Bonsoir old thing, cheerio! chin chin!

Two score and seven years ago our fathers dragged us into a Continent, conceived in Error, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created European...

Three years and seven months after a majority voted to leave the EU the UK is now, at 11 pm January 31st 2020,  leaving that damned institution. There will be muted celebrations I expect, this is the way things are done here not with a bang but a whimper. Still, a Brexit Party house just a few doors down is putting out the flags in a show of Union rags to put the Mall in London to shame. Now I wouldn't want you to confuse me with those sentiments. I wouldn't have that Butcher's Apron on my property. I wanted to leave the EU but I'm no mad British Bulldog patriot, je ne suis pas un rosbif! I do not feel particularly British or English (I've never, ever felt European, I don't know what it means to feel such a thing, it's an invented identity that has no history or meaning) I'm just a Hartlepool lad a long way from home ... but I digress, anyway I had no choice in the matter, ma and pa just left me here to sing my song. No. I just want this country to be responsible for its own mistakes and its own successes like any other independent state. Make our own laws, pay our own taxes, spend our taxes as we see fit, trade freely with whoever will trade with us, kick out the bastards in our Parliament every now and then and make our government humble and sore afraid of the people. Not too much to ask, I think, just some basic independence.

It might be thought appropriate here to say that I wish the EU well without us ... well no, sod 'em, if you'll pardon my French... They and their vocal friends in this country have done their best to delay, thwart and obstruct the will of the majority. They are dangerously antidemocratic. This is absolutely unforgivable and will be their downfall. They still think they have some right not to have their noses rubbed in their defeat. I sincerely hope the sensitive souls are suffering. I look to the rise of other successful Leave parties across the states that remain trapped in the humourless and historic absurdity that is the European Union. This will no doubt happen but vita summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam ... 

“The lips of the tyrants are trembling and pale, 

In dismay they are dreading the shock, 

Of the millions who, bold in the truth of their cause, 

Are as strong as the adamant rock!”

The weekend in black and white is here.

Sorry! Not in service

This is Hull: Unique. Lively. Historical. Exciting. Friendly. Colourful. Cultural. Artistic. Limitless. And Sorry! Not in service.

The other day we went for a bus home at the bus station or Hull Interchange. We had, we thought, just missed our bus but as we entered the bus station we could see our bus waiting in a massive queue of buses trying to get into (and out of) the bus station ... we had reckoned without the power of the Hull time shift which magically slows down time to match the user. So it was that our bus was some ten minutes late getting into the station and though we boarded immediately it took some twenty minutes to leave the station. The journey home though was rapid, there being no traffic on the roads by that time. The driver as we got off (or debussed as some have it) apologised for being late ... well no worries, mate and thank you driver!.

So what was the cause of this town wide disruption? ... a small accident on one road; that's all it took to feed back and gridlock the whole town for a couple of hours. This was not a one-off event it happens two, three times a week, sometimes two, three times a day.  A survey recently made the town to be the fifth worse in the country for road delays despite being nowhere near the top five in size, I think it's about twentieth. Still this being Hull no doubt someone is working to take the place to the top of the list ...

Oh and while we're on the subject of Hull and mildly silly ideas ... the town council has just written to the Government to ask it to allow it to try out a Universal Income scheme. You might not have heard, it's a scheme to give everybody Government money (£100 per week is the sum mentioned) regardless of need. Yup sounds stupid, is stupid;  which is why the idea got cross party support in Stupidville.

Cultural Compass Bearings

In town yesterday and came across this odd thing in Prince's Dock; a compass cum lighthouse. It's to do with some light show (a "stunning light show" to give the proper description) for the hoi polloi at the end of the month. Hull, or rather its pathetic town council, has a thing with light shows, almost amounting to a fetish: put up a few coloured shiny things and folk are thought (by the delusional council) to touch their forelocks in gratitude and go "gorblimey and gawd bless you, gov" and acquire a warm "cultural" glow in their hearts and appreciate how their miserable lives have been improved by a few magic photons.

I've just read some more about this courtesy of the local rag: seems it "contacts the Met Office and displays a weather omen showing what people can expect for the following hour."(I'm at a loss for words!) ... you'll want know what a Councillor responsible for this tosh had to say ... “This incredible installation from Kazimier is a great example of how art and culture can play an important role in the exciting regeneration and future of our city.” He called it "art and culture" and he's a Councillor responsible for "culture, leisure and tourism" so he must know. There am I thinking it just panem et circenses but then I lack culture and couth.

Blue skies and trees

Snuff Mill Lane

The anticyclonic gloom of the past week has been briskly blown away by a cold front, well, I say cold it's down to a comfortable 6°C so really just a tad below average for late January. Here's some trees from Snuff Mill Lane, Priory Road and thereabouts I took on my morning walk.

Priory Road

Priory Drive

Near Hotham Road North

Near Hotham Road North

Golf Links Road

Gaudy, Maudlin and Twee

On Beverley Road a woman went missing just about a year ago. Her body was found in the Humber some weeks later, a man has been charged and is awaiting trial. The is apparently the last place she was seen and so, as is the style these days, it has been appropriated for what is now a slightly gaudy, somewhat maudlin and, dare one say, twee shrine. I can't see what purpose this serves but I suppose it does little harm.

I wonder when we'll get the seat back.

More Gloom

Somewhere in all that fog is the university.



The weekend in black and white is here.

A foggy day ...

... makes a nice change from a rainy day.