Decay

The good folks of City Daily Photo have chosen as today's theme the 'Beauty of Decay'. Easy I thought just point my camera just about anywhere in Hull and click. It's all around me this decay malarkey but then on second thoughts there's hardly any beauty in it and the shabbiness that could be mistaken for decay is really mindless economic neglect. No, real decay leads to something new, it's a transformation, a recycling; it has a purpose. So it's back to nature and besides it's prettier than any tatty building in Hull.

A few years ago this  large tree, I think it was a horse chestnut, was felled on Beverley Westwood. Instead of clearing it away in some fastidious manner it was simply left lying. Over the years fungi and insects will no doubt eat it away and I will no doubt take pictures of them doing so.

 

Skyline

Here the high rise delights of Anlaby Road's hinterland punctuate the sky with a gentle toxic glow in the evening sunshine. From this distance it doesn't look too bad but this is probably as close as you'd want to get. It's rumoured people pay rent and taxes for the privilege of living in these places I find that difficult to believe. The über observant amongst you will have noticed that the boat in the foreground is HMS Explorer which I posted about before.

Posterngate from Princes Quay

Well I've looked at this picture for a good five minutes and I still can't think of anything interesting to say about it. So I guess I'll just leave it there and come back tomorrow.

Princes Quay

This shopping centre was once the only one in Hull and was consequently always crowded with hundreds of shoppers. Then, in a move which drew intense criticism, the top floor which used to have dozens of small stalls selling a variety of goods was converted into a ten screen digital cinema. Shortly after that St Stephens opened.  Then the economic depression struck. So now this place seems like a ghost town, you could almost  see the tumble weed drift by. It seems to be turning into a kind of leisure place what with the cinema and numerous franchised eating outlets and maybe that's where it's future lies since I can't see it being a major shopping centre again.

Haircut

As a child I was sent to the barber's every fortnight for a sixpenny (2.5p) short back and sides. Such training put me off barber's for life so that I haven't been in one of these places for decades as my long grey hair testifies. Still, as the guy on the bike shows, there's clearly still a demand to have one's hair cut back to the wood as they say.

First time for everything

Maybe they do it all the time, this sitting on a roof thing, and I have just failed to register it. Anyhow here's my first and positively last picture of a duck on a roof.

Butchery

This old butcher's sign has been revealed on Beverley Road, near to Cave Street. I can't remember a butcher's ever being there, that's going back thirty years. The shop is shuttered and closed along with neighbouring shops all benefiting from the economic butchery that is the government's austerity policy. Cuts here, chops there, free money for all our banker friends, oh well done old boy!

Pictures by Margot K Juby, because she had the camera and I didn't.