" ...listen, linger and think about what you see."

"While you are looking you may as well also listen, linger and think about what you see"
                                                                                                                             Jane Jacobs

This is the ever so new King Edward Square: the time is around five thirty and most folk are heading on home; the only noise is the fruit seller desperate to sell his strawberries "Two for a pound" "Your strawberries two for a pound". There are a few people passing but this is the very centre of what claims to be a city. It's more like a desert. There's no traffic, no people lingering, nobody wanting to be here at all; not even the poor soul trying to sleep by the doors of the old BHS store. This is a dead space.

Been there for years ...

Another one of those "been there for years" shops non è più. This one on Holderness Road. Never mind we can always order a yard brush on line (free delivery!) and get DIY advice from You Tube. I mean, shops, who needs 'em?

King Edward Street: a touch of the baroque

King Edward Street as the name might suggest was pushed through the chaos of late Victorian Hull around 1905. These are a few buildings that survive from that time still retaining what I've heard described as Edwardian baroque revival upper storeys. The ground floor styles are Elizabethan in need of reviving.

The cladding on the middle building is noted for containing volcanic bombs which sound exciting but actually look like fossilised dog droppings. This cladding dates back to when the building was a bank, before it was a bank it was a chapel; now it's community church and food bank

I've shown this before here but I think this is a better picture.

Pick-a-stick

Though the mills of God grind slowly they are a speedy blur compared to progress in the stinking backwater. So it is that the burnt out shell of the Lambert Street Chapel remains wrapped in scaffolding as the end times approach.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The bags of ballast have become home to a variety of wild flowers.

Highway Robbery

Suppose, just suppose you wanted to stand by the Humber at this point for whatever reason. Maybe you like to wander aimlessly wherever your feet take you or perhaps you like to watch the ships go by or you want one last peek at your enemy as she/he floats by. All perfectly good and valid reasons. And on any day you could freely do just what you wanted. However in this stinking backwater (or City of Culture if you will) the Council colludes with a little known group of scallies who run an annual thing called the Humber Street Sesh; an exhibition of hundreds of desperately untalented noise makers, sorry that should read fabulously gifted musicians from all over the place... (I keep forgetting to type in PC speak). Fine; a 'festival', I'm all in favour ... But (there's always a but) to facilitate this shindig the Council not only blocks off the roads to traffic but allows the organisers to set up tolls and charge pedestrians to walk the streets. So for today you will have to pay someone up to £15 for the right walk on your own streets that lead to the riverside and also to the public conveniences on Nelson Street (pay to pee indeed!). This is why I call it highway robbery, they have stolen our streets and are charging us to use them, the noisy bastards!

A place to rest

The rather silly Boer War memorial on Ferensway makes a nice perch for a sea gull. I think he improves it tremendously; I'm  thinking of calling him Steven ...

YOLO

I'm told it means You Only Live Once. It's how the youth of today communicate with one another. IKR too busy to use words, poor darlings. 

Today's first of the month City Daily Photo theme is 'Young at heart'

Margot took this. We are both still searching for our inner adult. TTFN as we used say back in the day.