Posts Tagged ‘hull’

The Deep is the world’s largest submarium. It is also the world’s only submarium because they made it up. Simply put, it is an aquarium that is partially submerged into the sea around it. Does that mean you can look into the ocean and see a bunch of fish? No. Nor could you see anything in The Humber even if they put a window in.

As something to do, it was okay. Aggressively mediocre. It was a sea life centre that they have padded out with a lot of information boards. A lot of the windows are looking into the same fish tank. That said, it was cheaper than the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, so for value for money, it is reasonable. But it is not better than a Sea Life Centre, so do not make the mistake of getting your expectations sky-high.

The food in the cafe was a low point for me. I once bought a fish and chips ready meal that you had to oven cook. But I microwaved it anyway because it was a ready meal. That is the closest I can come to describing their fish and chips. And the toilets being closed meant we had to change Venla in a corridor.

The jellyfish were nice, though. It is probably worth a visit as long as you are not expecting something amazing.

Last month I went to Hull Speakers to provide a bit of peer review on their meetings. It seems like a lovely club and I felt very warmly welcomed. On the way back, we stopped at the Humber Bridge to take some photos. Click to see full size.

Recently, I took part in the Area 15 International Speech & Evaluation contest. Having won the speech contest at Leeds City Toastmasters, and evaluation contest at White Rose Speakers, there was no relaxing as I had both competitions to do – not that I’m complaining!

Evaluation isn’t my strong point, so I was quite pleased that I managed to make third place (out of five). I did rather better in the speech contest though, winning by a very narrow margin, but never the less proceeding through to the Division contest at York.

Well done to everyone who took part, it was tough competition indeed!

Regardless of what happens in York, it does mean I have a new trophy to put on my shelf, at least until the Area Context next year.

However, the show was stolen by Erik, who provided Michael with dance lessons.

I recently headed over to Hull to present a talk to Hull & East Riding Humanists.

The journey was reasonable, I was pretty starving by the time I got there but the only place I could find to eat was a Little Chef so I ended up going hungry 😉 . Having arrived with an hour to spare, I decided to have a look round Hull. Turns out some parts of it are quite nice.

The talk was fairly well received, there was a good mix of skeptics and believers though I perhaps didn’t answer the critics well enough – there was nothing suggested that wasn’t pre-answered by Kurzweil or De Gray and that perhaps prevented us from discussing the criticisms which actually do stand up in more depth. Still I found it a very much enjoyable talk to give.

The venue was the Plotting Room of Ye Olde White Hearte which is apparently where the English Civil War was started. It’s a hard act to follow to be honest, I feel a bit of a let down after I found that out.