Ask a volunteer

If all this culture has your head in a spin and your can't tell  your Amy Johnson from a wind turbine or your Humber Dock from the Marina then look out for a kindly smiling face in a light blue jacket and they will put you right or so I'm told. The Year of Culture, despite its millions of pounds of sponsorship, is depending on the unpaid work and goodwill of hundreds of these hardy souls. I think they get to keep the jackets. No, I'm not a volunteer (go on pretend to be surprised!); light blue is so not my colour!

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.

Weeping Window

Here on Beverley Road the latest installation exposes the  close dependency between the various layers in the culture business each clinging on to the coat tails of the next one up and how rubbish flows from the top to the bottom to be transformed into a neat little heap of acceptable art. The piece has had a highly favourable reception in the press and TV. The locals simply can't get enough of this and queue up to take their selfies in front of the gushing red flow of culture. It's only here until May before it goes off to tour the country so get your skates on.

Unbelievable

A couple of Hully things cropped up in the news while I was away. First Hull was declared the second worst town in the UK. The source for this sensational news was a survey by some folk calling themselves LadBible ("Redefining Entertainment & News For a Social Generation", no, me neither!) clearly this is nonsense and caused uproar and upset in the City of Culture as a) Hull is not a crap town but a crap city (there's no shortage of parochial pedants in this place) and b) Hull is definitely the worst place in the UK, coming second is not an option.

The second incredible snippet of news was the estimate of 3.5 million people attending events during the Year of Culture. Given that this came from Hull City Council who could hardly be said to be impartial observers let alone capable of counting over twenty, this figure is open to some doubt. Still even if we take this figure and look at the break down for individual events say the fireworks on New Year's Eve, the Blade, the porcelain poppies and a handful of other shows soaked up well over 3 million visitors (allegedly). But, and here is yet another incredible (or amazing as they called everything last year, if it wasn't amazing it was stunning ...) fact, there were 2000 events put on over the year. I kid you not, 2000! So by the figures of Hull City Council the vast majority of these cultural events must have attracted two men and (perhaps) a dog. 

Now I'm a trusting sort of guy and if a statement is made to effect that nearly one million folk visited the Blade in its seventy day stay in Queen Vic Square I'm not going to do some back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that this means 600 per hour visited the colossal thing, 10 a minute or roughly the normal number of folk crossing the square at any one time... Also I passed under it dozens of times and must, I suppose, have been counted dozens of times... But I don't want to start off the new year in this suspicious mood. Hull City Council are fine and trustworthy folk as trusty as this picture of the Rose Bowl Gardens.

Aschenbach to the future

A Victorian guide to Britain's railway, Bradshaw's Guide, talks of Hull being like Venice and people taking special trains from the Leeds and so on to view the sights of this spectacular city. Back then the city, or most of it at least, was surrounded on all sides by water, the Humber and a ring of docks. No-one would thnk that now, but when the sun goes down over the Marina and if you squint your eyes maybe that's a canal going off into the distance...

And speaking of Venice, Margot, entering into the city of culture spirit that runs excitedly throughout the town, thought that for 2017 the streets could be turned into canals, to which I added, it could celebrate the ten year anniversary of the 2007 floods ... but think gondolas on Ferensway, oh, oh, oh and a masquerade and some wild licentiousness to a soundtrack of Vivaldiish muzac... No? Oh well.... We could add cholera and phthisic young men as a sideshow if that is your thing. Aw come on  now ...

I was going going to make some comment on the anniversary of the city of culture award but things are becoming too absurd even for me. Let's just say that those supposedly in charge ("They will be our Barnum and Bailey, helping us to deliver some fantastic art and helping draw together everyone who wants to be part of 2017." ) are developing a "beautiful narrative" and leave the rest  your imagination. 

Weekend Reflections are over there.

Oh! we don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go

The thing that has been littering  Queen Victoria Square for the best part of three months is due to depart next weekend as the year of glorious culture completes its first quarter (how time flies when you're having fun, I mean, culture!). It is due to sneak its way back to east Hull some time on Sunday morning so I doubt I'll be around to see it go nor, to be honest, will I miss it much. This view down Paragon Street shows there's still work ongoing (hate that word) with plenty of our old friendly orange barriers in evidence and the place looking like a bomb has gone off.

Culture Vulture

OK it's just a pigeon and you've got to use your imagination but that shouldn't be too difficult if you can cope with Hull: City of Culture.

Somewhere like King's Lynn ...

Red Mount Chapel, The Walks, King's Lynn

A man that is tired of London, said some wag, is tired of life, to which I add that a man that is tired of Hull has come to his senses. Hull is a well known dump, the ultimate crap town (accept no substitutes), run by petty minded, petulant jumped up jack-in-offices. I hate the sodding place, I'm sick of it and its gridlocks, its failing services, it's depressing shitty little town centre, its pathetic attempt to be a city, nay a city of culture ... pah to hell with it all. I should leave (should have left years ago), go somewhere, anywhere that doesn't depress, irritate and bore me to death. Somewhere like King's Lynn, perhaps.

This little folly, the Guannock Gate,  has been carefully moved, rebuilt and plonked here as a feature in the Walks. In the city of culture a similar town gate is now a demolished, despoiled and despised hole in the ground, a place where litter and louts and their odious offspring accumulate.

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.

A tale of two towers

I'm keeping out of the city of culture for a few days; they have taken to dancing in an old graveyard while stuffing their faces all the name of culture and it's not a pretty sight. So I return to Bridlington Priory and its two odd towers. It's looks on the face of it like it's the real deal; an old Gothic building with a perpendicular tower. Well partly. The church as it stands is the vestige of Bridlington monastery which would have looked a bit like this in the early 16th century. As you all know if you were still awake in history classes the monasteries in England were dissolved by HenryVIII. Now the Prior of this place decided to take part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in Yorkshire against Henry VIII which did not end well. The monastery quickly lost all its valuables and gradually fell into disrepair until only the nave remained standing and that in no good condition.  The pictures below show it in 1786 and 1842. Note there are no towers by the front entrance. So enter our old friend and saviour of fallen churches Sir Gilbert Scott and his passion for the Gothic revival and up rises one perpendicular Gothic tower in the 1870's and one stump of a tower as a permanent reminder not to trust planners ...

The rear view, those buttresses are all Victorian.

I came across this helpful little site on my travels

J R R Tolkien: who he?

I've got to admit to a guilty secret; I've never read anything written by J R R Tolkien. Just about everyone I know has read LOTR and/or the Hobbit but somehow tales of hobbits, elves, Middle Earth and whatnot just left me cold. Anyhow I've heard he's big box-office these days with a new piece just released, needless to say I haven't seen the films either, I'm truly an uncultured yob. This new blue plaque was put in place on the Dennison Centre, Cottingham Road,  part of the University, after someone did a bit of detective work and figured that was the building where he convalesced. Quite how that is significant I can't imagine. No doubt this tenuous link will play part in the upcoming Year of Culture. Speaking of which there's a charming tale of Hull City football fans taunting visiting supporters with chant's of "You're only here for the culture". What a fine city!

Well, you know what thought did?

...Followed a muck cart and thought it was a wedding.

I seemed to have timed my arrival in town on Saturday for the ceremony of the emptying of bins, an event designed to draw in crowds and reassure folk that the City of Culture will not be overwhelmed by litter. So it was that I followed this muck cart , sorry, stately urban refuge collection and recycling vehicle, up the sunny delight that is Jameson Street where it posed  in front of the now empty BHS store, an almost iconic Hull combination.

À propos  the empty store the council , last I heard, had asked for tenders and plans for demolition. Whether those plans have to include keeping the mural I  know not; the council has said it is its intention to keep it. I won't tell you what I'm thinking because you know what thought did ...

Summer in the City

Six years ago, almost to the day, I posted a collection from a trip round town on a Saturday afternoon. I thought maybe it could be time for a sequel, update, repeat call it what you will. There was plenty to see, as last time, but later, when I got home and watched to local news on ITV, I realised that I'd 'missed' a 'party' in Whitefriargate celebrating the birthday of murdered MP Jo Cox ( I'd noticed the seats and folk sitting around but ignored it ...had I known I would still have ignored it anyway, there's a creepy and creeping use of this woman's death as a weapon to try to silence dissent. She is portrayed a some kind of saint whereas she was in fact just another Labour/Remain MP whose politics I do not support and never will.). I also missed a gathering in Queen's Gardens by trade unionists still trying to get folk to think that unity is strength and passing on the age old messages of the labour movement... good luck with that on the first warm Saturday of the summer ... and Summer in the City was what the really quite talented young busker above was singing, he must really like the old tunes from last century ...

Mickey™ was posing for selfies and trying to sell twisted balloons

The youngsters' steel band was playing Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D which goes surprisingly well on steel drums; it does however go on and on and on and on ... and then stops for no apparent reason, a relief to all concerned.

A wee bit of faintly ridiculous quasi phoney Scottish cultural tosh was ignored by the oh so discerning passers-by ... they know their Culture when they see it.

The indoor market that two years ago I posted as being empty and deserted was heaving, it seems every pitch or stall has been filled with large variety of enterprising businesses. It was good to see  and a bit like old times.Let's hope it can continue.

Quite a lot of places had little yellow elephants displayed and outside a pub on Trinity House Lane a lady was wearing a plastic yellow elephant on her head, (out of respect for her privacy/sanity I did not photograph it). Seems it was Yellow Day in Hull and that's as much as I know or indeed want to know. 

And finally, before I go, there's this ...

Does your local news get read by someone who makes you want to throw yourself under a passing train or bus just for shits and giggles? Mr Levy... what can I say after watching this one-time 'actor' and disc-jockey read the news on the local BBC for what seems like a lifetime? ... he ums, he ahs, ums and ahs, ums and ahs ... he speaks with his mouth shut, he mutters, he mumbles, he puts accentuation in all the wrong places...  he thanks us for being there each evening,  and, ever so politely, thanks us again for "tuning in" (tuning in? Poor old soul, probably thinks he's still on the wireless.); he looks like he's lost a pound and found a penny ... and thanks to the iniquity of the British television licence, the vile regressive TV Tax,( soon to be reimposed on 75 year old pensioners), we all pay his wages whether we watch him or not ... and do you know what? Hundreds if not thousands like him and think he's doing a grand job... de gustibus and all that jazz.

The moving plod plods; and, having plodded, plods on.

In the  glad confident years of the end of the last century Humberside Police spent well if not too wisely and opened little stations at various places throughout the town and outer regions. One such was this in Pearson Park, next door to the mosque since you ask. There was another built on Beverley Road not four hundred yards from this... Total waste of money. Although it was a station it never seemed to have anyone in it and the couple of times I needed to contact the old Bill I had to use a phone installed in the doorway which put me through to some distant operator who took a message and promised to "see to my query" (meaning get lost and don't bother us we're having our tea break). 

Well you probably know where this is heading ... 2008, the political choice to impose austerity and so on meant that Humberside Police had to close these places in the name of efficiency (an admission if one were needed that these places weren't an efficient use of resources) and they also rashly sacked hundreds of officers. I must just mention in passing that Hull now has the highest burglary rate outside of London (hoorah!) ... maybe it's unconnected and really due to all that culture, who can say?.

So, anyhow,  if you want a big Victorian villa in Pearson Park with nice quiet neighbours apply to the Humberside Police...

I'm a hairin’ scarin’ fisherman...

‘I’m a hairin’ scarin’ fisherman and I hail from Kings Lynn town,
And in this old life I’ve seen many an up and down.
And when we’ve spent our stocker bait and had a jolly spree
Away we’ll crack, on board the smack, and plough the angry sea.’

To watch her and trigger and pipe her as she goes,
Give her the sea and let her rip we're the boys to pull her through
You want to see our Ally when the wind is blowin' through
Sailing from the Dogger bank to Great Grimsby.

I find that is a variation of an old song "Dogger Bank" ( which is in turn probably from another Music Hall song ) given to us by the grandly nicknamed Trunky Bunn of King's Lynn. Quite how it ended up engraved on a granite boulder in a playground on Loke Road I really don't know but there it lies, a gift to future generations, what they'll make of it I can't imagine.

On a similar theme I can include this little plaque on a former pub down the road and around the corner mentioning Ralph Vaughan Williams' dalliances with the natives of North End. If you listen to old RVW long enough you find yourself thinking I know that tune it's such and such ... well he's only gone and nicked it hasn't he ... plagiarism, as somebody once said, is basic to all culture.

Kardomah Set V2.0

I get you might want to make a buck or two out of the fortunate surroundings you find yourself in, and I'm not going to knock any artistic venture that pops up here and there. But this is Hull 2014 and well, pretending that the City of Culture thing doesn't hang around the neck of everything that happens here, why the allusion to Dylan Thomas and the Kardomah set? Did the estate agent who owns this building and clearly can't sell it on to any commercial concern and who once offered to buy the Humber Bridge, think he could get away with this sleight of hand? And those 'artists' who frequent this place; are they getting a cut of the profits? Thought not.

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.

... 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.

Red Buoy

Now it depends where you are just what you make of this. American (in the broadest continental sense) mariners will recognize this color as denoting the starboard limit of a channel as you approach from the sea. Excercising the true spirit of utter contrariness, in this country and most of the world excluding America navigators recognise this red coloured buoy as showing the port limit of a channel. Now I'm sure you won't forget this as you sail your expensive yachts up the Humber on your way to the city of culture. If, however, you need to look up port and starboard then perhaps the train is your best bet.

Standing room only

Plans have been published for a £25 million revamp of the city centre. On the whole they don't look too bad, a few gripes here and there about minor details but, there is one major fault that screams out from the picture shown. There are practically no seats, nowhere to sit and admire the grand works. Seems this no seats policy is part of a worrying trend.
Back in December 2012 I posted about plans to develop an outdoor café area near the War Memorial on Ferensway.  Well it's up and running and looking every bit as tatty as I imagined. The price paid for all those cuppucinni al fresco is that there are now no seats for members of the public to rest their weary backsides on. Even the seats by the memorial have been removed. If you want to sit down near here you've got to be a paying customer. 

Thanks to marvells of Google Street View or whatever it's called here's what this place looked like before it was cleared to make way for the cafe culture. Clearly we can't have people just sitting around and not paying; what's the fun in that? Mind you it appears that the very thought of sitting down and thinking for a short while is so horrific for some that they would rather give themselves an electric shock so maybe removing the seats eases their stress.... but planners please bear in mind some people do like to sit and admire the view.

Copyright Google, so sue me!