When I paint my masterpiece

But someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint that masterpiece.

                                                                                             Bob Dylan

In clearing the site to make resting room for tired automobiles they finally tore down the tired weathered old boards that had lined the perimeter for as long as I can recall. This fencing was home to a mural of Mandela and more recently this little collection by the guy who styles himself as Preg ( I almost wrote prig can't think why ...) appeared.

These were on the High Street side of the site. The river side attracted a somewhat less figurative scrawler.

... and finally a simple message is often more effective. All gone now and not missed at all.

Billboard

This site that was to have had an eighteen or twenty-two storey hotel on it at one time, the plan described so accurately by a councillor as looking like a packet of cigarettes, has been cleared and rolled flat to be a car park. You wanna see the other side of this, I know you do ... here then in glorious technicolour.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Chutzpah and a bit more

Chutzpah, I think that's the word to describe taking your money then giving you some of it back and saying that it's being spent for your own good. No doubt there will still be recalcitrant remain minders, keepers of the dying flame (meeting in darkened rooms and secretly drinking to the bureaucratic kings over the water) who will point to this, wag the compulsory finger at us and say "look what you will be missing" come October 31st, Big Boris Day, le grand jour de départ (should it ever happen). But the EU simply gives us back some of our own money and, what's more, tells us how to spend it ... why any self-respecting people would put up with this crap I cannot imagine ... plus it's proposed new leaders (like the old lot before them) are  unelected, unaccountable failed despicable politicians and crooks. 

But ... taking your money and spending on projects that are supposed to be for your benefit is the nature of all government, I suppose. So you'll see a wee sign for "Northern Powerhouse". This is a quango more spoken of than existing in actuality. It seems to have mythic qualities in that it will regenerate the whole north of England without being a real entity. By merely repeating it three times it comes into being and renovates those parts that generations of neglect and disinvestment have ruined.

The Humberside Local Enterprise Partnership, another quango,  was recently criticised for failing to deliver any jobs boost despite receiving millions of central government (ie taxpayers') money.

Hull City Council we have met many times over the years; it is led by simple folk with simple ideas, as in simply ridiculous ideas. One of the latest is to take over empty shops in Whitefriargate and give them to young entrepreneurs to start up businesses. This is so self-evidently bonkers it could only come from folk with no business sense: so, off the top of my head, for example, what about the existing shops that will have to compete with non-rent paying businesses? Hardly fair, is it? I'm sure the EU would have something to say about it (see, I can do irony ...) But then fairness is not something HCC is noted for. So then let us ask who gets the money, why it'll be the greedy landlords who would otherwise be sitting on empty units demanding too high rents for the market until the simpletons of HCC come along with an open cheque book and an account filled with taxpayers' money ... the party of labour subsidising the landlords is an irony seemingly too rich for the simple folk of city hall ... and why help only young entrepreneurs? why can't grey bearded loons drink at the deep well of municipal benefice? 

Time limitations and good manners preclude me from expanding on the Environment Agency ... and Bmmjv are the recipients of all our money in case you wondered where it all went.

You don't need a weatherman...

I came across this weather vane the other day; it's on top of the old dock offices on High Street. It's new to me but looks as though it could have been there for years in which case how did I miss it when I posted the building a few years back. This little ship must be one of the few that can sail close to the wind without coming about and all that tacking nonsense beloved of nautical folk. (I admit I get all my sailing jargon from a childhood spent reading Swallows and Amazons ... 'Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown.' is still the soundest piece of dereliction of paternal  responsibility I've come across).

"This is summer, you have to make an effort ..."

After the excitement of the Lord Mayor's Hanse Day I was at a loss for something to do and to make things even more interesting it started to rain, heavily. Now a little rain never harmed anyone and a temperature like today's of 11C (I'm wearing two jumpers to keep warm!) is not going to cause any impediment to enjoying the delights this fair city has to offer ... as I was told as a child "You can't put the heating on. This is summer, you have to make an effort!". So I took my own advice on what to do in Hull on a rainy day and shuffled on over to the Streetlife Transport Museum to see what, if anything, had changed since I last visited some seven years ago. The short answer is nothing has changed at all as far as I could tell. Rebuilt railway signalman's hut still there? Check. Red bus with guy still hanging out of window? Check. Blue bus still going to West Dock Avenue? Check. Biplane still swooping low over a typical Hull Street scene as they did so often back in the day? Check, check and checkedy check for all the other things ...
So while Pluvius did his thing outside I had a quick shifty round and took a few piccies, then I put on my old green bucket hat, zipped up my coat and made my way home. You can have too much fun in a museum so best to limit yourself  or so I convinced myself ... oh and in future if it's rainy and cold in Hull I'm just going to go home and have a nice cup of tea while summer pulls itself together.

Looking at this façade I realised it looked familiar, it's a copy of the entrance to Hepworth's Arcade on Lowgate ...

From Tuesday to Saturday

Right, we are on our way from Tuesday Market Place to Saturday Market Place via High Street. High Street is a medieval thoroughfare, a little over a quarter mile in length, packed with shops and adjacent to the Vancouver shopping centre. Although the picture doesn't show it the whole area was very busy with folk doing their shopping and/or having a good old gossip. The place looks pretty much as when I first saw it in the late 70s. OK Woolworth's has gone and Timothy White's is now Boots but Burton's is still there and the large selection of shops is just as I remember it. I noticed only two or three closed shops, one of them was a fire damaged charity shop. The comparison with Whitefriargate in Hull a similar street which was once the vibrant go-to place in town but is now effectively dead could not be more striking, but let us not dwell ...

I think I found the only broken lamp on High Street.

Some pagan winter festival is about to be celebrated ...

Another of Mr Burton's art deco style shops that grace many a high street up and down the land.

Street names change over the years. Briggate (Bridge Street in modern parlance) sounds better to me but it's not my town so I don't get no say.

Going right round the houses

The cars down below were aiming to get on the road up above and had to go the scenic route right through old town; but thanks to these traffic lights they were crawling along at less than walking speed. I hope they enjoyed the culture while they were waiting. This was the scene yesterday and I hear there is another gridlock in town right now but that's just normal for a Friday.

Stretching things

There's really nothing new in this picture, the mural you've seen before, the bridge and the flood defence ditto; even the pigeon has probably popped up in a few postings. The site behind the mural which was going to be a twenty storey cigarette box or hotel has been sold to an unknown buyer, that is to say unknown to me. This is a panorama shot stitched together then squeezed in sideways and stretched in height just to give a strange view of a really flat scene. You don't have to like it.

I'm feeling a little wrung out and stretched as well as this household is getting over a wretched weekend of vomiting and diarrhoea caused by some virus, bug or other microbeastie whose vile little existence is either proof of ongoing evolution and adaptation or God's mysterious and divine plan. Sucks either way.

2 High Sttreet

I don't why it has two doors maybe the first wasn't wide enough. Anyhow not so very long ago this place looked like this; so it's scrubbed up nicely hasn't it.

Hanse Day

Hull likes to have a little party every now and again in and around High Street celebrating its past whether Georgian or in this case its links with the Hanseatic League back in the middle ages. Whatever is celebrated the result is folk dressing up in period costumes and lots of stalls selling mediaeval pancakes and so on. The guy above was telling a story, a fairy story about a girl spinning straw into gold who marries a king but who must guess the name of the imp who helped her else he'll take her first born child away....but you know how it is some people just can't keep their big mouths shut: "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll go to the king's house, nobody knows my name, I'm called 'Rumpelstiltskin'" (and yes, we all what that means, thank you)

He was good at telling his tale but I guess the kiddies already knew the ending; they looked terribly bored ...

The apothecary's hat kept coming off in the wind.

A small replica of a trading boat.

Some Hanseatic high fashion.

Red and Blue

This is an old trader's warehouse on High Street that was converted for use as a restaurant some time back. Quite why it's not being used at this moment I don't know, perhaps the neighbours didn't like the colour scheme...

A developing picture

Yet another here's-how-it's coming-along image, this stitched together from about eight shots taken from the end of High Street. The second and third buildings are coming along nicely, all just tickety-pickety-boo!. 

Further good news, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that the multi-storey hotel planned for just behind where I took this is now definitely no longer going to be built; the planning consent has expired and the site is for sale. So if you want to buy about an acre of development land in the centre of the city of culture now's your chance; just watch out for the crows.

In the pink

To mark the Hull Freedom Festival  Ye olde black boy  on High Street has been painted pink (temporarily, I hasten to add, it's a listed building and so on and so forth....) Further the question "Does Kolour (sic) Matter?" has been asked. I leave that up to you. I draw your attention to the handsome window boxes, always a  favourite in these parts.

Long Walk to Freedom

It's been a while since I had walked down the lower end of High Street which I have shown before to have an empty plot awaiting the construction of an umpteen storey hotel. The site had a dismal security fence with the usual warnings for those who would misbehave. So it was something of a pleasant surprise to come across this colourful mural to Nelson Mandela which apparently went up last September. Don't know how I've missed this 'til now. 

Finally credit where credit is due. This was commissioned by Full Flava Arts along with Roots and Wings and Freedom Festival Ltd and it's the work of twelve graffiti artists. You can view the creation of the mural and get a much fuller view than I present here by going to this page.

"We all go a little mad sometimes....Haven't you?"

I wonder if they have a fruit cellar ...

Dancing in the street

As I walked down High Street on Saturday I came across this group in Georgian costume and thought little of it (it was that kind of day, there was a jester and a monk by the church earlier) until after I visited Maister House when I heard music and they were all lined up ready for an 18^th century hop. Naturally I filmed it for posterity.

After this the crowd was to be regaled with the weary womanly woes of a whaler's wife. Too much for me so I left.

Maister House again

I posted about Maister House  sometime last year, well I finally had a look inside on Saturday. The main attraction is the staircase and upper balcony with its neat geometrical arrangement. There was a limitation on the numbers who could stand on the balcony, six at any one time, and a bit of a queue waiting for the privilege so I didn't wait around. The house is a National Trust property and you can have a look round most days if you care to. The pictures give the impression of Stygian gloom, it's was fairly dark but not as black as that.

The ceilings are richly decorated but not very well lit, so my little camera had a few problems picking out any details.

I think this sign means keep out ...

... it's also the sign I ignored to take the day before yesterday's picture. How does that old song go? ... ah yes:

"As I went walking I saw a sign there 

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." 

But on the other side it didn't say nothing, 

That side was made for you and me."

The precious patch of land protected by this fine sign is Alexandria Wharf off High Street near, in fact behind, Blaydes House. It's just a patch of cleared land, (once a riverside warehouse, I believe, that burned down some time back, it wasn't me, guv, honest) in the centre of the city so unsurprisingly it's up for sale with permission to build 33 apartments. Just as well I nipped in before the builders took over; Hull is just a frenzy of building activity at the moment. OK that last part of that sentence may not be exactly true.