You are HSBC.

Ironically this corporate BS from HSBC (stuffed with idiotic clichés from the dark days of the City of Culture) is no more than seventy yards from the branch it closed down just a couple of years ago; and it is  not even in Hull ... and it's oh so tasteful; diving off the Humber Bridge has become a way out of Hull for a few desperate folks lately.

Similar diversions from the criminal nature of HSBC are being pasted all over the country with equally emetic, gobshite being proclaimed. They are said to be too big to fail and might be too big to jail but do we really have to put up with this patronising garbage? Can we not have a little truth? Maybe something like ...

More than just the local bank ... you are the rancid stench something far, far bigger. You are the go-to guys for the drug cartels, terrorists, murderers and embezzlers. You're not an island, you conspire globally in Ponzis, rigging markets, tax evasion, fraud, foreign exchange manipulation ...you "violated every goddamn law in the book". You are HSBC.

(The "violated every goddamn law ..." quote is from Jack Blum, attorney and former Senate investigator.)

"Wenn ich Kultur höre ...

Like any town or city these days the Kulturstadt has its share of homeless and down-on-their-luck folks sheltering in doorways or under the BHS mosaic, always managing to be just out of sight under cardboard or heaps of scruffy bedding. I believe last year these people were being encouraged to volunteer for the year of fun so as not to feel excluded and "be part of the exciting stuff". Judging by my own eyes I don't think that has been too successful. 

The weekend in black and white is here.