Nautical gnome

You see some odd things in the marina from time to time ...

A developing picture

Yet another here's-how-it's coming-along image, this stitched together from about eight shots taken from the end of High Street. The second and third buildings are coming along nicely, all just tickety-pickety-boo!. 

Further good news, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that the multi-storey hotel planned for just behind where I took this is now definitely no longer going to be built; the planning consent has expired and the site is for sale. So if you want to buy about an acre of development land in the centre of the city of culture now's your chance; just watch out for the crows.

Crow Town

   Crow Town

   This is a crow town -

   there are no magpies round here.

   Solid black from beak to tailfeather.

   We don’t do your fancy

   piebald glad rags.

   We don’t talk your poncy language.

   We do your straight

   evisceration of live fledgelings

   while the mother squawks.

   No frills, no grace-notes.

   We don’t go for bright gewgaws

   or pinch girls’ earrings.

   We don’t mince about in tidings;

   when we gang up

   they call it a murder.

   We don’t bring bad luck

   or good either.

   Nobody bows and sucks up to us.

   Nobody jabbers silly rhymes.

   This is a crow town

   where crows live and do crow things.

   We want no magpies round here.

                             Margot K Juby

Today being the first of the month the theme for City Daily Photo is 'Where I belong'. Hah! Well I live in or near Hull but certainly have no sense of belonging here, so, well anyway crows are nice ... 

Margot's poem appeared in Old City, New Rumours - Edited by Ian Gregson and Carol Rubens which came out last year; and a strange thing it is too, an anthology celebrating an earlier anthology, wherever will it end this ‘most poetic city in England’. Click on that link to read Margot's review of this collection if you've nowt better to do.

Non-fluttering Non-dancing

It's that time of year when I usually post some harbinger of Spring, snowdrops or pussy willow or whatever. This year it's the little daffodils that the Council or somebody has planted under local street signs. As we've not really had any Winter to speak of (again) maybe the coming month will bring us something colder. As the old saying goes "February builds bridges, and March breaks them".

Carry on up the Khyber Pass

Details, details ... This little putto romping around with a sickle is according everything I can find an allegory of plenty or of Summer; take your pick. (I'm guessing that there are more similar putti in this series representing the other seasons but we only have the one that I know of.) It is situated in East Park's Khyber Pass where a bright stainless steel plaque close by informs us that "This "Folly" was originally the site of a copy of an Arab doorway from Zanzibar, used at the entrance to the East African Pavilion at the British Empire Exhibition held in 1928, and later erected in East Park in 1930." Which is all fine except the the British Empire Exhibition was held in 1924 but that's a mere detail compared to the claim that the folly was actually built in 1885-88 to commemorate the 'capture' (I use the word loosely) of the Khyber Pass by the British Army in the second Afghan War (see here for example). Now I have written in the past that the folly was built from bits of the old Tudor garrison that stood at the mouth of the river Hull. So what's going on? Well I think there's a pinch of truth in all these tales. Certainly a turret from the garrison was part of the folly but was moved to Victoria dock. The original Victorian folly must have been added to in the late 1920's as there was an Arab doorway in the past which has gone who knows where?

Anyhow here's what that East African Pavilion looked like back in 1924 in Wembley when the sun did not set on the British Folly, sorry Empire.

And here's the informative plaque

Ooopsy by Hull City Council

The weekend in black and white is here.

Broken window policy

Jarratt Street, Hull

I don't know how long this quaint window sign has been here but clearly somebody got sick and tired of it ... Seems to be a thing in this place, random window breaking that is. A few years ago I had windows broken on multiple occasions, by what could only be described as uneducated subhuman scum, when I lived close by the town centre, they would just pass by, pick up a brick and chuck ... who would want to live in such a place and with such 'people'?

I must have told you about ...

You all remember the kiddies' water play area I showed, ooh ages ago. The one that shuts in Autumn? Yeah that's the one. Did I ever tell you about the clever guy who designed the sanitation units you see in the background so that they could (and did) leak sewage into the water that Hull's kiddies were merrily splashing about in? The human waste was then added to by generous contributions from the local bird life that abounds in the canopies of the trees, this is all news to you? Surely I must have told you how dozens were affected by Cryptosporidia? No? I didn't mention the thousands of pounds of compo the Council have had to pay out? Gosh I can't think why I haven't; I must be getting old and forgetful. Oh before I forget even more; the place is now shut down permanently and only the geese and crows play there now. Now, I know for sure I've told you how crap the Council is, haven't I?