Let a thousand flowers bloom somewhere else

I think I last showed this patch of the city of culture, Blackfriargate, some time ago. Back then it had been allowed to do its own thing for years ... I was surprised to see what had sprung up here. I knew there were plans, I just hadn't been round here for a while ... I know it was after all clearance land, a perfect brownfield site and must have been built on before so the loss of wildflowers and things of nature shouldn't really give such a sense of loss should it? I guess I make a terrible capitalist or maybe I'm just going soft in this stupid lockdown (which as you see I'm ignoring). We can't live on pretty wildflowers or views of old churches, Arco must have its new offices (or so it says) and cars, well cars need parking spaces and petrol and roads and free people to drive them ...

and speaking of free people ... I read that the vast majority of folk in the UK are against being liberated from their house arrest. They are scared, in many cases absolutely petrified, of going back to normal activity. I never thought I'd see the day when brainwashing by politicians, media and civil servants but mainly the damned, unforgivable NHS and widespread simple ignorance would combine to destroy the free will of so many. Gah! A plague on the lot of them ... oh yeah.

Bottle Feeder

No, it's not some modern sculpture based on the Jonah myth but a mere rubbish bin. This, close by the now closed (temporarily) and somewhat despairing fish tank known as the Deep, is a receptacle for plastic bottles. Someone more eco-friendly and less sceptical than myself might have shown all the do-goody-save-the-panet-from-plastic signs that accompany this but I couldn't be bothered.

When every day seems like yet another Sunday it's difficult to keep track but I believe that the weekend in black and white should be here if not it'll be along shortly.

Bargains Galore

Today's May Day theme is Shopping. Hmmm. A walk round town this afternoon (yes a sightseeing trip, first in weeks, nothing had changed and yet everything had changed) was really quite depressing. So many businesses closed and quite unlikely to reopen any time soon. I read that local businesses were looking forward to getting back to normal (this was a few weeks ago). Given that even before the ongoing collective collapse of stout parties Hull's shopping experience was a shrinking affair with dozens of empty sites (as I've bored the world with on many occasions) I don't think "normal" is going to be much fun at all. Still not everywhere was closed ...

Ten Years After

'...the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.'

This shop...  You do remember shops, don't you? You could wander in off the street (streets were places you could walk without needing a "reasonable excuse") and look at stuff and maybe, if you wanted, you might buy stuff at your leisure... well this shop is or was in King's Lynn way back in February before the Batshit Times descended and common sense died so many deaths from the hands of the lockdown lunatics. 

There is a desire amongst folk, folk who would ordinarily not have anything to do with superstition or astrology or ascribing significance to the motion of stars, to celebrate or at least mark in some way going round the sun a certain number times. So they have birthdays and wedding anniversaries and so on. Is there any point in all this nonsense? (It's to mark the passing of the time, you old cynic, well what else does time do other than pass ...) Counting off the years seems pretty damn useless, much like counting your breath or worse. So for those who are into that kind of thing today is apparently ten years since I started this fine blog. For all my good works I get called a "curmudgeon"; this it seems is the judgement of my peers (or at least one of them). You no doubt can find worse words to use, so use them while you still can.  

Flattening the curve

The current craze for pointless economic self-destruction means that this place, St Stephens, is to all intents and purposes closed and the doors locked. Sure you can shop at Tesco but to get into that place involves going right around the block, along some deserted back streets until you get here (the back door, I suppose, yes, you could start here but it's my story and I'm telling it) and then through the underground car park beyond those steps and up an escalator, finally passing through a maze of barriers all intended to treat  you like sheep herded for a fleecing. 

As you can see the madness continues, shows no sign of abating and folk like it, they're loving it. Some even applaud their captivity each Thursday and deplore, report, snitch, dob any infringement of the recently revised house arrest legislation and indeed any heresy of not applauding the newly installed tutelary deity: The NHS (may it be preserved). So many lovely lives saved.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Alone, alone, all, all alone

 

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I. 

 

Cheery greetings from the grey-bearded loon lost in the deserted city of culture with only Coleridge for company.

A kesterell for a knafe

There are people (usually but not always male, of a solitary disposition and thankfully limited in number) who get pleasure from taking a bird and tying leather straps to it and making it perform tricks in return for bechins of chicken. Their pastime (I almost said hobby but this is no place for puns) has been described (among other things) as expensive, time-consuming, and useless. There are other people (also funnily enough usually male) who enjoy (though they deny it, of course they deny it) tying down a whole population and limiting their freedom and in return for conformity they grant tidbits of shopping and a snippet of exercise. Their pleasure is also expensive, time-consuming, and useless. And well, there are it seems far, far more people who enjoy being tied down (figuratively, it's not that kind of blog post, though à chacun son gout), who take paid leave on 80% wage and applaud their captors for taking care of them. Their furlough is even more expensive, time-consuming, and useless. I wonder what they will do when their hoods are removed, the jesses loosened and creances dropped; probably yawn, squawk and fall off their perches with hunger.

The poor creature above is a kestrel on display at Cottingham Show back in 2011.