St...st...st...stuttering start...

It's finally open then. Well, I say open, the actual St Stephen's shopping centre - sorry, mixed-use scheme's - open, but there's a distinct lack of, erm, shops. True, there's a few leading names up and running but there's also a lot of retail outlets still having the finishing touches added and quite a few units 'under offer' or still up for grabs. Which is all a bit anti-climatic. I can't say that retail excites me sufficiently to start frothing at the mouth just because we now have an H&M, Zara and Build-a-Bear to call our own. I don't care for a Gala Bingo taking up so much prominent floor space. I've been in enough large supermarkets to not even bat an eyelid at the sight of another Tesco.

Nice and bright and airy it may be but St Stephen's lacks anything close to the damp patch of sexual excitement-inducing WOW! factor. It has the distinct look of a building designed by an architect with a bezier curve obsession and a drink problem. Which, at £200m, is something of a shame. According to the HDM, and I'm sure they're right, 40,000 people turned up on opening day. With that kind of footfall, it would have been nice if there'd been more to be impressed by - as it is, the gun's been jumped by a couple of months. They should've opened in November. And this from one of Hull's biggest fans - I want everything here to be great, the best, better than everywhere else. As it is, st is all hype and talk and brand and not a lot of substance. Yet. Fingers crossed it will play a part in Hull's renaissance.

Tags: Hull, Ferensway, St Stephen's development

Oranges are not the only fruit, look at the sign!

This is the kind of award-winning signage that makes Hull the special city it is. Not content with yellow on green announcing that this shop - ALANS FRUITERERS - deals in Quality Fruit And Vegetables, ALANS also taken out the top of the building to promote five-a-day and, just in case you're not entirely clear what fruit and veg is, ALANS also drawn you a few nice illustrations lest you pick up cans of lager instead of banana. Sadly, eating fruit and veg didn't improve this retailer's use of apostrophes on his original sign, although perhaps the long term use of satsumas was of benefit when the addition was made. Alan, oddly for a man who's not so keen on the possessive, also has the shop next door, the near-legendary and equally apostrophe-less ALANS NATURALLY, an outlet specialising in obscure and mostly inedible seeds and dried out old fruit. I wonder where they get the latter from?

Interesting old film playing on the oft-criticised big screen, showing the development of Ferensway, the exact same place currently being redeveloped in Hull right here, right now. Quite a crowd had gathered to watch in the rain. Let's hope the next batch of buildings on said site lasts more than 40-odd years.