Leaving

A yacht leaves the marina. I wonder where they could be going that's so good they'd want to leave Hull.

A not so dull day in Hull

Wind! Hull is set on making a living out of wind power. The council earlier this week gave planning permission for a massive wind turbine construction site on a disused dock. If Siemens actually do what they say they want to do then this will greatly change Hull's prospects [ 1 ]. There's talk of thousands of jobs, many of them skilled engineering jobs. But so far it's still just talk and with the way things stand in Europe at the moment it's probably wiser not to plan too far ahead.

Here, however, is something more tangible. Here's a support platform for the Lincs Wind Farm being built off the Lincolnshire coast. It's being fitted up at the Albert dock. I showed you this on that dull day in Hull. Pure ignorance on my part to call it a drilling rig.

Old Fishing Boat

Looking a bit out of place amongst the expensive yachts and snazzy powerboats this old trawler, Mariner 1, is having a makeover into a genteel houseboat.

Things to do on a unicycle

So I'm having  a stroll round the dock when I come across a couple of shifty looking characters who waited till I got past them before one of them hops on a unicycle and proceeds to pedal, calm as you like, round the perimeter wall of the dock entrance. The wall is about eighteen inches wide and four or five feet high; fall off and it's a small pathway between safety and a drop into the dock. He made it safe enough until he came to some steps when he simply hopped down the steps, still on the cycle, and pedalled away round the corner. His mate was filming the whole event on a phone, he probably got better shots than me as it took me a while to get my trusty Fuji out of my bag. 

If you're wondering about things not to do on a unicycle I came across this page which is full of really useful tips.

Voyager returns

Last year I reported on the outrageous theft of the statue Voyage [ 1 ]. Well the news is that he's back, well, not him exactly but a clone. At a cost of £40,000 Hull Council have replaced the stolen item with a copy of the Icelandic one. He looks a little greener than I remember him and he seems to be looking in a slightly different direction but who's quibbling? The Council have also installed £5000 worth of extra 'security'; some may mutter about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted but I'm not that sort of guy ... You can see a very short BBC news video on the unveiling here. It was quite a do with local and Icelandic bigwigs attending; please try not to laugh too much at the mayor he likes to dress up in funny clothes.

Indentured debt slaves?

Students waiting for the bus last October could be in line for debts of £60,000 according to a newspaper report [ 1 ]. Time was they used to pay you to go to Uni (I left uni with a healthy bank balance and absolutely no debts); now they expect students to become indentured debt slaves. Question still remains; why do they queue so orderly?

Walter L'espec

The western facade of Beverley Minster [ 1 ] contains many carved statues, not all of them are of saints and so on. This guy for example, Walter L'espec, was no mean piece of work. He controlled most of northern England during the reign of Henry 1 up to 1120. As was the custom in those days, he built castles all over the place (he is depicted with what looks like Helmsley Castle tucked under his arm), and established priories and abbeys including Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire which was one of the wealthiest in England. He died in 1153, so this  was carved much later  since Beverley Minster wasn't finished till the 1400s. This statue makes me question was he a small man with a normal sword or a normal sized man with a massive sword? I suspect the latter; either way you wouldn't want to cross him.