Christmas Sucks

Oh, give me a noose I can hang from the tree

I need no excuse to end my misery

this holiday season is all the more reason to die.

Oh, pull up a stool lend an ear to a fool

who once found some solace in the season of yule

this holiday season is all the more reason to cry.

I put on my mittens, one green and one red

and I walk alone where they bury the dead

the snow falls as I grieve its a gothic death rock

christmas eve.

The bottle is empty,

the sleigh has a flat,

the stripper in my bed is ugly and fat,

her tassles are tangled and what's worse - my jingle won't jangle.

This time of the year makes me sick to my guts

all this good cheer is a pain in the nuts

when it's your career to be down in the dumps

tidings of comfort and joy really suck.

I feel like St. Nicholas is pulling my leg

this thing we call Christmas is a sorry black plague

this holiday season is....

... all the more reason to die

Peter Murphy & Tom Waits (allegedly)

Click and Collect

This appeared just down the road a few weeks ago. It's a safe for parcels to be dropped off and then you come along and collect at your convenience. With all this internet shopping and so forth I suppose it saves having to organise redelivery if you are out when the postman calls. I have to say I've not seen anyone actually use it as yet.

East Park

As I often do at this time of year I visited East Park to see if the goosanders had arrived but I didn't see any. However I have heard that there several at another park over in west Hull maybe they just fancied a change of scenery. There were still plenty of seagulls on the lookout for a free lunch.

The weekend in black and white has snooken up on us again and it's here.

A Playground in December

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

    With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

    For the rain it raineth every day.

At risk of sounding like a old codger what, I ask, is wrong with the youth of today? The first sign of a hint of chill in the air and no-one goes out to play.(Indeed does anyone go out to play in the park any more without some parent traipsing along to spoil the fun?) And what's with all that soft knee-friendly dirt surrounding those health-and-safety-approved slides and swings? Where is the broken glass, the concrete, the dog muck, the rusty squeaky Witch's hat and the vicious turntable ride that went faster and faster 'til you were flung off, dizzy and disoriented to graze your knees and the palms of your hands yet again? Ah just one more spin before it's time to go home...

Splash Boat

In 1923 the council decided to build a splash boat and spent £1400 on materials and £474 2s 5d on building the tower so that folk can enjoy, yes that is word used, enjoy the experience of dropping 22 feet into the lake's welcoming waters aboard a small boat. Seems a simple enough pleasure. It is, of course, only a Summer thing, even the hardy folk of the City of Culture draw the line at splashing into ice.

When I first came to Hull it had been out of order for years but a heritage lottery funded renovation means that it works again or rather did work again until just the other day when vandals did thousands of pounds of damage. Even being a listed building doesn't protect from the anti-social brigade.

I was sure I had posted a picture of this before and indeed I have it's here.

Silver and Green Ginger

At the corner of Silver Street and Land of Green Ginger site this imposing pile of Portland stone built in 1873. No prizes for guessing it was once a bank, the Natwest bank in fact. Since the banking crisis means banks no longer have any need for savers to put real money in, they simply get their 'cash' from the Bank of England at zero charge, they have no need of expensive branches like this so it's been sold off. I've read that an application for permission for change of use to a "restaurant" and "drinking establishment" (I like that phrase even if it's yet another trendy wine bar!) has been made. I heard today that the much vaunted trickle down effect hasn't worked, but with all the coffee bars and boozers round here I think the trickle might become a flood ...

Streets paved with gold

Trinity House Lane