Bonsoir old thing, cheerio! chin chin!

Two score and seven years ago our fathers dragged us into a Continent, conceived in Error, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created European...

Three years and seven months after a majority voted to leave the EU the UK is now, at 11 pm January 31st 2020,  leaving that damned institution. There will be muted celebrations I expect, this is the way things are done here not with a bang but a whimper. Still, a Brexit Party house just a few doors down is putting out the flags in a show of Union rags to put the Mall in London to shame. Now I wouldn't want you to confuse me with those sentiments. I wouldn't have that Butcher's Apron on my property. I wanted to leave the EU but I'm no mad British Bulldog patriot, je ne suis pas un rosbif! I do not feel particularly British or English (I've never, ever felt European, I don't know what it means to feel such a thing, it's an invented identity that has no history or meaning) I'm just a Hartlepool lad a long way from home ... but I digress, anyway I had no choice in the matter, ma and pa just left me here to sing my song. No. I just want this country to be responsible for its own mistakes and its own successes like any other independent state. Make our own laws, pay our own taxes, spend our taxes as we see fit, trade freely with whoever will trade with us, kick out the bastards in our Parliament every now and then and make our government humble and sore afraid of the people. Not too much to ask, I think, just some basic independence.

It might be thought appropriate here to say that I wish the EU well without us ... well no, sod 'em, if you'll pardon my French... They and their vocal friends in this country have done their best to delay, thwart and obstruct the will of the majority. They are dangerously antidemocratic. This is absolutely unforgivable and will be their downfall. They still think they have some right not to have their noses rubbed in their defeat. I sincerely hope the sensitive souls are suffering. I look to the rise of other successful Leave parties across the states that remain trapped in the humourless and historic absurdity that is the European Union. This will no doubt happen but vita summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam ... 

“The lips of the tyrants are trembling and pale, 

In dismay they are dreading the shock, 

Of the millions who, bold in the truth of their cause, 

Are as strong as the adamant rock!”

The weekend in black and white is here.

Sorry! Not in service

This is Hull: Unique. Lively. Historical. Exciting. Friendly. Colourful. Cultural. Artistic. Limitless. And Sorry! Not in service.

The other day we went for a bus home at the bus station or Hull Interchange. We had, we thought, just missed our bus but as we entered the bus station we could see our bus waiting in a massive queue of buses trying to get into (and out of) the bus station ... we had reckoned without the power of the Hull time shift which magically slows down time to match the user. So it was that our bus was some ten minutes late getting into the station and though we boarded immediately it took some twenty minutes to leave the station. The journey home though was rapid, there being no traffic on the roads by that time. The driver as we got off (or debussed as some have it) apologised for being late ... well no worries, mate and thank you driver!.

So what was the cause of this town wide disruption? ... a small accident on one road; that's all it took to feed back and gridlock the whole town for a couple of hours. This was not a one-off event it happens two, three times a week, sometimes two, three times a day.  A survey recently made the town to be the fifth worse in the country for road delays despite being nowhere near the top five in size, I think it's about twentieth. Still this being Hull no doubt someone is working to take the place to the top of the list ...

Oh and while we're on the subject of Hull and mildly silly ideas ... the town council has just written to the Government to ask it to allow it to try out a Universal Income scheme. You might not have heard, it's a scheme to give everybody Government money (£100 per week is the sum mentioned) regardless of need. Yup sounds stupid, is stupid;  which is why the idea got cross party support in Stupidville.

Cultural Compass Bearings

In town yesterday and came across this odd thing in Prince's Dock; a compass cum lighthouse. It's to do with some light show (a "stunning light show" to give the proper description) for the hoi polloi at the end of the month. Hull, or rather its pathetic town council, has a thing with light shows, almost amounting to a fetish: put up a few coloured shiny things and folk are thought (by the delusional council) to touch their forelocks in gratitude and go "gorblimey and gawd bless you, gov" and acquire a warm "cultural" glow in their hearts and appreciate how their miserable lives have been improved by a few magic photons.

I've just read some more about this courtesy of the local rag: seems it "contacts the Met Office and displays a weather omen showing what people can expect for the following hour."(I'm at a loss for words!) ... you'll want know what a Councillor responsible for this tosh had to say ... “This incredible installation from Kazimier is a great example of how art and culture can play an important role in the exciting regeneration and future of our city.” He called it "art and culture" and he's a Councillor responsible for "culture, leisure and tourism" so he must know. There am I thinking it just panem et circenses but then I lack culture and couth.

Blue skies and trees

Snuff Mill Lane

The anticyclonic gloom of the past week has been briskly blown away by a cold front, well, I say cold it's down to a comfortable 6°C so really just a tad below average for late January. Here's some trees from Snuff Mill Lane, Priory Road and thereabouts I took on my morning walk.

Priory Road

Priory Drive

Near Hotham Road North

Near Hotham Road North

Golf Links Road

A foggy day ...

... makes a nice change from a rainy day.

The Old Myth ...

... that we're all in the same boat.

These decorated containers were outside Dock House on St Peter Street close to Drypool Bridge. It's a shelter or hostel for homeless people. This was in June last year so they may not still be there as I read that the homeless shelter was having to move ... it sits on land earmarked for housing.

Newfangled gadget

Being a very late adopter of technology I've just got myself an iPhone and have been playing with its camera. I find it a bit of a strange beast giving hit and miss results. I'm used to peering through an eyepiece, holding the camera in both hands and pressing a shutter button and not used to having to put on my spectacles and concentrate on a screen and dabbing ever so gently at a white button ... feels all wrong but I suppose I'll get used to it. These of Princes Quay shops and the Maritime Museum were the best of a blurry bunch.

The fountains in Queen Victoria Square seem to be a magnet for odd behaviour with screaming kiddies running in and out trying not to get wet (here's a hint: don't go near and you won't get wet). Some however think it a fine sport to deliberately get as soaked as possible and then complain that they're wet ... youth of today are simply beyond help.

Kaleidoscopic vacuity

Here from the height of last year's summer is the terminally dull and unoriginal mural that appeared on a gable end on Spring Bank. There are, in the wind, plans to turn this Victorian thoroughfare, a place of many cultures from the Middle East to eastern European, a place that has a vibrancy all of its own, not all together legal, not all together understood by those powers that want to be; in short a place that may not be to everyone's taste but certainly does not need any interfering busybody coming in to "improve" things... to turn this into a pitiful, pastiche of Tobermory or that unique neighbourhood in Bristol with painted houses. Yes, as you might have guessed, there is public money in the form of arts grants washing about and that means people will have the c(lapt)rap, sorry Art, thrust upon them volens nolens by talentless, parasitic oiks who, seemingly, could not get gainful employment other than through the public purse. It is called a community art project, but communities do not make art, communities make sewage and litter and children that need educating and patients in hospitals and so on but never art. Artists make art and on this street artists leave few traces.

I believe this is a spin off of the City of Culture, a so-called 'legacy event' ... a legacy of peeling fading paint and second grade 1960s art school doodles with vacuous, archaic, pseudo-socialist, concepts such as Unity. Unity of what? With what? For what? Pshaw! Unity, that fabled imaginary strength of the multitudinous and disparate working classes, is much like God and religion; what little there was of it died and fell apart a long time ago and is not much missed.

... and carry a big stick.

As if having authority from the almighty weren't enough church authority by the middle ages had sought a more temporal power to keep the great unwashed in order and to organise the day-to-day business of hatching, matching and dispatching the god fearing (and, no doubt, feared by god) populace. To that end arose the position of virger or verger and obviously such a position requires a staff of office, the virge, basically a big stick quite possibly used to clout the unruly in to behaving themselves. Here's Holy Trinity's verger with his ornate magic wand with the triple crowns of Kingston-upon-Hull ... 

It's all really quite silly, this quasi pagan vesting authority into a stick (God's rod; the phallic imagery is clear, is it not or is that just me?) but then you see it popping up all over place not least in our Parliament and town councils with their fancy maces which have to be present before any business can be carried out. Parliament even has its own verger, Black Rod, by royal appointment. All utterly ridiculous or verging on it.

Sad soft fries

More of an update on the old Co-op/BHS mural. In early October the council announced that the whole lot was to be demolished, too much asbestos, too tricky to remove, too expensive, too dangerous, too, too, just too much everything...  You get the picture. Then later in the next month and a bit like the cavalry arriving in the last reel of an old-time movie, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (quite a mouthful that) declared that the mosaic had Grade 2 listed protection as it has "special architectural and historic interest". This does not save the mural by itself. I think what this means is that the council now has to apply for special permission to knock the thing down and many a Grade 2 has been lost over the years. This late intervention, however, puts the game into extra time as they say ...

Finally and on a silly note I came upon a site that writes 'haikus' that depend on your GPS location or where ever you happen to want it to be. They're  actually just three line random bits of junk since a haiku must have 5,7,5 syllables, but still it managed to 'know' about the Co-op mural in some strange way that makes the internet a pleasing nightmare.

Faites vos jeux

You recall, well of course you don't, I'm just being polite, the old Clarence Mill and its slow, painfully slow demolition. Well the place where it stood is surrounded by a board fence and, as is the style these days, that has become the canvas for any Thomas, Richard and Henrietta to come along with a can of paint and decorate the neighbourhood. Originality or even talent are not needed just a wilful desire to spray any old rubbish around the place and call it "self-expression". It's really just a mess.

My old post reminds me that there were grand plans for a hotel with a casino ...  I have no idea what's in store for the place now, I guess the wheel's still in spin.

Improvements

It seems that 1970s browned glass windows (some call it 'gold' but some is fools) that give photographers such nice reflections are somewhat passé and doomed to the poubelles de l'histoire. So I mentioned the windows on High Street a while back (in passing I'll mentioned that the company involved with that has just gone into liquidation ...) and now plans have been made to change the windows on Europa House on Ferensway to bring them up to date or whatever the excuse is. Still given that the place has never been fully used since 1975 and was sold recently for less than the price of a good new car (£12,000 was the price since you ask) a change might be a good idea. 

You want to know what it might look like? OK here's the picture from the local paper, just don't tell anyone I borrowed it.

I have to say I think this is an improvement ... it's brighter, lighter and there'll still be some reflections.

The pedagogical industrial complex

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.    Friedrich Nietzsche

That light blue K (the Special K?) is a common sight in these parts as pupils (let us use the proper term, pupils are forced to go to school to learn, students go to university or college to study, in theory) seem to be obliged to wear a uniform with a distinctive if somewhat dull K-badge upon it. Freddy Nietzsche's comment about being mediocre applies to Kelvin Hall school as it is rated  "average" in the Government's school performance results.

Kelvin Hall takes the young impressionable souls from the age of 11 and spits them out at the age of 16. At that point you might think a person would be free to go do what they like: eleven years of state education and you'd be set up for whatever the world could throw at you. Well you might think that and I couldn't comment but in England you'd be breaking the law. For in England's green and pleasant you have to (now let me quote this right for I find it a bit unbelievable) "do one of the following until you’re 18:

• stay in full-time education, for example at a college
• start an apprenticeship or traineeship
• spend 20 hours or more a week working or volunteering, while in part-time education or training"

Note if you live in Wales, Scotland or beautiful Northern Ireland you can go run in the fields or whatever at 16 but in England you must not, ever be a NEETS (that's Not in Education, Employment, or Training, in case you were wondering).  

So then you might, at 16, and I think you'd be wise so to do, you might choose to go to Wyke 6th form college which is conveniently next door to alma mater to study for your A levels or your BTechs or whatever collection of letters they are using these days. Wyke college, from what I gather is a bright spot of learning (I guess you've got to want to be there and so want to study) and boasts really good exam results. I won't be  a  grudge and say that exams are easier these days, I passed mine forty five or more years ago and things change and there were fewer, far fewer staying on after 16 back then and hardly anybody went on to University despite full grants and free tuition. I'm just going to put it down to having smaller kitchens, I guess.

...

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. Mark Twain

Until a few years ago schools in Hull, as in most places, were run by the local authority. Hull City Council, in my own personal experience, is not fit to pick up the litter off the streets let alone be entrusted with the education of its young people. Hull's education record as perennially bottom-of-the-league was scandalous. Recently most schools have become "academies", that is not-for-profit charities funded directly by central government and independent of the local authority. This supposedly gives freedom of curriculum and allows for more tailored practices and hopefully an improvement in education standards (well they couldn't get any worse).

Repairing

In much the same way that out-of-works actors are not "out-of-work" but "resting" this shop is not "vacant" but "repairing". This photo was taken some while ago (it has lingered in the draft folder for years) and I believe the shop has been "repaired" and reopened, it may well have closed for repairs again such is the style these days.
I read a piece in the Times the other day about how a town in Scotland, Paisley, had dealt with its empty shops by converting them into flats and accommodation and had somehow revitalised its town centre from the scourge of retail desertion. The major retailers aren't going to be coming back ever so why not? Hull City Council however continues to double down with plans for even more retail space on the soon to be demolished BHS site. Maybe they don't get the Times in the Guildhall.

Among the leaves so green, O

I could tell you this road is named after John Wymersley who in the early 16th century ran the well nigh bankrupt Haltemprice Priory close by and came into conflict with Hull City Council as then was in the guise of the Sheriff of Hull who ran neighbouring villages. The dispute I read came to a "battle or skirmish" in 1516 ... I could but Wikipedia has it all written down so neatly that it would waste my time so I'll just copy it here ...

"the Prior claimed that though the priory was within the Shire of Hull it was not part of it, and was within the Lordship of Cottingham, and had taken the issue to the Star Chamber; the case was referred to the Abbott of Meaux; Bryan Palmes; and Sir William Constable who had decided in the Prior's favour. Despite this decision on 6 October the Sheriff of Hull together with 200 people of the town began to approach Wolfreton; the Prior, who had been informed of the Sheriff's intentions roused his tenants, and armed the monks of the Priory, who then blocked the roads, and hurled abuse on the Sheriff and his people. The Sheriff's party returned the insults in turn using foul language. Subsequently, the altercation came to blows and a quarrel with arrows ensued. The battle continued until the monks, many being old or fat, gave way, and fled to their priory, followed by the Sheriff's group. The situation was prevented from becoming more inflamed by the arrival of the Lord Mayor of Hull, who having learned of what was happening hastened to the scene with 60 horsemen. Subsequently, the Prior sought redress in the Star Chamber, with the Sheriff accused of riot and other crimes – the legal proceedings continued for three years at much expense, leading to the settlement that the Prior was given Willerby and Newton within his authority, whilst Hull obtained free right to the fresh water springs of Anlaby"

...

Ah that was so far in the past and they don't do stuff like that these days except ... well my own little patch of this green and pleasant isle is in Cottingham but Hull City Council claims it owns the road outside my house and is trying to tell me how to keep my hedge in trim. We've been through the hurling abuse at the Sheriff's men stage and I have my complaint before the Star Chamber as I write ... all I need now is 60 horsemen since old and fat monks are pretty useless and scarce on the ground these days. 

To finish I thought I'd include this little video of a song which has been earworm of mine lately. The song goes on and on but this is a short and sweet version and, much like this post, quite mad.

The Money Pit

At some point after the stinking little port of Hull was granted the right to exist those who lived in the ancient town of Beverley grew tired of having to sail/row slowly down the twisting, meandering mud stream that was (and remains) the river Hull and decided they needed a road to get to the place that was going to take away their trade and their preeminence as a leading town in England. And so the Hull Road came about, straight as can be through the hamlets of Woodmansey, Dunswell and on through the largest village in England Cottingham across the swampy mires of Wyke until running into the Beverley Gate and the delights of what is now Whitefriargate. Down this road came King Charles I and his mates looking for a bed for the night before being told to go sling his hook. Later on to maintain the road, toll booths were put in place on the Beverley-Hull turnpike.

But times changed, the stinking little port grew and grew and became the stinking big town spreading ever outwards and reaching up and swallowing large chunks of Cottingham (its appetite is still not sated and it would swallow the whole and other villages besides if it had its druthers)  and the road is no longer Hull Road but Beverley Road and despite its historical significance no kings would come down here if they'd any sense.
The stretch of Beverley Road running from the town centre up to Cottingham Road is, now how shall I put this without appearing too blunt, a dump. In the thirty eight years I've been here it has always been a dump, a grey depressing dump. Behind it old slum housing with attendant social problems has been cleared and replaced by new slum, sorry social, housing with attendant social problems but the late Georgian/Victorian buildings put up by the expansion of the mid 19th century remain on the road itself. The condition of these buildings varies from maintained to totally neglected as in bombed out by the Germans and still not demolished nearly eighty years later, another building had all its internal walls  taken out (don't ask why) and is in danger of collapse. To add to its woes the area has somehow become a Conservation Area, so nothing can be done without jumping through the extra hoops of planning permission and cost. None of which would matter much if this wasn't one the main roads into the town, a gateway to use Council planning parlance, and it's hardly a delight but in its defense I would say that other roads into the town also produce the urge to turn around, leave and never come back. I know other cities have similar dreary roads, I recall Liverpool's long and winding roads even after more than forty years,  but that is their problem.

Now this has not gone unnoticed by those who claim to run the place. It has been spotted that the place has had economic decline in recent years (recent years? how recent is well over half a century of decline?). The cash strapped Council fresh from putting millions of pounds of paving in parts of the empty town centre put in for some cash from whatever source has the stuff and managed to bag a couple of million to do up the place. They have a plan, and (God help us all) the plan has a name: the Townscape Heritage Scheme. Well they've had this plan for a few years now but nothing visible has shown itself. The plan is to give grants for part of the cost of renovating buildings, put in new railings and boundary walls, remove a few street signs, install heritage lighting and no doubt polish the dog turds on the pavement and so on. I'm sure none of this will do any harm but honestly it's a drop in the vast ocean. And as any fool knows a couple of million can soon be eaten up in a council plan, especially as extra staffing will be needed to get the plan off the ground (ça va sans dire!), and approving the grants is "proving slower than anyone anticipated" (of course it is, this is Parkinson's Law in action). Clearly there is little reason why a private individual would sink good money into this place and even with grants it's becoming difficult to get any progress. So why waste any more public money? Simply knock the crumbly edifices down (it wouldn't take much; one simply fell down just the other year!), scrub it clean and start again with acres of prime development land or greenery if you wish right in the heart of town ... and as this will take an absolute age to do you could invite the king to come have a look.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The Feel Good Legacy

You can if you like just look at the picture of the pretty lights on Ferensway and move on. I'm going to prattle on about the City of Culture and stuff like that so if that bores you terminally press on to better things ...

Just the other day there were reports on local TV and in the local paper of the final evaluation report by the University of Hull on the year 2017 and the City of Culture and what , if any, its long lasting benefits might be. I've tried to find a copy online but failed so what I'm commenting on is second hand, might not be accurate, indeed may be a pack of stale tosh but that never stopped me before so here goes. 

The picture I get is one of desperation. For example nearly 80% of the "visitors" to "events" in 2017 came from either Hull or the East Riding neighbourhood, of the other 20% I bet a fair few came from Lincolnshire just across the Humber Bridge. Less than 1% of visitors were from abroad. It seems that, despite being the "national" UK City of Culture, they now claim that the year of culture was to be a local thing, aimed at Hull folk and they never intended to be aiming to attract a foreign (or indeed national) audience, well that was at least one measurable success they had. This was local culture for local people we now hear ... well more on this below.

It's claimed that five million people came to Hull to see the "events" but this figure cannot be anything but a guesstimate (or, as I call it, an outright lie): I came to Hull several times during the year, I "saw" some of the "events" but I was there to do my shopping and would have been there in any case much like many of the so-called "visitors" from Hull and hereabouts. I can only assume I was counted several times as a "visitor". It was not so much a case of "Let's go see the big thing in Queen Victoria Square" as "Oh look there's a big effing big thing standing in my way, and what the F*** is it doing there?". Surely passive (or irate) "visitors" like this cannot count, indeed should be counted as a negative visitor ... and anecdotally I should add I did not notice more folk in town during the year. I admit, though, I was asked once by a tourist where Humber Dock was ...

Still and yet there's the glorious legacy, as they like to call it. It seems those who volunteered to be part of the show did, on the whole, think it was positive for them. How nice for them I'm sure; but then these were only a few, a very few out of the many thousands who live in the place. Young people apparently were not too impressed by it all with mainly 50+ year olds attending most of the offerings. Also youngsters at school apparently missed out and continue to miss out due to curriculum requirements (shame, indeed, that their educational needs should take priority over this cultural hogwash).

Surely all that money has left something behind, something tangible ... (I love that word! tangible!) Well it seems there was a 1% increase in tourist spending in 2018 over 2017 but then inflation was ~2.5% so that actually is a decrease in real terms ... There have been some hundreds of millions of public and private investment spent in the town in the past six years but the best the report can say is this could "at least be partly attributed to the UK City of Culture" or maybe it is partly due to this splendid blog or who knows? ... like I say : desperate.

Now, look around the town: has it got better? Are the shops full of wealthy customers eager to keep the local economy thriving? Hardly,  they're shopping online or going out of town to Sheffield or York. The photo shows the old House of Fraser shop, Binns, as I call it draped with lights but it shut back in summer (I'm told it will open as an "artisan food hall" whatever that is ...) and there are dozens more shops like this some empty for many years.
There is apparently a legacy organisation, with the absolutely ridiculous title of Absolutely Cultured ("core purpose is to put culture and creativity at the heart of people’s lives to drive Hull’s ambition and aspirations.")  that is described as "vague in terms of resources, responsibilities and modalities of implementation." which is I take to be a polite way of saying they haven't got a clue ... I can say I've heard of it but cannot see anything that it has actually done and its website hardly inspires.

Ah but culture is not to be measured in such crude financial ways, the benefits to the people of Hull are intangible, some might say. They get a boost somehow from all this publicity, they get to feel good, to have pride in their city. Hmm well in 2018 4% fewer Hull folk felt better about Hull than in 2017. I guess those who took the £32 million or so that was raised, the out-of-town installation makers, the out-of-town providers of torch lit parades (Continentals do such a good torch lit parade, don't you find?), the strange out-of-town American guy who took photos of hundreds of naked folk on the streets of the town (for a big fat fee, of course), the gangly out-of-town oik who was in charge and the out-of-town journalist whose sole qualification seemed to be that she went to Hull University once and was second in charge (for oh so reasonable a fee) I bet all these and so many more out-of-townies who selflessly had to force their snouts into the trough (again the fees were reasonable)  are indeed feeling a lot happier about Hull.
Let us, therefore, seek the cultural legacy elsewhere since it clearly ain't here, mate.

"Looks like an accident in the cutlery drawer"

Over last weekend and to the annoyance of many gridlocked motorists Castle Street was blocked off and the new footbridge (which we last saw parked up in preparation in a car park a few weeks ago) was shuffled into position in a faultless manner and much quicker than expected. The road was reopened fifteen hours earlier than forecast to much rejoicing. The bridge is only the small matter of thirty odd years late (who's counting?) ... and it won't be fit for pedestrians until spring.

The title was Margot's comment upon first seeing this. "Like the dish ran away with the spoon?" said I. Still you don't have to look at it when you're on it.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

Leaf Fall

A little seasonal colour here on Cottingham Road, near the University.

Hull Fair Rides Again

Photo by Margot K Juby

It's that time of year again when a car park in west Hull is taken over by the biggest travelling fair in the country. It's the week of Hull Fair again, just as noisy, bright and brash as ever, just as crowded as well. This year more folk than ever have crammed into the place, so many the police had to close the street off at one point last weekend. I don't much like the thing itself but, as Margot reminds me every year when I moan about going, it marks the passing of the seasons, autumn can begin now the Fair is here.

The weekend in black and white is here.