14th May
So far a great day for stupidity - excellent way to start the diary. At about 9:00, waiting for a bus into town, an older guy, aged in his 50's by the look of him, was having a slanging match against a lollipop lady while she was trying to ferry young children across the road to the nursery, shouting such lovely words as "Fucking cunt!" in front of those kiddies. What a nice guy. This went on for a whole ten minutes; I actually did check my watch. On a bus at about 10:20 up Princes Ave, the bus was slowing down to stop, but crawling along because an old guy on a bike was in front. Two teenage lasses on the pavement (aged about 13-14 or so) suddenly ran at the old guy on the bike, forcing him to swerve right in front of the bus. The bus driver was on the ball, fortunately, so nothing really nasty happened, but the girls were pissing themselves laughing at this near-miss that they caused.
And the day is only halfway through as I write this.....

15th May
Saw Tattface and his odd wife outside the Queen Victoria public bogs today. She whined "Frank, you wait here." and pointed to a patch of concrete that he should stand on. A few moths ago, I saw her go into a bakery, and Tattface wandered off to look in another shop window....when she came out I heard this almighty panicky "Uuuuuh! Frank! Where are yer?" bellowed loudly from the doorway of the bakery....Can she really be so frightened of him wandering off? I wonder....

16th May
Sat on the bus, a woman at the back kept telling her young kid over and over and over to "Sit dowern! WIll you sit dowern!" Don't you just love the Hull accent? Adding syllables all over the place? Great.

17th May
Sat in town opposite Paragon Station, waiting for a photo opp. when a couple of ladz sat on the seat behind me eating chips. All seemed normal until one started threatening the pigeons. With genuine aggression, I might add. Comments include "Will you fuck off you furry little fucker!" (despite pigeons being feathered and not furry) and, just before he chased one a good fifty feet across the city centre, "You greedy little FUCKER!!!" As he sat back down, he calmly said to his mate, "I think it got the message." Needless to say I was nearly wetting myself.

18th May
Stayed indoors. No mutant encounters!

19th May
Went for a photo shoot to test my new Pentax 35mm lens out in Hedon Road cemetary. On the bus on the way an old chap got on and spent the journey muttering aggressively to himself (he was really snarling). At the cemetary, someone was sunbathing against a gravestone in just a pair of shorts. In a charity shop on the way back I was looking at some books when an old cleaning-lady nana type pushed in front, picked up a Danielle Steele book and said to me "There's a good writer for yer," before ambling off.
I had to go back home and lock my front door after this series of events.

20th May
What a Sunday! Too much Hull for one day!
Got up, had this weekend off so I decided to go to a carboot sale in search of bargains. As I walked down Anlaby Road, a well-dressed woman in her fifties or thereabouts, on the other side of the road, suddenly stopped and started shouting at somebody who wasn't there. I missed most of her conversation, but managed to catch the end; "Does yours do it every single day and night? No, well mine does. You haven't got a clue!" After this, she walked on as though nothing had happened.
Waiting in the station for a bus to Hedon, I witnessed, within minutes of each other, the following; two women trying to attack a superloo after failing to gain access to it; a greasy haired, mucky parka wearing old guy picking up tab-ends from all around the bus station; a junkie shambling toward me, eyes glazed, saying in a really spaced way, "Hey, mate. Mate. Ere, mate. You got any change, mate?"
Things didn't get any better on the bus. Within two stops, a fat stinking woman with two grubby faced little kids got on and sat next to me at the back of the bus. She shifted to sit nearer to me, and I got the full force of the stench - she literally stank of shit, like she had done a diarrohea and not even wiped her arse once, just left it to dry so she could flake it off later. Just before I puked from her fetid rankness, she got off, only to be immediately replaced by a Shane-type (thirties, looking as though in his fifties, tracksuit, sunken cheeks, scrawny) and his two Kappa-clad teenage daughters. When the bus pulled up to one stop, one of the girls noticed another couple of girls standing across the road, and suddenly all three of them were looking across the road, the girls muttering, "Look at them, who do they think they are? Ey, they're looking at us! Who do they think they're looking at? Cheeky cows!" The Shane-type answered, "Mebbe they're looking at me."
To compound the journey, two people got on, presumably man and wife, who looked genetically damaged. His mouth hung open, his almost white pale blue eyes like runny eggs, comb-over held in place by natural grease, and with self-inflicted tattoos all over his hands (including the obligatory 'love' and 'hate', only he had spelled 'love' wrong - on the index finger was half of an 'O' overwritten by an  'L', presumably when he had realised that he was only on the first finger...) She had a thin, almost triangular face, her haor was bunched up so tightly she looked like one of those Hollywood types after fifteen facelifts, only far far uglier, and her already gormless, brow-shadowed eyes were magnified by her enormous coke-bottle-bottom glasses.
I was really frightened, my mind was convulsing in mental hysterics. I came damn close to openly laughing on this bus journey.
Next time I take a weekend off, I'm gonna stay in and lock all of the doors.
 

Can't be bothered to write any more! Life is too short to spend typing. Instead, here are some experiences recounted by performance artist P. Andrew Barnes...

"1. Black crippled woman in wheelchair bombing up the
wrong side of Anlaby Road at 10pm,glaring at folks
going the right way.

2. Two Daz glueys doing much the same thing on bikes
in broad daylight, same part of Anlaby Road, bags  of
glue draped off their handlebars.

3. A gluesniffing middleaged housewife with head in
Kwik Save (or similar) carrier bag, expertly getting
her hit of UHU (or cheaper brand) whilst loaded down
with shopping from Nettos. Anlaby Road also.

4. A tatter driving his ramshackle van down George
Street.On the back is a life size black plastic
horse.This was brilliantly surreal! Tom reckons it is
God testing out his apocalypse try-outs in Hull first
(why not? we are "pioneering" afterall!)

5. Two  cunts mug a disabled fella down Woodcock
Street (or 'Little Beriut'as the media call it now).No
surprise there, except for their tactics perhaps,which
involve the twats with fawn caps THROWING THEIR BIKES
at the fella! So if you see someone about to hurl a
nicked mountain bike at your ear- duck, they want your
munnee!"

And also cracking quotes overheard from the deadheads of Hull.

Little boy in a public toilet with his mother, overheard by Trish;

"Bye bye wee-wee. Mam, is my wee-wee dead now?"

***

This pne really upset Tommy Concrete and reminded him why he doesn't live in Hull anymore. On a bus, a teenage girl sat at the back kept making farting sounds with her friend giggling. Two younger lads at the front kept looking back and saying things like, "Someone's burping. Who's burping?" Suddenly the brighter of these lads saw the girl making the noise and said to his docile chum, "Look, it's her burping." His pal then came out with the classic "Yeah, that's what I was about to was thoughted out me head." Tom got off the bus and walked the rest of the way to Zorg's house; in his words, it was too much Hull too soon.

***

I overheard a Mam and her teenage shithead daughter at a bus stop.

Teen : God, we could of got to New York by the time this bus gets here.
Mam : Don't be so fucking stupid.
Teen : Alright then, Brid.

I loved the use of Bridlington as an alternative to New York! I nearly wet my pants trying not to crack up.

***

Old women overheard on a bus by Trish;

"You know, it even rains outside sometimes."

***

Zorg, cycling home from work, slowly overtook a middle-aged lady on a bike. She had this to say on the matter;

"Oh, so you want a fucking race do yer? Well fuck off, yer bastard!"

Or words to that effect.

***