Yellow pages...

Some things you just trust. The Oxford English Dictionary, for one thing - you just expect everything to be right in there. The answers that pop up on a calculator screen, they're nicely reliable. And telephone directories. Strange, then, that a billboard advertisement promoting Yellow Pages contains a schoolboy error. "Hull. Home to a suspenson bridge, 13 structural engineers and the odd bungee-jumping class." I don't know about the last two and, even if those claims are right, I'd now question them. Because Hull is not home to a suspension bridge. The Humber Bridge, an image of which is used in the advert so that must be the suspension bridge being referred to, is located in Hessle. Just up the road. But not Hull. You'd think that facts would be important to a publication that is based on presenting the things. Thanks for the suggeston, Yellow Pages, but I don't think I will get more out of Hull with you.

Sunday evening shinding #23...

Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter
I said I don't know whether
I'm the boxer or the bag

Well read chair...

Called in to the REVEAL taster exhibition at the Artlink gallery. Favourite piece was the chair below, crafted from old books and which I wanted to sit on and swivel in despite the sign warning me not to. I also felt an urge to try and pull it apart (it all appears to be held together with PVA glue, a little bit of which was visibile between books). I didn't. Which is a good thing. Some nice pieces of work on display.

Duff sport report...

It's not just local/regional news organisations that make mistakes. It would appear that BBC Sport's webmasters consider the Premier League's Hull City AFC a rugby union club and have christened chairman Paul Duffen 'Duffy' on three occasions (they should be begging him for Mercy, ho hum). Hear the BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Paul Duffen here.

How much???

Positive(ish) story about regeneration in the town of Beverley in today's HDM. Unfortunately, the figure highlighted in the overline doesn't quite excite. £120's not going to regenerate or transform much, is it?
Read the full story here.

Boxed lunch...

I've been watching Design For Life, in which Philippe Starck does for design what Suralansugar does for business (ie, assembles a large group of idiots and whittles his way through them to find the ultimate idiot whilst promoting himself, some of his products and is given the opportunity to espouse his philosophy of life, the universe and everything). In episode 1, Philippe was keen to stress that he was "opening a zip on myself". More alarmingly, he went on to invite people to approach this zip and "take out what you want." The programme joins the canon of nonsense that states the bleedin' obvious. In this case, that everything we see around us is the result of design. No shit, Sherlock. Yet I have been influenced by the show enough to think about the packaging design of the lunch I ate today. A Tiger Tiger Cup Noodle, no less. Rather than one load of packaging, Tiger Tiger presented my noodles in two containers - one, a box, the kind of which noodles could be eaten from. To my surprise, within that box was a more traditional noodle pot. Madness. Environmentally friendly it ain't. Nice noodles, mind.

How to write???

Advert for The Guardian's How to Write book. I'm sure there'll be a section on apostrophes in there.

A hive of industry...

The River Hull - the city's flowing, physical and psychological Berlin Wall of a barrier to straight passage from east to west (or vice versa, if you're that way inclined) - is looking rather industrious right now. There are several ways of crossing the muddy waters but pedestrians will soon be able to make the journey via a new footbridge. This will be the second footbridge to be built in recent years, the first joining the battered and bruised old Fruit Market area to the steel and glassgasm that is The Deep. Still, I'm sure that city planners know what they're doing and have identified a need for people to cross at this new spot. I can hardly wait to walk over the the thing, I'm that excited.

I watched several workmen leaning on shovels the other day in between putting up barriers to prevent me walking my usual riverside route. There's a big dredger-cum-river-friendly-piling rig thundering big metal tubes into the mud at the mo'. I'm sure the end result will be spectacular and stand the test of time as much as any piece of classical antiquity you'd care to mention. But better, because it will be in Hull.

In contrast, at the other end of the river, I watched a mysterious chap contemplating the meaning of life amid a wall of graffito:

Sunday evening shindig #22...

The Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays

Bet you are tired of being upset

Always wanting something you never can get
Life's no illusion, love's not a dream
Now I know just what it is

Kevin Cummins...

Kevin Cummins is responsible for copious amounts of iconic rock imagery and he will no doubt be taking photographs for years to come. The opening of a précis of his career in today's theguardian Guide got me thinking, however, that if KC ever attempts to get a gig in a different field of work, his CV might raise a few eyebrows: "Photographer Kevin Cummins has shot everyone from Madonna to Mark E Smith..."

Nipped along to KC's official website, as you would, but there's not much going on there today:

Deeply dippy...

Today we went back to The Deep. We have a family ticket and, having paid for one visit, can go back throughout the year for no entrance charge, with an option to make a charitable donation. I didn't think too much of The Deep when it first opened - it seriously underwhelmed me. But I've grown to love the place. If you've never been, here's a look inside...

Mr Spliff...

I met Brian Fell a couple of weeks ago. He's a sculptor based in Glossop who has been in Hull working on the public art at the back of a warehouse that I first mentioned back in August. His sculptures tell a mini-story of the city and are crafted from mild steel that is finished to look rather like lead. The work, which is a unique design for what would otherwise just have been one of many riverside flood-defence walls, was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. When he posed for the photograph above Brian was keen to wear protective eye goggles to demonstrate that he adhered to health & safety rules but, unable to find them in the back of his van, hopped up his ladder and angle grinded away happily, sparks flying all over the shop. Anyway, today when I walked past I noticed that the wall has already been defaced. The defacer's art is just as valid if, I assume, a little cheaper to produce. Here's what's been done:

Don't stop me now...

Not sure what to blog about. In fact, having a blogging crisis of confidence. I've probably said too much already. Might start reviewing things. Domestic appliances. LED TVs and games consoles maybe. Or books. Films. Music. Can you send me some? Don't suppose somebody could leave a comment at some point, could they? Even if it's me...

You're Nicked...

There are some nice people out there. One of them is the Hull-based crime fiction writer Nick Quantrill. Nick's been very kind to me and provided some linkage from his fine Hull Crime Fiction website. You should go and have a look at his site - he's so nice that he's even giving some of his quality words away for free. You should also buy his book Broken Dreams when it is released in Winter 2009.

The Peggy Ramsay Room...

Tonight I headed to Scarborough to lead the first of three writing workshops at the SJT with their new adult writing class. I was a very privileged egg indeed - the first person to put the theatre's new Peggy Ramsay Room to practical use. Stephen Wood, executive director at the SJT, got things underway with a little speech that outlined the historical importance of the occasion. It was great to be a part of a 'moment' like this, although had I thought too much about it I might not have got round to walking in the venue. The room holds the theatre's archives which, naturally, include a lot of Alan Ayckbourn's words (plus every script ever performed at the Library Theatre, the SJT in the Round and the current building, correspondence with writers and a huge collection of published play texts). Just a room, of course, but a very inspiring one at that.

Sunday evening shindig #21...

Crass - Big A Little A
If you don't like the rules they make, refuse to play their game
If you don't want to be a number, don't give them your name
If you don't want to be caught out, refuse to hear their question
Silence is a virtue, use it for your own protection

Twisted firestarters...

Went to see a preview of Carabosse's Fire Installation down at the Fruit Market, Hull. Really enjoyed it. Lots of 'VIPs' swanning about proud of themselves - as if they, not the artists, were responsible. Here's a lo-res glimpse courtesy of my shoddy little camera:

Sunday evening shindig #20...

The King Blues - What If Punk Never Happened?
These streets are your streets, this turf is your turf,
Don’t let anyone tell you that you’ve got to give in,
Cos you can make a difference, you can change everything,
Just let your dreams be your pilot, your imagination your fuel,
Tear up the book and write your own damn rules,
Use all that heart, hope and soul that you’ve got,
And the love and the rage that you feel in your gut,
And realise that the other world that you’re always looking for,
Lies right here in front of us, just outside this door,
And it’s up to you to go out there and paint the canvas,
After all, you were put on the earth to do this,
So shine your light so bright that all can see,
Take pride in being whoever the fuck you want to be,
Throw your fist in the air in solidarity,
And shout “Viva la punk, just one life, anarchy”.

Hull lotta eatin' goin' on...

Peak of leisure options in this neck of the woods. Today we took in the Global Food Festival, Big Bus Day and the Hull Maritime Weekender. Pretty average turnout at all three pretty average events so I'm bracing myself for claims from destination management organisation VHEY that billions of tourists were attracted to the city and trillions of pounds were spent over the weekend.
Big Bus Day? Well, the buses were big but there weren't many of them. It was free so I guess you get what you pay for. The local bus company's brass band did sound rather good, although watching grown men blow into big tubes is a strange activity.

Not sure if anyone in Hull should be eating right now - the Director of Public Health here has just told us all off for eating too much and not moving enough - whether it's global or not, and never mind that little grubby Antony Worrall Thompson might have prepared it for you. Lots of people, not a lot of evidence that anyone was buying anything. I ate something Turkish and M's vegetarian requirements were catered for by African & Caribbean Cuisine experts Island Delights. I was given a free shoulder bag stuffed full of leaflets about healthy eating. We purchased an expensive bar of chocolate. We licked our lips and downed our nosh without any thought about NHS Hull's top-down approach to diet. But we did walk off the food by heading over to the Marina.

When we got to the Maritime Weekender three men, one of whom was, I think, Shanty Jack, were singing a song about Nine Times A Night - a vulgar little sea shanty about bedroom performance. The audience of old folk, who were sat across the road from a pub but refusing to nurse any alcoholic beverages, the message from NHS Hull regarding binge drinking no doubt weighing heavily on their collective conscience, didn't react in any way to the song. Further up the Marina-side, the Kingstown Radio roadshow had an audience of absolutely zero. The bulk of those that were at this event were old. Very old. They wore slacks and cardigans and sturdy boots. They looked as if they had been forced to attend and that, in the short time that they had been there, that they had had all of their personal property stolen and their King Charles Spaniels had been raped. They suggest that this event, now in its 20th year, will die out with them. Shame.

Next week it is the Freedom Festival, a rather strange mish-mash of an event paid for with public money. Peter Andre is performing. It is free to watch him. He can f**k off.

Those pivotal moments...

I'd known Mike for about six months when I found myself in his bedroom. It was a crap pile. Stacks of Sight & Sound at the end of his bed. A desk littered with sketches, modelling clay and craft knives. Some mix tape laid on its side, with his clearly indentifiable scrawl all over it (Mike was a lover of Fineliners; his resultant style was somewhat inkblottyreminiscent of Ralph Steadman). He showed me his books. Several of them were protected within polybags. If I'm not mistaken they were filed alphabetically. There was a lot of Terry Pratchett. There was some shit about JFK. Possibly a little volume about Elvis (the memory kinda fades in some areas). There was Douglas Coupland's Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture.

Lessness: A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing expections of material wealth.

Legislated Nostalgia: To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess.

Overboarding: Overcompensating for fears about the future by plunging headlong into a job or lifestyle seemingly unrelated to one's previous life interests.

This book was talking to me.

Mike placed the Coup' in a polybag and let me leave the house with it. It's not something, I gathered, that he did very often - hence the over-protective anality of the polybags. But I am eternally grateful for that moment in time, that fine gesture. He got the book back and I went on a never-ending journey.