Crow Town

   Crow Town

   This is a crow town -

   there are no magpies round here.

   Solid black from beak to tailfeather.

   We don’t do your fancy

   piebald glad rags.

   We don’t talk your poncy language.

   We do your straight

   evisceration of live fledgelings

   while the mother squawks.

   No frills, no grace-notes.

   We don’t go for bright gewgaws

   or pinch girls’ earrings.

   We don’t mince about in tidings;

   when we gang up

   they call it a murder.

   We don’t bring bad luck

   or good either.

   Nobody bows and sucks up to us.

   Nobody jabbers silly rhymes.

   This is a crow town

   where crows live and do crow things.

   We want no magpies round here.

                             Margot K Juby

Today being the first of the month the theme for City Daily Photo is 'Where I belong'. Hah! Well I live in or near Hull but certainly have no sense of belonging here, so, well anyway crows are nice ... 

Margot's poem appeared in Old City, New Rumours - Edited by Ian Gregson and Carol Rubens which came out last year; and a strange thing it is too, an anthology celebrating an earlier anthology, wherever will it end this ‘most poetic city in England’. Click on that link to read Margot's review of this collection if you've nowt better to do.

Thursday's Crow

When that I was and a little tiny boy, back in the day, crows, by which I mean carrion crows, did not much venture into towns, least not the towns I lived in. You'd see rooks aplenty, with their bare faces and triangular beaks and noisy rookeries, but a big old black crow was a rare sight and they were shy scaredy beasts. Now it's the other way round; the rooks have become almost entirely rural (OK Cottingham village has one or two but you get my drift) while the town centre and suburbs (there's a pair nesting in next door's tree) are pretty good places to see these fine snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, hobbing and bobbing as if they owned the world which they may well do.  

Ok it's another crow, could have been worse I haven't posted the maritime museum for a while.

Later today I shall be going to vote in the EU Parliamentary elections but as the results won't be known until Sunday, lest the UK result influence the rest of the EU (fat chance!) I'll post about that later if at all ...

The weekend in black and white is fast approaching.

Crow

 A crow has taken to sitting on our neighbour's chimney as the evening sky grows dark.


The weekend in black and white is here.

One flew over the Crow's Nest

Outside this Italian restaurant on Newland Avenue was parked the smallest delivery van I've ever seen. This place was a year or so ago called La Perla, new name, new decor and it's getting good reviews. I've seen the menu and like all these places it's far from cheap for what is essentially pasta with some sauce on top. Thirty years ago this was a greasy spoon of a place by the name of the Crow's Nest (if I remember me rightly) it specialised in bacon butties and tea served in a pint mug! Autres temps, autres goûts! 

Flying the black flag of himself.

A town crow, blacker than ever, treats the Saturday afternoon shoppers and carousers with utter disdain before swooping down on a discarded morsel.

The Half Way, Hessle Road

That's half way between Hessle and Hull. As a crow flies it's about four and a half miles from the centre of old town Hull to Hessle's bustling heart so maybe it's five or so miles on the ground.  A fair walk but hardly exhausting. Nevertheless you'd need some refreshment if going to either destination, and if overcome by dread or fatigue you could rest up at the Half Way Hotel.  This place, by the look of it built in the first half of the 19^th century when Hessle Road was a turnpike and ran through open fields, is no longer a hotel but still refreshes so I'm told. The large mural I showed the other day is on the far side.

A Sunday Morning Stroll

"...it's oh so nice to just wander
But it's so much nicer, 

yes it's oh so nice, to wander back"

On this bright and not very warm Sunday morning, while gentlemen in  England were abed, I set off down Hotham Road North

carried on down this grassy path

over this tastefully decorated footbridge

down Priory Drive, a quiet back street filled with the chirping of sparrows

trudged along the soul destroying Hotham Road South

walked down Wold Road

passed this young crow sitting on a fence

and arrived at my destination ... Ta daa

well yeah erm underwhelming doesn't begin to tell it ... "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see" was Dr Johnson's opinion of the Giant's Causeway, this gravity defying rubble is not even worth seeing. This is all that remains of Haltemprice Priory farmhouse built in the early 16th century or thereabouts. It said that some of the building uses stone from Haltemprice Priory which if HenryVIII hadn't dissolved the whole lot would have gone into receivership or the medieval equivalent. The site of the priory is a scheduled monument though there is nothing to see but a huge security fence.  As you can see it's a lot of a wreck and despite being Grade2 listed it is on that list of buildings at risk.

The whole walk was about a little bit over two miles to this place and was proof of that old saying that "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive". Better still though is the coming back and putting your feet up.

A is for Crow

Distant Bridge

I mentioned yesterday that they'd built a big bridge up the road from the ferry terminus, well 'up the road' is really five miles as the crows flies. Mind you, if you can fly like a crow then you don't really need a bridge ... It's not allowed to be dull in Hull, we have gloom instead.

Permission denied

Well I've got say I'm surprised. That 18 storey hotel that was planned for High Street has just been refused planning permission by Hull City Council. One councillor even went so far as to forget the rules about stating the obvious and described the proposed building as looking like a "fag packet". The developer is needless to say less than happy having had an even bigger and uglier building granted permission earlier. I reckon my prediction for something much, much smaller is looking good.

Here's the site complete with rubble heap and crow.

Some kind soul handily removed a fence panel for me to take these photos.

Young Crow

Margot took these a few years ago in Spring Bank cemetery..

Friendly Crow

Have I mentioned before that I think crows are a bit special? This one simply would not budge until I took its picture, so what was I to do?

Meanwhile in another part of town (and on a different planet perhaps) there were complaints that crows on Holderness Road were getting too bold and "intimidating" people because (and now we reach new heights of fantasy) the local McDs was closed for a refurb! "Crows on the rampage in Hull because they can't get their McDonald's fix" ran the headline. For heaven's sake! Are the folk of East Hull who survived the Blitz without so much as a whimper suddenly afraid of a few feathered friends? Two crows were seen pecking at a dead pigeon which it was claimed they had killed! Something must be done about it! Well no, something must not be done about it. "Carrion Crows Eat Carrion" wouldn't really make much of a story but in the febrile imagination of a local journo it's practically Hitchcockian out on Holdy Road. Just to be absolutely clear on this, crows clear up the mess made by people; it's either them or rats, you make your choice.

The weekend in black and white is here.

One for sorrow, two for joy ...

Good morning Mr. Magpie. How is your lady wife today?

Seeing this collection of corvids in bushes just a few yards from home the other day set me to wondering what the collective noun for magpies might be. I knew about a murder and parliament of crows so a quick search came up with tidings, gulp, murder and charm of magpies. Seems you can also have a congregation and tittering of magpies as well. The well known counting song seems to stop at ten (for the devil's own self!) what you are supposed to say when there's fourteen or fifteen of the little beauties I don't know. Oh and did you know that three crows are a warning to sell your stocks and shares? You have been warned ...(Just been informed that, as I write, today, 29 October, is the anniversary of the Wall Street Crash!)

Now I quite like magpies but some people, who falsely call themselves conservationists, want to trap and kill them on the grounds that they eat song birds. It seems some birds are more equal than others to these perverted thinkers. These sick people use the hideous Larsen trap which involves a live magpie or crow being kept in a tiny cage as bait. It's a vile practice and really should be banned (you can sign a petition here much good it will do).