One in five

Oh he's not going to go on about empty shops again, is he?  Well yeah, he is. In 2015 21% of Hull town shops were vacant, a rise from the previous year of 0.5%. And this is before the Council started their excavations and closures and so on. Now nationally the number of vacancies fell to a rate of 11.5% in town centres. So you'd think there'd be some real concern instead we hear nothing but complacent platitudes from those the council and whoever chose to put forth as spokespeople ... here's one that stuck in my craw: "We're building a world class city centre for 2017!" Well hmmph won't be any shops left by then, matey.

Yes even Heaven has closed its doors ....

Will it be worth the wait?

Less haste, less speed is the motto in these parts as you well know. A mere three years since I posted that there was to be redevelopment on this site, eighteen months or more since it was cleared but now we are at last at the end of the beginning and a new block of shops is springing up before our very eyes, callooh callay! OK some of the problem lay with the planners who were unaware that this was industrial land (D'oh a scrap yard not give that away?) and couldn't be used for shops. So there was some legal hassle but that's all behind us now. I'd like to say that it will be worth the wait but alas it is to be a dreary unexceptional build that could be found anywhere in a thousand other towns. Meh!

The pawnbrokers and the shop next door seem to have survived all this kerfuffle. I suspect they'll outlast this new development.

Rule of three

King Edward Street, Hull

Empty, vacant and unoccupied.

Further development

And while we're in the vicinity of Paragon Street I suppose I'd better mention the opening of this Nisa store in what had been a long vacant shop that I posted about sometime ago. There's a trend for smaller supermarkets in town these days, Tesco opened one in the Summer and Sainsburys are making a comeback as I mentioned the other day and I've heard yet another discount "pound" shop is to open as well. So it's no longer exactly all doom and gloom in town anymore but I wouldn't go so far as to say we have a full recovery, let's say the patient is still seriously ill but stable...

The return of Sainsbury's

This corner building on Jameson Street was once a post office with BBC Radio Humberside occupying the upper floors. Well the post office moved into W H Smith's and the BBC built itself a little palace and this building has been mainly empty for ages. Now Sainsbury's have recognized the error of moving out of their town centre store and are opening a new place here and as an added bonus there's to be a Secret Garden Café on top. Well not so secret now ...

Another piece of pie?

Trinity House Lane, Hull

Did I mention pie shops were taking over the world? I think I did.

Who ate all the pies?

A new shop has opened just down the road, a pie shop. It's the latest in a spreading chain of pie shops; OK it's only the fourth but soon there'll be nothing but pie shops across the land and then we'll all be happy except for Simple Simon ...

Let's have a butchers ...

Here is Princes Avenue's sole remaining butcher's shop, T L Norman. Now it's been called T L Norman for longer than I've lived in Hull but Mr Norman retired a while ago and it's now run by some body else. Looking for something to say about this I found that there used to be six butchers on the avenue, I can only remember two others. They are now either a café or a bar along with just about every other shop that used to trade in this street.

This miserable year appears to have run out of days ... more of the same tomorrow then! Oh and remember; “Better the butcher than the meat.”. 

Christmas Sucks

Oh, give me a noose I can hang from the tree

I need no excuse to end my misery

this holiday season is all the more reason to die.

Oh, pull up a stool lend an ear to a fool

who once found some solace in the season of yule

this holiday season is all the more reason to cry.

I put on my mittens, one green and one red

and I walk alone where they bury the dead

the snow falls as I grieve its a gothic death rock

christmas eve.

The bottle is empty,

the sleigh has a flat,

the stripper in my bed is ugly and fat,

her tassles are tangled and what's worse - my jingle won't jangle.

This time of the year makes me sick to my guts

all this good cheer is a pain in the nuts

when it's your career to be down in the dumps

tidings of comfort and joy really suck.

I feel like St. Nicholas is pulling my leg

this thing we call Christmas is a sorry black plague

this holiday season is....

... all the more reason to die

Peter Murphy & Tom Waits (allegedly)

Computers? They'll never catch on ...

First proper computer I bought cost best part of £900 had a pathetic amount memory and disk space and was incredibly slow but this was before broadband, wi-fi and pre-Google and Facebook. It had Windows95 on it and was fond of giving a blue screen of death if the weather so much as changed slightly. By modern standards it was an abacus. It came from a company called Tiny who had store here on Ferensway. Days after the machine arrived Tiny went bankrupt as did so many successors and this store has been empty for years now. So although 21 million homes in the UK have a computer and access to the internet where ever they are getting their kit from it isn't from here.

Triple X

Newland Avenue café habitués are no doubt waiting  with baited breath for this new coffee shop to open in the old video rental place. Whatever happened to renting videos (not that I ever did) and how soon will these coffee haunts become last year's thing? 

Things that go bump in the night

Seems ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties are just not a surprise any more, too much commercialism has taken the chill out of the spooky. Or it could just be that it's difficult to feel any frisson of fear when the temperature's at all time high for the end of October. Well whatever Boo! there that scared yah!

Prospect Centre

This is a side entrance to the Prospect Centre. There are about 40 or so shops in this place. It was built in the mid-70's on the site of the old Hull Royal Infirmary and greatly extended in the 90's with the addition of a car park and an upper storey. It's a much smaller and I think more pleasant than the much newer nearby St Stephens.

and the winner is ....

As you might guess I'm not big on competing and the whole business of finding the so-called best  by this distasteful method leaves me asking why bother. But it seems some folks like a little competition even in the most obscure categories, so here, should you ever want to know, is the Beverley Bun champeen. It's on Lairgate, just down the road from the chippy, but the winner of this prestigious award is surely destined for bigger things.

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore ...

I read today that the UK, for its size, has more tornadoes than the US. So, whilst Chanterlands Avenue may not look much like the corn fields of Kansas, Dorothy should still keep a weather eye out for twisters. Why only last August East Hull had one knock down some trees and lift a few roof tiles ...

This flagrant breach of copyright is in a stationers on Chanterlands Avenue. It has for sale mugs, tee shirts and other tchotchkes all with 'Hull' written somewhere on them, it's the place to go for your Hull memorabilia ... no seriously, stop laughing.

Chippy

Fish, preferably haddock, covered in beer and flour batter and deep fried in beef dripping with a large portion of thick cut chips fried likewise, lashings of salt and maybe just a small drizzle of vinegar. Now what could be tastier or healthier than that? Fewer calories than a burger, less fat than a pizza, the chips are even a viable source of vitamin C!

This chippy on Lairgate is a bit posh in having a restaurant attached and the prices seem to be typically Beverley inflated but as there 11,000 chippies in the UK finding an alternative shouldn't be too difficult.

Now the English language often gives mirth with its ability to have multiple meanings for words. So if you wish to substitute 'carpenter' or even 'female prostitute' for 'chippy' in the above paragraph feel free.

Indulgence

I suppose the price of indulgence rises just like any other commodity but this cake shop (Patisserie! hah!) on Beverley's Butcher Row does seem to be just a tad on the expensive side. Still you only live once ...

Ghosts on West Street

If you ever take a picture of a shop window reflection don't be surprised if the shopkeeper comes out and asks you just what the heck you think you are doing. He seemed genuinely upset that I was taking pictures of his stock and couldn't understand that I wasn't interested in his dummies with school uniforms. This is West Street which connects onto King Edward Street through this archway. At one time (25+ years ago!) traffic could run through this way but for some reason this was stopped as it led to too much human happiness. Anyway I liked the ghostly figures and it was worth taking even if the shopkeeper thinks I'm crazy. He may very well be right.

Weekend Reflections are here. 

Afterthought: Just figured out the storekeeper's anxiety at my taking pictures. The shop is under investigation by trading standards officers under the consumer protection act. Turns out the shop's owner was prosecuted last year for breaching schools' copyright by selling uniforms bearing their crests without permission. Maybe he thought I was gathering evidence and well,  I'd better stop speculating here, don't want to be held to be in contempt, again

Silly Season

The warm Spring and cool Summer have been ideal conditions for a bumper harvest of pom poms this year. And, as we all know, you simply cannot have too many pom poms...

Dove House

A common sight on many shopping streets in this area is the Dove House charity shop collecting funds for the hospice for people with "a life limiting illness". When I say common there are over thirty of them spread across Hull and other East Riding towns providing 20% of the income for this charity. This one in Beverley Road specialises in furniture but it's right next to a more general shop selling the usual mix of clothing, books and toys. They also run a lottery. Hospices receive just a third of their funding from central Government so need all the help they can get.