onionbagblog

Another day another game of table tennis up at the University Table of Dreams, aka squash court number two.

Talk about having home ground advantage. We’ve become firm fixtures within the glass surrounds of court number two. Squash is SO 1970s Comrades.

I may have the style but sadly I am lacking the substance when it comes to table tennis. People often pick me up on this point when I’m out about:

“Oh, why are you so crap at table tennis? Why does she always beat you?”

Ah but that’s not the point. I’m actually a far better player than her. It’s just that I have a very low tolerance and get bored rather easily.

I’m sure that if I pressed the point with my good doctor, I could help get diagnosed for something and maybe even pick up a few government freebie handouts.

But I prefer to not concentrate on the table tennis instead.

“There are several things wrong with that. I doubt if you would do that again, would you?”

…was the first passive aggressive observation from my playing partner.

Oh shit I went and did it again. Whatever.

Truth be told my attention was rather more drawn to the squash players on the adjacent court playing with what appeared to be racketball rackets.

Yeah, ‘cos I’m sure they thought who are those two odd fuckers playing table tennis on a bloody squash court?

This then became a rather elongated game. There were no squash - or even racquetball - players turning up once our booking had finished. We pressed on. This just meant that a 6-3 defeat became an 8-3 defeat.

Oh well.

We then made our way over to the University Sports Arena for a bit of badminton. Being battered with one racket sport isn’t sufficient for me.

We started up with some warm up drills. This involved forehand to forehand and then backhand to backhand. We must have got as high as nine clean rallies. Yep that’s as good as it got.

Badminton involves an awful lot of running around when you’re playing singles. My legs hurt, my knees hurt. Playing badminton in a stationary position is unlikely to declare you a place on the winners’ podium.

We then entered a game situation.

“Where’s the cock?”

Snigger, snigger.

Oh it’s actually on my shoulder. Yep I had managed to spectacularly miss playing the shuttlecock back over the net. I looked around to try and locate it, only to find that it had actually managed to land on my shoulder and remain there. That’s quite a feat.

My attention was drawn more over to the adjacent court and the Essex Rebels men’s volleyball team, who were going through an intensive practise session.

I’ve become something of a volleyball groupie in recent weeks.

They take their sport incredibly seriously. I was impressed with what looks like a weird wind chime bar piece of equipment. It is the kind of structure that wouldn’t have looked out of place from a Mike Oldfield concert in 1973, with some old geezer getting out a hammer and smashing some chimes.

This wasn’t a musical interlude for the volleyball players. The idea was to see how high they could jump and hit the right note.

Meanwhile back on the badminton court, my racket was going a little wonky. I think I managed to damage it by hitting the ground rather than the shuttlecock. I tried to snap it back in place but that didn’t exactly work.

Oh well, new racket it is then.

I did swap the racket with my playing partner to see how she would fare with the wonky racket. I still managed to lose 3 games to 1.

With an hour to spare whilst stranded on the surrounds of the City, what is one left to do apart from gatecrash a private art viewing?

Chin chin.

Good old ChatGPT:

“I’ve got an hour with bugger all else to do around LS whilst waiting for my cheapo cheapo train that I pre-booked. I don’t want to spend any money. I want to have art. I want to have BOOZE. Give me your best shot.”

And so it was with good fortune that my new personal best friend Chatty guided me over to the Barbican Library for a private viewing of a new exhibition.

I made a point of pressing on Chatty to verify the free BOOZE claim before making the short schlep along London Wall.

Yep, BOOZE is there. Best foot forward.

We made our way upstairs to the Barbican Library. This was the opening evening of Layers of the City. This is an exhibition featuring three artists: Lucy Bainbridge, Helen Bridges, and Jennifer Moore.

All three had something unique to offer as they used their chosen mediums to interpret their own personal view of the city.

I was a little torn between my priorities. At a push viewing the art was my number one criteria, but then I noticed the free BOOZE table. It’s thirsty work, all this artwork.

It was also rather loud. I prefer a little solace when looking at art for the first time. The chattering classes don’t half like to chatter away. STFU. I want to look at the bloody artwork.

What I really enjoyed about the art was the highly individual reference points and chosen subject matter for all three artists. Not surprisingly with a canvas so deep and wide and tall, there was no duplication.

South London featured as well as the Barbican itself, with the old Palm House.

There was Brixton, Battersea, and blimey, even the Aylesbury Estate.

Hang on, don’t I know one of these artists? If so why the chuff didn’t I get an invite to their PV?

I actually managed to resist the lure of the free BOOZE. It felt a little imposing given my lack of formal invitation. I can’t say the same for my booze-loving non-art-appreciating partner for the evening.

After we had viewed all the new work on offer, I then took a little time to view the display panel showing the process behind the art.

This was equally interesting, explaining how, for a beginner like me, you can hopefully progress to something a little more visual.

Back at base I updated my friend Chatty with a new memory command:

“I often find myself stuck in London for an hour or so, wanting art and BOOZE. You’ve hit the jackpot here. Bookmark this and remember it for future use.”

Chin chin.

To Fitzrovia Chapel!

Well, this was a bit of a weird one. The main attraction was an immersive exhibition called Middlesex Hospital Blues.

The chapel itself is the last surviving remnant of the old Middlesex Hospital, now clinging on for dear life amid a sea of new office blocks, fine dining restaurant experiences and, yep, luxury accommodation.

Which makes it all the more pleasing that the Fitzrovia Chapel has found a new purpose as a rather left-field artistic space, curating some wonderfully unconventional exhibitions with personal connections to the history of the old hospital.

Middlesex Hospital Blues focuses on the HIV and AIDS crisis of the 1980s, framed very much around the artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. The ‘Blues’ in the title references Jarman’s 1993 film Blue, a rather bleak cinematic experience built around a single, uninterrupted field of deep blue colour.

As you enter the chapel, you’re immediately engulfed in an intense, dark blue light.

Then the sounds hit you. The soundtrack features Tilda Swinton, who worked closely with Jarman, alongside a new musical composition by Simon Fisher Turner, another long-standing collaborator. Extracts from Jarman’s own writings are woven into the mix.

At times, all these elements seem to merge and interchange. Trying to follow a single narrative is pretty much impossible. I get the impression that’s rather the point. Soft cushions are provided for you to sit on. Yep, it’s that kind of exhibition.

Your gaze is then drawn towards the old altar and a sculptural installation by artist Jenkin van Zyl. Two illuminated figures, apparently made of wire, appear to be embracing. At first glance, I thought they were a couple of Christmas trees.

The chapel itself is a fairly compact space. There were only half a dozen or so other visitors during our visit, and the darkness made for something of a claustrophobic experience.

At times, it felt as though you were attending some sort of alternative religious service, with various slogans for a different way of life being read aloud.

“In a time of poor leadership, community is an act of resistance.”

I admit to nodding off after half an hour or so. I was only awoken when my elbow slid off one of the soft cushions and I nearly fell off.

Whoops.

I don’t think I stayed for the full lighting and audio loop, but I reckon I’d got the message.

I chose my moment to depart when I heard the instruction:

“Life is short. Choose jogging whenever you can.”

Yep, that’s my mantra for life, Comrades.

To Senate House! Or more to the point, to Senate House Library!

A visit here is always something to be cherished, irrespective of the reason. It’s such a grand, opulent and slightly intimidating building. You know you really shouldn’t be here, but visiting the library gives you access to the Art Deco surrounds within.

The stripped-back modernism and sleek, curving lines are present right from the moment you walk through the main front entrance. Even the elevators have a plush wood-panelled finish. It feels like you’re going on a lavish shopping trip to some new department store in the 1930s.

But nope, on the agenda was something very different: A Place to Call Home, Poverty and Housing in London.

Senate House Library has a vast resource of artefacts and documents to draw upon. It’s superb at putting on these social history exhibitions.

Members of the public are also made to feel most welcome as they enter the exhibition space within the library.

A Place to Call Home features both historic and contemporary housing concerns. The focus is on housing struggles and two centuries of efforts to understand and reduce urban poverty.

A large part of the exhibition draws heavily on the work of Charles Booth and his groundbreaking Victorian maps. There are also some fantastic features looking at modern campaigns focusing on housing and justice.

But it’s the Booth maps that draw most people in. On display here are the original hand-coloured maps drawn up by Booth and his assistants before they were published.

The level of detail is remarkable, as Booth and his team walked every London street and documented what they saw through the medium of maps.

The whole exercise took 17 years to complete. That’s pretty much a lifetime’s work for any person, but it’s all the more remarkable when you consider what else Booth achieved with his social campaigning.

Elsewhere, I was particularly drawn towards the housing campaigns of the 70s and early 80s. There was some great literature from the Peckham Publishing Project.

This is a loose collective that produced books for and by local people. The writing is mainly focused on women in the Peckham area and the isolation they faced as a consequence of their housing struggles.

There were also some other political pamphlets promoting different views on rebuilding London after the Second World War.

Three particular items drew my interest. The first was from the anarchist George Woodcock, who, not surprisingly, rejected state-sponsored government ideas, favouring instead self-governing workers' syndicates.

Proposing a different view was Communist leader of the time, Ted Bramley. He wanted a more centrist solution to solving London’s post-war housing problem.

Finally, there was the Victory of Socialism group, who called for a more democratic middle way.

Never trust a Centrist MELT, Comrades.

The legendary Squatters' Handbook from 1974 is also on display. I can’t help but think that a 2026 updated edition might help to ease London’s current housing problems.

The exhibition referenced the fact that in 2025 there were 12,938 people registered as sleeping rough in London. This figure barely touches the sides. There are many others who are homeless but are less visible.

I spent a little too long, perhaps more than I should have, playing around with the interactive overlay map. This was a superb tool for isolating specific issues regarding housing and poverty in London, and then looking up local resources.

My finger hovered perhaps a little too long around my own particular Transpontine patch of South London.

A useful exercise would be to update this with the London Banana. Diamond Geezer has already done a half-decent job of this, focusing on how a dataset including Waitrose and Gail’s can go a long way towards explaining the affluence within the capital compared to some of the poverty outside of the Banana.

It all then felt a little false, heading back through the grand surrounds of Senate House and out through the main entrance once again. This is such a powerful, dominant piece of London architecture, but also one that is able to call upon its resources and share some of the fascinating social history and documents contained within.

To the Museum of Youth Culture!

It makes sense that MOYC is located on the outer fringes of Camden along St Pancras Way. It’s not my favourite part of town but you don’t want a museum celebrating teenage rebellion stuck on the outskirts of Eltham.

I had been led to believe through various online pieces that MOYC is nothing but a poky cafe with a few artefacts adorning the walls. Think those shitty Hard Rock Cafes from the ’90s but this time with a generational divide having been breached.

This was far from the case. I didn’t have time to enter the cafe upstairs but the main exhibition space down below was bloody brilliant.

The reason for visiting was the God Save the Queen’s exhibition, curated by the Up Yours Collective. As the name suggests it’s the untold story of the role played by some genuine trailblazing females during the Punk Wars.

As the blurb for God Save the Queen states, this isn’t a subcategory of punk: It’s the history itself.

Much of the exhibition has been curated by Celeste Bell, who is the daughter of the amazing Poly Styrene.

There’s also significant input from Lauren Estelle Jones, who was able to borrow extensively from her old man’s archive, the Mick Jones Rock and Roll Public Library.

Punk and nepotism shouldn’t work but God Save the Queen is all the better for having these close family connections.

The main focus for the exhibition is some stunning photos of the main players, captured in all their young, naive, inexperienced, yet still threatening demeanour: the likes of Chrissie Hynde, Vivian Westwood, Pauline Black, Siouxsie, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith all feature.

Many of these shots come from the camera of Dennis Morris, who, along with Don Letts, has become something of the unofficial but still authoritative source of capturing punk on camera.

What I liked about the exhibition was that it stayed clear of all those retrospective clichés. It also celebrated some of the figures who were far more than bit-part players but often get overlooked.

We’re talking the likes of Soo Catwoman and Jordan. Both display a complete don’t give a fuck young teenage attitude in those early shots.

There’s so much to look at in the exhibition and it’s easy to get distracted. There’s plenty of DIY slogans on the walls, along with other artefacts such as original copies of the Sniffin Glue fanzine. The presentation is even punk in its random anarchic display.

A full on sound system shows videos curated by female artists. There were a few tech issues during my visit but that didn’t get in the way of the powerful imagery.

Celeste Bell concludes by adding

“Curating my mother’s archive proved how important it is to protect female countercultural history. Through Up Yours Collective we’re taking that legacy out of the archives and putting it where it belongs: centre stage. Bringing this vision to life through both exhibition and joining iconic street punk on stage is an incredible full-circle moment.”

Up Yours, etc.

Blimey, Essex Road, NW1 doesn’t look or feel like being in London. The underground station was absolutely deserted on a midweek morning. There were no ads and the old Network Rail signage was still up. It felt like being a bit part player in some Patrick Keiller early 90s film.

Walking out of the Overground and down towards the City end of Essex Road was also remarkably quiet. The shops were open but no one was around.

This felt most odd. It’s an unremarkable high street that connects Angel with the outer edges of Dalston.

It could have been Streatham High Road, Clapham High Street or even the Walworth Road. You have your usual mix of charity shops, nail bars, and the odd quirky local business.

But Essex Road was absolutely empty. You try walking down Walworth Road on a midweek lunchtime without bumping into anyone.

The reason for the rare excursion north of the river was for a pre-planned trip to the wonderful Flashback Records. R and I dropped in here around fifteen years ago as part of a Way We See It photo shoot. It was a rare find even then when it comes to secondhand vinyl and CDs.

I didn’t know where to start with my crate digging when I first walked in with R. There was so much selection, so much choice.

Fast forward to 2026 and I didn’t know when to stop. I had a budget which far outstripped the many piles of CDs I was starting to build up.

Whoops.

Flashback is very much an old school record shop. It has that curious smell of vinyl and plastic inner sleeves mixed in with the often unique aroma of the clientele that secondhand record shops seem to accumulate.

I think that’s a polite way of putting it.

I could have closed my eyes and been back on the shop floor at Selectadisc anytime in the early 1980s.

I started flicking away through the extensive CD racks. Captain Sensible was playing over the shop speaker system. It was a most pleasant way to spend an hour or so whilst simultaneously testing the patience of my non-music buying shopping partner.

I had made the usual mistake of too many cups of tea in the morning. I entered Flashback with serious toilet issues. There wasn’t a lot of scope along Essex Road in the public toilet department.

Flicking through the CD racks was a strange way to distract my mind and shift my attention.

I thought I did rather well in terms of limiting my spend. I walked out with The League Unlimited Orchestra remix album, some Weller orchestral piece that I didn’t even know existed, and the fourth Aztec Camera album, Stray: £15 all in.

The next day I realised I’ve already got the Aztec Camera album, natch. I really should get round to combining my somehow unworkable double system for finding away CDs back at base.

It’s not exactly Love Me Do, is it? There’s a sense of shock, for the sake of it. I kinda get all the personal angst and wanting to let it out, but some moments are best kept to yourself. Christ, she can’t half shriek. Art or arse?. The jury isn’t even out on this one.

⭐

Another Thursday, another rollout with the Forty Plus cycling group. I made my way over to the usual rendezvous meet up over in Witham.

BUT OF COURSE I was running late. I’m always running late. I know I need to leave the house at 7:30 am in order to meet up with the rest of the group.

One more cup of tea at 7:30 am and blimey, it’s 7:45 am. This ain’t gonna work out, is it?

Oh dear.

No worries, I pressed on, heading through Fingringhoe (stop sniggering), across Tiptree, and then around the outskirts of Witham. I knew I would have miss the rollout by five minutes or so.

So there I was, making plans for my own solo ride for the day, when VROOM VROOM, a couple of Forty Plus riders sped past in the opposite direction.

Hang on.

I did a 180° turn and managed to catch their back wheel. A few friendly words were exchanged.

It turns out there had been a slight change of plan. The usual 9:30 am Witham meet up has now been changed to 10 am at Tiptree to accommodate riders such as myself that come over from the other side of the half town, half city.

I had just cycled through Tiptree…

The Forty Plus group are a friendly lot. Destination Tiptree was reached once again. We picked up another half a dozen riders.

A fair pace was then set as we pressed on towards Tollesbury. The route included one particular lane that must have been a mile or so dead straight. A fellow friendly rider pointed out to me it was an old wartime landing strip.

We made a plenty of turns here and there. The route seemed to involve circumnavigating Tiptree at every available opportunity. I’ve nothing against Tiptree, but y’know.

Morning tea was then taken at Tollesbury. We met up with some other riders who had already found their way over to the cafe. The tandem count for the morning was doubled.

The various Forty Plus tribes then departed and went their separate ways. There was a ferocious headwind for me as I headed back inland.

My own route there very conveniently took me in the general direction of the gym. I took the opportunity to head straight to the spa and fall asleep for an hour.

92km for the day.

Chapeau!

Words can’t describe how bloody awful this album is. That screeching guitar solo in the opening track, it did me bloody nut in. I bailed.

⭐

This is such a melancholic album. What’s surprising is that the uplifting tracks all appear to be written in the minor key. It’s very difficult to listen to it with fresh ears, as these are all standards: Norwegian Wood, Nowhere Man, In My Life - pure pop classics that tilt towards that crossover when the Beatles became slightly druggy.

It’s surprising to see that Help was the album released before this, and in the same year as well. Rubber Soul is a great stepping stone onto Revolver, but it’s also far more than that. Whenever exploring the Beatles, Rubber Soul somehow gets overlooked. That’s a shame. It stands up there with some of their finest moments.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐