Thirst quencher

It's been a bit of dry spell for this blog;  here's a little something to be going on with. It seems the new fashion is to disparage plastic bottles and the lovely sugary confections that they contain. Folk are having their colas, fruit drinks and lemonades taxed or replaced with vile artificially sweetened substitutes (all for their own good you understand, adult choice having been outsourced to  HMRC) and being led by the nose (and other sensitive parts) to drink water from their recycled plastic bottles. So in keeping with this nagging and nannying the local water company have splashed out on this fountain on King Edward Street and a couple of other places. Of course it cannot just be a simple drinking fountain it has to be an oasis with attendant sculptures (I believe that was the word used). It all brings to my mind a saying of my long departed mother: " Water only made one man and the wind blew him over" ...

.... a long seat for several people, typically made of wood or stone

... otherwise known as a bench. This was taken last March when the new benches in Queen Victoria Square were all shades of yellowy-red through brown now they're a uniform silver-grey. Comfortable benches, good for sitting and whiling away the day.

The April Fool's theme for City Daily Photo is 'One Colour'.

The place to be is Withernsea

If you haven't been to Withernsea then all I can say is that you haven't lived. With its balmy sandy beaches and inviting blue waters Withernsea is the seaside resort without parallel. The posters below on Whitefriargate last year gave only the merest hint of the pleasures that await you on the sunny Yorkshire coast. Just half an hour's driving on delightful roads due east of the city of culture will bring you to this very special place.

OK it's a bit of dead end, run down resort that used to have a lot of visitors until the railway was removed. Now there's still a beach, a handful of shops and a lighthouse that was carefully placed so far inland that the eroding waves could never reach it. I went there once, it rained.

A Pair of Glasses on a Bench

At some point last summer someone found that cheap reading glasses are cheap for a reason ... and this being the City of Culture instead of just binning them they neatly arranged the erstwhile spectacles in a respectful homage to Nguyen and Khayatan's famed installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Space and Entity

I meant to post these last year but obviously didn't. They're part of that exhibition at the University which I've shown bits of before (1 2 3 ). The one above is entitled Space and not as I thought Halitosis, the lower one goes by the name of Entity and Margot is responsible for that photo. I had thought this exhibition would be over by now as the bumpf on it says it lasts until 31 march 2017 but I guess they got the year wrong and haven't noticed.
I have a couple more of these things and will dig them out and post them soonish meanwhile you will no doubt be pondering on how well they stimulate "thought and refection about the historic connection between Iceland and Hull"....

FREEDOM

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

                                                                Freddy Nietzsche

Came across this little sign on the Scale Lane on the side of the Lion and Key pub.

Promis'd joy!

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

News came a few weeks back that the Council had bought this building and the empty Edwin Davis building behind it. There's a grand plan to demolish both and erect shops, some housing and that thing most vital for a civic entity, an ice rink (every town should have one), the tout ensemble to be known as Albion Square. As I understand it the demolition will go ahead speedily, leaving the mural and a demolition site, no doubt artfully boarded off. Then, well then, as I understand it, the Council go out with a begging bowl and seek a commercial partner to pay for the scheme. Of course if no such partner is forthcoming then there is, again as far as I know, no plan B and the people of Hull face having a scaffolded façade fronting a very pleasant demolition site for the foreseeable future. 

The boarding around the BHS building shows artist's impressions of the scheme, involving encasing the mosaic in a glass atrium. You may draw whatever inference you wish by my inclusion of the waste bin in this picture.