Garage door to Electricity House, Christmas Street, Bristol, March 2021

Thursday Doors – 1 April 2021

Doors 143 – April Fools’ Day – some central Bristol doors.

Some of you may have seen reports of unrest being reported in Bristol over the last week or two. Such is the nature of the press in the UK at the moment that you’d think the whole of the city was in flames, and violent protesters lurk on every corner. It just isn’t like that.

There have been four protests now where citizens have taken to the streets to object to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill which is passing through parliament right now. This bill along with others coming from the hard-line right-wing Home Secretary Priti Patel seeks to restrict human rights further and by doing so, cement central control over the people she is there to serve. The first protest ended with violent exchanges which is so deeply sad, because of the damage it did to the purpose of the protest.

You get what you vote for, and sadly it seems that people who voted for this Government have been happy to see our public services brought to its knees through the policy/ideological choice of austerity; our exit from a powerful trading partnership and the freedoms to work in and participate fully as citizens of Europe; a clamping down on our right to protest peacefully; a reduction in our overseas development budget at a time when wealthy countries should be stepping up and not stepping back; an Australian-style immigration system proposed to keep ‘illegal’ immigrants out of the country unless they have documentation that their lives are at risk (impossible for people whose lives are at risk… think about it); a perfunctory recognition that climate change is really important because we are hosting the COP 26 conference in Glasgow this year, not forgetting that many serving in this Government were climate sceptics only a few years ago, and some still are; a jaw-droppingly incompetent response to the Covid-19 pandemic with more than 126,000 people who have died from this deadly disease and a clown at the helm with nothing more important to himself than himself.

I would love to say at this point that I am only joking and that the above paragraph is an April Fools’ Day piece, but it isn’t, it is real, and it is our future. It is no wonder some people want to protest, and it is no surprise that this Government want to suppress any kind of objection or resistance or anything that might expose them as anything other than brilliant. Unfortunately they have Rupert Murdoch on their side and the full weight of his media holdings which makes it much easier for them to sway public opinion.

Oops… I appear to have gone off-topic, but I feel much better for sharing. I hadn’t intended to ‘go there’ but it just started to spill out. The point I was going to make was that the protests have ended up in one street, Bridewell Street, which is only a stone’s throw away from where all these doors are. Most of these doors are now entrances to pubs or restaurants where once stood banking and finance establishments. Our city centres are ever evolving and a further evolution is set to take place as many businesses leave their offices and commercial premises in favour of ‘working from home’ models.

I hope you enjoy my doors more than my rant, but both would be doubly satisfying… here they are:

Blue door, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021
Blue door, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021

 

Stunning door surround, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021
Stunning door surround, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021

 

Boys door, St John's Steep, Bristol, March 2021
Boys door, St John’s Steep, Bristol, March 2021

 

Metal and leaded window door, Bristol, March 2021
Metal and leaded window door, Bristol, March 2021

 

Carved wooden door and ornate surround, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021
Carved wooden door and ornate surround, Clare Street, Bristol, March 2021

 

Garage door to Electricity House, Christmas Street, Bristol, March 2021
Garage door to Electricity House, Christmas Street, Bristol, March 2021

That’s it for this week, and I’ll try to steer clear of politics in the future – have a wonderful Easter/Passover weekend.

If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors  from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.

by Scooj

 

Published by

scooj

I am Stephen. I live in Bristol, UK. I decided to shorten my profile...to this: Wildlife, haiku, travel, streetart, psychogeography and my family. Not necessarily in that order.

21 thoughts on “Thursday Doors – 1 April 2021”

  3. “You get what you vote for…” It’s hard to argue with that, and it’s hard to imagine what people vote for these days.

    Your doors are lovely. My favorite is the corner door on Clare Street. That is a wonderful entrance, and that door is a work of art.

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  5. You do have some very posh, lovely doors today and I, like Dan, really like that corner door. As far as ranting, hopefully you’re free to do so here and no one will get snarky about it. What I see as one of the biggest problems these days is that we can’t disagree civilly, which then means we can never really talk about anything and have a chance to seeing the other person’s side, whether or not we agree even when the talking is done. As far as protesting, I’m fine with it unless it gets violent and hurts people and destroys property.

    Happy Easter/Passover to you as well.

    janet

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    1. Thanks for the reply. The first protest did get ugly, but I think there were some agitators who wanted to cause trouble. It drew all the wrong headlines. It makes you wonder if some of them are plants, causing trouble to discredit a cause… or they are simply nasty.

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  6. I love the ornate entrance of the door on Clare Street. Nothing like a good rant when frustration builds up. I think we are all getting pretty frustrated these days. I take everything that’s on main stream media with a massive shovel of salt .

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  8. If only we could get politics to steer clear of us. We are recovering from 4 years of an April fools joke. And now that he is out of office he still won’t shut up. He even grabbed the microphone and ruined someone’s wedding. Still he never had much sense while he was in office so why start now. Good on those doors. Thanks

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    1. I think that these people, Trump, Johnson, Bolsenaro, Putin are troubling because their morals and values are baffling. They seem to be more interested in power than decency and most people are not like that.

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      1. Our various conservative state legislators are not fairing much better. 47 out of 50 have restrictive anti-voter legislation in the works. Now Atlanta Georgia is finding the baseball Allstar game may be in jeopardy. The players are threatening a boycott. I do hope the tables are turning and that these interesting times start to fall on the heads of these scoundrel politicians.

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