This is all your fault

You know the story of King Canute (or Cnut if you wish, maybe even Knut ), he that sat by the sea shore and told the tide not to rise and was soaked for his troubles. The story as was told to me in my childhood was that Cnut (I think I prefer that) was so proud that he thought he could stop the sea but had to be given a lesson. Later I learned that the story was that Knut (prefer Cnut) wanted to show his obsequious courtiers that he was not some divine majesty and only a mere mortal so he set himself up for a foot bath. Either way, the moral of the story, to labour it for those at back of the room not listening; time and tide wait for no man or so the story goes ...

Why am I prattling like this? Well the modern Cnuts have set themselves up by the tide of Humber to raise once again the barriers to watery ingress and we can no longer pass or indeed repass along this Queen's highway as there's barriers erected and piles of what can only be called stuff heaped up on Nelson Street.

I think the plan is to extend the waterfront by a few yards and raise the tout ensemble to prevent tidal flooding to thousands of properties. There's a poster thingy to explain the plan but I think I'll wait until it's all done and the concrete set and we've had a surge tide or three before commenting.

Now I'm not one to guilt trip anyone but all this is because it is thought that sea levels will rise because you turned on your computer and read this drivel (it's all your fault didn't you know, everything is your damn fault, racism, Covid-19, inflation, deflation, ageing population (how dare you live so long?), rising birth rate, falling birth rate, STDs, white supremacy, alleged global warming, the next ice age, pedophilia and pornography, Donald Trump, face masks, unemployment, world war, famine & Brexit, pestilence, you name it ... all down to you and you alone). How could you let this happen?

Poor Sam

Poor Sam.

There he was impaled on street railings outside a tall apartment block. The spikes clear through his bloody abdomen and penetrating an eye socket in a most distressing fashion. Poor Sam had died by falling off the roof, it was clear.
Yet in Sammy's right hand a cut throat razor and on his neck several shallow cuts and one huge slice across the arteries and wind pipe. Poor Sam had cut his throat, nay nearly sliced his head off and  then fallen off the roof.
Still and all next to poor Sam's corpse a broken glass and a bottle of wine with a strong smell of almonds. And Sam, well he stank of booze. His bloods, when they were eventually done, showed he'd have died of alcohol poisoning if the cyanide hadn't gotten to him first.
At the inquest the jury heard that the safety rail on the roof was faulty and  had given way and juries, it is well known,  hate to give a verdict of suicide so poor Sam was deemed to have met a death by misadventure.
But the coroner, who, like you, had listened to all this with an increasing sense of disbelief, and who was aware of increasing numbers of similar deaths in the area and that there was a rash of sudden railing impalings (but not in Sweden where railings were padded as a precaution) wasn't having any of it so he sent poor Sam back to the pathologist, a Dr Mallard, who told to me this sad tale, at great rambling length.
This time it was  found that lodged in poor Sam's mushed up brain were the remains of a .22 slug; from the kind of gun, it is said, that is favoured by a lady.
Soon after they arrested a Miss Otis, there was gunshot residue on her velvet gown, and so they took her away to the jail but an angry mobbed lynched her and hung from an old willow tree but that is by the way.
As for poor Sam ... well there was yet a further examination and it seems that on his way down from roof to earth Sam's last breath  took in a passing  virion, which lodged in his airway and was later mopped up by a swab and taken to a lab and expanded by magic into millions of strands of virus nucleic acid. Poor Sam, unlikely as it may seem, it turned out poor Sam died of Covid19, sure he did, it says so on his  death certificate.
He lies forgotten in an unmarked but much disturbed hole, a caution against straying down Lover's Lane, watching too many detectives on TV and jumping to the wrong surmise.

"Is Everybody Happy?"

  "It's funny 'cos it's true"
                           Homer Simpson

Just look what joy Hull had to look forward to this autumn, being entertained by others' misery. This was before the dreamy happy times began and we all sat comfortably at home obeying the Fat Controller and being entertained by own wretchedness; running sweepstakes on the mounting but quite normal deaths from pneumonia, diabetes, old age and so on being twisted into something so deadly serious we simply must collapse the entire economic/politcial/civic system. I see the FC has caught the WuFlu (along with the Health Secretary, you really can't make this stuff up!)... serves the fat bastard right, should have washed his hands more though I doubt all the perfumes of Arabia would sweeten his podgy paws.

Yankee Meal

Here we are on Hessle Road the noted culinary centre of the City of Culture. To tempt your palette with some fine American fare there are pizzas of various hues, Donner kebab, Hamburger (with or without a scrumptious cheese topping) and Frankfurter ... all with French Fries to go. If all that seems just a little too American they do sell a spiced chicken dish described as "Southern Fried", must be some novel Home Counties recipe ...  

Seriously though the place has great reviews and if this is the kind of stuff you like then this is the kind of place you should try.

Mea maxima culpa

                 
                           "The Philistines were Wrong: Culture can bring a city back to life"
                                                                                       Richard Morrison, The Times

I noticed how vibrant Whitefriargate had become as I wandered down there on a rainy day last week. It was like the old times, only seen in those black and white films of smiling folk in fifties coats and suits all wearing hats trying not to look at the camera but somehow failing ... and the sun always shining. The sound of thousands of happy shoppers thronging the revitalised stores and small shops near deafened me and I had to struggle through the milling crowds as they ambled slowly along to the rattle of filling tills ... I was wrong, I thought, I lacked faith, with a little bit of imagination, Culture really can bring a city back to life.

And this, this is just fake news, I wouldn't pay it any mind.

The things you used to see

It's a shame that the old local custom of placing a large pig in your window for good luck and prosperity is no longer as commonly observed as it once was. It's been a while since I've seen an example of this and this photo dates back a good five years or so. Perhaps the city of culture will see a revival of this quaint practice.