Oh buoy...

Accompanied daughter to Hull History Centre. She was doing some research into the Grade II listed Trinity House Buoy Shed which, well, used to be a store for buoys when Trinity House was responsible for such matters (according to a Heritage and Development Management document "the former buoy shed is a rare surviving example of a largely unaltered building characteristic of port or harbour installation"). The History Centre is a relatively new facility and it's great, nay fantastic, that there's a 'one stop shop', as brainless marketing turds would have it, for the city's archives. It was also almost guaranteed to attract a herd of strange, eccentric and wayward folk. There was no shortage today, including one chap who appeared to be photocopying almost every historical map the centre holds. Then there were the others, whose sole purpose appears to be not to look at any archive material at all but just to announce, very loudly, what they already know of Hull's history. The staff take all this in good spirits. I was especially impressed with the understanding shown to one chap who turned up at the counter with the strange request "I need you to tell me what my father's real surname was" and another who had arrived with a dusty map that he insisted must be loaned to the archive because "folk will be interested in it." No doubt they all thought we were lacking in something too, as we digitally captured some vaguely relevant documents. Hanging about, while daughter did her thing, I learned some new stuff. Oh, and I laughed at P. Larkin's polka dot bow tie. Anyway, here's Hull, 1852:

Information enema required...

Not for the first time I've been overwhelmed by books on shelves. It's usually a moment that attacks me in Waterstones when their schlocky, bathos-addled brand of classical muzak is humming away in the background. Indeed, I put it all down to those strings. Anyway, there I was in Hull's Central Library - a mostly tuneless place - when it happened again. Granted, I'd just been interviewed about the play and was trying to get over that trauma thus was in something of a shaky state of mind. But, as I stood there, reading snippets of the collected works of Anthony Neilson and seeing that wealth of information on the shelves around me, a wealth of information that I knew I could never absorb in its entirety, there it was again, sweeping over me. There must be a word for it. I could probably have found that word if I'd hung around the library. Instead, I popped the Neilson book back in its place and shuffled out of there. Does anyone else feel like this? Or is it just me?

Big city travels...

Headed over to Manchester for a couple of meetings and a bit of fun while M did her BBC thing. I like the place and, even when you're strolling about without much of a reason, as I was for the biggest part of the day, there's plenty to accidentally bump into. The John Rylands Library (pictured above, image fanatics) had been recommended as a place to discover but sod's law dictated that the building was being evacuated just as I walked towards 150 Deansgate. Finally got in, along with a couple of school groups. It took a while to get away from the young students and their complaints that "old dirty books are boring" but I finally shrugged them off (I bumped into 20 of them later, all sitting on and blocking my route down the rather grand main staircase as they sketched details of the building's Basil Champneys-designed Gothic innards) and enjoyed wandering about, although opportunities for the casual visitor like meself to get mucky paws on a rare book are limited by the glass separating the thousands of leather-bound volumes from dirty tourist types (the library is still a working academic library and part of the University of Manchester). I didn't need the toilet while I was there but, in retrospect and having read a little brochure I picked up, I wish I had had a go on a couple of bits of Victorian porcelain as "they are unchanged since 1900".

Victorian splendour is one thing, Mr Ryan's World Famous 2nd Hand Shop is something else completely. I have no idea whether Mr Ryan is still in business but there's something lovely about an outlet - and such a magnificent one at that - that sells hands and I'm very pleased that the franchise stretched as far as a second store. I asked a few people but nobody could tell me where his first Hand Shop was located.