Writer's Block

June 12 saw the start of 25 weeks, no less, of Larkinalia; celebrating the death and commemorating the life of this tedious man. He once said that Hull was "a place that lets you write", then, notoriously wrote nothing for over twenty years. His block was so famous they named a section of the University of Hull after it.

If you are remotely interested in this event, which involves fibre glass toads, painted buses and much, so much more; then do, by all means, go here.

Gull

Chuck Jones joins the NHS

I think I may have mentioned before that Hull doesn't do hubris. At the outbreak of the last war the man in charge of Hull's museums advised curators against moving their collections to safer places. He is quoted as saying  "even if there is an air raid they [the Hull Museum authorities] have taken the necessary measures for protection from anything except a direct hit". You can see where this is going. On 24th June 1943 Hull's Municipal Museum on Albion Street took a direct hit by an incendiary bomb. The whole place was destroyed leaving only a bombed out site that was eventually cleared and turned into a car park. 

All was not lost as in the late 1980s an archeological excavation of the site recovered many items that had been stored in the museum's basement; including a motorbike left in the boiler room.

The site is now being cleared to build a "Health and Well Being Centre" with access to a "range of health and council services" in "modern and welcoming surroundings". This picture shows the intended construction. 

Driffield Navigation

About 18 miles due north of Hull is Driffield, the Capital of the Wolds. It's a pretty enough little town that has probably seen better times. The picture shows the Navigation built to connect Driffield with Hull and the Humber. This waterway is really the River Hull straightened out and made navigable. Nowadays it mainly pleasure craft that use it; the last commercial traffic was in the 1940s.

Grafter

Flood barrier gets an overhaul

This is probably the most important piece of kit in the whole city. The flood barrier must have paid for itself many times over in the thirty years it's been working. It's undergoing some maintenance.

You have got think how dumb the citizens of Hull have got to be. I mean, to put up with flooding every year, more than once a year; for eight hundred years; when the answer was to stop the Humber coming up and filling their houses with the North Sea. Still, better late than never.

The Deep is nicely framed in this shot, don't you think?

In the frame