Change of signs

Just two and half weeks now to the C of C and what better time to change all the boundary signs to advertise this auspicious event. Pedants have already moaned at the abbreviated name; "Wot no Kingston-Upon-Hull!" 'tis an outrage! a sin against nature! have they no sense of history! and so on. Still no-one on the planet, not even the pedants themselves, call the place anything other than Hull. If you are wondering what the old signs looked like they were very blue and yellow which may go down well in Sweden but to me they weren't very welcoming. I think this is something of an improvement. The UK C of C thing is going to date in a few years meaning even more signs; it all makes work for the working man to do.

A red dot in a sea of blue

Ah the pleasures and agonies of rearranging the electoral boundaries! This week has seen proposals to cut fifty seats from the House of Commons, that's MPs voting for fifty redundancies ... well I'll wait while you get over your sniggering fit. 

As far as I'm concerned if it goes ahead Cottingham and a few other outlying villages move from the safe, nay possibly the safest, Tory seat in the country to a proposed marginal seat of West Hull and Haltemprice (where or what is a Haltemprice? I've no idea!) West Hull at present is a totally safe Labour fiefdom (you see the method behind this, create a marginal, lose a safe Labour seat but keep the remains of a safe Tory seat, most excellent!). It also means that Hull may become a smaller red dot in a sea of blue which may be no bad thing. There are the delicious howlings of the self-serving gerrymandered and hopefully soon to be out-of-a-job politicos. I'm not that bothered really they can try living on the pittance of unemployment benefit they voted for, except they'll all have cushy little consultancy positions waiting for them. Does my contempt for politics and all politicians look big in this? 

A small concern is it could be the first move to take over the outlying villages and plonk them in with Hull City Council (just for neatness dontcha know) something that 96% voted against only two years ago.

Never saw the sun shining so bright

Here's an odd thing at the marina, I've no doubt it has meaning but I'm damned if I know what it is. This was taken before the EU-know-what and that shade of blue known as Euroblue or Brussels blue will not be seen in these parts again as blue skies come to us courtesy of the sunshine articles of the Lisbon Treaty (tru dat, tru fact innit!).

Three fountains and a thingy

I've shown this installation outside Britannia House (the dole office) on Spring Bank before but that was taken from a bus and you don't really get the full sheer tackiness of it from that post. The three hemispheres are little trickling fountains; so far so meh. But what is that naff blue and white column? What is it supposed to be?

When new the idea of adding washing up liquid to the fountains appealed to certain elements but even that minor act of rebellion seems to have died away. Maybe it's so stupid no-one can be bothered to vandalise it.

Blue Violet

What else can an aspiring university do with a football pitch that was only used on Wednesdays and as a short cut to the exit other than build a set of halls of residence? There'll soon be 560 students living in accommodation that will be "among the best in the country". When you've spent £30 million you might expect it to a bit classy. I'm disappointed that the stunning pale violet colour is to be covered up with boring cladding and the whole thing will eventually look like this. Dull, almost boring

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...

Deep Blue

Here's a close-up of the nose-cone of the fish tank cum penguin prison known as the Deep. It's still pulling in the hoopleheads and last Monday, the bank holidays, queues were over an hour long, despite (or maybe because of) the vile weather. As you can see the weather has cleared up a bit since then.

Tour de wherever

Seems that sometime earlier this year (April or May, does it matter?) there was a cycle race held in these parts. Maybe it was a follow up to last year's Tour de France fandango. Well, whatever,  it totally passed by me without leaving a trace, somehow the sight of a group of sweaty lycra-clad steroid enhanced bicycle riders rushing past in the blink of an eye lacks a certain degree of appeal or anything really. But à chacun son goût, as they often say in these parts, and others (more discerning, I've no doubt) were inspired to mark this event. Bicycles were painted yellow and blue and hung in various places. Quite where the inspiration for this odd behaviour came from I know not but I suspect a certain Gallic influence. 

Above is Lairgate, Beverley and below Bridlington Station. 

Blue barge

This old barge or lighter with the odd name of Poem 25 is a fixture in the old harbour of the river. I've shown it before here but that was before colour was invented.

Weekend Reflections are here

No April showers have come our way

WELCOME, wild North-easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne’er a verse to thee.

Charles Kingsley

Somehow Spring has sprung without me really noticing it. Though it looks nice and sunny the picture cannot begin to describe the slightly nithering north-easter that is flowing across the land giving the feeling of walking through a tub of ice-cream. And it's been a really dry April so the droghte of Marche has not been sooted as they used to say.

Sufficient unto the day

With the demolition the other week of Highcourt this building, Hull Royal Infirmary, became Hull's tallest building. At 57m (187 ft 3/32 inches , thanks Mr Google) and with 14 floors it does not exactly scrape the sky (tickle it maybe?) but it's quite big enough I think. Here it is in its new blue facade after a recent face lift and while it may look neat and tidy outside the workings of this place are at times beyond the ken of mere mortals. It manages to keep going with infusions of cash every now and then to tide it over till the next crisis but this is no way to run a modern health service. (I shall stop here there's an election coming on and no doubt promises will be heaped upon promises and we all shall see the broad, sunlit uplands ...)

29 Park Street

This used to be the Silhouette Club after it moved from Spring Bank in about 1990 then Spectrum then something to do with hypnosis. Now it's available to let. Behind that gaudy decoration I suspect a fine Victorian villa still lurks.

Last Year's Best

It being the day that it is it's time to chose the best of last year's efforts for City Daily Photo's theme day. I was going to show this one  as some kind of metaphor for being stuck in this place in the fog with the lights on amber but I thought that's way too self-indulgent (even for me) so here's a pretty Morning Glory. This has all the advantages of being bright, colourful and not in Hull.

You can see what other's thought of this theme here.

Blue skies smiling at me nothing but blue skies do I see ...

Even a failed and lapsed scientist like me knows the importance of taking a representative sample but yesterday afternoon no matter where you pointed your camera there was only this horrible blue sky, a big old sun and no clouds.  This is only noteworthy because it rarely happens. Hopefully it won't last.

There's more blue sky thinking at Skywatch Friday here.

Blue

Blue water and blue sky; it's like a child's painting.

The strange looking ship was the lightship at Spurn point, the entrance to the Humber. The background church is Holy Trinity and is in the centre of the "Old Town", the original mediaeval part of the city. We do have cloudy days in Hull.