Nice mural, shame about the building

They say if you stare this mural for long enough (in my case over thirty years on and off) you can see 'Hull' spelled out by the masts and rigging of the boats. I wouldn't worry if you don't see it.

This is the now empty BHS store and I've shown it before in better times. I'm showing it now because there's a bit of a storm in a teacup brewing over getting the mural some protection from removal or demolition and so on. The powers that be have said that the 1960's work by Alan Boyson "does not reach the standard for listing compared to other examples". There's another mural inside, which I don't remember ever seeing, and that too was not listed. This decision has not met with universal approval and a petition has been set up to get the Council to do something about it. (You can sign it here should you wish.) It's not difficult to discern the dark arts being employed here. If this does get listed then that building will be damn difficult to demolish without a lot of expense and I think that building really should come down if only to subtract one ugly thing from the planet. So I signed the petition; to lose the mural would be like losing an old friend, but I'll sign one to remove the building as well if anyone were to put one up. Go figure.

All Gone A Bit Pete Tong

I thought on this day a wonky reflection of the statue of liberty might be apposite.

A year where things happen that weren't supposed to happen has topped itself out nicely with the election, as President, of Mr Trump in the good old US of A. Democracy does have a tendency to demock, as it were, and this year has been a doozy for the 'baskets of deplorables' turning over the old certainties. (Politics 101 never, ever insult the voters, they may be hoopleheads but you keep that to yourself). Which is, I suppose why  we have these little things called elections. And the world is still spinning ... if a bit wobbly.

Skidby Mill

Rootling around my old photos for something to post I came across this one of Skidby Mill. It seems I took this a mere eleven years ago. The old mill I'm guessing will still look much the same which is more than can be said about myself or indeed the original post. In the six years since I first posted all the links have been changed or lost, such is the impermanence of all things digital. So if you've a hankering to know more about this place then go here or here (but don't wait too long).

Sutton Road Selection

In Hull if you're out when the postman tries to deliver a package then it's sent to the Malmo Road sorting office and you can either have it redelivered on another day or you can go pick it up yourself. So it was that, with nothing better to do last week, we found ourselves on a number 7 bus heading towards the untold delights of Sutton Road and thereabouts. The place we had to go to was on a small industrial estate where the roads are all Scandinavian cities, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and so on; there's even a Narvick Road ( ? ). Even with such fine names however an industrial estate is, I'm afraid, just an industrial estate and fairly dull at that. Best bit the was bridge leading back home ... 

Margot had the camera, I just went along for the ride.

Get your kicks ...

This route 66 goes not from Chicago to Santa Monica but "from central Manchester to Spurn Head via Bradford, Leeds, York, Beverley, and Kingston upon Hull". A kind of scenic version of the M62. Oh, and I am afraid you'll have to ride a bike or walk. Well it says it goes to Spurn Head but later on the page says that actually it stops at Saltend (I imagine just by  the BP chemical works, that's oh so pretty!). Ah but  the romance of cycling from Manchester to Hull is still there; isn't it?

Stretching things

There's really nothing new in this picture, the mural you've seen before, the bridge and the flood defence ditto; even the pigeon has probably popped up in a few postings. The site behind the mural which was going to be a twenty storey cigarette box or hotel has been sold to an unknown buyer, that is to say unknown to me. This is a panorama shot stitched together then squeezed in sideways and stretched in height just to give a strange view of a really flat scene. You don't have to like it.

I'm feeling a little wrung out and stretched as well as this household is getting over a wretched weekend of vomiting and diarrhoea caused by some virus, bug or other microbeastie whose vile little existence is either proof of ongoing evolution and adaptation or God's mysterious and divine plan. Sucks either way.

Poop the coop

Here's an advertisement for the effectiveness of bird protection measures; they work so well and the birds feel so protected they set up home.

Never thought I'd find a use for what is, in so many ways, a crap photo (taken by Margot I hasten to add) but then along comes City Daily Daily photo and their "out of focus" theme day. Well blame them ... they asked for it.