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 ...

The Hollyhocks Hang Harmlessly

Some nice people have not only planted cardoons in Newland Avenue but supplemented the fine small trees with hollyhocks some of which have gone a bit mad in the recent heat growing to ten foot or more.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Easter Traditions

The end of the forty days of Lent is in sight and to celebrate some trees on Newland Avenue have been adorned with white knitted rabbits (probably best not to ask what gibbeted rabbits have to do with anything...). Also there are small posters relating how Easter is celebrated in various parts of the world. So in Texas they set the place alight by building Easter fires. Hungarian boys splash girls with perfume so we are told. My favourite, though, was the Lithuanians who whip their relatives with palms to bring wealth. Strangely I could find nothing about the ancient Hull tradition of restoring potatoes to patties (which had been spudless for forty whole days! imagine that...) Ah those Easter patties so warm and filling! Oh and bringing out the chip spice from its sacred Lenten hiding place. Odd there's no mention of this.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

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! 

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!

Wake up and smell the ....

Newland Avenue, Hull

Readers of this blog will know that I am a tea man myself. It was not always so. I used to drink loads of coffee, just like the old proverb: black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love. But then about three years ago after a nasty encounter with the Norwalk virus (I've never heard of any pleasant encounters with this little life changer) I just couldn't face the stuff again. Now I can't even stand the smell. 

So tea, anyone? Shall I be mother?

The weekend in black and white is brewing up over here.

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.

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. 

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.

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? 

Missing: 1 Tree

Somewhere in this one horse town lives a person who, a couple of weeks ago and in the early hours of the morning, took it upon themselves to remove a tree. Was the urge for a spot of surreptitious tree surgery keeping them awake at nights? Did the tree, a nine year old accacia (see below), offend some strange esthetic and so simply have to go ...? Were they cold and had no wood for their stove? I think we'll never know. 

When news of a second tree being removed at midnight surfaced a few days later the local rag began to speculate on a possible serial arboricide stalking the region, power saw in hand, "the Phantom Tree Chopper", that is until the local council fessed up to the second one. Anyhow the traders on Newland Avenue want the Council to put in another tree and there's a small reward for infomation but it's safe to say the police are stumped on this one.

Thank you Google Street View