One of ten

I was on my way to the doctors surgery (nothing serious, just some paper work) yesterday when I spotted this new addition to the University. Naturally I didn't have a camera but Margot had fortunately brought along the old Fuji. Then I remembered reading about some ten statues being added to the campus all by Icelandic sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdottir she of the leaning figure Voyage down by the river (1 2 3 4 and 5). So I made a mental note to pop back and seek out the others at a later date. If you can't wait the local rag has kindly made a short film (with obligatory irritating music) about them here if nothing else it shows you the University campus in all its glory ...

Big Blue Beastie

It seems Dope Burger have got a bigger van and it's hungry. Colourful though it may be it's parked on a double yellow on Anlaby Road during the rush hour and that's just wrong on so many levels.

I took this as well from the same place so why not post it ...

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

...In Rangoon the heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun ...

I write this as snow and hail are gently falling like a flensing knife on bare flesh to the merry accompaniment of thunder and lightning. It must therefore be April and springtime.

This crazy muttkin took a fancy to me and jumped in my bag some time so long ago in the warm hazy days of winter.

Comin soo

They are building lots of hotels (at least two) in the C of C to meet demand; seems you couldn't get a bed in the whole of Hull last weekend. I'm sure this one will be much better than I'm making it out to be ... or maybe not.

Hurrah for Bluebells and Kopparberg!

To celebrate St George, the patron saint of England, Englishness and all that goes with it, what could be more fitting, I thought, than some nice Spanish bluebells and an empty bottle of Swedish cider (mixed fruit, of course!) ... there are always those who see this day as a chance to sit in the pub and drink ale, how very un-English!

Margot took the bluebell photo; she has a knack for finding litter lying around, well she found me....

Questions, questions

By the harbour side and no doubt as part of some tourist trail or other these two figures appear demanding answers. I'll start with the guy in the Arab head dress, T E Lawrence (of Arabia). It seems that after ruining the Middle East in WW1 he served in the RAF near Bridlington supervising the armour plating of power boats for target practice. I guess he was tired of all the heat and the camels. The other guy, well, that is Captain John Paul Jones of the Continental Navy. During what would nowadays be called 'hard Amexit' or some such aka the American War of Independence he took a small fleet across the pond and proceeded to cause a bit of mayhem in British waters. The Battle of Flamborough Head of 1779 rarely gets a mention these days especially now that the UK and US have a 'special relationship' and more especially since the British Royal Navy lost to a bunch of colonials so least said soonest mended.

A tale of two towers

I'm keeping out of the city of culture for a few days; they have taken to dancing in an old graveyard while stuffing their faces all the name of culture and it's not a pretty sight. So I return to Bridlington Priory and its two odd towers. It's looks on the face of it like it's the real deal; an old Gothic building with a perpendicular tower. Well partly. The church as it stands is the vestige of Bridlington monastery which would have looked a bit like this in the early 16th century. As you all know if you were still awake in history classes the monasteries in England were dissolved by HenryVIII. Now the Prior of this place decided to take part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in Yorkshire against Henry VIII which did not end well. The monastery quickly lost all its valuables and gradually fell into disrepair until only the nave remained standing and that in no good condition.  The pictures below show it in 1786 and 1842. Note there are no towers by the front entrance. So enter our old friend and saviour of fallen churches Sir Gilbert Scott and his passion for the Gothic revival and up rises one perpendicular Gothic tower in the 1870's and one stump of a tower as a permanent reminder not to trust planners ...

The rear view, those buttresses are all Victorian.

I came across this helpful little site on my travels