Old dog, newish tricks

Ah we all shall be saved from wet feet and damp houses as the announcement is made for a £45 million plan to improve the river Hull's flood defenses. But do note the plan has been agreed; not the £45 million! If I prattle on about flooding a lot then well it's the thing that hangs over this area like some wet sword of old what's his name. Most of the Hull valley and certainly all of the city of Hull itself is below sea-level at high tide. Anyhow one of the proposals is to use the tidal barrier more often as a sluice gate to stop the Humber going upstream during heavy rain as opposed to its current use only during very high tides on the Humber. Seems they've already tried it out and it works surprisingly well. So if they get the go ahead and that means amending legislation then the old girl will be in action maybe two or three more times every year. If that doesn't work then proper sluice gates at a cost of £16 million could be built. And if all that looks like a lot of money then think on that it's estimated a good flood of the Hull river basin could do £3.4 billion damage and make my feet wet.

The Moggie and the Maggies ...

... or the cat on a cool slate roof.

We were down the Land of Green Ginger the other day when the normal town hubbub was overwhelmed by a loud repetitive cackling from on high. Turns out a cat had entered the roof top domain of two magpies who were, to say the least, displeased by this development. The cat, as cats do, simply ignored all the fuss and went about its business. That's it really; hardly worth craning your neck to see what was going on.

I think Margot K Juby took this one

Going to seed

Taken by Margot K Juby

The weekend in black and white is here.

Blue barge

This old barge or lighter with the odd name of Poem 25 is a fixture in the old harbour of the river. I've shown it before here but that was before colour was invented.

Weekend Reflections are here

Blade runner

Apologies if this is not the finest quality shot but this cargo ship was nearly two miles away across the old Humber. The odd looking items are wind turbine blades heading to some assembly plant upstream. These may not match the world's longest blades (75m!) but they're still a fair size. News came only last week of yet another big deal for the wind powered industry with Dong from Denmark (I kid you not) signing to build an offshore turbine complex near Grimsby on the south bank, so we should expect to see more cargoes like this.

A little OTT? Perhaps not ...

I have noticed that Hull University's graduation days have become something of an annual bean feast, with town criers and chamber music and so on. All those well dressed ladies in high heels that obviously were hurting like hell. What could they do this year to top the last? Well an over sized CCT screen showing the ceremony from City Hall live in Queen Vic Square was not the most obvious answer but here it is nevertheless. Next year a fly pass by the RAF perhaps? I suppose if you are going to put yourself in debt for twenty five years buying a degree (sorry that's paying for tuition, what was I thinking?) then a little celebration is in order. Good luck to all those newly qualified clever so and sos. I really don't envy you, well not much.

Long Walk to Freedom

It's been a while since I had walked down the lower end of High Street which I have shown before to have an empty plot awaiting the construction of an umpteen storey hotel. The site had a dismal security fence with the usual warnings for those who would misbehave. So it was something of a pleasant surprise to come across this colourful mural to Nelson Mandela which apparently went up last September. Don't know how I've missed this 'til now. 

Finally credit where credit is due. This was commissioned by Full Flava Arts along with Roots and Wings and Freedom Festival Ltd and it's the work of twelve graffiti artists. You can view the creation of the mural and get a much fuller view than I present here by going to this page.