onionbagblog

Another Universal Works fleece, all the way from the Fair City - well not quite, but Universal Works has its roots back in NG1 innit.

This was a cheapo cheapo online purchase. The original listing was incredibly benign when it comes to the current costings for all things Universal Works online. Being the cheeky fucker that I am, I offered £10 lower.

Much to my surprise the seller went for it.

It arrived and it’s cuddly wuddly as chuff. It fits perfectly and is the kind of fleece I wanted for the winter months.

Universal Works is the new G Force - I think.

We had a little time to spare up at Wivenhoe Park on Friday afternoon. Back in the day and having a little time to spare at Wivenhoe Park meant necking four cans of SPESH down by the lakes and then waking up with all sorts of mysterious and unknown stains down my Forest ‘89 replica kit.

Thankfully my tastes are a little refined these days. The Forest ‘89 replica is still worn with pride 0 and it’s also stain-free. I’ve also learnt my limit in that two cans of SPESH is all I can take these days.

Instead of collapsing around the back of the lakes, we decided to take on the Wivenhoe Park Tree Tour. Who knew such a thing even existed?

A little bit of an online shifty and soon I was able to download a ten page PDF documenting the various trees and the exact walking route.

Blimey, that sounds like bloody hard work. Maybe the best option is just to walk around and look at trees?

We tried to follow the guide as best as possible. I learnt about a Legion Grove, which used to be a cool leafy glade. That’s just the kind of shit you would never do as a student.

I was kind of interested for the first ten minutes or so. The endless commentary from my tree-walking partner did my nut in. She was determined to read the entire ten page PDF and point out trees of interest. I was just in search of my next can of SPESH, to be honest.

The timing was half decent. The students are back at Wivenhoe Park tomorrow morning. I thought we had got away with looking like a couple of nerds staring up at trees with no other fuckers around. I was wrong. A pal from football who works at the University clocked us. Oh dear.

We did get a little lost when my tree partner failed to identify a silver birch. It was staring her right in the face.

The walk then got a little random. It was punctuated with some zigzag movement that took in pretty much the crazy and bonkers frisbee golf course around Wivenhoe Park.

My only observation of note is that I quite love the contrast of the 1960s brutalism of the University against the backdrop of the Mother Nature shit.

It all got a little too much about halfway through for me. We were walking through some pines, which our ten page PDF guide reliably informed us were victims of the Great Storm of 87. They didn’t look too damaged to me.

The walk was cut short at my request. It was starting to do my head in by now.

But if you’re not a fan of trees, then maybe this one is for you. I should send some of the fuckers from the Town Council on the Wivenhoe Park Tree Walk. Yeah that would liven the stiffs up.

SHOUT OUT Helen C for the heads up 👌🏼

To Wivenhoe House Hotel! …on Friday afternoon to celebrate something of a momentous personal moment. Let’s just keep it at that.

On the menu, of course, was afternoon tea. We’ve had a hit and miss experience before at Wivenhoe House. One completely forgettable occasion was a spoiled vegetarian Christmas dinner. You were fine if you were fans of eating thick cardboard with nothing much else in between.

But you can’t go wrong with afternoon tea, right? What’s so tricky about sausage rolls, scones, and cake, as Nick Lowe once almost sang?

I thought I would humour our rather polite waiter when he asked if we have any dietary requirements. My dining partner said:

“I don’t like fish.”

What the chuff? We’re going to tuck into sannies and cake. There’s no fish on the menu, luv.

Mr. Waiter responded by correcting me, saying that there was actually some rather fine salmon sandwiches.

Oh. I see.

We were asked if we wanted to upgrade to the Prosecco option. No ta. Afternoon tea is afternoon tea. I want thick builders' tea and not some poncey Essex fizzy shit to wash it all down with.

I thought I was suitably dressed. It was a dress down Friday after all. I was kind of smart, almost definitely casual. My self-confidence had taken something of a hit earlier in the morning when my Money Man told me I was looking scruffy for our annual catch up.

First out of the traps was a pot of tea. This was far better than any crappy Prosecco shit.

And then came the main dining option. Also out came my phone. It’s all about the Instas innit. Just show us the fucking snap.

The food selection actually was rather quite delightful. The highlights were a rather savoury sausage roll, a very light but filling cheese scone, and, of course, the salmon sarnies. No food allergies here mate.

As well as a very fine waiter, there was also an extremely confident maître d' also doing the rounds. I think he clocked us very early on and picked up on my lack of social skills and refusal to do small talk.

I managed to blank him throughout the entire sitting - or rather he managed to blank me. The Coffee Ponce back in SW8 would have been proud of my lack of small talk vibes I was giving off.

An hour or so later we emerged out of Wivenhoe House Hotel. It wasn’t quite a Mr. Creosote scene from Monty Python, but I was well and truly stuffed.

These rather momentous personal moments come around too often.

Another instant purchase following an Album of the Day recommendation. I’ve said pretty much all I want to say about Polly Harvey’s dry debut a few posts down.

It’s a stunning opening statement in a career that then followed through. It managed to achieve even more dark but still quite delightful moments.

Much to my surprise this cheapo CD version dropped this morning and I found that it’s an original on the old Too Pure label. Christ, this piece of plastic and metallic in my hand is over three decades old.

I actually had an interview at Too Pure back in the day. It must have been just after the Polly Harvey debut.

I think I went in there like an absolute dick, trying to dazzle them with a load of corporate speak. Perhaps that wasn’t the best approach to take, Jase, when you’re dealing with a cool as fuck genuine indie.

I did manage to leave, however, with a record bag stuffed full of CDs. I don’t know why but Polly Harvey’s Dry wasn’t amongst them.

I do often wonder what might have become of me if I had landed the job at Too Pure. I think Polly Harvey was single at the time…

I bloody love Dinosaur Jr. I used to stomp around to Freak Scene at Rock City on Thursday nights - or it was more like Friday mornings, sometime around 2 am.

It was something of a surprise at 8 am this Friday morning to have the shit kicked out of me by listening to Freak Scene once again. What a fucking tune! It stampedes right through you, takes no prisoners, yet is still laid-back.

You get the feeling that there is a lot more to be said and a lot more energy to be released but somehow Dinosaur Jr. hold it all back. It’s almost a threat, thinking that there’s more to come if you really want to push it a bit further.

But Bug is about so much more than just a noise. Buried away beneath all the feedback are some actual top-quality tunes. You can see where Nirvana got their blueprint from.

The absolute noise attack is dialled up further on the penultimate track, Don’t. Christ, what a fucking racket! It was bloody glorious.

I wouldn’t want to be listening to this stuff day in, day out to help maintain my mood but every now and then you need a kick in the balls with a complete fucking mess of an album that still teases you with some tunes.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

To the Table of Dreams! …on Thursday afternoon.

We rocked up at the quaint rural village public table to find it covered in graffiti. There was a crappy KFC style chicken along with a CND sign.

Some people.

There’s absolutely no fucking need for this. You wouldn’t find this back in Lambeth. Some of the self-entitlement from the middle class little shits around here is unbelievable.

Not surprisingly my mind wasn’t focused after this trauma I was slightly triggered with class war rage. This led to the scoring going a little wonky.

“Less chat please.”

These were the instructions I gave to my playing partner. She wanted to bang on about all sorts with nothing to do with table tennis. Focus on the game, luv, and don’t forget what the score is.

The park around us was absolutely empty. This makes a change from the heatwave summer months, when we attracted the attention of dog walkers, young families, and general local bum dossers.

“That was a good return, wasn’t it?”

…remarked to my playing partner with a high degree of sarcasm after I messed up.

In my defence I’d almost just been taken out by a conker falling from a nearby tree.

It all then went a little weird with both the scoring and some of the conversation, which I was keen to cut out.

My playing partner found herself 3-0 up. I stormed back to take it to 3-2. This has been something of a familiar pattern of late, with her concentration failing.

“Whenever it goes up I have trouble maintaining it.”

…said my playing partner.

She didn’t appreciate my response of:

“That’s what she said.”

Lost 4-2.

A trip to the allotment on Wednesday lunchtime. I had one task and one task only: transport the fuck-off wisteria tree stump and its various logs and sods over to our patch of land.

Some garden vandalism has taken place back at base. Having resisted it for 16 years of living here, we finally got rid of the wisteria. It had outgrown its purpose, its space, and also my patience.

The ease in which it came down surprised me. The roots were getting dangerously close to encroaching on the drains down below.

SEE YA, wisteria. Be gone.

Of course it wasn’t me who took the wisteria down. If I had got my grubby hands on it, then the whole house would have been tumbling as well.

Our garden man did a fine job. He was also going to take the wisteria stump over to the tip. A little later on in the day I had the brainwave of a bug hotel over the allotment.

I got some strange looks as I transported it on the trolley dolly for the short walk.

I quite like the idea of sustainability shit and all that. We might killed off the wisteria, but its spirit is still there amongst us on our land.

My quest to have a deep dive back further into those early ambient days continues. I don’t think I ever owned UF Orb. I think, for memory, I had it on a TDK D90 after I recorded it direct from the local CD library. Those were the days.

I find it impossible not to get engrossed in this type of ambient trippy hippy shit. Plus the album also had something of an ultra cool edge, which still just about stacks up today.

For memory I think I had three - or maybe it was four? - Orb evenings at Glasto. Fuck your meat and two veg big name indie headliner back in the day.

The real action was what was then on the NME stage, just as the sun was setting over the Vale of Avalon and the mad fuckers of the Orb fired up their strobe show. Memories may differ due to, ahem, circumstances.

Those buzzing off your-tits days have long since gone. I’m probably quite content now to fire up the UF Orb CD with a particularly strong cup of tea and just feel the vibes man.

Yeah, on yer toes, whistle possee.

A Forty Plus customised cycling jersey. Forty Plus isn’t the waist size by the way.

Chapeau!

Having ridden just the solitary ride with the new Forty Plus club, I now have the Lycra so I can live the dream. All I need to do now is to get out a little more and roll out on the mega mega rides each Tuesday.

I really enjoyed the 120 km gentle introduction. Spoiler alert: I didn’t actually complete the full ride as I was already knackered after the lunch stop.

Oh dear.

But the aim is to keep on riding to live, living to ride, etc. And now with a rather dashing Forty Plus kit, I’ve got no excuses for not getting out there.

There was a bloody decent turnout for Buy Back Brixton on Wednesday evening. Some pretty powerful speeches, including Green Council leader Martin Abrams. Rewind. How cool does that fucking sound: Green Council LEADER. Brixton Village is now an asset of community value. The message has been sent to the corporates circling: fuck off. This is a community facility, made in Brixton, staying in Brixton, etc. SHOUT OUT to the AWOL Lambeth Labour arses.