Our Ally-mai runs through the nominees for the most coveted book awards in the city.

Maritime expert Dr Robb Robinson, of the University of Hull, makes easy work of explaining a queasy ship that didn’t.

A tale involving a TV legend, the QE2, a mucky knicker shop and an inflatable sheep. Asking ‘who loves ya, baby?’ is our bald detective correspondent Angus Young.

Here at Curiosity Towers, we love our 1970s TV cops. Recently we revealed how TV tough guy detective Patrick Mower nearly became a pop star only to be foiled by the obscure Hull-based record label he unaccountably signed up after it failed to promote his debut single. Perhaps even stranger is the tale about Kojak star Telly Savalas swapping the mean streets of New York for, er, Beverley.

The American TV series Kojak ran from 1973 to 1978 and became an essential part of BBC1’s prime time Saturday night schedule. Savalas starred as Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak, a tough-talking, no-nonsense, lollipop-sucking character with a catchphrase:  ‘Who loves ya, baby?’ Already a well-known actor, the role made Savalas an recognisable worldwide star. It also brought him into the orbit of international art dealer James Starkey, who happened to be based at his own gallery in Beverley.

Starkey first started selling art to wealthy Americans by booking regular trips on the QE2 transatlantic liner. With a knack for attracting headlines, he once came up with the idea of bottling Yorkshire tap water and selling it to the Americans as ‘holy water’ as part of a personal campaign protesting about utility company charges. In another stunt, he designed an inflatable traffic warden for people to punch instead of taking out their anger on real-life wardens after getting a ticket.

But his biggest publicity coup came when he persuaded his friend and client Savalas to visit Beverley to be a VIP guest at the annual carnival staged by the Beverley Lions charity. Crowds lined the town’s streets in June 1980 to see Kojak join Beverley Borough Mayor Councillor Audrey Langdale in her open-top civic car at the front of the carnival’s main parade. He even handed out lollipops to fans during a walkabout in Saturday Market.

Later, the TV cop visited Beverley Police Station and posed for photographs with officers while wearing a traditional bobby’s helmet. To cap a surreal day, he was later spotted with Starkey enjoying a flutter at Stakis Casino in Hull before returning to Rowley Manor hotel where he spent the night.

By the time of his visit, Savalas had hung up his character’s iconic trilby but he would return to play his most famous role in a series of TV movies later in the 1980s. As for Starkey, he continued to sell art to customers around the world and generate local headlines, later becoming owner of the legendary adult shop Gwenap in Hull where he displayed a series of cheeky eye-catching banners, such as ‘Knickers to the lot of you’ and ‘Bent politicians welcome here’. He also placed an inflatable sheep in the shop window.

As they say, it’s never dull in Hull or Beverley for that matter.

Angus Young

Hull Trains onboard host Leah is an expert at wobbly walking. Here, she outlines the challenges and rewards of her job.

We bumped into Laura from Back to Ours while she was in town planning Our City. She ran us through her top scoffing spots.

It’s a title that’s up for grab. Should anyone want to make a nomination, contact our offensive official correspondent Angus Young

Manners maketh man, as the old saying goes. Living up to this fine sentiment is, however, always a bit tricky. Some are better at it than others. Some don’t even come close. We all probably know a relative or friend who can be offensively impolite at the drop of a hat, capable of a discourtesy without a second thought. But can anyone match the late Alderman Thomas Abbey who currently holds the unwanted unofficial title of being the rudest man in Hull?

Alderman Abbey died in 1875 and was buried in Hull General Cemetery on Spring Bank. Abbey Street off  Holderness Road was named after him in recognition of his many achievements during a long life as one of Hull’s most influential figures. However, his legacy also includes a reference to his famously blunt character.

“It was his misfortune to always speak what he thought,” said one associate after his passing. Sadly, there is no surviving additional written evidence of Abbey’s apparent ability to rub people up the wrong way other than the fact that, as a Yorkshireman, it might have been second nature to him. Instead, his death at his home in Posterngate at the age of 80 was mainly greeted with fulsome tributes from his contemporaries.

A shipowner, Abbey had been a councillor on Hull Corporation for nearly 27 years and a borough alderman for 19 years. He was probably best known for his role as chairman of the Watch Committee, overseeing law and order issues in the town.

After his death, the Corporation moved a vote of condolence. It said: “This council, with deepest sorrow, records the death of Mr Alderman Thomas Abbey whose best energies were for many years devoted to the service of the town. He was associated with most of the public bodies of the town and cordially co-operated  in promoting such enterprises as we calculated to advance its commerce and general prosperity, and he gave a warm support to all its public and charitable institutions. In discharge of his various duties he was punctual, diligent, independent and disinterested and throughout a long life maintained a high character for moral worth and public usefulness.”

Was being described as “disinterested” a hint at his legendary rudeness? Perhaps, or it could just be an old-fashioned way of saying he didn’t bring any personal bias into his civic business. Either way, Abbey made sure he was always remembered by leaving a portrait of himself to the Corporation. Today it forms part of the Guildhall’s art collection.

Angus Young

Poet, pebbler, painter and po-goer Dean Wilson gives us the lowdown on a very special Hull poet, who passed away very recently.

Graduate of the Brit School Jessika Mae-Martin is in Hull’s Music Library outlining where to start enjoying your dad’s tunes.

This tale from our flagellating friars correspondent Angus Young is typically odd and unsettling.

For just over 600 years the former residents and staff of an Augustinian Friary in Hull remained buried and largely forgotten about.

Things started to change in 1994 when archaeologists were given an opportunity to excavate its former site between Market Place and High Street before the construction of a new magistrates court.

The six-month dig uncovered the friary’s foundations, medieval tools and pottery, animal bones and 245 human skeletons.

Many of the skeletons were still lying in wooden coffins  made from oak imported from the Baltic. Precise carbon dating identified the trees used to provide the wood were felled between 1340 and 1369.

However, the most extraordinary discovery of the whole project – the extent of syphilis found among the skeletons.

Around 60 per cent of the remains showed evidence of the disease, mostly in changes to bones in the leg.

Three skeletons showed more widespread infection, including one with signs of syphilis in the skull.

Tests on this  particular individual indicated he was probably alive at some point between 1300 and 1420 and was aged between 25 and 35 when he died.

Those dates proved significant because until then it was thought syphilis had first been brought to Europe by Christoher Columbus’ crew following their return to the New World in 1493.

Now it appeared  the disease was rife in Hull at least a century earlier.

Since then, academics and historians have argued over whether the discovery truly confirms our neck of the woods as the original European hotspot for sexually-transmitted disease.

Some claim excavated evidence from Ancient Greece and Pompeii suggests otherwise but it’s now clear Hull’s status as a major medieval trading port almost certainly had something to do with it.

The friary was a stone’s throw from the entrance to the River Hull from the Humber and like the timber used for the coffins, the port was also an entry point  for the disease and the monk’ duties involved caring for the poor and sick including visiting seafarers.

Poor general standards of personal hygiene and the practice of sharing drinking cups probably didn’t help along with the relatively high number of prostitutes associated with the port.

However, the archaeologists also found a number of thin wooden rods made of hazel in some of the coffins pointing to the likelihood that at least some of the monks at the friary took part in self-flagellation ceremonies.

By literally whipping their bare flesh, they believed they would earn redemption in the eyes of God to ensure a place in heaven. Unfortunately, by whipping themselves they were also unknowingly consigning them to an early grave.

Experts now believe the practice would have added to the potential for the indirect spread of the disease through open wounds.

Finally, you might be wondering what happened to the 245 skeletons who were rudely disturbed from their centuries-old slumber to make way for the foundations of the new court building.

Once the dig was over and research into the remains was completed, they were all re-buried at St Charles Borromeo Church in Jarratt Street in a special service.

Angus Young

Can a bridge be art? Actor Pete McMillan thinks it can and, after watching this, you’d struggle to argue with him.