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thisisUll.com, the alternative media website from Hull in England! This website is about people's lives and experiences - whoever they are - for us all to share. Every article, poem, story, review is contributed by you. Say what you feel, say it like it is. We do our best to publish everything you send to us. Please email your friends and send your stories to: contributions@thisisull.com. thisisUll.com has provided a free, independent platform for anyone and everyone to use since August 2003. The site depends on its editorial and production team who continue to toil tirelessly and without pay to bring 'Ull to you. We run on a shoestring and rely solely on advertising revenue to fund the site. Please help support thisisUll.com. We can't do it without you! Advertisers - Please check our advertising rates - Click Here Bands, promoters, venues and everybody else! Please help support us by buying a t-shirt or providing a link to thisisUll.com on your website or myspace page. Not sure how? Click here for information.

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Poetry Tough Guy By Mike Watts

It's just me tonight And I've Necked Half a bottle Of good Bourbon I'm rock Read more...

Poetry - My Heart Inside The Lines By Paul England

inspired by the dead man who writes my every line lost inside this life and the streets that hold my crime people wrote me off 'cos shit I've took some knocks hustlers left me dry 'cos I won't sell no rocks Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Museum Quarter High Street Hull (Inspired by the song Strange Fruits) By Julie Corbett

The display boards bored you all tell and no show. Orange panels ingested quickly in the first room. The story should have unsettled you, started uneasy questioning. You ask instead to go next door to the museum full of trams and cars. Read more...

Poetry - In The Loop By Andrea Longstaff

	Identity theft is all the rage turn the page If you want to know who you are Read more...

Opinions - Jon Venables: Better a Monster than a No Mark? By Christopher Skolik
	Thompson and Venables where already 'monsters' when they met James Bulger. That much is clear. Everyone is agreed on that. Circumstances had left the two 10 year olds so numb that self induced trauma was all they had left. After the events on the railway track the nation was shocked - but we could have started screening for similar kids. We know the signs, but we howled, and baptised Read more...

Poetry - Old Soldiers Never Die, They Merely Fade Away By Laurenceaux.

For many whole days I've likened to death, shot in the arm, the leg and the chest; and laying on mud there in a ditch, I've prayed for an end - to toss in my pitch; but no one's heard me - no one's seen; as I fight for death - to forget what's been. Read more...

Poetry - Sunday Bloody Sunday By Mark Walmsley
	Out of bed as late as I dare, pick up my bag from the kitchen chair Dash out to the street, sleep in my eyes, late again, no surprise. Get to the ground and shabby hut, the changing rooms all locked up Read more...

Reviews, Films - Avatar - iMax Cinema, London By Michelle Dee
	I'd seen the clips and a brief 'making of' documentary on Film 2010 but nothing prepared me for the complete immersion into James Cameron's spectacular vision. I wasn't sure how I'd get on with the whole 3D thing, I worried it wouldn't work for me; how wrong was I. London's iMax cinema on the south bank is huge and was apparently sold out that day although there were a number of Read more...

News, Arts Wednesday 10th March 10 - Book Launch - Behind The Wall by Rich Miles
	On Wednesday 10th March, 7pm at Friends Meeting House, Bean Street, Hull, Rich Wiles will launch his most recent book: Friends Meeting House. Martin Deane of Hull Stop the War and Hull Green Party says: 'I'm very pleased to welcome Rich back from Palestine to his home city of Hull. Over many years now, Rich has been teaching photography to Palestinian refugees in Read more...

News, Arts Win A Copy Of Debut Novel 'Broken Dreams' by Award Winning Local Crime Writer Nick Quantrill
	Local crime fiction novelist Nick Quantrill 's debut novel, Broken Dreams is to be launched on March 15th by Caffeine Nights Publishing . Right now it is an auspicious time for Hull literature with a genuine increase in the number of authors published and unpublished and interest from the public and press. Added to this exciting union, is the 25th anniversary of Philip Larkin's Read more...

Poetry - Job Description (The Confessional Poet) By Sandra Lester

The essential qualities required - for this unique, Christ-like bard- are: The ability to receive eccentric tutelage twenty-four/seven from your muse. You must ponder aloud for all to hear, emotional abstractions, musings and fears. Perceiving, feeling and thinking in ink - from a well-spring Read more...

Reviews, Books - Missio by Tim Roux Reviewed by Clive Ashman
	Thirty-six years ago, at the height of the West's Cold War with the then Soviet Union, a Hull fishing trawler called The Gaul and its thirty-six crew suddenly disappeared in the freezing waters of the Barents Sea, off the cost of Norway. Hundreds of miles from home, and hundreds of feet down, the fate of the missing vessel and its lost crew continued to haunt their grieving relatives and the whole City of Hull for the next thirty years (and Stevie Francis). Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Who Do You Think You Are? By Catherine Scott

Many Hull people are aggrieved At the way they feel that Hull's perceived If Southern Softies are to be believed Hull should never have been conceived. Just who do they think they are? We don't have Kew Gardens or the O2 Arena St Paul's Cathedral or the tennis for Serena Read more...

Kids Poetry - What Is That? and Pong and a Bong Jasmine Rudd Aged 8

Two floppy ears flopping around, one twitchy nose and a carrot lying on the ground, two googly eyes looking at me, what is that it is a rabbit I see. Read more...

Opinions - East Riding Writers By Jan Mc Geachie
	Perhaps you can solve the mystery of why there is little here to help promote writers here in East Riding? To enter the New Writing North awards you have to live in Tyne and Wear, the Tees Valley, County Durham or Northumberland. Signposts only have Writers Resource Centres in Sheffield Barnsley and Rotherham. NAWG lists nine writers clubs in Yorkshire, the largest county in England - yet the Wolds remains a literary wilderness. Read more...

News - Hull Pride Wins Award
	Hull Pridewas nominated as one of the 'Most LGB-friendly Organisation' in Yorkshire in The Equity Partnership LGB Awards 2010. After the votes had been counted it was announced last night at the award ceremony in Bradford's Midland Hotel, that Hull Pride was the award winner. Presenting the award was Paul Burston the Yorkshire born author of The Gay Divorcee. Read more...

Kids Poetry - I Walk Away and Who Knows By Meena Budworth

I love my life, I always will No poverty, or hunger, and losses nil The freedom of speech is hard to find I need to grasp, my piece of mind I'll have to leave my life behind As always. Alas my friends, I have to go Read more...

Reviews, Books - Triple Trawler Fiction - Clinging to the Wreckage Reviewed by Tim Roux
	By the 1960s, there was still a significant deep sea trawler fleet fishing out of Hull but only three literary figures had as yet been associated with the city: Andrew Marvell, a seventeenth century politician and poet, Winifred Holtby, author of South Riding, and Stevie Smith, a poet and novelist whose most famous line is 'not waving but drowning'. Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Declined Laureate By Mark Walmsley
	Philip Arthur Larkin, Rough diamond set in loose facet As once described 'The saddest heart, in post war supermarket' A piquant mixture of discontent And one of poetic lyricism. Critiqued tides of modern jazz He steeped his work in dour pessimism Read more...

Poetry - The Suburbs By Gary Clark

What! Kingston-Upon-Hull! You don't want to live there. Says the condescending old biddy at the end of the phone With a tone in her voice that cuts to the bone. Already I'm a loser and she hasn't seen my face A feeling you get used to when you come from this place. I feel as though I'm rubbish when I'm talked to like this Drummed into me daily since I was a kid. Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - One Straight Road By Julie Corbett

Holderness Road you stray from edge to heart of my city. Your miles once paced by cream telephone boxes. You pass over veins, from the Wolds and Holderness Plain Barmston and Marfleet Drains the brackish water mixing with, Read more...

Poetry - The Boathouse By Michelle Dee
	I recall this night with warm, inviting people, huddled around fires, within and without. I remember passing around wine and losing all sense of time. Faded news cut-outs fragmenting on bathroom walls. And the dusty allure of an overcrowded kitchen. I see pictures of fire-lit faces; Read more...

News, Community - Missing
	Wellington-St. Matthews Scout Group celebrate their 100th year on 1st April 2010, becoming the first group in Hull to do so. So all the sections; Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Explorers and their Active Service Group (18+) are on the hunt for ex-members. Putting up their missing posters all around the St. Andrews Ward area, the Scouts have also been doing research not only using the Read more...

News, Arts - thisisUll.com Larkin 25
	This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Philip Larkin' death. To commemorate this, a series of events will be taking place across Hull to celebrate his life and work. As part of the Larkin 25 festival, Write to Speak will hosting a special two-day event at Hull Truck on July 2nd/3rd, and thisisUll.com will be publishing a series of poems inspired by the man himself in the weeks leading up to the events. We are taking this opportunity to ask Read more...

Poetry Larkin 25 - It Really Was! (Inspired by Annus Mirabilis) By Mike Watts

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen eighty three (Which was brilliant for me) - Between the end of Tennessee Williams And Madonna's first LP Up till then they'd only been A sort of wanking A secret stash of porn Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - This Be The Curse (Inspired by This Be The Verse) By Joe Hakim

They fucked us over, our mums and dads. They didn't mean to but they did. They took free education, cheap housing and jobs And left nothing for us, their kids. Because they inherited the future, Opportunity, optimism and hope, While we got disappointment, Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Larkin With Us By Gary Clark

The Hull you knew has long since gone How could it remain the same? The deep sea port you wrote about The fishermen you blamed The grim face, head scarved wives I think you really admired You must have done, Read more...

Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Nineteen: Going West for Eastern Inspiration By Steve Rudd
	'Tuk-Tuk!' came the shout across the concourse. In the same beat I was offered a taxi, before a middle-aged lady rushed up offering me a cut-price massage. And this was all out front of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, into which I'd just flown from LA. My writing work in the US finished, I had decided to head over to Southeast Asia in order to attend the wedding of a couple of friends who I'd first met on my first visit to Read more...

Poetry - Kowalski's OGM - With audio download By Brindley Hallam Dennis

So, ya got through to Kowlaski's number. Well, Kowalski ain't 'ome. Mildred, that's his old lady, she ain't 'ome either. Ya see, that's what ya get. That's what ya get fer callin' such a dumb-ass hour. That means you Hank. Ya wanna leave a message, talk to the machine when it beeps. Read more...

Poetry - The Gap By Chris Culshaw

He lives in a bedsit now, in a house peopled by footfalls, piles of junk mail on the mahogany hall-stand where a broken umbrella hangs like a snared crow beside the pocked mirror. His room in the eaves looks out over sooty privets, to a gap between Read more...

Poetry - Handing Down By Trevor Matthews

She was sitting at my kitchen table looking at her hands. These, she said, are my mother's hands. She had big hands like these. Every time I look at them now I see her, and she held them up in front of me. Bright sun pierced the thinning flesh. Inside I saw the shadows of her bones Read more...

Poetry - Harrogate Bedrock, 1899 By Sarah Hymas

What I love about you I have yet to quarry. Your worn granite face holds the promise of mica and buttoned sandstone, a cladding for our home. As limestone is local diamond, Read more...

Poetry - Don't Know How To Put It In Words By Dayne Coyne
	Don't know how to put it in words But I'm wanting to thank you For being so honest with me And though it might sound absurd: But, apart from myself, It is you who most helps me to be So excuse me if I seem pedantic Read more...

News, Arts - New Voices Will Continue To Be Heard
	The organisers of a new writing festival in Hull have hailed the first two day event a big success. Script Yorkshire's Hull branch is now hoping that the New Voices festival will become an annual event. Chair of the Hull branch of Script Yorkshire, Kate Hainsworth, said: 'We attracted much bigger audiences than we expected and we are all really pleased that the public has shown its support Read more...

News, Community - Make A Difference, One Hour At A Time
	Want to make a difference to a young person's life? Do you have at least an hour a week to spare during school hours? Become a volunteer Maths Mentor in Hull's secondary schools with Volcom! There are lots of young people across the city who, for whatever reason, would like some help with their Maths. For many, having a mentor Read more...

Music Reviews - Men Diamler at The Adelphi, Hull By Michelle Dee
	It would be a crying shame if I wasn't to tell you about the artist I saw playing at Adelphi in Hull the other week. Really? Do tell me, who did you see? The poster said Men Diamlerso I was thinking, something group-based, slightly Germanic maybe, and electro possibly? So I was pleasantly surprised when a disheveled youngish chap with dark curly locks picked up a weather-beaten guitar and began playing. Read more...

Poetry - I Don't Know What To Do By Zachary Brannon

I don't know what to say, what to do; all I can ever think about is you! Not sure what you think about me never have been; But in the end it's your heart I hope to win! I Will always be around, always here; My heart, I'm sure, even skips a beat Whenever you come near. Read more...

Poetry - This Is Not A Love Poem By Mike Watts

No She didn't Punch A hole through My breast bone Rip out My still beating heart And then volley it Out of sight Somewhere Read more...

Poetry - Since You Came By Bronwyn Ellis
	Is it a chore? And nothing more A phase you killed off years before? A painful bore? An anger cure? An 'I can't be bothered anymore?' We're both so young Love should be fun As good as when we'd first begunRead more...

Poetry - Acres Wide By Terry Ireland

Come sleep with me she said Bring some warmth to my bed That seems to spread acres wide Now that it's empty on his side Just for a while hold me tight Shorten just one endless night So full of hours that I have wept Until exhausted and finally slept Read more...

Poetry - Poetry - It's Good Innit? By Catherine Scott

This is Hull - wot we got? Sanitization, deprivation Unemployment, no motivation Teenage mums, no inspiration It's good innit? This is Hull - wot we got? Beggars on street Coppers on beat Read more...

Poetry - The Last Great Adventure? By Laurenceaux.

An 'end-game' of addiction, the despair of a life only going one-way: some people are pre-disposed to drug abuse, as they are to alcohol abuse, quite possibly because they are 'bored', but more probably because they have lost essential feelings of self-worth or have become detached from mainstream society, a society with ever increasing demands for total conformity. Read more...

Music News - Friday 12th February - Hull Hope 4 Haiti Appeal Gig at The Lamp Norfolk Street, From 8pm £3.50 .
	As the world stood shocked, looking toward the country itself, on the night of 12th January 2010, in the city of Jacmel, close to midnight, one musician played. Playing to offer hope, to show defiance, to extend support, to play for any other reason that we all play and listen to music. To give strength. In one instant, this anonymous artist set a platform for thousands of people Read more...

Kids Poetry - Why Oh Why By Jasmine Rudd Aged 8

Why oh why is the sun so bright Why oh why is the sky dark at night Why oh why does the world go round and round Why oh why does our feet stay on the ground Read more...

News - Digital Gamers to Hit Hull - Platform 2010 By Julian Woodford
	From Apps to the Xbox, digital gaming is to take centre stage in Hull next month. Leading local experts have joined forces to create Platform 2010, the city's first annual gaming conference, designed to encourage and nurture local talent and cement the city's growing international reputation in gaming education. Organised by World Trade Centre Hull & Humberin partnership with Hull-based Garthwest Ltd, Read more...

Fashion - Creative Locals, Students and Designers Show Their Support to Haiti Wednesday 17th March 2010
	Tessies, Newland Avenue , the uber cool womenswear boutique has only been open less than 2 months and is already creating a storm amongst the stylish folk of Hull. Tessies opens its doors on 17th March to the excited fashionable public, as they eagerly anticipate a community charity event run by aspiring local designers and creatives. An evening of music, fashion, competitions, champagne and nibbles Read more...

Album Reviews - The James Warner Prophecies - Fell Reviewed by Steve Rudd
	I vehemently stand by my claim. The James Warner Prophecies are one of the finest bands in the UK. And that's why I remain so confused, because if you ask the average person on the street, they have never heard of the band, let alone their life enhancing music. If I can help change that, I shall ... beginning now. I've said it before and I'll definitely say it again: this quartet is something Read more...

Music News - Finding the Future - City Showcase Targets Hull in the Search for New Music Talent
	City Showcase, the live music event that takes over London each year, is hitting the road in a tour of the UK as it seeks to uncover more new music talent. In a series of live events to be held in Universities or Community Centres across the country, the Finding the Future programme will give solo artists, bands, songwriters or quite simply those Read more...

Poetry - The Nearly Men By Terry Ireland

I am one of the nearly men Never quite the best Not really of the crowd Not quite one of the rest. You see us in every photograph When the prizes are handed out Making up the numbers yet Read more...

Reviews, Arts - Contents May Vary at Red Gallery in Hull Contemporary Art Continues Despite the Big Freeze By Michelle Dee. Photographs courtesy Andrew Quinn
	While the city of Hull struggled against the adverse weather conditions on Friday 8th January and people tried in vain to get home after many businesses were closed earlier than usual, a group of dedicated contemporary artists were preparing for the opening night of Contents May Vary at Red Gallery in the city. Battling against all odds, the show opened on time just minutes Read more...

Poetry - I Lost a Girl and a Car By John Dervishian

You shit on my car because I was immoral but that's alright I was days shy of getting that thing repossessed anyway Read more...

Fiction - A Clever Use of Bins By Frankie Lassut
	An uplifting, 'ultimate' romance fantasy. Colin was the world's most romantic man, it was official. Well, ok. His wife, Jean, had written into the local radio station, Hull Online, and told the presenter guy what he did for her i.e. washing up, ironing, rubbed her feet, was always telling her how lovely she looked (especially each time she bought a new dress), took her out for meals regularly etc. She had won hands down. Read more...

People - An Interview with Interior Designer Amanda Larson By Steve Rudd
	Currently residing in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix in Arizona, Amanda is a hard-working and highly-respected interior designer who has been actively involved in the industry for an illustrious decade. Eager to channel her overactive imagination, Amanda seemed destined to be involved with art and design in the wake of graduating, and she openly admits that she feels most at home wherever she is able to 'create or express a vision'. Read more...

Poetry - Another Night Out By John Dervishian

She pours my drink As often as I request And she pours It well No questions asked A Jack on the rocks Read more...

News, Arts Poetry/Spoken Word - Write to Speak at Hull Truck, Wednesday February 3rd 10 featuring Tony Flynn, Pat Borthwick and Ian Parks
	Yorkshire's first theatre based spoken word night will be returning to the studio space at Hull Truck theatre on Wednesday 3rd February, featuring Tony Flynn, Pat Borthwick and Ian Parks. Edgy, dynamic and sometimes shocking, Write to Speak will challenge and entertain - leave your preconceptions at the door. Write to Speak presents The Hull Connection; an evening of poetry launching three brand new books by poets with a Hull connection. Read more...

Poetry - Persecution Express By Mark Walmsley
	A full head of steam, to fulfil one mans dream, The train leaves the station, with recognisation Bellowing black smoke, as the cargo does choke The heave and strain, of the departing train Carriages all broken, blindness no token, The screams and the wails, at the stories and tales Across field and valley, does not dilly-dally, Read more...

Articles - All About Sex, the Government Minister, the Dead Boy in the Orphanage and the Cover Up By Tim Roux.

	When I am not focusing on Hull (and I have recently completed another 'Hull' book, called Missio, about a boy whose father went down with the trawler The Gaul in 1974) I do sometimes engage with the wider world although, to be honest, it isn't up to much. However, there is one excellent site I contribute to called Speak Without Interruption Read more...

Poetry - An Old Vets Christmas By David Delaney
	He shuffles down a quiet darkened street, alone, he always dreads this time of year, cause locals, he just does not wish to meet. He eats collected scraps and drinks warm beer. Now as the rain begins to softly fall he crawls beneath a long deserted shop, and hears the singing from the nearby hall Read more...

Reviews, Books - Seers by Karen Wolfe Reviewed by Tim Roux
	Ever since the publication of The Philosopher's Stone, I have been troubled by a niggling concern. It doesn't keep me awake at night but I do regularly accost strangers and ask them, 'Whatever happened to Harry Potter's grandparents?' Harry Potter was a baby when his parents were killed. His parents look like they were in their twenties, max. thirties. Read more...

Poetry - Dreams By Dino
	These are the things I'd like to call dreams These are the things That are just dreams Rocking horses Running nowhere Big glass heads With eyes of despair Read more...

People - An Interview with Neil Bailey of Local Band Pastel Jack By Steve Rudd
	Pastel Jack are a hard-living, fast-rising Metal band from Yorkshire in England. Loudly and proudly rising from the ashes of other bands, the PJ boys have been setting the music scene ablaze with their passionate vocals and streamlined melodies. Here, in an exclusive interview with Steve Rudd, PJ ringleader Neil Bailey chats about the band's Metal Read more...

Poetry - Easy By Jessica Meador
	It's so much easier To focus When I can't stand The smell Living in this Vacant hell When I can't stand To feel Read more...

News - Boiler Scrappage Scheme
	The Government has launched a new national scheme, the Boiler Scrappage Scheme, which will help upgrade 125,000 household heating systems. Households in England can apply for a £400 voucher to help with the cost of replacing old, G-rated boilers for a new A-rated boiler or renewable heating system such as a biomass boiler or a heat pump. The scheme is intended to: help sustain work for the 130,000 Read more...

Music News - Embrace Music, or Lose It! By Steve Rudd A New Year's Guide to What's Musically Hot in Hull...
	As we gallantly breeze into 2010, the music scene in Hull and surrounding area remains as vibrant and as exciting as ever, with a multitude of fantastic venues continuing to play host to new and established bands from all conceivable genres. It's hard to know where to start, but The Adelphi on De Grey Street is always a good place, where the likes of The Holy Orders Read more...

Music News - 09 New Adelphi Club Celebrates 25 Years as the Live Music Capital of Hull Words and Pictures by Michelle Dee .
	October 2009 the Live Art Space inside Ferens Art Gallery in Hull was the location for the world renowned music venue Adelphi Club's 25th Anniversary Exhibition . Not just a flick through dusty old flyers and posters and a drunk in the corner slurring, 'I was there when Oasis played.' No sir, this is a celebration of a club that has been at the heart of live music in Hull for quarter of a century. Read more...