Luxury Flats

Buildings with enormous windows are no new fad [ 1 ] as this pair of Victorian villas on Westbourne Avenue show. When the moneyed middle classes left for the delights of Swanland, Anlaby and such places these buildings and others like them were split into unfurnished flats. The cheap regulated rents attracted a certain quality of tenant, artists, poets, layabouts and so on. Many of the Hull poets, in those days a smaller, more select band than the those who have since climbed on the Hull poets' City of Culture bandwagon (Roger McGough, Tom Paulin, Uncle Tom Cobley and all), either lived in or visited 4 Westbourne Ave. Back in the very early 1980's I lived with Margot Juby in the ground floor flat of number 4, second large window on the left. Some memories I recall include  a perpetual state of war with the upstairs soi-disant artist (of the often pissed variety I may add) who seemed to wear lead boots and do a lot of hammering, the bathroom ceiling falling in due to actions of said artist. Another resident, now a well known poet and winner of many prestigious awards, found, after cooking some rashers of bacon, he had also grilled a large slug. The mouse seen on the step which grew and grew until it turned into a rat. Moonshine, a grey cat with good judge of character throwing up over the rent collector's shoes. The young amorous couple next door who did not realise the walls were not very soundproof and ... well I draw a discreet veil over that.
Looking back it was basically squalor but when you're young and daft they say it doesn't seem too bad, let me tell you they lie.

Note there is no garret for the servants, they lived in a freezing cold outhouse at the back with two pokey rooms downstairs and two even smaller upstairs. Ah luxury! And in 1982/3  available for rent at £6 per week with no central heating, no gas fire, in fact no heating at all. The ice made pretty patterns on the windows.
I see there's a flat available at Number 2 with a rent a mere ten times higher than back then, I wonder if that includes slugs ...

Water Troubles

I took this from the bus on my way home thinking to post about the evils of fluoridation and Hull City Council's wish to override the wishes of the surrounding villages and pollute the water with toxic chemicals so that the ignorant, sugar loving children of the city of culture would have fewer dental fillings and extractions. I was going to mention how a certain councillor who has no qualifications in dental matters has popped up from under his slime covered stone to pontificate grandly on the 'benefits' of compulsory medication. I was going to drag in an allusion to ancient troubles going back to the late 14^th century between Cottingham and Hull regarding the water supply and how the gentlemen of Cottingham would put carrion in the dyke that carried water funnily enough along this very street, Spring Bank, and how they could only be calmed by an edict from Pope John XXI ... I was going to do all this then I saw that the Council had put the plans on hold because they don't have the Do Re Mi as Woody Guthrie used to sing. So you see years of austerity have saved me the bother of writing all that and you the trouble of reading it.

I note that this nursery on Spring Bank is taking in babies aged six weeks! I mean six weeks old, at that age you could put them in your handbag (with handles or not) and go to work ...

You only live once

So you're 18 years old, you've attained the maturity that comes with adulthood (Hah!); you've passed your A levels (or maybe not ) and now you are wondering where to spend your thousands of pounds of student loan debt. And so you ponder the standard of your future education, the standard of your lecturers, what degree you are going to take, the amenities of the town, the accommodation and all the other petty considerations but having done all that what is going to sway it for you to come to the city of culture? Could it really be that monthly gym membership is cheaper than London? Gosh! well that clinches it then ... 

Given the choice, at 18 years of age, between three years in Hull or three in the Big Smoke (or indeed any other proper sized big city in the UK) paid for by a debt I most likely will never have to pay off  I would be on the train out of here quicker than you could spit ... and you can stuff your gym membership! Hull is all very nice in parts and no bad place to live but London it is not and it does not come close. I don't want to say this is no town for bright young people but it doesn't have anywhere near the offerings of big cities. Small town Hull will still be there and the cheaper gyms, should you ever want them, when the bright lights pall ...

Deserts of vast eternity

The cunning plan to make Hull's tenure of the title of UK City of Culture as miserable as possible seems to be working ever so well. Above is what used to be called Holy Trinity Square but no doubt due to changes in the political climate is possibly called Perfidious Albion Plaza or Mea Culpa Square or some such. Those of an age can maybe recall the neutron bomb and how it was to take away the people and leave the buildings (a wonderful device) ... Anyhow thousands were spent clearing it up, installing mirror pools, plans made for food festivals and so on and they had to go and invent a plague just out of spite. They need not have bothered I wasn't going to go anyway.

The statue of Andy Marvell still stands, though really the viral iconoclastic nonsense of pulling down statues seems to have peaked and died away here much like an English summer. I read that this MP for Hull during interesting times (civil war, regicide, restoration and what have you; OK not of interest to everybody I know...) was a master of self-preservation. I wonder what the man who wrote this:

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power...

would make of the servile, bedwetting, safety-first, neurotic, mask devouring cowards that want to impose their fear upon us all. But then maybe he too would mask-up, rub in the alcohol gel and conform; self-preservation, dear boy, self-preservation. Gah!

Council Waste

In days of yore when town councils could raise their own taxes without interference from a very fat man in Whitehall it was considered essential that every last detail of the council's main building, the Guildhall, should reflect the greater glory of the city of Hull. So it came about that even the very drain pipes had a cast iron triple crowned putto to show the world what a true city of culture it once thought it was. 

The weekend in black and white is here.

Half empty or half full?

It was only in October last year that I posted how plans were being put forward to turn this dry dock into an amphitheatre [ 1 ]. After months of work all the silt that had accumulated in the dock had been washed out and the place looked ready to go. Well, as I may have mentioned, the Humber rose to record heights one night in December and refilled this dock. No problem you might think; just wait for low tide open the dock gates and let the water out. I'm guessing the dock gates don't work too well after the years of neglect so it's a case of slowly pumping out the water. Seeing the place as it is now I hope gives the planners pause for thought and they build a higher wall else their amphitheatre will be a duck pond. 

While I'm here can I point you in the direction of this excellent blog post about Hull: "Hull: City of Culture". It's a fairly comprehensive review of Hull's' architectural delights and horrors and examines some of the causes for the city's woes. As the author says "Hull is a super place, one of the most distinctive and unusual towns in England, whose assets are being absurdly wasted."

Monumental Memorial Madness

Way back in 1935 this thing (well, it is an ugly, phallic monstrosity when all said and done) was rightly considered to be a nuisance and a hazard to traffic and so Hull City Council spent £1,500 moving it from the end of Whitefriargate to the eastern end of Queens Gardens ( see here ). There it stands out of everyone's way, a focal point, if you like, for the view along the gardens. And there you might think it would stay but you would have reckoned without the all pervading madness that has overcome the City of Culture. The recently announced city facelift that I mentioned some days back includes, if  funds from the National Lottery can be found, a plan to put this darn thing back where it was. I am put in mind of the rearrangement of deckchairs on the Titanic ... oh, the cost, I forgot to mention the cost, well multiply the old cost by a thousand and you have it.

Déjà vu all over again

I happened upon a train having a shower the other day (as you do) and was wondering how I could lever this image into this blog. I need not have worried.

Back in the glorious sixties and seventies when motorways were being built up and down and across the country somehow Hull missed out. No three lane transportation route thunders into one of the UK's largest ports. The M62 would stop many miles west of the city and a two lane dual carriage way was considered sufficient from that point on. Well it wasn't and it isn't. And the city and port of Hull is still suffering from that short sighted penny pinching attitude. Screech forward to today and the track from Liverpool westward (equivalent to the M62) will be electrified but the Government has decided in its infinite stupidity that the rail line from Hull to Selby will not be electrified. So passengers from London or Liverpool will have to switch trains and go back half a century or more in terms of rail transport. Freight will have to be moved by practically antique, in terms of technology, engines. This is a despicable decision from a Department of Transport that is unfit for purpose, that clearly has nothing but contempt for the city of Hull, that has still not even put in place plans to alleviate the mess it caused back in the seventies. Ah well we are unloved but we have the culture ... and the old push-me-pull-you trains will be clean for the next fifty years of service.

Kaleidoscopic vacuity

Here from the height of last year's summer is the terminally dull and unoriginal mural that appeared on a gable end on Spring Bank. There are, in the wind, plans to turn this Victorian thoroughfare, a place of many cultures from the Middle East to eastern European, a place that has a vibrancy all of its own, not all together legal, not all together understood by those powers that want to be; in short a place that may not be to everyone's taste but certainly does not need any interfering busybody coming in to "improve" things... to turn this into a pitiful, pastiche of Tobermory or that unique neighbourhood in Bristol with painted houses. Yes, as you might have guessed, there is public money in the form of arts grants washing about and that means people will have the c(lapt)rap, sorry Art, thrust upon them volens nolens by talentless, parasitic oiks who, seemingly, could not get gainful employment other than through the public purse. It is called a community art project, but communities do not make art, communities make sewage and litter and children that need educating and patients in hospitals and so on but never art. Artists make art and on this street artists leave few traces.

I believe this is a spin off of the City of Culture, a so-called 'legacy event' ... a legacy of peeling fading paint and second grade 1960s art school doodles with vacuous, archaic, pseudo-socialist, concepts such as Unity. Unity of what? With what? For what? Pshaw! Unity, that fabled imaginary strength of the multitudinous and disparate working classes, is much like God and religion; what little there was of it died and fell apart a long time ago and is not much missed.

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.

... do not sound a trumpet before you ...

If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.

 George Orwell

"Do not feed the troll" is the lesson instilled in every child from the first gift of the internet at whatever early age is thought suitable these days... to which has now been added the age old edict "Do not give to the beggar" the mot du jour of the local Council. Your left hand seems to have discovered that your right hand has been doing good works to those deemed to be living an "at risk" lifestyle and your left hand is most unhappy. Your spare change might be helping buy that guy's next fix of whatever nice chemical he chooses to escape from the drudge of living in the city of culture, your scruffy little beggar may well be in fact a con artist (who isn't these days? Is it not written that all will be fake and all manner of things shall be fake...) with a nice flat paid for by housing benefit; your beggar is a smack head, a spiced out zombie, the scum of the earth, a drag on the social budget, a filthy stinking rotten nuisance ... that is your beggar so don't you go giving the beggar your precious pennies. No, give it instead to a Council approved list of charities who will see to it that your money goes to all the right places, the acceptable places, the 'deserving' places, ... all of course via the charities' very reasonable expense accounts, they have to live after all, they have rent to pay, managers to pay, they aren't a charity ... erm ... and somewhat like Orwell I see little difference between the beggars on  Jameson Street and Whitefriargate and the charities set up to do "good works": they just cut out the middle man. 

And I won't lie; I don't give to either.

Stasis

Well I came to see if was still here and indeed the former Alfred Percy's York Commercial and Temperance Hotel better known as the New York nightclub on Anlaby Road is indeed standing upright and showing all the signs of decay you might expect from a building that no-one wants but no-one can afford to knock down. Four years ago I posted about this and how it was due to make way for a brand new hotel and it's nearly a year since I posted that the Council were demanding it be made good or else. At the end of last month it was reported in the local rag that the Council "could be forced to intervene" after finding that the owners had been leading them a merry dance (who'd have thought it?) and might actually, you know, go ahead and demolish the place and send the owners the bill (well good luck with that!). The Council suffers from a lack of money and political will to take on the owners of places like this so a kind of septic stasis has set in.

This derelict building, which opened in 1880 and has been through two world wars with attendant air raids and numerous economic ups and downs, could still be here in a couple of years time to welcome visitors as they alight from Paragon Station for the delights of the year of the City of Culture. That or a pile of rubble and some homeless pigeons. 

The weekend in black and white is here.

Church going, going, gone

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognized, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.
Philip Larkin  Church Going

Nothing is permanent and certainly not churches. For 700 years or so this place has been added to, altered, adapted, survived sieges and world wars, generally kept standing by running repairs and renovations. Each generation adding its own particular contribution to its rich tapestry so that now it is the largest parish church in the country with some of the finest medieval architecture. So what could today's generation add to this jewel of a building? Surely with all the wealth, skills and cultural knowledge that abound in this city a sympathatic way could be found to maintain the fabric and upkeep of this place and pay the bills at least. Well perhaps but, as you might have guessed by now, that is not going to happen.

It was announced last week, to much fanfare and general acclaim (you will gather this did not include me) that, after employing 'marketing specialists' the vicar intends to go into the cafeteria trade! Yup he intends to take out the carved wooden pews from the nave and instal a 'tasteful' , that is to say, massive, glass screen behind which customers can consume their pannetones and steaming weak lattes while taking in the gothic ambience. There are to be banquets and concerts and who knows what other joyous goings-on in the space so created. 

I know, I know, you're asking where will the kitchens and lavatories and so on be; no problem, a glass and metalwork lean-to (in a tasteful gothic style, of course) will be plugged onto the south side and the medieval brickwork be damned. Outside, the church boundary wall and that tree on the right are to be removed, the churchyard in effect erased and turned into an alfresco coffee shop complete with fountains where you can sip your espresso in the company of the dead that lie in such abundance just under the paving stones. This is all part of a cooperation with the Council to create what is now fashionably called a 'piazza-style' space .... and it should be particularly enjoyable during the months November through April as these are by far the best for sitting around in the fresh air.

Oh there's more, if you can stand it, (and stand you must for there will be no pews) away from the diners, at the holy end as it were, interactive displays are planned to tell the story of the place. And don't worry we are told there will still be place for worship that is if God hasn't left the building.

The vicar says he already has donations of £1.5 million tucked away for this project and requires only another £3 million. It seems that leaving a lasting contribution to the culture of this city does not come cheap. And to cap it all the Archbishop, not wishing to be left out of the party, has decided to promote the church up to a Minster: Hull Minster. The Minster Café. How does that sound? Not remotely like a gimmick... (I'd prefer Ye Olde Boneyard Bistro myself but that's just me being me.)
And me being me would question whether the Church of England, is a fit and properly responsible organisation to leave in charge of this country's cultural heritage or at the least churchy bits. Maybe it should be moved out of these places all together and professionals put in charge. Now there's a thought; evict the C of E from its churches.

I have little doubt that should planning permission for this proposal be sought then the Council, believing, as so many do, that culture is just another opportunity to drink coffee, will grant it. That does make this any the less a tacky, crass and short sighted act of vandalism. And after all this I forgot to mention it's a Grade 1 listed building but that seems to count for so little these days. 

Having another dig

If you've got a few visitors coming round you might tidy up a bit, run a hoover over the carpets maybe sort out those convenient piles of stuff that you like to have to hand. You wouldn't throw out all the furniture and decorate every room all at one go, would you? Well maybe you would if you work for Hull City Council. So it comes about that, with less than a year to the City of Culture thingy, a mad panic has taken over and every street in the centre of town has "works" going on. Well I say "works" but it's hardly a hive of industry, less Ford Maddox Brown more Jerome K Jerome.  And will it all be worth the inconvenience, the loss of customers, the closed businesses, the mess and the hassle? Silly me, of course it will ...

Little Cottages

Though Cottingham has some grand old houses, built for the wealthy merchants of Hull, there are few remaining old buildings for the less well-to-do. Here's a little row of little cottages on Beck Bank soaking up the November sunshine.

I woke this morning to find that Hull had been selected as City of Culture 2017. The usual perps are strutting around saying how proud they are to come from Hull when all they've done is managed to be born and lack the gumption to leave. Oh we've got three more years of this self-serving guff before it even starts and then, well,  we'll cross that bridge later ... with £12 million about to splosh into the city I'll be keeping an eye out for the culture vultures circling in the updrafts of hot air.

Do you believe in Hull?

When I first saw these adverts I wondered if perhaps it was some silly campaign to drum up support for the City of Culture nonsense then I pondered the possibility that Hull was suffering from ontological insecurity? (After all Hull is no longer even in the worst 50 cities in the UK. If Hull's not crap then what is it?) Truth is neither of these was the case as it happens; this is just the latest gimmick dreamt up by the God-botherers desperate to rustle up some trade by saying Hull is a wonderful place (truly God works in a mysterious way).
Anyhow on a more serious note (am I ever frivolous?) it is reported that the Government is being urged to forget about failing towns like Hull (where I live) and Hartlepool (where I was born) and a host of others. Instead of pouring money into these places (did I miss out on this somehow?) the Government should help people to in effect abandon them or rather move to places where there is employment (the clever ones are doing this already, it's been going on for years). This help involves improving regional transport infrastructure instead of building the grand projects such as High Speed Rail.  In a thought provoking article that has got the Hull-lovers snarling and spitting obscenities The Economist magazine states some rather brutal opinions and some equally forthright solutions to perceived problems of high unemployment, poor education and a dependency on benefits. The Economist, of course, does not have to stand for election so it is free to posit politically suicidal solutions. I did, however, take to the idea that these empty cities would become like the Cotswolds in a few hundred years time because of the people fleeing them, now there's something to believe in.

Save our hole!

The perennial question of what to do with the remains of Hull's Beverley Gate has once again failed to be answered. The Council flush with money (£25 million found behind the back of the sofa) had planned to fill in the hole and then grass it over. So far so good, it has to be the least spectacular historic monument on the planet but nothing is ever so simple in this place.... Having thus erased the past it was planned to put up a humungous piece of pretentious twaddle called Word Gate. To give you a flavour of the nonsense there's this from the Council web site: "Word Gate conjures up a place at a moment in the past. The place was a gate that said no and stayed closed, a place now beckoning you to come close. Hull speaks through Word gate, a gate between land and sea, between Hull's heritage and Hull's future, the City of Culture". Cutting through this rhubarb what is proposed is a thirty or forty foot high piece of steel with words scratched on it, this will completely dominate the area, block the view down Princes Dock and after a few years will be pulled down after it becomes tarnished, dulled and covered in graffiti. You think I exaggerate take a peek at the nauseating blob in the artist's drawing below.

Well as I was saying that was the Council's plan until a petition to save the monument to the start of the English civil war (the English Fort Sumter if you will) gathered a few thousand signatures. The guy in charge now says other plans will be considered. Well when you're in a hole it's best to stop digging.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Splash Boat

In 1923 the council decided to build a splash boat and spent £1400 on materials and £474 2s 5d on building the tower so that folk can enjoy, yes that is word used, enjoy the experience of dropping 22 feet into the lake's welcoming waters aboard a small boat. Seems a simple enough pleasure. It is, of course, only a Summer thing, even the hardy folk of the City of Culture draw the line at splashing into ice.

When I first came to Hull it had been out of order for years but a heritage lottery funded renovation means that it works again or rather did work again until just the other day when vandals did thousands of pounds of damage. Even being a listed building doesn't protect from the anti-social brigade.

I was sure I had posted a picture of this before and indeed I have it's here.

Bang a gong, get it on

In a way the idea of turning this useless bridge to nowhere into a musical instrument makes as much sense as an unlamented 70's pop hit with pastiche hippy lyrics (Well you're dirty and sweet Clad in Black. Don't look back And I love you ... I guess you had to be there and I wasn't!) So it will come to pass that "tuned" metal plates will be attached and struck in the manner of Indonesian gamelan and folk will invited to whack the bridge with a hammer to make "music". To quote the idiot in charge of the asylum "By Playing the Bridge, participants and audiences will form a new relationship with and think differently about a city landmark. It is also a fantastic opportunity to learn a new instrument and be part of an amazing City of Culture project." Nuff said!

It's da Green Manalishi with the two prong crown

The relentless principle of monetising every inch of space has reared its ugly head again in the aspirant city of culture. On what was an open area with seating there has now been plonked, a big glass box with a ridiculous double-projecting roof. The purpose of this structure is the sale of warm water infused with the dust of the beans of the coffee plant. Yup, yet another coffee shop.