Hull Fair again

So another year has passed and it's Hull Fair once again and as last year was so exciting we decided to try it again. But as the old Greek says you cannot step into the same river twice it was not so fun filled this second time around. Still we took far too many pictures and stayed a good deal longer than we were intending.

Fracture lines

It's really not fair, some might say, to juxtapose a broken window with Orchard Park. Orchard Park, the very name conjures up a rural idyll, a place of bucolic bliss. But in reality Orchard Park is home to packs of feral, anti-social, uneducated, despicable untermensch who roam around destroying any last vestige of civilisation...and that's just the children.

Oh I know other cities have far worse places and OP is not even the worst place in Hull but when they witter on about 'City of Culture this' and 'City of Culture that' just bear in mind how utterly irrelevant it all is to Orchard Park and the kindred hell holes that surround this place.

Margot took this picture while we waited for a bus to leafy Cottingham, where the snobs live, if we are to believe some Hull Councillors.

The weekend in black and white is here.

It's happy hour again

You never quite know what you might bump into at Hull Fair. This is guy I believe is called Rabbit De Niro but don't quote me on that.

Margot is responsible for this.

Some of the fun of the Fair

The last time we went to Hull Fair properly, as it were, was so long ago that digital cameras hadn't even been thought of. So, thinking that it might be another thirty years or so before we return, we perhaps overdid it by taking some 700 shots between us some of which turned out OK. We arrived during the 'Happy Hour' meant for families with young children when some of the rides are half price. I have to say that I not a great fan of crowds or loud, no, not loud, louder than loud, noise (couldn't call it music) that you don't so much hear as feel viscerally as it thumps through the thoracic cavity. Nor do flashing lights and those green beams of 'laser' lights have any great appeal. After a while, though, a morbid fascination takes over and we stayed for an hour and half leaving as many more were arriving and the party could really get going. This is the 722nd Hull Fair and it closes tonight at midnight, so get your skates on ...

Margot caught this rather tired looking customer.

Really crowded

Simply Buses

I always strive, as you are aware, to be upbeat and positive in my postings about this fair town. So it gives me immense pleasure to inform you that half of Hull's buses, those blue ones run by Stagecoach, have undergone an overhaul. Not the actual buses themselves, no that would be too much, no the routes they run on. Routes have been combined, adjusted and played around with so that now there are just fifteen routes, numbered 1 to 16. For some reason there is no number 15. Mirabile dictu there's now even a service that runs from the west unto the east (and back again) and it runs right past my front door every ten minutes. The old buses were labeled Pronto now in a masterpiece of PR they are to be known as Simplibus. We tried out that new service on Monday and sure enough it went all the way across to Holderness Road; pretty straight forward except when the driver forgot the new route in town and took us on an impromptu tourist ride round the houses to get back on track. Still, early days ...

Weekend Reflections are here.

12 Floréal CCXXIII

"The French Revolution caused great loss of life, liberty, fraternity, etc., and was, of course, a Good Thing, since the French were rather degenerate at the time; but Napoleon now invented a new Convention that the French should massacre all the other nations and become top nation, and this, though quite generate, was a Bad Thing."

Sellar & Yeatman, 1066 and all that

Next Thursday the voters of this land go to chose members of one of the most successful revolutionary institutions in the world. Yes I do mean Parliament, which was formed to restrain Plantagenet excesses,  and which has led two revolutions, beheading one king and overthrowing another and creating the means to hold Government to account. Well that's what it says in the textbooks and they wouldn't lie to me would they? Obviously all thought of revolution has gone out of the place, I hear the old building is nearly falling down (perhaps with the members still inside, perish that seditious thought!). But we live in troubled times, so they say, and this next parliament could see the exit from the EU, the break up of the UK and the immiseration of millions. Or not, as the case may be. Probably not, but I doubt heads will fall in any case that's not the style these days instead a place in the Lords awaits any failed minister.
Personally I’ll just sit here and watch the river flow, I hear Chelsea will win the Premier League this year, Hull look like staying up and did you see England win the cricket the other day, and will it be a Royal boy or girl and ain't it cold for Spring?

Today's image for the City Daily Photo theme of Revolution is from a ghost ride at Hull Fair, a celebration for the local yokels of things going round and round and getting nowhere at their own expense.

Sign of authority

Tucked away in a little brick hut and behind steel grills the harbour master's office near Drypool bridge is a reminder that, from the Humber to the northern boundary of the city of Hull, the navigation authority on the river Hull is Hull City Council. HCC's website informs us that "A harbour master is on duty from three hours before high water (HW) Hull (Albert Dock) until HW or later if required, except Sundays" and that the HM is responsible for the operation of the movable bridges that link both halves of this fair city. Actually I don't think the harbour master works from this building any more as his/her address is the Guildhall, Alfred Gelder Street, and given that hardly any navigating seems to go on nowadays the post must almost be a sinecure. 

Hull Fair and all the fun thereof

Round and round it comes again the Autumnal forced fun fest. Hull Fair, centuries old, seemingly never changing and just as noisy, smelly and tedious as ever.

At least old Balou was still there and not remotely impressed by all the goings on.

All pictures by Margot K Juby 'cos I had a bad foot and was in no mood to take pictures of this stupid thing, I just tweaked them a tad.

The Stadium Church

Sitting at the junction of the Boulevard and Anlaby Road this is St Matthew's church. It was built in 1870 to accommodate the expanding city's spiritual needs. Whether or not it managed that I don't know but it's still open for business after all these years unlike many other Victorian churches built at that time. The church's website informs me that it has a special ministry for sport and also for the annual Hull Fair. The church has taken to calling itself the Stadium Church due its closeness to the KC Stadium though the latter has far bigger (all paying) congregations.

But what's all this in East Park?

As if the good folks of Hull haven't just had a whole week of fun fairs another mini-fair springs up on my favourite tree lined avenue. Something to do with Hallowe'en and all that jazz no doubt. Well it was only a tiny part of the park used up so I suppose I mustn't grumble much.

The word tacky seems the most accurate description of  fun fairs.

I thought this land train was particularly tasteful.

Hull Fair

So, at long last, we reach Hull Fair which in one form or another has been going on for 720 or so years and is the largest travelling fair in Europe. Apart from this year bringing with it typical Hull Fair weather, cold, wet and windy the fair seemed to my delicate ears to be the loudest ever with every ride turning up the volume to 11. Here's a selection taken at dusk, the fair goes on till late at night but as I think I've mentioned before I'm not allowed out after dark ....

So that's Hull Fair over for another year.

Welcoming signs

Before we get to the Fair we must pass the KC Stadium. Up close the stadium is an ugly brute reminiscent of an overgrown steel can without any of the charm. Hull council splashed out £44 million for this monster in West Park nearly eleven years ago when times were much, much easier than now and the Council was flush with cash from the sale of the local telephone company. The stadium is home to two teams, the Premier League Hull City and the rugby league Hull Football Club, but as neither spherical nor elliptical balls interest me that much I've never been inside and besides they won't let me take my camera in ....(I've just checked and the cheapest tickets for an adult to watch a soccer match is £22. The last match I went to, admittedly going on for 35 years ago, cost less than £3 and I got to see Liverpool beat, I believe, Manchester City 5-0. Kenny Dalgleish scored a hat trick. I think that's enough footy for now.)

 

There's a website for the truly besotted, it's here.

Going to the Fair

So this is Hull Fair week, as I may have mentioned, and for a change I went via a new (to me) route across the rail tracks and scrub land that lies behind the KC football stadium. When the stadium was built this path was also put in to take visiting supporters directly from the rail/bus station to the ground and isolate them as much as possible from the city, much in the manner that Hull treated European emigrants passing through the city in the 19th century, that is as if they carry some contagious disease. It's a frankly stupid policy of shuttling thousands of visitors to the city in and out as quickly as possible when with a bit of guile they could be persuaded to bide a while in the town and perhaps spend a bit of money, but clearly Hull doesn't need their money. 

Anyhow once you're over this bridge the Fair hoves into view along with some spectacular giant Hogweeds, some six or seven foot tall and really rather splendid among the scrubby unkempt landscape. Quite what visitors to Hull make of this I don't know but I rather like it. Then there's one more little bridge to cross and you reach the KC stadium itself, the Fair is just on the other side of this.

Whirlybird

When you're walking along the street probably the last thing you expect to see is a helicopter taking off a few dozen yards away. I was on my way to Hull Fair (about which more later) when the police chopper arose from a patch of grass close by Hull Royal Infirmary. What it was doing there I know not but I took a few piccies for the record. 

Football crazy

Somebody obviously was feeling a tad homesick (possibly drunk, who could say?) and simply had to tell the world of their affection for Zagłębie Sosnowiec, a football team. I somehow doubt that in the fair city of Sosnowiec there's a wall celebrating Hull City Association Football Club but you never know. Speaking of HCAFC the owner wants to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers on the grounds that 'city' is such an "common" word. As you know Hull is a idyllic place with no real great issues to worry about so this has caused uproar and dismay among those who follow this 'club' and pay good money to watch a ball being kicked from one end of a grassy field to the other.

For those of you into 1980's popular music combos this is on Grafton Street home to the Housemartins and later the Beautiful South. 

Flames of Hull

"Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!"

Much to everyone's surprise and as if to prove that satire hasn't died Hull was short listed yesterday for the UK 2017 City of Culture award. The idea of giving the odious Hull City Council and any private enterprise partners £11 million to play with for one year strikes me as ridiculous but then these are silly times and frankly anything is possible. To get this glittering prize Hull is offering to stage around 1500 events, dozens of festivals and no fewer than 12 artist residencies and watch out for collaborations with Reykjavik and Rotterdam. Hull remains in competition with the fair cities of Dundee, Leicester and Swansea all cultural icons in their own right as you are all too well aware. The final judgement is at the end of this year, the excitement is palpable and mounting by the hour. 

Personally state sponsored 'culture' is quite repulsive and redolent of the panem et circenses of bygone eras. So just burn me up now please.

City Daily Photo is having a mid-month theme on the Solstice which for some reason involves the classical elements of earth, water, air, fire, and spirit. Well I've fire here and if the culture of a place could be called its spirit that makes two. Given the amount of hot air issuing over Hull's bid it's going to take a lot of cold water to bring them down to earth. Anyhow, enough, see how others have struggled with this theme here.

Western Cemetery

The Western Cemetery is essentially an extension of the Spring Bank cemetery [1, 2] opened in 1889 and still in use. It is across the railway line from the site of Hull Fair which you can see in the background. Most of the early memorials are showing signs of aging except for this one to Zebedee Scaping. Who he? My searches show he was born in Eton then went to the Royal Hospital School which has connections with the Navy. Later he becomes the headmaster of Trinity House school in Hull, a position he held for fifty-five years and, as this monument says, is  known in "every port and on every sea". I've managed to find a photo of him here , he's the one with the beard. The memorial was restored and regilded a few years ago and looks as it must have done when new.

Zeb married Georgiana Harriette Fury in Dublin in 1859, his occupation as that time is described as "Esquire", those were the days, eh!. From census records I found they had a son, also called Zebedee, well it would have been a shame to lose such a fine name.

If you like wandering round cemeteries why not wander over to Taphophile Tragics and see what others have posted.