Thursday 15 August 2019

A Good Wall Spoiled


There's a craze to paint murals in this donkey's ass of a town. You've got a few square feet of blank  Victorian or Edwardian brickwork doing no harm to anyone and it just can't be left in peace; it has to be coated in some "artwork". We've seen it on Hessle Road and other places and it's creeping all over the place. There's even a plan to paint houses on Spring Bank in gaudy colours just because some layabouts want a grant from the Art Council or the stupid Council and they have nothing to offer the world but vandalism dressed as "community art". The themes in this case we are told were suggested by primary school children because, as is clear to any fool that has ever breathed, uneducated, uninformed 5 to 11 year old youngsters are a positive fountain of inspiration and objectivity. So the four corners of this unfortunate bridge on Chanterlands Avenue have the above garbage (Aim high, never give up, pshaw! How often young children come out with such phrases ...), a sporty theme featuring two unknown sporty people celebrating  sporty events from before many of the children born, a badly drawn collage of Hull images (including Larkin's Toad an image familiar to all Year One intake children at all primary schools) and a long "Eco" thing involving a whale, an octopus, a shark, a large green turtle, some penguins and a polar bear oh and some floating plastic bags to remind us all what sinners we are. (It seems youngsters have a very depressed view of the world and quite possibly think it is all doomed) Quite what all this has to do with Chants Avenue I haven't a clue. It's just plain old fashioned prattery. Worse though; it is condoned vandalism, a good wall spoiled.



This squat little building was once a gents' urinal now closed because of Council cuts ... which leads me to ask  who will pay to maintain this tosh because in a couple of years they'll all fade and date and you can never go back to the nice, cool red Victorian bricks that just did their job and harmed no-one.


And you can imagine the whimpers of condemnation when someone came along and put up their own shitty little "artwork"; without permission (shocking!) not at all in keeping with the theme (The horror, The horror!). I do not recall this bridge ever being 'tagged' like this before they decorated it with their murals ... Well, as ye sow, so ye shall reap

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Everything comes to him who waits.


Have I mentioned that in this one-horse town there are two bus companies? Well the other day we had all-day-tickets-to-ride from one company, let's call them the red company. So  we sat down and waited the arrival of one of their nice red buses. After fifteen or more minutes I'd taken the above picture, we'd talked about the drunks and drop-outs that used to hang around this bus stop and the church opposite, about the guy who jumped off the roof of the building on the right and then we twiddled our thumbs and peered up the road to see where our bus could be ... but  nothing but blue buses arrived. I mean five blue buses arrived, like they were having some kind of blue bus joke. I was all for giving up and walking. We weren't going far, just four stops down the road but we had tickets, it was the principle of the thing ... So, anyway, we set off to walk and, well you know what comes next .... not fifty yards on a big red bus goes sailing by. 

The weekend in black and white will come if you wait long enough.

Tuesday 13 August 2019

Talking of Michelangelo


Which is it: is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's blunders?
                                                                                                 Friedrich Nietzsche

Anglican God Services Inc., have let it be known that they will be putting on a display of high definition photographs of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in their local office in town (whether they have paid for the rights to Papist God Inc. has not been disclosed.) It will, of course, feature this famous scene where Man creates God in his own image (if only he hadn't all would be well and all manner of things would be well). They haven't said whether Heston and Harrison will be on hand to sign autographs and maybe sing a duet or two, I know they're both dead but death shall have no dominion as we all know.

Entrance to the peep show is free but you will need to get a ticket ...

Monday 12 August 2019

When I paint my masterpiece


But someday, everything is gonna be different
When I paint that masterpiece.
                                                                                             Bob Dylan

In clearing the site to make resting room for tired automobiles they finally tore down the tired weathered old boards that had lined the perimeter for as long as I can recall. This fencing was home to a mural of Mandela and more recently this little collection by the guy who styles himself as Preg ( I almost wrote prig can't think why ...) appeared.



These were on the High Street side of the site. The river side attracted a somewhat less figurative scrawler.



... and finally a simple message is often more effective. All gone now and not missed at all.


Sunday 11 August 2019

Billboard


This site that was to have had an eighteen or twenty-two storey hotel on it at one time, the plan described so accurately by a councillor as looking like a packet of cigarettes, has been cleared and rolled flat to be a car park. You wanna see the other side of this, I know you do ... here then in glorious technicolour.


The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Saturday 10 August 2019

Yum!


On a very breezy, overcast but not especially cool day that threatened much forecast heavy rain but turned out dry I took me walk around town and was led by the faintly unpleasant smell of burnt onions and sausages to Queen's Gardens where a "Festival of Food and Drink" was ongoing. There were plenty of stalls and plenty of customers stuffing their faces with produce from around the world. I didn't have much of an appetite so I just passed through.


Friday 9 August 2019

Smithy's


Next door to the Bull on Beverley Road this supplier of deep fried battered savoury mashed potato  is apparently the Best in Hull and that, I suppose, is something to be. Hullophiles often claim Hull to be the home of this greasy carbohydrate rich delicacy but I can tell you patties were on sale in my home town Hartlepool and I suspect many other places have a similar concoction.  Pattie and chips is apparently a thing in these parts; the poor man's fish and chips ... I had them as a kid and quite honestly they're nowt special.