Now that's really useful

*sigh*

Keep on smiling

Also while I was away the Council finally took a big deep breath and blew down the New York hotel, well maybe a JCB was involved, but anyway it's gone leaving this impressive pile of bricks and dozens of homeless pigeons. The building had only been empty for fifteen years and in a state of terminal decay for nigh on eight so this is really quick stuff from HCC, verging on the impetuous. (maybe I should go away more often) The bill for demolition is thought to be well over £250,000 which the Council thinks it will get back from the owners ... I think I know who is smiling after all this.

Let us spray

Some creative spraying has been going on in the old fruit market area. This, on Pier Street, is by a "collective of Hull based aerosol graffiti artists, mural painters and urban decorators available for hire". I hope they have other colours besides green maybe you can ask them by going here.

Stages of development

I was happy to find that the little pathway that runs alongside the old dry dock has been re-opened so I could have a wander along there this afternoon. As I mentioned in an earlier post some construction is under way in the dry dock. This is to be a small open air stage/amphitheatre for events during the Year of Culture, I don't have to tell you how enthusiastically this has been received amongst those who like to troll the local newspaper. Personally I think it's a grand idea and will entertain many on those warm evenings that Hull is especially noted for, between the end of June and the start of July. As well as a stage there's to be reed beds planted at each end for that eco-friendly look that is so in vogue these days.

Flares and flags

This brought to mind memories of the physics lessons of my distant youth; the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection or so they say. The thing in the middle is one of a pair rags on this pier; possible entrants in the most tattered flags in the world competition, and a truly heart-warming symbol of the state of this United Kingdom. Rule, Britannia!
 

Weekend Reflections are here.

47 Queen Street

Here's yet another of those old riverside warehouses reused as offices, this one is next door to that C4DI building I showed the other day. It's also the offices of Wykeland the development company that is building the C4DI site so that's handy.

The weekend in black and white is here.

A Scheduled Monument

Catching up with other news from this charming little town and you'll be delighted to learn that, after an exercise in public consultation hitherto unknown in these parts, the local hole has been saved for future generations and is to be extended with seating and a few hedges and so on. This represents a reversal for the Council which wanted to fill it in but had not reckoned without the power of digital petitions and news articles describing that decision as idiotic. (Quite why that particular decision any more idiotic than all the rest is a mystery). So now the litter will have more space to gather in and the youths will have more space to hang around and be disaffected. But history has been saved ...

The few medieval bricks, tucked away in the corner down there, that make up what was once Beverley Gate have now been made a Scheduled Monument by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (I assume it costs the Government nothing to do this) which means that...., well I don't know what it means, but it sounds good doesn't it.

I've also heard that regarding the dreadful Word Gate proposed for nearby the Council are looking for other sites. They didn't respond to my suggestion that two miles east of Spurn Point was an excellent site.