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.