Overheard on the bus...

"He's getting me one of those new phones for our anniversary."

"What type of phone?"

"He's borrowed the money. From Credit Union."

"Yeah, Credit Union. You can never get into debt with Credit Union. Even if you borrow, like, 500 quid from them."

"It's one of those just out November phones that were out this month. It does everything. You wanna know how much my bill was last month? F**king hundreds. He said, for your birthday, you can have a new phone or you can have the new PSP3. I'll give you the other one for our anniversary. I'm real excited. Anyway, there's no way that the apple closed her eye."

"What apple?"

"School phoned me. Today. You've got to come pick her up. There's been an accident. She's partially blind. My little lass. I said, there's no way that's a f**king accident. You've blinded her with an apple? The only way you can blind someone with an apple is to throw it at short range with force. That's not an accident. She's partially blind now. Wait 'til I get to the school."

"Did you see Hull City playing Italy on Sky?"

"Yeah. I watched summat on Sky. It was a draw."

"They lost."

"It was a draw. 2-2. They were playing Fulham. Or was it West Ham? It wasn't Italy. I don't know, I don't even like football. Can you phone the school and talk to that teacher now? Tell them it wasn't a f**king accident. How can you blind someone with an apple?"

On the buses...

I've been sans car for a few weeks now. It is rather liberating and has reminded me that we don't need that shit that outside forces are always convincing us we do. Yet, as it gets colder, walking around the city has less and less appeal. So, tonight, I turned to public transport, specifically buses. Which, in this city, appear, on my scant experience, to be appallingly smelly and unreliable. Nobody in their right mind would choose to travel this way - such is the stench of urine that they're like a public (in)convenience on wheels. But there you go. Maybe I do need a car after all. Tonight, we went to the cinema, and watched inconsistent man-munching, splatter-happy, scare-flick Jennifer's Body. We were out of the cinema by 8.20pm - not late enough to think that there'd be any trouble hopping immediately on a bus home. I didn't realise how shockingly sparse buses were at that time of night. It's as if Hull had shut down. What's the deal, transport bosses? Rather than loiter in the loon-infested interchange (described, no doubt, in tourism literature as another 'jewel in the crown' for the city) until the bus came we hopped inside the Royal Station Hotel, where drinks are expensive and tables are frequented by bald men with Blackberries.

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.

Haggis...

I bumped into this crazy bus in the market town of Beverley the other day. Wild & Sexy Haggis Adventures on their own would beggar belief - the fact that they may take place within the confines of this bright yellow bus, eurgh. There was a mysterious lack of a driver anywhere in sight and I therefore assume that he was up to no good with his haggis on the back seat.