Butter and Eggs

This is common toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) growing by the side of a busy road. It's by no  means a rare plant and is a favourite of bees who need to be fairly strong to get at the nectar hidden in the snapdragon like flower. The plant has many names relating to the colour , butter and eggs as I've indicated but also bread and butter, butter haycocks and yellow rod. Other names seem to be local folk making stuff up to please themselves so here's a small sample of alternative names: brideweed , rabbit flower, bunny mouth (?) and calf's snout (??). My favourite though, among the many names, has to be dead men's bones which might possibly relate to the practice of using the plant medicinally, who knows?

Leni Riefenstahl without the uniforms

I took this a few days ago by accident almost as the camera was playing tricks and I needed to see if it was working properly. So anyhow I notice that this annual shindig, the Freedom Festival,  that started as a one-off one-day thing a few years ago has now grown and grown and grown an awful size to a five day "celebration of arts, community and humanity". Do any of these need celebrating? I think not, arts should be suppressed and certainly not state sponsored (not a penny), community is a word used by crooks to get elected and humanity couldn't give a monkey's for Hull or its stupid festival. Should the taxpayer be coughing up for this? I am certain not. Nevertheless the grasping arty types, filled with a sense of their own entitlement, demanding (because hell they're celebrating art innit? and the community whatsit called? and the humanity thing yeah, oh the humanity!) and getting their grants from the numpty Hull City Council and other agencies filled with taxpayers hard earned money. The event is, of course, a load of phoney baloney batshit! It's five nights of torch lit parades (think Leni Riefenstahl without the uniforms or the stage direction) and clowning around likely to appeal to the community and humanity innit.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Four years ago Humberside Police were given the worst possible efficiency rating and were condemned as inadequate. Public confidence in the force was the lowest in the country. Last year it was reported that the same force had failed to record thousands of crimes every year. (Let's just forget about this, shall we, nothing to see here, move along now ...) The new PM has promised 20,000 new officers for the country so no doubt there'll be even more sitting at the nearby Costa coffee hut on Clough Road just opposite the inordinately expensive new headquarters, looking menacing at anyone who gives them more than a casual glance.

You only live once

So you're 18 years old, you've attained the maturity that comes with adulthood (Hah!); you've passed your A levels (or maybe not ) and now you are wondering where to spend your thousands of pounds of student loan debt. And so you ponder the standard of your future education, the standard of your lecturers, what degree you are going to take, the amenities of the town, the accommodation and all the other petty considerations but having done all that what is going to sway it for you to come to the city of culture? Could it really be that monthly gym membership is cheaper than London? Gosh! well that clinches it then ... 

Given the choice, at 18 years of age, between three years in Hull or three in the Big Smoke (or indeed any other proper sized big city in the UK) paid for by a debt I most likely will never have to pay off  I would be on the train out of here quicker than you could spit ... and you can stuff your gym membership! Hull is all very nice in parts and no bad place to live but London it is not and it does not come close. I don't want to say this is no town for bright young people but it doesn't have anywhere near the offerings of big cities. Small town Hull will still be there and the cheaper gyms, should you ever want them, when the bright lights pall ...

There's a pink one ...

                      ...and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one

Coltman Street's Victorian villas have had a new coat of paint and were looking a bit special and not at all ticky-tacky though they do have a touch of sameness about them.
Note to avoid parking on a double-yellow line (an offence punishable by excommunication and forfeiture of  all lands and titles) it is considered perfectly OK to park your white van on the pavement.

A touch of the Dorics

I know it's difficult to believe but ... in the mid-1850s your well-to-do Hull folk were building their desirable residences on Coltman Street and whoever had this Victorian town house built clearly wanted to distinguish their little palace from the hoi-polloi of the hovels of the hinterland of Hessle Road with a little touch of classical elegance. The house like most of the street is now a HMO ( House of Multiple Occupancy; a delightful abbreviation for stuffing as many tenants in as the law will allow ) and comes with al fresco seating ... very classy!

I find upon a modest amount of research that the building was once a social club in the 1930s and also that it is Grade 2 listed and was designed by Benjamin Musgrave of Hull and built c1854. I told you it was classy.

The shop formerly known as Terry's

There aren't as many corner shops as there used to be, not that that is a bad thing it's just the way things work out. This one on Coltman Street/Gee Street has been over the past 120 or so years a laundry, a grocers and after changing hands many times recently it's now an off licence/convenience store and possibly still known by those who know of past things as Terry's.