Like water off a ...

Lately I've been reading up a bit on quantum physics and what 'reality' might be. I thought it about time I caught up on all this; the theory is nearly a hundred years old after all and besides it makes a refreshing change from Thomas Carlyle and his delightful but seemingly interminable French Revolution. I can appreciate that there's no analogy suitable for the behaviour of an electron or photon and how you can't know anything about it until you look and how looking changes everything, I can grasp all this... (and pace Neils Bohr I do not find it shocking at all but maybe I really  don't understand it ...) Anyhoo, it got me to thinking that perhaps, there is an analogy from quantum physics for the current election, how once it's over, and we sneak-a-peek inside Schrödinger's election box to see whose cat has died in there; the psephological wave function collapses, as it were, and all other probabilities become zero ... or maybe I should just get out more.

I can't help thinking that all the huff and all the puff of all the political classes flows so rapidly off the electorate's back that it has no effect at all. None but the most obtuse or gullible are going to be convinced by the performance of any of the parties or the not-so-subtle bias of the media. I'm guessing the vast majority made their minds up over the last three and a half years, since the Brexit Referendum and have seen what the Opposition has to offer (the Opposition, to stretch my analogy possibly to breaking point, seems to obey the Uncertainty Principle: you can know what its policy is right now but you cannot possibly know what its policy will be at any time in the future and, much like that old electron in the "only mystery of quantum mechanics", it 'seems' to want to go through the Leave and Remain doors simultaneously) and well, well we'll see. When Friday comes, and "democracy has democked" and the result is out who, I wonder, will be saying "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I had anything to do with it".

Lost in Sheffield

So we arrived in Sheffield and we needed to find the trams, we had directions to "cross over the track and catch a 'Blue Line' tram to Halfway" but directions are only as good as the folk that follow them so we boldly headed to the way out as per the station signs thinking we'd find the trams there. Well, we didn't; we did find this fine city square, Sheaf Square named after the now buried river Sheaf from whence derives the name Sheffield.  The main feature is this impressive water fall over stainless steel (they couldn't use any other metal in this steel town could they?) called The Cutting Edge.

Another thing that impressed us was that the place has hills, I mean Hull hasn't even got a bumpy road to call a hill but this place rises up around you on all sides, very nice, well different, wouldn't like to ride a bike around here but nice nonetheless... Anyway, compounding our error we thought we'd cross this road and head to the bus station, surely the trams would be there ...

Even as we walked I had a feeling this wasn't right ...

No trams here just buses in a bus station who would have thought of that ... so turn about and head back to the station and notice the fine carvings over the entrance ...

Back in the station I noticed a very small sign with the word "trams" next to it and an arrow ... seems you get to the trams by going out what appears to be the back door of the station...

This tale has gone on too long so I'll finish it tomorrow when things take a slightly silly turn.

Algal Pride

The Rosebowl fountain in Queens Gardens I've shown before. The recent weather being averagely warm and sunny meant it was spouting forth a stream of smelly green algal broth the other day, a sight that might turn a many queasy stomach. The sunlight caught the nauseating spray and created this little spectrum ... making it a colourful vile thing.

Thirst quencher

It's been a bit of dry spell for this blog;  here's a little something to be going on with. It seems the new fashion is to disparage plastic bottles and the lovely sugary confections that they contain. Folk are having their colas, fruit drinks and lemonades taxed or replaced with vile artificially sweetened substitutes (all for their own good you understand, adult choice having been outsourced to  HMRC) and being led by the nose (and other sensitive parts) to drink water from their recycled plastic bottles. So in keeping with this nagging and nannying the local water company have splashed out on this fountain on King Edward Street and a couple of other places. Of course it cannot just be a simple drinking fountain it has to be an oasis with attendant sculptures (I believe that was the word used). It all brings to my mind a saying of my long departed mother: " Water only made one man and the wind blew him over" ...

Icicles

A lengthy bit of cold weather does wonders to the Rosebowl fountain in Queen's Gardens. These are the best icicles I've seen here since 2010 and the last big freeze. It's turning a tad milder now so I guess these will be gone soon.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Unbelievable

A couple of Hully things cropped up in the news while I was away. First Hull was declared the second worst town in the UK. The source for this sensational news was a survey by some folk calling themselves LadBible ("Redefining Entertainment & News For a Social Generation", no, me neither!) clearly this is nonsense and caused uproar and upset in the City of Culture as a) Hull is not a crap town but a crap city (there's no shortage of parochial pedants in this place) and b) Hull is definitely the worst place in the UK, coming second is not an option.

The second incredible snippet of news was the estimate of 3.5 million people attending events during the Year of Culture. Given that this came from Hull City Council who could hardly be said to be impartial observers let alone capable of counting over twenty, this figure is open to some doubt. Still even if we take this figure and look at the break down for individual events say the fireworks on New Year's Eve, the Blade, the porcelain poppies and a handful of other shows soaked up well over 3 million visitors (allegedly). But, and here is yet another incredible (or amazing as they called everything last year, if it wasn't amazing it was stunning ...) fact, there were 2000 events put on over the year. I kid you not, 2000! So by the figures of Hull City Council the vast majority of these cultural events must have attracted two men and (perhaps) a dog. 

Now I'm a trusting sort of guy and if a statement is made to effect that nearly one million folk visited the Blade in its seventy day stay in Queen Vic Square I'm not going to do some back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that this means 600 per hour visited the colossal thing, 10 a minute or roughly the normal number of folk crossing the square at any one time... Also I passed under it dozens of times and must, I suppose, have been counted dozens of times... But I don't want to start off the new year in this suspicious mood. Hull City Council are fine and trustworthy folk as trusty as this picture of the Rose Bowl Gardens.

On second thoughts

For the sake of civic virtue
They've got fountains there that squirt you...

Now that the summer is all but over and  the leaves are starting to think about submitting to gravity and there's a little bit of a chill in the air, the screaming kids have gone back to school and are no longer treating Queen Victoria Square as a public showering place and playground maybe now, on reconsideration, this fountain thing is not so bad after all.

(Margot played no small role in this picture in so far as she clicked the shutter, I took it upon myself to play with it thereafter.)
 
The weekend in black and white is here.

Sudden Elegancies

Hull has its own sudden elegancies.

Philip Larkin 

The fiddling around by the Council with Queen's Gardens does mean that there is this view of the Maritime Museum, the fountain and City Hall in the distance.

YOLO

I'm told it means You Only Live Once. It's how the youth of today communicate with one another. IKR too busy to use words, poor darlings. 

Today's first of the month City Daily Photo theme is 'Young at heart'

Margot took this. We are both still searching for our inner adult. TTFN as we used say back in the day.

Rosebowl Fountain one more time

I've shown this fountain several times before. I like it, that's a good enough reason for me to post it again

The weekend in black and white is here.

... and still we wait

The promised fountains in Queen Victoria Square have yet to materialise. We are told by a Councillor that "The technology used to operate these features has not been used anywhere else," and "So in that sense they're unique. Issues around that technology are being addressed.". Now as far as I know fountains have been around for thousands of years; how difficult can it be? You have water, you squirt it through a hole, repeat process until bored... These however are fancy fountains with bells and whistles, well coloured lights anyway as you can see in this article from a well known local newspaper. If I were a gambling man I'd put a small wager on these things working on and off for a season or two then being quietly forgotten and paved over.

...and also outside the Holy Trinity Coffee Bar the so-called mystical mirror pools are also still not in place (surprise, surprise) and guess what the reason is? "I can safely say nothing like this has ever been seen before in this country, if not Europe. I prefer to call them glazed paving. They are going to be mystical, magical and I hope quite special...." says the guy who sold these puppies to Hull City Council and "They are definitely the first of their kind in the UK and they're here in Hull." Yeah right, puddles with knobs on, can't wait.

As the evening sky grew dark

There you go; tree, lights and an illuminated fountain. Who says I don't do Xmas?

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.

Fountains and youth

Queen's Gardens, Hull

Christmas Creep

It may seem odd to a youngster  but there once was a time when the Council did not put up lights and decorations for that consumer fest at the end of December. No, that particular madness started some twenty-five or thirty years or so ago after some shop keepers in Saville Street took it upon themselves to light up their street in mid December (J'accuse! ). The Council were then arm-twisted into putting up lights all over the town centre and to stick a tree in Queen Victoria Square. (One year the tree was so scrawny it had to swapped for a better one)

The lighting-up ceremeny became a bit of a feature with stars being hired to turn up on the City Hall balcony and flip a switch (Stars such as Rolf Harris!!! those were the days!). There'd be a big fireworks display as well. Thousands would turn up to be entertained. And gradually the switch-on date drifted into November. 

With austerity the displays began to be recycled and the stars were replaced by much cheaper 'civic dignitaries' (I love that phrase, who uses it these days?).

This year on the 12th of November that is 6 weeks and a bit before the actual day the mayor of this town flipped the switch to set off a three minute firework display and light up all the glittery  pap of the season. Now, as the town is engaged in self-renewal, the ceremony was moved to Queen's Gardens rose bowl fountain and there's four trees instead of one and the lights, I'm told are better than ever, (I've not seen them yet) and I'm just so excited I can hardly wait for Santa to bring me my presents as I've been such a good boy all year ... what! it can't still be November!

Blooming lovely

Yesterday was a bit of a dull, overcast day, anticyclonic gloom is the meteorological word for it, any hoo this did nothing to detract from the colourful display round Queen's Gardens' fountains. 

Speaking of blooms I came across a nice short film on the Avenues Open Day, where private gardens are opened for the public to raise money for Dove House Hospice. It's only fourteen minutes long and best watched without HD unless you've got a good connection. Oh yeah, it's here.

Finally if things go the way of a certain group to the north of here this blog may soon be coming to you from a different country. We live in exciting times.... *yawn*

Queen's Gardens: Back to the Future

I mentioned a few days ago that the collective insanity known as Hull City Council had proposed a series of makeovers for the city centre, at the time I said that I thought they weren't too bad. Well I think I spoke in haste because on closer examination some of the proposals are borderline bonkers. Take, for example, the proposal to reinstate Queen's Gardens as it was planned in the 1920's. Let's be clear this would be an act of pure vandalism. Queen's Gardens is now a place of mature trees and tranquil ponds with pleasing fountains. In the 30's the place looked like a desert with immature trees, boring planted borders and no ponds (see here and here). Is the Council really proposing to remove mature trees and fill in ponds? To top off this lunacy there's the creamy delish proposal to build a retractable stage over the duck pond at the far end, this is to stage 'events' and lies alongside yet another proposed stage to commemorate Mick Ronson, a guitarist with the eminently forgettable Spiders from Mars or so I'm told (this presumably would stage non-events). Very 1920's I must say! So there you have it, vandalism mixed with tawdry tackiness, about par for HCC.

Queen's Gardens is one of the few places in Hull that doesn't need fixing, so kindly leave it alone.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.
Weekend Reflections can be found here.

Adorned with a handsome fountain

The Boulevard was planned as a grand thoroughfare running up from the Humber to Anlaby Road and possibly beyond. It is a fine, wide, tree lined road with many fine villa residences built for the well-to-do of the time. In the 1870s someone writing of the Boulevard noted that "about half-way down, the street widens into a spacious circle, the centre being adorned with a handsome fountain”. Fifty or so years later a car crashed into the fountain and completely wrecked it. And so for eighty years the Boulevard was sans fontaine. After a seven year campaign of fundraising this delightful restoration was installed in 2008. 

If you're thinking this looks familiar it is a copy of the mermaid fountains that adorn the Avenues area, only this one works.

Mermaid Fountain

At some time in the 1870s life in Hull was so unexciting that it was decided to liven things up a bit by installing a set of six mermaid fountains in what was then the rich part of town, the Avenues. Over the years these beauties have been moved around, destroyed,  rebuilt and become part of the community. I hear strange things happen around here on New Year's Eve ....

This picture shows the Westbourne Avenue fountain, just visible in the distance is Park Avenue's version. Recently a working mermaid fountain was installed on the Boulevard but I haven't been to that see that yet. 

If you're interested in the rebuilding process there's a website here.