Holy Mackerel

It's been a while since I posted anything piscine related to the Hull Fish Trail. To rectify that omission and as it's Friday here's part of a small shoal of mackerel lurking for a passing sprat no doubt. You can find them at the eastern end of Holy Trinity church where Lowgate turns imperceptibly into Market Place. They're carved out of sandstone and have been in the pavement and walked over by the passing throng since 1992 or thereabouts and are getting a bit worn out and easily missed.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit...

Here again , like a giant game of bar skittles, are more of the wind turbine towers  under construction over in the eastern docks. Last weekend (was it Easter weekend? I don't do religion or Bank Holidays ... anyhow it was warm and windy ...) this country burnt no coal to power the national grid for over 90 hours, coal being a big nasty smelly troll that kills future generations of pig-tailed Swedish children ... This achievement went practically unmentioned in the MSM while what can only be called a paid claque of middle class swivel eyed self-styled eco-protesters were gluing themselves to public transport and blocking off Westminster and the West End of London while the police colluded ( I almost wrote cuddled). I can report no MP was harmed in the making of this demonstration (Parliament was not sitting) though several made asses of themselves fawning over Pippi Longstocking and her doom saying utterances. The idiotic demands of these puritanical "activists" would push ordinary folk back to the stone age while they would just jet off to the next gig ... 

Meanwhile, in the real world, the world's largest off-shore wind farm quietly produced its first sparks of electricity in February all from this modest looking place in east Hull. Well done them!

Also, sans faire de bruit, I notice that Hull and Hereabouts has been going on about stuff for nine years ... what was I thinking?

On acquiring the status of an icon

Finally I arrive at the purpose of this long hike or not quite. I'd heard that demolition of the west wharf at Alexandra Dock was imminent so I thought I'd better go take a pic or two before it was too late. Looking at the map there's a public footpath right past this place however the powers that be, ABP, obviously worried that idiots (who you looking at?) might be tempted to go out and have a better view have fenced off access so this was as close as I could get. (However look you here for some views of the place)

The wharf was built in 1911 to export coal from the Yorkshire coal mines, conveyors took coal from trains to waiting ships so there was no mucking about waiting for the tide. It has been out of use for best part of sixty years or so. (Things move slowly in these parts) Though it's an interesting piece of the city's past it is perhaps, as someone once said of somewhere else, worth seeing but not worth going to see.

I suppose I must mention at this point a little local storm in a teacup that has arisen over the demolition. Many years ago, so the story goes, two  local men, somewhat the worse for wear after a night of boozing, took it upon themselves to paint some graffiti on the rusty ware house. The graffiti was no fine work of art merely a dead bird with the words "A Dead Bod" (sic) underneath. Anyhow leave something for fifty years and it'll turn into a 'well-known landmark', become 'cherished' and acquire the status of 'icon' and you try to remove it at your peril. So it has come to pass that a piece of rusting corrugated crap  is to be preserved for posterity. It's a cultural thing don'tcha know? (Read all about it here, yet more garbage here and buy the T-shirt here)

 Below is how it looked in working order in 1924( from Britain from above)

and finally the 'iconic' dead bod.

(Image Copyright Robert Mason. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, US)