Flattening the curve

The current craze for pointless economic self-destruction means that this place, St Stephens, is to all intents and purposes closed and the doors locked. Sure you can shop at Tesco but to get into that place involves going right around the block, along some deserted back streets until you get here (the back door, I suppose, yes, you could start here but it's my story and I'm telling it) and then through the underground car park beyond those steps and up an escalator, finally passing through a maze of barriers all intended to treat  you like sheep herded for a fleecing. 

As you can see the madness continues, shows no sign of abating and folk like it, they're loving it. Some even applaud their captivity each Thursday and deplore, report, snitch, dob any infringement of the recently revised house arrest legislation and indeed any heresy of not applauding the newly installed tutelary deity: The NHS (may it be preserved). So many lovely lives saved.

The weekend in black and white is here.

... will the line stretch out to th' crack of doom?

First time in town for nigh on four weeks and I find Tesco have a Hampton Court maze approach to public health with large arrows on the floor and "keep to the one way system" signs all over the place. There was no queue to get in but, well, this was the queue to get out. It's looks bad but was actually well organized and no real delay with dozens of checkouts open. Might be a week or two before I go back though.

What else can I say about my little trip? The buses were empty and there was no traffic to speak of, there was hardly anybody out and about, streets deserted. It was eerily quiet, even for Hull which can be a ghost town at times. This cannot go on.

Did I mention?

I mentioned Amy Johnson before, you remember the Hull woman from such humble origins who flew round the world (or was it half way round I forget, no, no it was to Australia, never did know why she wanted to go to such a god forsaken place after living in Hull) on a bicycle and rubber-band powered flying machine, a Gypsy Moth. When I say humble did I mention daddy was a local millionaire? Must have slipped my mind, somehow. I mentioned how there was a replica in the station (of the plane  not Amy, wonderful Amy nobody can seem to capture her radiant beauty) ... did I mention how it was going to be removed somewhere silly (an air museum near York if I remember rightly) until the local shopping place said they would find a space for it. If I didn't mention this then I'm doing so now. Did I mention it was built by prisoners in Hull Prison?  I think I did. Ah but did I mention the plane was called Jason possibly after he of the Golden Fleece and deserting of Medea and the marrying of a king's daughter and all that or maybe it was some other Jason. Did I mention I was bored?

Did I mention the weekend in black and white is here?

`You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?'

`A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!'

The fortnight of 'festive' indolence is under way. I recall, when I was a child getting on for sixty years ago, that grown ups would work all the way up to and including Xmas Eve have one or two days off and go back to work until New Year's Day which for some reason found the grown ups sore of head and full of remorse... Then one year, in the 70s, the holiday was at a weekend so it was thought right, fitting and proper to take the Monday off as well, to make up for not having had a day off ... and so the nonsense grew until Xmas Day met and married New Year's Day and gave birth to a tawdry litter of fourteen days of pap and pabulum. Nowadays many just jack it all in and have a two week end-of-year break up (like they were school children again) ...  it's an imposed commercialized pseudo-pagan (well the Xians nicked it from the pagans to begin with) drink fueled marking of the passing seasons in a bland debt-ridden, double-glazed, air-conditioned world where seasons have absolutely no meaning any more.
I blame the Victorians, they invented the modern Xmas with their idiotic Xmas trees (let's put lit candles on a tree and keep it indoors near an open coal fire, seems like a good idea!) and cards with impossible snowy scenes (it rarely snows in this country, truth be told, and, in any case, snow is just the absolute pits!) and the roast bird and the presents and the family get together (and the inevitable fall out ...  If only "one's own kin and kith were more fun to be with...", so true Mr Nash, so true...) A particular villain in all this indulgent, seasonal frippery is, of course, Charles (Gawd bless us, every one!) Dickens with his nauseating sentimental tripe, I hope his chestnuts are roasting on an open fire, eternally ...   Bah!

The Coffee Pod

In the twelve or so years that St Stephens has been dominating the retail trade in this town it has had this bizarre wooden contraption (apparently known as the Pod, this is news to me) somewhat akin to a piece of gut suspended above the heads of customers. This has been home to a certain seller of diluted coffee extract. So, anyhow, the news is that this place will close soon. (indeed sooner than soon as I've just read it closed yesterday) ...and, if plans and rumours can be believed, the place will be disembowelled as t'were and St Steve's given a new look. Quite how they'll manage this while folk are wandering around underneath remains to be seen. Coffee aficionados will rightly be unconcerned but those who like this place's sloppy offerings (and there must be some) can be reassured that it is said to be moving to another unit in the shopping centre or they could wander over to the station where another of these places has recently opened.

Fun on Ferensway

A bit of skyline on Ferensway with the St Stephens on the right, the arches of Paragon Station and the new coffee hut which, on closer inspection, seems to have no appeal whatsoever.

On Sunday, go to church ...

... I mean shopping, of course. Here's St Stephen's shopping mall, named after a nearby and long demolished church, a veritable cathedral of retail. Since the 1994 Sunday Trading Act  finally put the end to a thousand or more years of terminal weekend boredom this country has become almost civilised, with the Lord's Day Observance people free to observe the rest of us merrily going to Hell, sorry there I go again, I mean the shops.

Brand Name Recognition

I wondered if it was only in this country that a transport company has a spotters fan club that reports sightings of its lorries as they go about their business on the highways and by-ways. A little searching on the web (it's a bank holiday that's my excuse!) finds a lorry spotting website with over 4,000 paying members (£25 a year) who try to report the make and number of as many lorries as possible; a somewhat eccentric pastime but harmless I feel sure. As for myself I'm no great Stobart fan I prefer a Norbert Dentressangle any day but better still that rara avis Prestons of Potto ...

Rusty railings

With some time to spare before an appointment a small diversion along Park Street may not be everyone's idea of entertainment but there a few things to catch the eye and pass the time. 

Hook a duck

To entertain the young ones (or possibly their parents) during the long vacation a funfair of sorts has sprung up outside St Stephens. Judging by the lack of customers it seems they all have better things to do.

All this and so much more ...

Here listed are some of the delights of St Stephens, "Hull's most stylish shopping destination". Here you can fill up on all sorts of franchised fodder before taking in a movie or maybe working off your calories in the gym. Oh and there shops as well selling, you know, stuff.

By Paragon Station I sat down and wept ...

Today being the first day of the month (March already ...) it's the theme day for City Daily Photo and, by what passes for democratic choice these days, it has been decided that 'People on the street' shall be the thème du jour. So here a motley crowd having safely negotiated the crossing between St Stephens and Paragon Station is making its way home or in the case of the guy with the box of Budweisers to a pleasanter place by far, I hope ...


Weekend Reflections are here.

St Stephen's Day

St Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas, signals the start of a rush to the shops to buy all those things you don't need with money you haven't got. At least that is the dream of the retailers. It is also known as Boxing Day presumably for the number of spontaneous boxing matches held in the overcrowded car parks of the area. Other odd things that happen on this day include hundreds of otherwise sane people splashing about in the cold sea (for charity, we are told), near where I was brought up they have sword-dancing and in some parts of Ireland wrens go in peril ... I feel sure there are lots more silly things going on in the world; as for me I shall be having my Christmas dinner today since I didn't feel like having it yesterday.   So Season's Greetings to one and all.

Shopping Arcade Blues

I have posted before about the two Victorian arcades in the town centre, Hepworth Arcade and Paragon Arcade. They are cosy little places with small independent retailers and built on a human scale. That was the style at the time and things are different now. In St Stephens nothing is on a human scale and there seems to be no small independent shops; they're all national or international stores from Next to H&M to the biggest Tesco's imaginable. It's all bit cold, soulless and dispiriting, a bit like those floating daleks pretending to be Christmas trees.

Twinkle twinkle

The stars are out at St Stephen's shopping arcade. Something to do with an upcoming event at the end of the month I fear.

@StStephen's is now following you

Photo taken by Margot K Juby

Here's St Stephens mall from the car park entrance. Those hanging daleks are, I suppose, meant to be Xmas decorations. I learned today from Twitter™ that this mall along with many others tracks the signal from mobile phones in order to find out which shops are being visited. I'm told there is a sign to this effect near the entrance though I admit I've never seen it. Perhaps the couple on the left have noticed it and are taking the only appropriate action; turning the damn things off.

Customer car park

Here's the car park underneath Tesco's supermarket in St Stephens. I took this while waiting for a taxi to take me and my shopping home. It's meant for customers of Tesco and it's free but don't stay more than two hours or they'll do you for £70! Last Xmas, the spirit of goodwill and peace to mankind was distinctly missing from this place with fisticuffs over parking places [ 1 ]. 

Upside down or sideways?

Took this in January and somehow never got round to putting it on here. I turned it this way 'cos I thought it looked more interesting, if you don't like it perhaps sideways might suit you. I often think that Hull might be greatly improved if was turned upside down and given a good shake.

Desire Path

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line and no-one is going to walk round a space when they can go straight across it. Here's a classic desire path near Spring Street. It used to be a better kept area but the grass was destroyed when the space was used as storage for the construction of the St Stephens thingy you can see in the background.

St Stephens Shopping Centre

Here's the backdoor to St Stephens. After four years all the shops are now let out and the place is attracting 10 million visitors a year ( if you believe Wikipedia). If you go to the very first posting in this fine blog you will see the other side of this shopping mall.