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This is a real mismatch of an album. It sounds pretty much like it is: some McCartney demos that didn’t quite make it onto the back of Let It Be or Abbey Road.

Too Many People is just pure spite and bile. The sentiment works fine but musically it doesn’t really go anywhere. It picks up a little with Uncle Albert, which shows that he’s not lost any of his pop sensibilities.

The highlight is The Back Seat Of My Car. I wasn’t aware of this song until a few outtakes appeared on the Let It Be Disney series a couple of years ago. This could have been a Beatles classic if McCartney had persisted with it. A missed opportunity.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I’m getting pretty pissed off reading endless articles or posts where people diss AI big time. I often wonder if some of these criticisms are AI generated themselves.

Oh - and don’t even get me started on AI - generated posters for your local jumble sale. Yep, they’re absolute shite. Be gone! You could do a better job using Microsoft Paint.

But wait! What’s this?

For all you AI doomsters and gloomsters, as someone once said, it’s all about how you use the tech, right?

In less than 15 minutes this morning my very friendly Claude work colleague managed to whack out a spreadsheet that randomises almost 3,000 albums each day.

If you’re a long term reader of this blog, you’ll know that R and I have been going through the daily exercise for maybe three or four years of having the exact same album served up to us each morning to listen to, and then add some feedback notes.

This was part of the original 1,001 Albums to Listen to Before You Die list. Such definitive lists are of course bollocks in themselves, but the daily revelation of a new piece of music has opened up my tastes and also my CD collection.

We long since finished the original 1,001 Albums list. We moved on earlier on this year to the Colin Larkin list.

So far so good. There was, of course, some duplication, plus the crappy old website displaying the Colin Larkin list was full of ad-heavy gunk. It didn’t half slow your browser down.

I managed to find a spreadsheet online where some dude had imported all of the Larkin albums, as well as combining these with some of the other definitive muso beard-stroking lists that are out there.

I thought, Hey! We could just go through this each morning as R and I work our way down the combined list.

But the problem was that they were all A to Z. When you hit an artist that you think is absolute crap - for argument’s sake let’s just say, erm, Aerosmith - then you’re going to get 10 Aerosmith albums across 10 days.

No ta.

I turned the task over to Claude. I gave it a fairly brief prompt and said, Yep my tech skills are diminishing. Just bloody do it for me.

A few tweaks here and there and 10 minutes later, a Google script was produced, which aggregates every album on the list and then at the click of a button both R and I get served up the same album each day.

Others, of course, are free to join in. I’ve made the link shareable so all you need to do is to open this Google Sheet in your browser. You’ll get the exact same album as us each day once pick Random Album in the Google menu bar.

Of course I could tinker around with this and have an option to leave a shared listening experience with some brief listening notes. I might fire up Claude and see what he’s got to say.

So yeah, stop and think before you post up some shite dissing AI. You should be able to tell what AI slop is, certainly in terms of images and probably text these days.

But for the tech coding side of things this is truly a SHIT THE BED breakthrough advance.

We had a full house for the Monday evening table tennis social session down at the Sailing Club: six players, one hour or so in which to squeeze in some knockabout games of singles and then watch it all fall apart with the finale of the doubles.

What could go wrong?

We reverted to the international table tennis rules of playing only to 11 points. Usually we play to 21. Eleven allows for all players to have a speedy rotation around the table.

It’s a very cunning game when you have such little margin for error. I play best at 11, rather than 21.

If we’re chasing the golden 21, then I get bored halfway through. I start to mess around and generally fall apart.

Not so when your mind is focused on 11. Jump 3 points ahead and you’re pretty much home.

Except on Monday evening I never really did jump 3 points ahead. I lost every single game.

Oh dear.

There’s optimistic talk of resurrecting the Sailing Club table tennis tournament sometime in the new year.

Another reminder that the nights are starting to draw in was on our walk home. SHIT THE BED. some fucker has even got their Christmas lights up.

What’s wrong with this place?

To the Sunny Colch Odeon! …on Monday afternoon for the latest instalment in the cheap as chips grubby fiver bum dosser’s deal. I’ll have you know it’s a growing club.

Booked in for our bargain £5 ticket this afternoon was The Death of Robin Hood. Blimey. Talk about spoiler alert.

For once we arrived on time. I try and plan these visits to perfection so that I avoid all the shitty adverts and also some of the SHOUTY SHOUTY trailers that just do me nut in.

But wait! What’s this?

The film was advertised as a 2 pm start, which usually means you’ll see trailers until 2:15, followed by the film. We were in our seats by 2 pm. Fifteen minutes later there was still the crappy music being played with nothing on the big screen.

I felt for the poor Odeon flunky who had to go to the front of the auditorium and make an announcement that the film had been delayed for technical reasons and would start soon.

“Skip those crappy trailers. Get on with the bloody film.”

…came the shout from the cheapo seats. This wasn’t from me, by the way, but the sentiment remained the same. Sod the adverts. Cut to the film.

The audience flunky was in agreement. A few minutes later we had the recommendation flashing on screen that this is a film for 15 or over.

Which actually seemed a little benign. The death of Robin Hood is an absolute bloody glory fest. More than once I had to look away and just listen to the excruciating sound of humans inflicting pain on others to imagine what was happening.

But first how about a little seat confusion? I would say the Odeon was about a tenth full. We had an entire row to ourselves and so did the fella sitting in the adjacent row. This didn’t stop him, ten minutes into the film, snuggling up beside us to make it a threesome.

Study the buffers, fellow grubby fiver bum dosser.

This lasted for around ten seconds or so and then he said his apologies and moved back to his original seat. I don’t think it was that kind of film, mate.

As mentioned it was an incredibly violent film, especially in the opening twenty minutes or so, which sets up the plot.

tl;dr. Robin Hood is ageing. He’s gone around killing pretty much all of his enemies and he then becomes a bit of a cropper himself. He needs some rest. During this time he reflects upon what he’s done with his life.

That’s how I felt last week to be honest.

I always gauged the success of a Robin Hood film using the barometer of a Nottingham accent, m’duck. This was tricky to try and work out.

Hugh Jackman wasn’t exactly coming live and direct from NG1. It was some kind of Northern accent, but most definitely not a Nottingham one. These things matter.

The physical appearance of Jackman, however, was incredibly ropey. It was fitting that for a bum dosser audience, we were watching a bum dosser on screen. We might as well have been staring at a mirror. Think Ian Beale around his breakdown time when he turned into a tramp.

The more serious side of the film makes you forget all the myths of Robin Hood. This most certainly isn’t Men in Tights. It’s a man who recognises that he’s a brutal killer and is only in it for himself.

It all got a little trippy towards the end with some dream sequences and prolonged death scenes. Can you guess who was lying on his deathbed at the end?

Oh yeah, SHOUT OUT to the other grubby fibre bum dosser who was sitting a couple of rows in front of us. She spent the entire film with her face pinned to her phone, scrolling away and munching on a giant bag of Monster Munch.

What’s the fucking point?

The allotment is looking a little worse for wear, to be honest. That’s the impact of four, five, possibly six heatwaves during the summer.

The bonus is that it has given us a bumper crop in terms of tomatoes and courgettes. The latter, in particular, have expanded with almost freakish proportions and can’t quite decide if they want to become marrows or not.

The lack of water is now starting to show. There’s not a lot of green around but fans of sand-coloured hues and backgrounds won’t be disappointed.

Long gone are the days when I have had to obsess about heading up there every couple of weeks to trim the borders as part of the requirement with the Town Council lease. Grass is currently not a concept across the entire allotment patch.

Watering has scaled down a little in recent weeks. We’ve had a few downpours, which have relieved us of the burden.

Hose pipes are available to use at the allotment but the lease also says you can’t directly spray water over your green goodness. Instead there’s the laborious task of filling up the water butts and then using these with the watering can.

It’s been something of a steep learning curve but also a fun introduction to allotment life this summer. I feel that we’ve entered into the agreement at perhaps the best and worst of times: plenty of sun, little water.

Thoughts are already starting to stretch ahead to what might happen during the winter months. Spoiler alert: I think we’re going to get shit loads of rain around the Estuary Wilds.

Some leek and carrot seeds have been ordered. An allotment is for life and not just the summer months.

Disclaimer: This is one of those seminal albums that defined me as I was growing up. It only touched on my personal development for a brief time, but for 6 months or so around 1985, it was pretty much all I listened to.

I love the posturing. I love the ridiculousness of it all. I love the leather trousers. Sure it’s a bit of a leap away from the Southern Death Cult. You can see the logical progression, which then leads you towards hair metal. I’m happy for my limited heavy guitar indulgences to soak up the Love album, but I’m a little scared to look over the edge and see what comes next.

It gets a little hippy shit in places, with tracks such as Brother Wolf, Sister Moon" She Sells Sanctuary is mid-80s metal indie perfection. I can almost taste the pints of cider and cherry brandy as the riff steamrolls you over. Gosh those were the days.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

To Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club! …on Sunday afternoon we’re kind of getting into this summer Sunday cricket routine. It’s a shame the season is about to come to a close; When an Old Batsman Leaves the Crease, etc.

Part of the routine is to look an absolute dickhead, walking the mean streets of CO7, carrying the contents of the weekly veg waste. The Rectory Road cricket ground is pretty much next door to the allotment. Two birds, one stone, etc.

The food waste bin looks more like a cricket hamper. At least it gives us some cover and camouflage for any disconcerting looks. Not that anyone at Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club gives a shit, to be honest. They’re an incredibly friendly bunch.

The fixture list has been updated online, pretty much to precision over the summer months - except for the final couple of weeks. We’ve no idea if any cricket would be taking place and, if it was, who was playing.

We rocked up at Rectory Road around 3 pm on Sunday and were pleased to see the umpires and players out in the middle. A few conversations later and we clocked on that this was true pub cricket: a Wivenhoe Town team (I’m not exactly sure which team) were playing a team from the New Inn, over in Sunny Colch.

I’ll drink to that. Chin chin.

We took our position at the pavilion end of the ground. It was a little strange viewing, with the middle positioned very much over to the Rectory Road side. New Inn were batting. They were on 115 for 5 in - I think - the 30th over when we arrived.

That can’t be right as I think it was only a 30-over match. Scoreboards are overrated anyway.

Wivenhoe looked keen to wrap things up with the away team innings. There were endless appeals. There was also a rather pleasant warm wind blowing across the old ground.

I missed a few more wickets. I was messing around taking photos, natch.

I then rotated 90° and there it was, right in my face: some fella with his trousers pulled down, showing off his jock strap and a rather large cricket box bedded away inside.

POW, right in the kisser, etc.

Runs were clearly needed by New Inn. Some not-so-friendly advice came from the away team players sitting back in the hutch.

“Get a bloody move on. It’s not a Test match.”

There, that’s told them.

Play was interrupted slightly as a motorbike was carefully ridden behind the wicket on route to the car park.

An unfortunate drop then took place by one of the Wivenhoe players at square leg. It looked to have been easier to have caught it - so says the dude whose own proud cricket career scorecard reads: no runs, not out.

Wivenhoe had some pretty lethal pace bowlers. One fella in particular was able to deliver a ball at speed, which then died and kept low throughout. He clean bowled the tail end of the new innings.

A run chase of 191 was set from 30 overs. I’m still not actually sure if I trust the scoreboard or not.

The tea interval came and went. Some pretty spectacular Sunday afternoon spreads were laid out in the pavilion.

TUCK IN.

The Wivenhoe openers wasted no time. Fifty was soon up on the scoreboard after only 5 overs.

What I’m finding fascinating watching village cricket at this level is the variety of different bowling actions on show. You don’t get too much change in styles when watching County cricket. Step down 10 rungs or so in the cricket pyramid and blimey, you see some pretty odd bowling actions.

More runs were made, more wickets were taken. This looked like it could be something of a tense close to the afternoon. Sadly - and possibly for one final time - bloody work got in the way of me seeing the end of the game.

I’ve no idea who won, but that’s not really the point, is it?

I have to escape the bloody church bells on Sunday morning. The aim is always to be out of the house at least by 9 am. Leave it any later, and the big dongs will be tugging away on their bell ends ferociously. It does me nut in, to be honest.

A run was out of the question. BUT OF COURSE I’m still crocked. I seem to have been crocked full on of late. My current crock injury is coming close to the anniversary of it first appearing. That sounds more like a long-term condition than an injury.

Oh dear.

So a bicycle ride it was. Time and tide were a little tight. I had around an hour and a half before I had a few work commitments to take care of a little later back at base.

I’m finding a new-found freedom once again, rolling out on the road bike. It is so agile and light. Plus, there’s also a complete ease in terms of getting it in and out of the house and just simply bloody riding it.

Chapeau!

Immediately, I hit a headwind. I tried not to let this annoy me. A big smile was put on my face when I saw someone had had some fun with some OCD hedge cutting. My kind of person.

This was also a good opportunity to road test my own bicycle mechanical skills. This was the first semi-serious ride after I attempted a few tinkerings to try and lose the annoying clicking sound.

This most def was coming from the cranks, or at least it sounded that way. My friendly AI bot differed. It suggested that it was something to do with the seat post.

A few changes earlier in the week, and wow, whaddyaknow? I managed the whole ride this morning, and the clicking had gone. I really should retrain as a bicycle mechanic. Yeah, because that’s going to pay the bills, right?

This was a ride mainly around the Estuary Wilds lanes, but also a few suburban areas. The smell of Sunday roasts slowly cooking was already heavy in my nostrils at around 11 am.

Over at Great Bromley, the groundsman was going through his paces with some wicket preparation ahead of one of the final few days of the cricketing summer. We’llmiss them when they’re gone.

I reached the bonkers Vineyard, which I always think should be somewhere in the south of France and not north east Essex. There was some serious harvesting taking place. Betcha it’s a bumper crop this year, with the various heat waves.

The seasonal theme continued. The ride included heading past Herbert’s Happy Christmas Turkey Farm. I often wonder about the name. I doubt if Herbert is actually that happy. The big sign has been put up ahead of the Christmas run in. And so it begins.

A decent ride. I was back at base with no more bloody bells and a little time to spare ahead of my next work commitments.

The briefest of brief Crap Match Reports.

Disclaimer: I was running my arse around town doing various things in the lead up to KO. I was pretty knackered when KO came. I confess to dozing off for maybe 15 to 20 minutes during the match.

There, that’s the kind of detail you won’t read in a Daily Telegraph match report. Judging by the quality of some of the journalism I read in the Telegraph, I’d wager that some of the journo’s are often fond of taking a snooze midway through a game as well.

Certainly not asleep on the job was Delap. It was a bold move for The OG to start the new record signing and see him make his home debut.

This sets out the stall as to where we stand with the forward line this season. Respect to Chris Wood, etc, but it seems that he has possibly reached the end of the road in terms of his powers. Age catches up with all of us - and so does sleep, to be honest.

This was a game in which Forest desperately needed to sort out their abysmal home form. It seems an age away now when the World Famous was the fortress that gave us home advantage in keeping us up in the Premier League for those first two seasons.

As for lolspurs - I’ve never liked them. I’ve never forgiven them after the 1991 Cup Final. I never will. Nasty, nasty club.

Spurs pressed right from the start. There seemed to be a succession of nonstop corners from the away team. Yet weirdly Sels, in the middle of our goal, was rarely troubled throughout the entire game.

Forest’s midfield struggled to get a look-in in the opening half an hour or so. I’d never doubt a midfield has the quality of MGW, McAtee, and even Ndoye. But the control and bossing around wasn’t there.

At times it felt like we were playing Cooper Ball all over again: a low block and then trying to hit any visiting team at the World Famous on the break. We all know how that one ended.

The second half was a little livelier - I think. I lost track of when I dozed off and then when I woke up again. All I can remember is thinking, Christ, Spurs are shit. They were there for the taking.

The main talking point will, of course, be the Neco Williams goal. It was impossible to tell from what seemed like limited camera angles if he touched the ball or not with his hand. Clear and obvious is the VAR mantra, right?

Whatever, it was certainly a bloody brave move on his behalf and was reminiscent of Joe Worrall away at Stamford Bridge when he made that tackle with his head.

And so our run of four consecutive wins against lolspurs comes to a close: a point at home in the Premier League is always decent but this felt like an opportunity lost.

Remember that The OG is always a slow burner. Having a slow burner, however, means that you might be nine points or so off where you should be at the end of the season.

As long as we’re not pissing around in the bottom third of the table come Easter time, then I will take any long term gains if it means short term pain right now.

An interesting row. We started off with what looked like we were disturbing a high-society dinner party taking place on a yacht that was moored up. Don’t mind us. I was placed on stroke. It was my first time with the new leathers. SEXY. I came close to breaking a tholpin in all the excitement.

We stopped to pick up a come-and-tryer. That didn’t last long. Soon we were heading out downstream. A trio of jet skiers behaved nicely for once. There was also a trio of kids out in their kayaks making the most of the late summer sun.

Some weirdo dude in one of those hydro things was poncing around. I wasn’t alone in hoping that he would come a cropper and get his hair wet. He got his hair wet.

We had a bit of a hippie shit moment observing some jellyfish. An absurd conversation took place regarding the relative intelligence of jellyfish compared to other aquatic sea creatures.

The water was very still downstream. I got to cox for a short while, back towards the sailing club.