Dear God,

Hi, how ya doing? Thought I'd drop you a line since it's been a while, well it's been a lifetime since they dipped me in that old holy Roman Catholic water and drove the devil and all his works from me ( we were having such fun) but in terms of the infinite less than just a tick. I know my mum (How's she doing, btw? I'm sure she's up there with the saints and all, what with all her faith, damned unbreakable faith) tried to point me in your direction dragging me off to church each Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation (nipping me when I was bored and naughty and sitting when I should have been kneeling) even sending me to a Catholic School ( no priest took a fancy to me sadly or I'd be much richer than I am today) but I got to six years old and it wasn't going to stick, sorry old chap, no hard feelings, eh?  ...
So I heard you were unwell, well I heard you'd died (was it really 'pity' that saw you off, was it? or something less serious? the nauseating Postmodern relativistic morality and the happy clappies and the apostasy of women priests would drive anyone off a cliff) I assume those reports were an exaggeration and you're just going about your merry, mysterious way; giving folk freedom will then punishing 'em for using it (teehee!)... 

Now if you're thinking your hearing has gone a bit dickey recently and that it's gone a bit quiet down here, no it's not you it's (who else?) the Government (you don't like 'em either? They think they are your gift to humanity, please tell them it isn't so, go on do a bit of smiting you know you want to. Do they tax you too and put you in a gag when you go shopping? I know, I know, where's it all going to end? Now don't pretend you don't know ... I can feel you smirking even behind that face muzzle) Anyhow they only went and closed the churches, first time in centuries even the old Black Death (thanks for that by the way) didn't close 'em. Yersinia sends her regards, I hear she's out in Colorado living with some squirrels but she always was a wild one.  So, yeah erm things are a little quiet down here atm, folk wary of each other, scared to admit that they really don't think this little flu thing (was that one of yours or have you outsourced plagues and pestilence to China?) is a big thing and they'd love to get on with their lives but the schools are closed ('til September, teachers can't miss their summer holidays can they?) so someone's got to stay home and look after the brats, and the shops are going to be a test if you turn up bare faced, as you intended, and the nauseated worriers play up and start moaning, I swear I'll take a stick to anyone who bugs me (I am, as you know, without sin so they'd better watch out) ... but you got your troubles I got mine, it's been good to talk, catch you again sometime, don't be a stranger.

Your old mate ,
                          Bill

Deserts of vast eternity

The cunning plan to make Hull's tenure of the title of UK City of Culture as miserable as possible seems to be working ever so well. Above is what used to be called Holy Trinity Square but no doubt due to changes in the political climate is possibly called Perfidious Albion Plaza or Mea Culpa Square or some such. Those of an age can maybe recall the neutron bomb and how it was to take away the people and leave the buildings (a wonderful device) ... Anyhow thousands were spent clearing it up, installing mirror pools, plans made for food festivals and so on and they had to go and invent a plague just out of spite. They need not have bothered I wasn't going to go anyway.

The statue of Andy Marvell still stands, though really the viral iconoclastic nonsense of pulling down statues seems to have peaked and died away here much like an English summer. I read that this MP for Hull during interesting times (civil war, regicide, restoration and what have you; OK not of interest to everybody I know...) was a master of self-preservation. I wonder what the man who wrote this:

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power...

would make of the servile, bedwetting, safety-first, neurotic, mask devouring cowards that want to impose their fear upon us all. But then maybe he too would mask-up, rub in the alcohol gel and conform; self-preservation, dear boy, self-preservation. Gah!

Viяuƨ Scriblings

 

Sometime next week, I think maybe Friday I haven't been taking notes, folk will be under a legal obligation to wear a face muzzle when doing their shopping. This novelty will not apply to the staff who work in shops all day only to those who pop in for a few minutes to pick up a newspaper, a pint of milk, and a loaf of bread. Shop staff seem not to catch whatever it is that is supposed to be going around. 

If the store is large enough to have a cafe or restaurant attached then those eating do not need a mask, however they will need to wear one between the front door of the shop and the cafe and, of course, upon leaving they will need to cover their ugly gobs on the way out; should they need to use the rest room then it's masks on but not while actually in the rest room. If you want to sit all day in a pub getting sozzled you can do so without encumbrance. I did a brief survey whilst out and about and saw no-one wearing a mask at all, not one; usually there's been one or two but today nobody. Why folk would suddenly choose to obey this stupid decree I can't imagine.  Many stores say they will not police this (it not being their job to annoy their customers) and the actual police (or rather the London Metropolitan Police) have said they do not have the resources to police it either (meaning they have better things to do) so we'll see ... Anyhow, I do not intend to participate in this pointless, infantile parlour game.

I should note that we are some four or five months into this Government inspired fear-driven fiasco, and even in Hull no-body is bothering to die with this alleged virus any more though, of course, testing is picking up some cases (the tests however are utter rubbish), the current situation clearly does not come close to an epidemic. 

It has been noted that the death figures are wrong, that is to say folk are counted as dying of this thing even if they got over it months ago, in England you can never be free of Covid-19 and no matter how gruesome or mundane your death it will still be a viral demise should you ever have tested positive for this wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beastie, much as I foretold for Poor Sam. So Public Health England ("We exist to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing (sic), and reduce health inequalities.") have been overstating the mortality figures (why ever would they do that, do you  think? what could possibly be their game?) which means that this thing (whatever it is and that is far from clear) is even less of a risk than previously thought and previous thought had it as a mild flu/bad cold sort of event that happens most years and nobody notices ...

I note the following also because it needs to be noted. The reason for the lock down was to "Save the NHS": now that slogan was quietly dropped some time back in April (I think) when it was apparent that the outbreak had peaked and the NHS was not (and never came close to being) in any danger of collapse. So is the NHS back  up and running? What do you think! A visit to the dentist involves more rigmarole than open heart surgery, GP appointments are now triaged over the phone, GPs have made millions fewer requests for medical tests and assessments, cancer patients are dying in their thousands with many thousands still undiagnosed and heading for an early grave. If you break your arm or have an accident that requires an X-ray you now have to make an appointment before approaching the A&E department of your local hospital before you simply turned up and pointed at your dangling limb and got an X-ray. There's more going on, no doubt, but this is enough for me. I do not for one minute think these restrictions will ever be lifted. The relationship between the people and the NHS has switched from it serving them to them serving it and this cannot be good.

But, finally it is not all gloom and doom; the Fat Controller says he hopes it will all be over by Christmas and since he started it he can finish it any time he likes; I suppose getting him to say he was wrong and was all a big mistake is too much to ask.

The somewhat scruffy mail box is on Park Avenue and has been there for a century or so and is merely decoration for this rambling post.

Look, Duck and ...

The Avenues area, described by some wag as the Muesli Belt of Hull, is currently plagued by feathery fiends who cause untold harm to the economy, health, education and safety of the neighbourhood. Residents are wary of venturing forth lest they should come across a malicious mallard, the very sight of which is sure to cause respiratory failure, diarrhoea, apoplexy and general malaise not to mention corporal decay. Urgent research into a cure, a possible vaccine ( a quackzine? no seriously...) has shown adverse effects with patients reporting  webbing on the extremities and an irresistible desire to go paddling in Pearson Park. The Government assures us that the problem will be over by Christmas and is introducing legislation making duck pate compulsory festive fare. 

It's a Cutlure thing

The streets of the toon were all kivvered aroon

Wi' stuff that was colourful, gowden and broon,

It was put there, of course, by a big Clydesdale horse!

And they called it manyura, manyura manyah!

                                                                                                        Matt McGinn

Readers of this delightful and informative journal will recall that the streets of Hull town centre were, at great expense both of money and inconvenience, recently changed from small paving bricks to slightly larger paving slabs. How proud those who consider such things were to have such a wonderful and attractive pavement for folk to walk about and browse the shopping "offer" of the town.  This however is the City of Cutlure (extended due to force majeure until May next year, Coventry due to be the next victim of this stupidity is scared the Covey will put folk off visiting, can't think why that might the case... Cutlure is staying) so it came as no great surprise to find the streets of the town had developed a nasty case of white-spot disease with Jameson Street, King Edward Street and good old Queen Vicky Square affected by a plague of painted dots. I guess that the council imagined that vast hordes would descend upon the place and, with the then Government policy of 2m distancing being the rule (sorry, guideline), folk would need help in judging how far apart to stand. How this was supposed to work I can't imagine: was there to be synchronised hopping from dot to dot? Would you wait until the next spot was clear or just proceed until you came up against an occupied place and stand, possibly on one leg and whistling Dixie, until you could go about your business. It was, of course, absurd, panic from the pretendy powers-that-be. No-one took a blind bit of notice of them and tell the truth there's hardly enough folk to make a crowd (two's company ...)  wandering around the  mainly closed shopping areas.

The fad for surgical masks and gloves, I believe the collective term for this is PPE, means that there is a novel (and completely unexpected, who'da thought ... tsk, tsk) litter problem. 

Salisbury and Park

Here's the intersection of Salisbury Street and Park Avenue showing the somewhat quaint Queen Anne style fronts designed by George Gilbert Scott. Did the Council really have to put that road sign just there; I mean it wasn't there a few years back. Are drivers really so thick they need to be told to go round a roundabout? (Don't answer that.) There are mermaids too but doesn't every street have mermaids?

I had to change the title of this post as I had the avenue  before the street and that is a big no-no with our American friends who tell us how to live, who we should get our technology from, who our friends should be, who should be our Prime Minister, how we should write our own language, and which way we should pee in the morning (For this relief much thanks ...) We're touched by your presence, no really, we are, touched.

A tired old tart

I've told before how gun-running local entrepreneur cum property developer Zaccharia Pearson 'donated' a piece of land to the west of the then expanding Victorian city of Hull so that the local council could have a public park (around which desirable space Zacc built and sold many large town villas). Anyhow past speculations and malfeasance aside the place was a Victorian promenading success with a bandstand and a lake and a little bridge and a glass conservatory. But we no longer live in the era of middle class well-to-dos taking the air in a town park and so  over the years the bandstand went, the bridge went and the conservatory became shabby and run down. The park in recent years has a reputation for not being at all pleasant or indeed safe. Still, undaunted by the flow of history, the Pearson Park fan club and the council and (I think) lottery funding of nearly £4 million have put back a little bridge and a bandstand and rebuilt a conservatory. Oh and repaired the ornate gateway as I mentioned some months back. (Must get a picture of that delight some time)

As you know I'm a great believer that bandstands are quite possibly the most stupid invention even more than face masks in public spaces. Here's a little beauty, already the haunt of local youth and destined to feature in so many stories of vandalism, drug abuse and violence in the local rag. If there were awards for pointless constructions well this is surely a contender. The only reason I can find for it being here is that there used to be one so there has to be one now, stands to reason.

I did like the weather vane on the conservatory though the building itself looks hideous and out-of-place. I believe it has already been vandalised several times in the short time it has been built; with any luck they'll destroy it completely.

So there you go, several million pounds in the pockets of the renovators and we have a park that has a pointless bandstand, a reinstalled but unnecessary bridge and a crappy glasshouse and a repainted cast iron gate posts for a gate that is never closed. I think this was a massive wasted opportunity to spend money wisely on something new, innovative and imaginative. This is supposed, somehow, to make Pearson Park attractive, "like new". It fails. It might have worked a hundred and fifty years ago but not now. Now it looks like a tired old tart with way too much make-up and hideous lippy hiding the cracks and pretending she can still pull the punters, not quite ugly but giving off a stench of desperation.