Who stole Xmas?

Taken by Margot K Juby

This year it seems that Christmas on Newie Ave¹ has been cancelled, or rather the Chriggy lights have been cancelled due to lack of interest or funds or maybe the Grinch stole them. We are promised they'll be back next year and you must never break a promise to a child ... All is not lost though as there's going to be a Christmas 'event' next Wednesday when the road will be closed for the evening and there'll fairground rides and stalls and maybe Santa will pop in for a glass of sherry. Ho! Ho! Ho!

1 Newland Avenue, someone is going to have to compose a glossary of local terms for all those cultural visitors.

The C word

I suspect there may be a few sore heads this morning in Hull after the announcement that the city was to be awarded the City of Culture thingy. Never being one to shy away from pouring cold water on things it occurs to me that with one hand the Government has taken away from the city over £40 million in cuts to grants (things are so bad that the Council cannot afford to run elections next year) while with the other it (via various agencies see below) doles out a special "treat" of £12 million to be paid three years hence. The old phrase to lose a shilling and find a penny springs to mind.

Today's picture shows an overnight installation that appeared on the Adelphi Club (a place that will no doubt gain from this Culture dosh). It's meant to be a culture bomb about to explode and no doubt shower us all in the C word. Expect three more years of this c...

I like many others assumed that this money was to come from the government. Not a bit of it. In the next three years the city of culture people have to raise £12 million (or is it £15 million? the figure keeps changing) from sponsorship and national lottery money. This being the case the presence of a government minister in all this becomes even stranger.

Little Cottages

Though Cottingham has some grand old houses, built for the wealthy merchants of Hull, there are few remaining old buildings for the less well-to-do. Here's a little row of little cottages on Beck Bank soaking up the November sunshine.

I woke this morning to find that Hull had been selected as City of Culture 2017. The usual perps are strutting around saying how proud they are to come from Hull when all they've done is managed to be born and lack the gumption to leave. Oh we've got three more years of this self-serving guff before it even starts and then, well,  we'll cross that bridge later ... with £12 million about to splosh into the city I'll be keeping an eye out for the culture vultures circling in the updrafts of hot air.

Garden Grabbing

Now garden grabbing is the practice of building a house or houses in your back garden. Obviously you must have a fair sized spread for this to be even possible and it just so happens at the Cottingham end of my street the houses are blessed, if that's the word, with large gardens some the size of a small paddock. So within the past few years one garden has been 'grabbed' and now another one is on the way. Now I know there's a housing shortage and this country's idea of economic growth is a constant rise in the price of property but sticking not one but two expensive bungalows in your back garden does seems to me to be taking money grubbing to new depths. 

Still I liked the sign, I have three blacks cats in my home.

After the rain the sun ...

Today we had a cold front pass over (a portent if we are to believe certain newspapers of a cold long Winter) and with it some rain and drizzle. And then, well the setting sun broke through ...

Plane Trees

Something to thank the Victorian planners for: Cottingham Road's mile long stretch of plane trees, really quite impressive at this time of year. Is it my imagination or are the leaves on the trees falling later with every passing year?

A folly or two

I don't know if I've shown this before but it doesn't matter if I repeat myself (a sure sign of creeping old age ...). Anyhow this is or was the top cupola from the old town hall built in 1866 and knocked down to make way for the Guildhall. Clearly there was no shortage of money for public buildings in those days. It now sits among the ducks and geese of Pearson Park.

For those of you who long to see a short film about Hull  the city of culture people have produced a four and half minute encomion. You can see it here and judge for yourself. I suspect Larkin, whose words (taken from an introduction to anthology that appeared over thirty years ago) are used at the beginning, would be laughing his head off  if he could see how much pretentious tosh has been made out of his scribblings.