onionbagblog

To the University! …on Friday lunchtime, or more to the point, to the University Squash Courts. Except we weren’t playing squash, we were playing table tennis, natch.

This has fast become our fave new menu for a game of wiff waff. The space is just superb with its small enclosed four walls. There’s just enough room to carry out some long shots, but then you aren’t walking your arse off to retrieve any ball that has just been TWATTED.

We had a pretty half decent warm-up. We were going from corner to corner at some pace. The forehand’s working out okay. The backhand needs a little bit of practise. It does make a very reassuring spectacle and sound when you get the perfect rhythm however.

And then the game started. You know how this one is going to end. I did try, I did try and pace myself. I know I need to start playing cautiously and then ramp it up, but I just get carried away and go for the win.

tl;dr, I never win.

I think at one stage the scores were 3-3. Hey! I’m still in this! 4-3 and 5-3 then soon followed. By this stage I was just dicking around and seeing where the mood took me with each shot.

That’s a fast track route to defeat, fella.

Mingus at Antibes.

I’m pretty much only listening to jazz at the moment. That’s been the theme for the past two or three months. It’s just so easy going yet still challenging if that’s what you want. Plus it’s perfect for multi tasking. I’m a multi tasking type of guy.

I’ve yet to stray into the full on jazz snob type territory. The highlights of recent months, however, have been attending the Weird Wiv Music Mix jazz sessions each month. Give me some live jazz and a bottle of red and I’m yours for the taking.

Mingus at Antibes was an album of the day a few weeks back. It’s been on my eBay radar search ever since. This one landed for £4 all in. I’ll have a bit of that.

What I like about Mingus is that he has that jazz purist thing running through him, yet he’s also not afraid to experiment with soul, folk, and a little bit more funkiness all round.

This CD landed this morning in a cardboard insert as well. No jewel case nonsense. Jazz is the new sustainability, right?

Having missed the Tuesday Forty Plus club run due to some domestic chores to attend, I decided to give the Thursday rollout a try. This is billed as something of a little more leisurely ride.

Tuesday is a full-on day of riding. Thursdays involve the meet up, then a couple of hours riding before heading back to where we started and then back home.

Sounds simple, right?

The only problem is that the meet up is always over in Witham. That’s a good 35 km for me to get there.

So I cycle 35 km, then I do the two hour ride back to Witham, and then I cycle 35 km back.

It’s all about the bike innit.

There was a slight dew on the ground as I rolled out shortly before 8 am. Daylight was barely visible. I was looking like a right dickhead wearing my high vis workman jacket.

I crossed over the river and then made my way around the outskirts of Rowhedge. The rush hour traffic was pretty hellish.

This included a recently passed driver with a green P on the back of his car. This didn’t stop him from close passing. It’s best to cut this out early. A police report was filed later back at base.

As ever I had to time trial it pretty much to make the 9:30 am rendezvous. Sadly I missed this by 10 minutes.

Oh well. I took the opportunity to look at some plant pots in the nearby garden nursery. Live the dream, Jase. Live the dream.

I decided on doing my own all day ride. I plotted in a rough course on the Beeline Velo 2. I thought let’s head up to Coggeshall, then make my way over to Earl’s Colne, weave through Wormingford, and then perhaps take in more familiar home territory around Elmstead.

The route was pretty cool. The Beeline Velo 2 was doing its job. It kept me off busy roads and on deserted lanes. There was plenty of hill climbing to do however.

75 km in and my plates of meat started to bloody hurt. I pressed on.

Then all of a sudden I was back on the edges of the half-town, half-city. The route then took me through Highwood Country Park. I wasn’t expecting that.

I stopped off at yet another garden nursery. This time a plant pot was bought. I’m absolutely CREAMING myself in plant pot land right now.

I slowly headed back towards base. Strava tells me I clocked in 99.3 miles.

Arse.

Buskers.

⭐

“The Lambeth Conservatives may not be a very influential force, having lost their last councillor in 2022, but it was their arguments that ensured the ward name has an apostrophe in the correct place: Myatt’s Fields rather than Myatts Field. As a pedant, this author salutes their efforts on behalf of a ward they will never win.”

Arf.

via OnLondon

GAWD bless Stonewall Records in Sunny Colch. It’s become one of my regular routine stop off points whenever I’m in the half-town, half-city.

There’s a well stocked vinyl section, plus, tucked away in a corner, some incredibly cheapo cheapo CDs. Each time I go there I remind the fine chap behind the counter that these are shamelessly underpriced.

Today I walked out with some Small Faces, Snuff, Courtney Pine, and George Benson. You’re not going to find those four artists segued together on any UK radio station.

Surprisingly I’ve not got any Small Faces. Their debut 1966 album should be as good a starting point as any.

Whereas The Who were musicians that wanted to be mods, I love the idea of The Small Faces being mods who wanted to be musicians.

I knew little about Snuff until around 1990, when one of the slightly older faces I used to run around with back in the Fair City regularly sent me mixtapes.

Snuff featured happily and I’ve bloody love them ever since. I’m surprised they don’t get more of a look in, given the recent revival with bands such as Half Man Half Biscuit.

I can listen to anything by Courtney Pine and feel instantly relaxed. This man has vibes.

Likewise for George Benson. I was unaware of this album. I prefer his jazzier early guitar work to the smooching George.

Here we have an album of covers and some half decent ones at that. It’s quite a leap of faith from The Small Faces down to George B.

I’m probably going to get slated for this, strap yourself in: I didn’t think that the Banksy exhibition at The Minories in Colchester was all that. Yes it was good, but it wasn’t outstanding, or even great.

Whatever.

My main point of contention was that somehow a Colchester angle was sledgehammered in. There is no Banksy Colchester connection. Yer man has yet to leave any art around the odd half-town, half-city.

Other street artists were also scattered around the various rooms at The Minories. This meant that you were left looking for the main draw of Banksy, and then skirting around the sides with the other street artists.

Sure the other artists are all worthy in their own right. They would have made for a half decent curation without the Banksy stardust status that is the draw for the exhibition.

You’re left scouring around trying to find the BIG HITTERS that you paid to see amongst other artwork with no breaks in-between.

Oh dear. That’s going to liven the stiffs up.

There is a narrative throughout the exhibition of Colchester peering through and then disappearing once again. It’s an attempt to link Banksy’s broad theme of descent amongst a town that supposedly has the same reputation.

Yeah yeah, I hear about your Siege of Colchester and your poll tax riots, etc., but believe me, this is a very progressive and very Liberal - with a capital L - type of town. Radical and dissenting, it most certainly isn’t.

Maybe I was just a bit pissed off that after flashing my digital ticket at the front desk, I then overheard a staff member on the phone calling around other people and offering them 100% promo discount codes if they were to book. Maybe I got this completely wrong but it didn’t start me off in the best of moods.

Let’s look for some positives. The Minories was buzzing both inside and out. That’s great to see. It’s only the first week of the exhibition but hopefully this enthusiasm can carry forward throughout the run and be something of a boost to the local economy.

The majority of the Banksy artworks on offer come from the private collection of John Brandler. No surprises to find that rats feature heavily.

The wording around the various pieces of art is decent. You’re not given an overload of information and your attention is drawn to the artwork rather than the rambling words of some curator.

It was also a very noisy exhibition, although not by default. The constant soundtrack of the East Hill roadworks, with a pneumatic drill bang, bang, banging away, seemed quite appropriate for the urban messages of Banksy.

Maybe I was approaching the exhibition all wrong, expecting to worship at the altar of Banksy and all that he has to say. I don’t actually agree with all of his messages and a very small amount of his artwork does little for me.

I’ll try and win friends and influence people with a sign off by saying that it is bloody good that an exhibition of such grand ambition has found its way into the weird half-town, half-city. This is the first big hitter Sunny Colchester has had for years.

It makes a change from some of the usual hit and miss stuff that you find at the Minories but then that is the appeal of the rather wonky gallery space. I can’t but help think that a dedicated Banksy exhibition over the road at Firstsite might have made a little more sense.

The medium is often the message, etc.

To Firstsite! …on Wednesday afternoon to have something of a shifty at a couple of new exhibitions that have recently opened.

First off we have Polly Braden and Against the Tide.

This is a small but very compact photographic exhibition, along with some multimedia, which explores themes of what does it mean to grow up by the seaside?

Polly’s background is in Jaywick. She describes having a love hate relationship with the local area. If you watched nothing but those crappy Channel 5 docs about Jaywick, then one half of this equation might push through stronger.

But wait! What’s this?

Those shitty programmes never really get behind what’s really happening in coastal towns. They’re just chasing the next Daily Mail headline.

The exhibition shares the stories of young people living in coastal towns across England. The photography borrows a lot from Martin Parr, but it’s never intrusive or even taking the piss.

We spent most of the time watching a really informative film, which put together a short story from the House of Wingz dance studio in Blackpool. This was all about young kids in the area learning street dance and seeing where it can take them.

There were some pretty powerful social messages as well. Many of those speaking in front of the camera focused heavily on housing. The connection was made between poor housing and the lack of life opportunities, especially in coastal areas.

The adjacent gallery space at Firstsite was handed over to Simon Carter and his exhibition From the Landscape. The blurb explains how Simon has walked and sketched out the North Essex landscape around his home near Frinton for over forty years.

What’s on show here at Firstsite is a physical landscape being created within a sterile art environment. You need to really walk around and experience it to get the full effect.

I would hesitate to call it immersive, but you do feel that you’re actually walking around a location, rather, within a gallery.

Each gallery space changes colours to reflect the changing light. A nice touch was a soundscape of coastal sounds, such as birds.

The space within Firstsite is used superbly. There are a few false walls in there, giving the effect that you are exploring a kid’s den.

It was also great to see a half decent use of the infamous Firstsite sloping wall. There was a large landscape minimalist painting stretching all the way around the gallery, showing a coastal scene.

The dead swan buried in the floor at Firstsite was a bit of a downer.

A decent afternoon at Firstsite. It’ll be interesting to see how the gallery benefits with the more rock ‘n’ roll Banksy exhibition next door at The Minories. I suspect they’ll both supplement each other and go hand in hand.

Erm… I’m listening to this tone deaf. I have no concept of how to assess or appreciate classical music. Apologies to all the purists, it’s just noise, right? There we go, destroying centuries of culture in one throwaway hit and miss shit sentence.

But honestly it is just noise to me: pleasant noise but noise all the same. I can’t distinguish between this and other classical music. That says more about me than the medium. I think I’ll line up some Sleaford fucking Mods next.

⭐ ⭐

There was just enough light left late in the day for a bicycle ride on Tuesday. My window of opportunity for escaping is narrowing. I need to make the most of the conditions whilst there is still sufficient light.

The rain from earlier had thankfully dried out. I had OCD pleasing bone dry roads. There would be no manic Mr. Sheen polishing taking place back at base once the bicycle ride was complete.

I timed the ride just perfect in order to beat the school run. The rush hour was still an hour or so away.

This was the first time this season that I was rolling out wearing full on gloves. They felt like a comfort blanket, having had something of a wash and spruce up ahead of the winter beastliness that is to come.

Less than two minutes in and my cycling spiritual, zen like state was destroyed by some close passing dickhead. It wasn’t the wisest thing to do fella, close passing me a your work van when I’m clearly showing a sign that I’ve got a video cam on board.

A bicycle ride is a bicycle ride, though. I’m always at my happiest when I’m out on my bike.

I reached the lanes. I accelerated into turbo mode a few times in order to overcome a growing headwind.

In Endless Road Closure News: there are still endless road closures around the bloody Estuary Wilds.

I deliberately picked the Lawford route, knowing that the usual Bobby George BONER circuit was subject to some big red signs saying road closed. I can now add Lawford to that list as well.

Whatever. I pressed on.

I decided to ignore the nasty Patriot flag flying from one particular cottage. I don’t think we’re talking American football Patriots here either.

Much more pleasing was seeing one of the local fields being worked by half a dozen or so detectorists. I wasn’t the only one making the most of the early autumnal sunlight.

Dig for victory, live to ride, etc.