If you walk around Hull today you can find nineteen colourful giant toads. The toads have been there since 2010 when they were installed along with twenty one of there brethren (which were removed) to celebrate the life and work of Philip Larkin on the 25th anniversary of his dead, and took their inspired from two Larkin poems , Toads and Toad revisited.
While looking for toads, you will also find forty two giant colourful moths. The Moths have been there since 2016 and were installed to celebrate the life of aviator Amy Johnson, who was born in the city, and among many other achievements was the first woman to fly from London to Australia (in her Gypsy Moth, hence moths).
Why am I telling you this. Well firstly I am all in favour of public art of this kind. There is the cat trail around York I am a big fan of for example, which goes back many years . But the second reason is one of pure amusement, to do with the local hull accent which tends to replace the 'OA' in toads with 'UR'. Accents are a funny thing but I am not making this up. And whomever approved this delightful public art either made a huge error, or ( and I prefer this to be the case) did this entirely deliberately knowing what was going to happen...
Thus the children of Hull have for over a decade now, been tugging at their parents arms and asking loudly "Can we go see the turds?" or even "Can I sit on a Turd mum?"
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