Chimney

This is the chimney of the Guildhall's boiler house used to keep the Council Chambers warm. Nowadays the need for economies has led to efforts to capture and recycle the vast quantities of  hot air produced by Councillors but as with every project from this place it cost a lot of money in planning and consultations before the appropriate palms could be crossed with silver. Needless to say we are still waiting to see any results, delays have been blamed on the there being the wrong sort of cold in the building.

Enough of this nonsense. The Weekend in Black and White is on the other end of this link.

Boyes

Here's a bit of a local success story, very local indeed; this is very much a North of England concern. Boyes started up in Scarborough in the 1880's and have slowly and successfully spread across the north-east of England selling what they call good value products at reasonable prices. There's a total of forty six Boyes stores across the northern counties and there's three in Hull. This one is on Holderness Road and stands on the site of a cinema destroyed toward the end of the war causing the last civilian casualties in the war. A plaque on the corner commemorates the event. During the war news reports were not allowed to name individual towns so  Hull became "a North-East Coast Town"; this didn't save it or the residents from a hellish experience.

Not so pretty

When East Park was rejigged a few years ago a new animal enclosure was built with this particularly ugly fence surrounding it. It's not improved by the electric topping that accompanies it.

East Park Lake

It's been a while since I've been to East Park and in the meanwhile there have been developments, some welcome and one completely incomprehensible. Let's start with this welcome addition; a  path over the water allowing you this rather pleasant view along the length of the lake. All very nice and would be improved only by removing the accumulated rubbish that has gathered by the shore but that's a quibble.

Now for something that makes no sense to me at all: a new low level fence erected around the lake shore at the most popular spot in the park. Is it to keep people out of the lake?  I've never heard of anyone falling in here, the odd rogue dog has jumped in so I've been told but so what. Or is it, as I suspect and knowing the mindset of Hull City Council, to stop birds from coming out of the lake to be fed by passers-by, heaven forfend that people should feed the ducks as they have done for over a hundred years: this has to be stopped. 

Manhattan Salad

I noticed this enticing sign on Trinity House Lane yesterday. A quick search in Google tells me the salad bar opened in May 2010 sadly the same search also showed the company appears to have been dissolved in 2012. Maybe Hull isn't big on salad (there's no maybe about it). Now you can't fail with a patty in a breadcake!

If only they had listened to Bart Simpson....

Neverland

OK this is one those believe it or not posts. If you don't believe it then it'll probably disappear in a cloud of pixie dust before your very eyes.

Lion and Key

The Lion and Key first opened in in 1817 at the corner of Scale Lane and High Street. Until a few years ago however it was trading under the name of Durty Nelly's (sic). Not surprisingly that enterprise failed (what were they thinking of?) and the pub was bought up and given its original name back and is doing well unlike a lot of pubs not just in Hull but all across the country where twelve pubs are closing every week! The opening of the new swing bridge will no doubt pull in some passing trade.