A skyline of sorts

This is the view from Queen's Gardens towards Savile Street. The buildings have featured before in this cheery little post. I am happy to note the abandoned shop now has occupants selling skates and related gear, I hope they took care of the doll. All the other shops remain unused. Lurking in the back is the flat dome of the empty BHS store which is hard to see from street level and can only really be appreciated from a distance, I suspect most folk are unaware of its existence.

And speaking of BHS I see no reason not to post another view of the three ships mosaic and mention again the petition to have it listed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Even the 'expert' whose advice led to the application being rejected has said he hopes it can be saved. So go sign it; you know you want to.

I'll have more about listed things in Hull tomorrow all being well.

Brook Street

This is Brook Street. It's a short cut for buses going to the station you can see in the background. There are signs saying cars should not use this route but few pay them any heed. As you can see it's a mightily uninteresting place.

Dancing in the street

Not having TV or social media folk had to make their own entertainment in the old days. In Yorkshire and North East England they came up with this, it's called rapper sword dancing. It involves five dancers, five double handed steel blades and a guy on the pipes or maybe an accordion playing a catchy rhythm. They whirl around, leap over one another and weave to and fro never leaving go of the handles and trying not to decapitate themselves as they go. The dance ends with the blades intertwined in a star-like figure which is then held aloft as if the solution to all life's problems has been found. It is profoundly pointless and that I suppose is the point as, having made the star, they start all over again, always twirling, twirling, twirling ...

These guys were part of the three day Hull Folk and Maritime Festival which this year I managed to get to see part. There was folk singing on several stages. Not really my scene. I don't mind a bit of the Irish pipes, (Planxty and so on) but modern "folk songs" make me want to reach for the mute button. But then there were lots of folk dance groups doing their thing in various spots across town. Now somehow this appealed; the often bizarre costumes, the music: all good stuff. Below is a sample. 

And last but by no means least ...

Now this being Hull the city of culture as well as all these delights the BBC Proms was being broadcast from the stage in the dock and the UK Pride festival was being held in Queen's Gardens.  I could post about them now but I think I've gone on too long as it is...

Going up fast

I last posted about the new "swanky" hotel on Ferensway back in April when it looked like this. Since then the rooms, which consist of prefabricated boxes, have been slotted in and now the exterior cladding is going up. At this rate it should be ready just in time to miss the end of the year of culture.

The Hull Daily Mail has redesigned its website and so doing seems to have made unobtainable pages from the old site. As a consequence the many links on this blog to the HDM will probably not work. I don't know why they've done this, I'll ask them what's going on but do not have high hopes.

Rosebowl Fountain one more time

I've shown this fountain several times before. I like it, that's a good enough reason for me to post it again

The weekend in black and white is here.

Flor'ull clock

If the C of C can spend a small fortune on silly Hull puns then I'm making no apologies for this. The design of this years display is, of course the logo for the culture fest that you may have seen here or here and rightly ignored. Oh look, is that the time? must dash ....

You are here

If by some misfortune you find yourself at the wrong end of Whitefriargate and feel a bit weary and lost then this helpful tourist map on the old Britannia Building Society will set you straight. It shows some of the notable landmarks and surprisingly the casino on George Street who presumably are sponsoring this thing. It occurred to me that  about 80-90% of the whole of this blog can be positioned on that small map. I must get out more.