Aussies suck ...

... something called Up & Go (a breakfast drink, m'lud ) every morning which is why they will no doubt win this Summer's Ashes series which starts today in Cardiff. Sadly there'll be no “Morning, everyone” from Richie Benaud but life goes on. Cricket, I'm told, is an impenetrable mystery to some folks who fail to see how a match can last five days, end in a draw (if we're lucky!) and still be gripping stuff. Well there you go, that's just how it is.
These adverts however really do 'suck' if I may use the vernacular.

True story

This little house has been empty for some time. Emptiness is taken as an invitation by low-life scum to enter and take out all the copper piping, to  mess the place up, break all the windows, squat for a while, use as a drug den and then finally set fire to it. Add to all that the failure of the foundations leading some real fancy cracks, it's a wonder it has fallen down. In the above picture the rear extension is on the point of tumbling over. The Council have scheme to bring properties like this back to life but the damage was too great even for that most generous of institutions, it gave the place a zero value; £0!!

Still the place was not doomed for a Prince Charming had fallen in love with this sleeping little money pit and set his heart on restoring it to its former glory. So just the other week after years of trying to trace the owner he finally bought the place and has set about clearing the overgrown garden (mainly elderberry and ivy not thorns! This is not a fairy tale!) and will shortly be demolishing those parts about to fall down with a view to rebuilding. This blog (and, I suppose, the nice guy who lives next door) wishes him well!

Tre Kronor

Guildhall, Hull

It's a little known fact the Hull was once a Swedish city and that there was much trade with that Baltic country in medieval times that continues to this day. This explains the accent of native born Hull folk and also how Hull's coat of arms has three crowns on it exactly like the Swedish coat of arms and the ever so similar the three crowns over the stadshus of Stockholm. Sweden's ice hockey team wear three crowns on their shirts as do Hull's two Rugby League sides. It's all very sub rosa and embarrassing as the English like to think the king in Kingston upon Hull was an English King when in fact it was one of the Gustavs or maybe a Magnus I forget for the moment. Sadly, or more likely stupidly, wars have been fought over these three damned crowns. Hull's three crowns are even protected by an Act of Parliament. All this hidden history is so little appreciated that you could say I just made it all up. It's the heat, Carruthers, the damned heat....

The weekend in black and white is here.

Real history people have little or no idea about these three crowns either as you can find out here.

Say it with padlocks

As the Parisian Pont des Arts padlock affair came to a close the other week so a new one springs up here at the Victoria Pier. These, as far as I can tell, are unlike the French version not symbols of undying love but acts of remembrance to lost family members, not so much matched as dispatched shall we say. There are wreaths and little cards with those sickly doggerel verses that accompany death notices in newspapers. This is a most unwelcome development and symptomatic of the increasing desire for public displays of 'grief'. The place, which attracts many visitors for its views across and along the Humber, is in danger of becoming a morbid eyesore. 

Hanging around

This poor girl has been hanging around with the blood going to her head for over a year now and by rights I should have posted this last year with all the others from the day given over to celebrate Hull's selection as the City of Culture (here). But I didn't and so luckily for me (and for you, my joyful reader!) I can post it for this month's collection of all things upside down by the people at City Daily Photo.

Cranky

I think the heat may be getting to me and it's only the first day of what is billed (by weather people with big smiles you would love to hit with a wet fish) as a heatwave. Well I know 28°C is hardly going to cook your brains but I do NOT do hot. I'll probably aestivate if it carries on much longer... 

It seems I spoke too soon

The non-going drama of the repairs to Victoria Pier continues to enthral spectators. It's been eighteen months now of non-stop inactivity. In March I wondered whether the arrival of these large beams meant that the end of the road was in sight. I need not have worried.