Newland Avenue

The date on the bridge 1882 is when Hull incorporated the village of Newland and made the road passable to traffic, before then this was known as Mucky Peg Lane. Newland Avenue is a most interesting street whose activities attract people both day and night. There are greengrocers, butchers, a fishmonger, several bakers and other food shops, including Polish, Chinese and Asian ones, hairdressers, florists, various specialist shops, cafés and many charity shops. In the evenings the takeaways, café bars and late-opening convenience stores and the Piper continue to attract people. So you can get many things on Newland Avenue nowadays except mucky pegs.

On Newland Avenue the poppies blow ...

It will not surprise you to learn I'm not one for poppy wearing or remembering past wars and all the dead and all that business. My old grandad  joined up to fight in the first European madness; he fancied wearing a kilt so he and his brother joined a Scottish regiment just for that reason! His brother didn't come back. (let's hope insanity does get passed on) Any hoo he would say he had no time for the sycophantic Royal British Legion and their revelling in the horrors of the Somme and so on. So what was good enough for old Joe is good enough for me. Strikes me that every year there's more and more of this enforced, dare I say phoney,  'remembrance' of past hostilities (for example, everyone on TV has to wear a poppy or face obloquy from the self-appointed arbiters of public decency) when a bit, nay, a large dollop of forgetfulness might be in order. Enough of this dwelling on the past.

What we have here is part of a grandly insane scheme by a local lady to knit or crochet over 3000 woollen poppies and plant them in all the flower boxes on Newland Avenue. I suppose it's impressive if that's the sort of thing that impresses you. With the inevitability of the sun rising in the morning some toe rag stole a set of poppies. Go take up your quarrel with the foe ...

Wicstun Express

Newland Avenue, Hull

Here's the bus from York stopping on Newland Avenue, but what all this Wicstun Express malarkey? Well Wicstun is the old name for Market Weighton, a small town somewhere between here and York. Oh verb sap 'Weighton' is pronounced something like 'wheaton' ...
The bus takes two hours to cover the 47 or so miles from York which hardly strikes me as galloping but then it does take the scenic route and stops along the way. As a marketing ploy they've adopted some stylized Viking complete with obligatory horned helmet. I'm not sure a Viking gives the impression of speed, they've more a reputation (thoroughly undeserved of course) for pillaging and general naughtiness. Vikings, of course, wouldn't have been seen dead in a poncey horned helmet and as roads were usually nonexistent or impassable they would have gone by boat up and down the Humber and been in York in a couple of hours with a full flood tide and no stopping at Wicstun or anywhere else for that matter. 

A shot of shots

Newland Avenue, Hull

Now it's been a while since I studied la língua española (put it this way Franco was still regrettably Caudillo de España, Por la Gracia de Dios) and I really don't care that much but surely(or just maybe) that should be los chupitos? It doesn't matter much, I just liked the sign. This place is, as you might have guessed, a Mexican themed restaurant that opened recently on Newland Avenue. This street  is fast becoming what someone has described as a United Nations of food.  ¡Basta ya! Hasta luego.

Love from Newland Avenue

 

They're a romantic lot on Newland Avenue so when Valentine's Day looms they deck the trees with red hearts and ribbons. Oh and the florist, noted for its odd window displays, thinks that nothing says "I love you" quite so much as a large bull bearing a long stemmed rose. Must be something in the water.

Quite Gratuitous

Well now there's  Margot saying the other day "Oh that'll be removed in a day or so". "What?" says I. "The bare backsides advertising a student accommodation agent" says herself. "The what now? Surely not ..." says I in all innocence. "Oh! ... I see what you mean" ...

And there's more; there's two gentlemen with their trousers around their ankles and the "Your place or mine?" tagline ... and all this on staid old Newland Avenue. There's not be such goings on since a dominatrix was boarded up in a massage parlour a couple of years back.

Now I don't mind a bit of smutty innuendo now and then I mean it's so full of, well, do I need to draw you a picture?. But not everyone, it seems, shares my view which is perhaps just as well. So cue the obligatory social media indignation from the PC (Puritanical Claptrap) brigade, the perennially silly and ever available for a quote MP for North Hull up on her hind legs with Tweets about "sleaze" and "brothels" and "portrayals of sex acts" (such a dirty mind she must have). And the cries of it objectifying women (but not men, note) and "will no-one think of the children" (who see far more and worse on their computers and phones before breakfast) etc etc etc. Those who wished to be offended were duly offended which is as it should be and they are no doubt smugly content.

Anyhow the accommodation agency have "organised the immediate removal of the images" but not so immediate that I was unable to take a leisurely stroll back down Newland Avenue to refresh my memory and verify my facts as it were.

The Cone Zone

Goddard Avenue gets the thorough ligature treatment while major surgery is performed on Newland Avenue, and pedestrians are protected by hundreds of yards of barriers.

But where are the workers, the heavy rollers, the fiery tar dragon laying thick, lovely smelly tarmac? Well it seems they finished the first part early and scarpered before I could get there. But this is a five week show, they'll be back next week for part two.

Cardoon Time

Out and about on Newland Avenue this afternoon and came across this splendid beast growing in a raised bed. It's a cardoon or globe artichoke and most definitely not your standard Council plant. I'm told they are edible or rather the inner bits of the stalk can be stewed up and consumed au gratin should you choose. Anyhow bees love them.

Margot took this picture

Apparition

This ghost of Xmas just passed was taken by Margot at a bus stop on Newland Avenue.

Weekend Reflections might be here if it's still going.

Knitting Bee

The neighbourhood knitters of Newland Avenue have been at it again this time on the theme of bees. I wouldn't fancy being stung by a brute this size. Any hoo, it's World Bee Day today so I guess this fits in with all that. I'll buzz off now.

Uniform Rip Off

A strange thing today on the local TV news; a Labour MP calling for more competition and openness in business: the business, that is, of selling school uniforms. A fine scam this; where a school is legally allowed to demand its pupils wear the school uniform (I'm not happy about even this but there's more...) and then demand that the uniform is bought from a particular shop or supplier. The school having a deal with said shop is, of course, profiting from its own regulations... Naturally such a practice, enforced monopoly, acts to no-one's benefit but the school and the shop. Many poor parents are finding uniforms prohibitively expensive (for each child between £255 for primary school and £340 for secondary school; that's per year ...I'm sure you'll agree this is  absolutely ridiculous! ) and this restricts their children attending the appropriate school. Simply buying a cheap uniform and stitching the school badge (as my mother did for me way back when I went to school) is not good enough for the money grubbing school who now require the school logo on socks! on blazers, on trousers! probably on the underpants ...

By way of a reaction to these scandalous practices and high prices a system of recycling uniforms (called Re: Uniform) has sprung up centred here at the Methodist Church on Cottingham Road/Newland Avenue. 

So a bill is being presented today in Parliament, the Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill, I think every parent in the land will be wishing it to pass ...

Red, White and Blue

A rather tattered old rag hanging over the bankrupt Blockbuster video store on Newland Avenue. The news today that GDP will finally creep back 2008 levels has hardly been met with dancing in the street but maybe if the local football team win the FA cup in week's time there may be some small celebration.

The weekend in black and white is here

Old Chestnuts

It's that time of year when the Horse Chestnut trees send forth their floral delights. These contrasting specimens are on the corner of Newland Avenue and Cottingham Road but you can find them spread all over town. Only the white ones produce conkers of any usable size. For some unfathomable reason these are sometimes known as Buckeyes in America ... there's even a fetid buckeye which sounds truly delightful.

Margot took this.

A kind of magic

As you go up Newland Avenue (up meaning Northwards) you pass under a rail bridge and maybe pay little heed to the patch of land just to your side. It is hidden behind some protective fencing and only measures a few square feet. It used to be a bit of a problem with litter and "stuff" accumulating there, really just an ugly nuisance; but then some locals took it in hand and transformed it into a teeny magical garden where not everything is as it appears... So a big well done and many thanks to the folks who did this.

Why did the zebra cross the road?

Zebra had to close earlier this year due to the landlord raising the rent by about 50%.  This is the newly reopened Zebra still on Newland Avenue just across the road, in fact, close to the zebra crossing (yes, I know, it's just too much). Anyhow here's wishing Ann good luck in this relaunch.

You take our picture?

So I'm taking a fairly boring picture on Newland Avenue when suddenly my camera, which has face recognition, goes crazy as these two guys were bobbing up and down in front of me. Would I take their picture? Why, of course! Turns out they were Polish and had clearly been enjoying a Friday afternoon in July and might have little recollection of this. 

I'll show the boring picture tomorrow.

Zebra

What can I say about this unique shop? Why is it called Zebra? Why does it have an elephant with a hat in the window ...  Why not?  Don't ask me, ask Ann, the owner who has been running this business for years now, only be prepared for a long chat. It's the sort of place where conversation seems to take precedence over selling stuff.  Zebra is on Newland Avenue and sells a vast array of arty crafty ethnic occult goods, cards, jewellery, goth stuff, hippy stuff, mermaids, you get the idea ... Well worth a visit.

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? 

On the level

A restaurant on Newland Avenue was undergoing a makeover last week.  Formerly known as Piola, a busy Italian restaurant, it seems it is be called Level a name which gives nothing away.

The Grasshopper Store

Although there quite a few Polish and Eastern European stores dotted around the outskirts of town especially on Beverley Road and Newland Avenue there are very few in the town centre itself. This one named Pasikonik or Grasshopper is on Carr Lane. It's a welcome addition to Hull's shops and provides an alternative to the uniform fare offered by the the chain stores Sainsbury's, Tesco and so on. I hope we see more like this. If only so I can get my Polskie piwa when in town!