An interesting development

Well, turn your back for a few weeks and all kinds of things can happen. The skeleton of the new C4DI building at the river mouth has gone up like an enormous Meccano set. Plans and drawings are one thing but do not convey how imposing and impressive a building this will be, nor how it complements the Deep's angular construction on the other bank. I like it, it may not be everybody's taste but, no, I think it's just fine.

It's only money

Cottingham Road, Hull

Let me see now it must be getting on for four years since some Council bods turned up and erected this erstwhile sign just down the road.Then it took a few weeks for them to get the electrics all wired in. Oh and a tree had to be trimmed back so it was visible from the road. And there it sat, a device intended no doubt to give useful information to passing travellers. Except that it didn't. It did nothing for months on end then it gave out some message reminding cyclists to take care on the roads; as if cyclists use the roads these days. Its biggest act was to warn of delays over the Olympic torch relay back in 2012. Then nothing again, until, in the middle of last year, it was just removed leaving the two supports. (I don't think it was stolen, though it is a possibility) Now all this might seem a tad uninteresting and indeed it is but consider the hours of consultations, the planning meetings, the costs of ordering the parts, installing, then the plans and discussions to remove it, then the cost of uninstalling. It must come to thousands of pounds just wasted. Then consider that this is just one item of madness among many in this small town and that the same stupidity goes on in one form or another in every town across not just this country but I'd guess in every town across the whole world ... I think I'll go back to bed.

That old insipid feeling

I sometimes wonder if there was once a competition to see who could commission the most uninspiring buildings with the winners getting to see their visions of banality in bricks and mortar at the eastern end of Alfred Gelder Street. So bleak is the architectural canvas is that any little gimmick will temporarily dazzle. Here it's the glass rotunda (if that's the correct term) and silvered cupola of the Combined Courts building poking up above the skyline. It flatters to deceive however as the rest of the building is a mish-mash of styles designed to portray the majesty of the Law and failing. 

Lightship reflection

For want of anything else to offer here's the old Spurn Lightship reflected in a solicitors window. Possibly the only thing they can't charge for...

Weekend Reflections are here.

The old oak ash nexus

Ash flowers

In the perennial race to be be first out it appears that this year, despite flowering away madly, the ash is showing no leaves while the oak is well on the way. Those who study these things for a living (now that's a job I could do!) say oaks are coming into leaf nearly two weeks earlier than they did thirty years ago and ash about week earlier. That'll be global warming, they say,  or climate change as it's now politically correct to call it. And if you're a student of racing form the last time Ash beat Oak was in 1986. Ash is also under attack from a fungus threatening to make it extinct in the UK so this may become a one-tree race in the not so distant future.

Oak

The weekend in Black and White is here.

In what used to be Woolies ...

The old  Woolwoth's store on Whitefriargate has got a new occupant, Boyes. Well it opened in September last year but I've only just round to noticing it. After Woolies went bust in '08 the store was a Peacock's shop but that didn't last too long. There didn't seem to be throngs of eager customers in the place but then Whitefriargate doesn't attract to passing trade it used to. I suppose Boyes know what they've taken on.

Can't stand the heat

I have mentioned from time to time that Hull is filling up with places to drink coffee. It seems that there is now so much competition that this outlet is due to close on Sunday. From what I gather (and bear in mind I don't drink the stuff) this firm specialises in particularly weak, insipid brews, indeed their product was so poorly received by UK customers they had to double the strength of the lattes. So for aficionados of the bean it will be no great loss and there still remains a branch in St Stephens. No doubt another coffee shop will take its place before too long.