What brought the kindred spider to that height ...

...Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

Ok, it's a green moth or rather Gypsy Moth and the spider is a man in a costume. So here's Amy Johnson and Marvel mixed and matched on a wall near Humber Street; make of it what you will.

Much better murals on a Monday are here. (Yes I know it's Tuesday)

Dancing in the street

Not having TV or social media folk had to make their own entertainment in the old days. In Yorkshire and North East England they came up with this, it's called rapper sword dancing. It involves five dancers, five double handed steel blades and a guy on the pipes or maybe an accordion playing a catchy rhythm. They whirl around, leap over one another and weave to and fro never leaving go of the handles and trying not to decapitate themselves as they go. The dance ends with the blades intertwined in a star-like figure which is then held aloft as if the solution to all life's problems has been found. It is profoundly pointless and that I suppose is the point as, having made the star, they start all over again, always twirling, twirling, twirling ...

These guys were part of the three day Hull Folk and Maritime Festival which this year I managed to get to see part. There was folk singing on several stages. Not really my scene. I don't mind a bit of the Irish pipes, (Planxty and so on) but modern "folk songs" make me want to reach for the mute button. But then there were lots of folk dance groups doing their thing in various spots across town. Now somehow this appealed; the often bizarre costumes, the music: all good stuff. Below is a sample. 

And last but by no means least ...

Now this being Hull the city of culture as well as all these delights the BBC Proms was being broadcast from the stage in the dock and the UK Pride festival was being held in Queen's Gardens.  I could post about them now but I think I've gone on too long as it is...

Amusing Misuse of Resources

Many lifetimes ago I used to use Linux as my operating system, I vaguely remember concerns about the mighty Microsoft taking over the world and other silly nightmares that were common at the time. Anyhow between figuring out the many and varied scripts that kept the computer swimming and wondering how to get a wifi dongle recognised I was made aware of a program called AMOR. AMOR caused a little figure to appear at the top of a window which would then run along and fall off or it would just wander aimlessly around the screen. Utterly pointless and, of course, AMOR stood for Amusing Misuse of Resources. So what has brought that fascinating snippet of my past to mind? Well here on Humber Street an iron dais has been erected which at night time allows a person to have their spoken words captured by voice recognition software and then projected dot-matrix style on the flood barrier at the other end other street. Here's an example from the local paper. I'm sure it's all very hi-tech and we are told the machine will 'learn' to recognise the Hull accent and, of course, it comes with the usual culture-speak nonsense about changing the way folk see public spaces yada yada yada. But come on now, admit it; it's just a big toy and about as much use a wobbly widget on an X screen. 

Oh and as for the Linux thing forget it, I learned to love Microsoft's Windows XP and no, I will not upgrade, never, not ever, do you hear me?

Scott's Square v2.0

I have posted about Scott's Square in the past and about how it is nothing more than an alley way leading to an empty space, a home for the destitute. Well as you can see there are plans to build dwellings for people to live in the area once again. This has got to be a good thing.

You win some, you lose some

After nearly two years of repairs and whatnot Humber Street is now back in use with most of the buildings having been saved. However the ones that stood next to this building which I last showed being propped up by a forest of scaffolding and ballast did not respond well to treatment and had to be removed. The place is now on the tourist "must visit" list again and there's plenty of art galleries and eateries and drinkeries for those that like that kind of thing.

Live, Work, Play

or push a pram.

Don't ask me ....

..'cos I haven't a clue. This fragile rusting thing attached to some boards hangs in an alley off Humber Street. I can make out the words 'The Monitor Loops' or perhaps 'The Loops Monitor'. It obviously meant something to someone at some time.

Big Lifter

The mess that is Humber Street clearly requires some heavy lifting and in a narrow street a big crane has to go up and over both sides to get the new metal work in place. Even with this machine the street will no doubt still be an array of scaffolding and supports by the time of the Humber Street Sesh in August when thousands will descend upon it in search of entertainment.

Floreat GB

Humber Street, Hull

What does this GB stand for? Gor Blimey, Gordon Bennett, Geoffrey Boycott, gigabyte, George Bush, Great Britain, girl's blouse, gallactic bloodshed, gorgeous brute ... Well I don't know. I do know that this is the former warehouse of GB Flowers on Humber Street. Along with the rest of the fruit, veg and flower market GB moved their show out to the west of town and as far as I know they are blooming nicely.

I had a feeling I'd posted about this place before (there's only so much you can do before you start repeating yourself) and indeed here's what it looked like in May 2013.

The weekend in black and white is here.

A little support

At the start of this month I posted the back of Humber Street and its somewhat tumbledown appearance. What I didn't mention at the time was how these buildings or what's left of them are still managing to defy gravity. The answer, as you can see, is scaffolding and lots of it and in some places brace that up with large tanks of water to keep it all in one place. Even so one of the buildings has had to be surgically removed leaving a nice little gap. It's easy see how how £4 million could just disappear down this street.

 The street is, of course, not passable to motors

Humber Street Art

I took these last year but never got round to posting them. These are some of the murals decorating the doors of old green grocers' warehouses on Humber Street. They were painted by schoolchildren as part of a project to raise awareness of marine habitat in the little darlngs (good luck with that!). I'm just posting them for historical record since things down this street are no longer quite so idyllic as I'll show tomorrow.

Higgledy-piggledy

Humber Street

What adjective would you use to describe a collection of derelict old warehouses that no-one has any real use for? If 'higgledy-piggledy' springs to mind and you follow that with 'charm' and then you're well on your way to the grand folly of 'regeneration'. These buildings have been left unloved and unoccupied for ages; by rights they should have been demolished and replaced years ago. But now, as there's a fashion to use the area for 'arts' and other small ventures, it would be unwelcome to say the least to have them falling down on passers-by. Somehow the Council, which never fails to inform us that it's strapped for cash, found over £3 million to throw at the problem which was entirely of its own making. It is the nature of money pits to devour cash and so an extra million or so has been conjured up ... higgledy-piggledy charm, it seems, is expensive.

It being the start of a new month the theme for City Daily Photo is "If you had to leave forever the city from which you usually post, what would you miss most?". I have given the matter some thought and what follows is an exhaustive list ...

Work in progress

Do you recall the white van man who got bored and added a splash of colour to his van? I can't be sure but I think he got bored with that as well ...

Cultur'ull

You might have heard that Hull is to be the City of Culture in 2017 and I may have mentioned that Humber Street with its old greengrocers' warehouses was becoming a centre for the arts ...yada yada. Well the reality is that not much is actually going on there and many of the warehouses and buildings remain unused and in parts in a frankly disgusting state (see yesterday's post). Sure over the years I've read of countless plans to do the place up but in fact proposals to re-use these buildings are only just now going before the Council. 

If you're in Hull on Saturday there's a big 'Thank You' party being put on to thank the people of Hull for, well I don't quite know what, not chucking rotten eggs the 2017 C of C zealots I suppose, it's not as if they had any say in the matter. Only another 900 or so more days of this ... 

"Shocked to see the state of the city of Hull ..."

I've posted before about the old fruit market area around Humber Street. Nearby there's a place called Hull Art Lab which was once a potato merchant's building. Usually it's locked up but the other day the doors were open ( I suspect malfeasance). So I peeped through the gap to see what's what. Basically it's empty, as in deserted , with just these scribblings decorating the place. The writing on the floor "I was even more shocked to see the state of Hull, fires were burning everywhere" is, believe it or not, a quote from some testimony given to the BBC's WW2 People's War archive! 

I've just found out it's been closed since November 2006 and presumably standing empty for eight years. Anyhow the place is now open to the elements and naughty folks so I don't know what will become of it.

Postscript: I am reliably informed that this building, or rather the space it occupies, will be part of the centre for innovative digital companies (C4DI) that I mentioned last October (here).

Never Yawn

It's been a while (in May actually, who knows where that old time goes?) since I've been round the Humber Street area so coming across this artwork/graffiti on Martin's Alley was a pleasant surprise. It's just about all that remains now of this year's Hull Sesh a Summer festival that attracts thousands to this part of town. If the picture looks a bit dull that's because taking photos at four pm on a late November day is probably not a good idea as the sunsets at about quarter to four ....

Going to waste

This is the back of Humber Street taken from what would at one time have been Scott's Square. The cleared land was once made up to be a car park but now it's sealed off as even that can't turn a buck and besides those falling bricks might damage the chrome work. 

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Shelter

This is the other end of the snicket named Scott's Square. As I walked down I noticed what I thought was a some rubbish had been left in a black plastic bin liner that was just flapping in the wind that was funnelling down the passage. It occurred to me, because I read too many detective stories, that this would be a fine place to dump a body. Imagine my surprise when I came up close to find that there was indeed a body in the bag, a live one! I asked if he was OK and apologised for waking him up, he grunted something and I left him to his slumbers. I guess a man has a right to be left in peace.

You can find more monochrome images at the Weekend in Black & White here.

Scott's Square

All that remains of Scott's Square is this sign and a dark alley way leading off Humber Street and ending in nothing, just a cleared site. Mind you from what I can gather looking at old maps there wasn't much of a square to begin with more of thin rectangle really. Maybe the name was a Victorian joke.

Fresh Fruits

What to do with an old run down fruit and veg wholesalers' district after the market has moved on to pastures new? Knock it down and build pokey little apartments that no-body wants or leave it be and let the arts and music business take it over? Well for once the easy option of letting it be and seeing how it goes and grows seems to be working in Humber Street. So now we have a vibrant mix of art galleries, entertainment venues, recording studios and so on all seemingly thriving in these old fruit and veg warehouses. Now if something could be done about the A63/Castle Street nightmare that cuts this area off from the city it would positively boom.

This is the place responsible for the giant glitter ball idea I mentioned earlier. I have to admit to not having a clue  what 'Club Culture' could be, but if it keeps them happy who's complaining?

There's even a brewery!