dock. Good, I say, and about time too.

All that remains of the Hull Art Lab that I posted back in May.

This was a pub called Ruscadors which I have never been in and now never will.

Private Seats

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, before the reinvention of coffee and the banning of smoking indoors, you could take a seat here and rest a while at no expense save to your backside. Now the only seats belong to the self-styled coffee houses that line the quay side selling ridiculous froth at even more ridiculous prices. They are living proof of Say's Law that there is a buyer for every product no matter how bad. So, with the collusion of the Council, they have had the public seats removed and simply taken over this once public space and now no-one can just sit and rest a while without they pay. The result is this line of ugly glass cages, yet another mess. 

Seating Arrangement

These seats on Corporation Pier seem to have survived the purge on public seating currently underway in this town. From here you can rest and admire or loathe if you will the view I posted yesterday. Not many customers though (OK none). Perhaps not surprising since there's still a big hole in the pier. Is it really over eight  months since this damage was done? How time flies ...