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A return to ParkRun on Saturday morning. Blimey it’s been a while. Injuries, work, Forest, more injuries - all have kept me away, on and off for the past year or so. I bloody miss ParkRun.

There was a most splendid autumnal feel to Castle Park in Sunny Colch just ahead of the 9 am start time for the race that isn’t a race. It looked and smelt like autumn. We’re past the Goose Fair Weather stage of the season and rapidly approaching crappy Christmas Advent calendar time.

For once I felt very chilled and relaxed ahead of ParkRun. I have a love hate relationship with ParkRun. I think everyone has a love-hate relationship. The hatred is throughout the entire duration of the 5 km course, but then you bloody love it once you’ve finished.

But I was remarkably chilled this morning. Like a dick I’ve decided to run everywhere rather than cycle. Let’s see how long that one lasts, Jase. I ran the 7 km from Weird Wiv over to the half town, half city.

This all meant that the pre-ParkRun adrenaline had already been well spent. Today was not going to be a day for a PB.

I started in the middle pack compared to my usual position in the front few rows. Let’s just take it easy and see where this gets us.

I was marked for pretty much the entire race by a very young ginger kid. We’re talking primary school age here. Fair play for the enthusiasm, but primary school ginger kids tend to run in a rather anarchic fashion, zigzagging in and out when you’re least expecting them to.

The final few kilometres had some flat-footed beast of a fella pounding down behind me. I made it my mission for him not to catch me.

Mission completed.

I was bunched in a little towards the close but I still managed a lame sprint finish. I had an OCD pleasing position of 100 in the race that isn’t a race.

As expected this was no ParkRun for personal achievements. My official race time was bang on 26 minutes. I would hope to run somewhere between 22 and 23 if I run box fresh. I was seventh in my age cat, where usually I’m around third.

I ran on to the pool, put in the lengths, and then ran back to Weird Wiv. Thirteen miles in total. Like I say, let’s see how long that one lasts.

Markdown as the default browser

Neat new tool from Dave Winer

“He was the most thoughtful and interesting interviewee you could imagine. And although his songwriting output slowed after that astonishing run of albums in the ’70s, he remains the true successor to Duke Ellington: a musician who brings it all together and makes it his own.”

Richard Williams on Little Stevie

In photos: a walk through a dark and foggy night in Brixton, autumn 2026

via Buzz

Italian Terraces in Crystal Palace park are removed from the Heritage at Risk Register

via News from Crystal Palace

Close passes on cyclists “require exceptional circumstances” for drivers to be punished, police force admits

via road.cc

The ultimate guide to psychedelic London

via the excellent Peter Watts

This is a right mess of an album, which is a shame as it didn’t have to be this way. What we’ve got is essentially live studio recordings with some piped in live background cheers and whoops. It’s never going to work, is it?

What makes it all the more annoying is that the rawness of Chuck Berry in the studio is sufficient. You don’t need some canned in happy clappers to give it the atmosphere.

If you try and isolate all the live crap, then there’s mighty fine musicianship as well as some raucous rock and roll tunes.

But it’s like watching a film on the telly with commercials that crash over and play simultaneously at the same time as the film itself.

Very odd.

⭐ ⭐

To the University Table of Dreams! …on Friday lunchtime. It doesn’t matter how you get there; It’s what you do when you arrive, right?

That’s the metaphor for life, I think. It’s all about the journey, bollocks, etc.

My journey up to the University Table of Dreams involved running. Having been cropped for pretty much the past year, I’m making up for lost time when it comes to pounding the mean streets of C07.

It’s only a short 3 km hop up to campus. What could possibly go wrong?

I was running late as ever. Yep that’s what went wrong. It meant that I had to absolutely bloody leg it up to Wivenhoe Park rather than a more relaxed approach to my running.

I arrived absolutely knackered and in no fit state to play table tennis. I suspect the very friendly person on reception was having something of a laugh behind my back at my expense.

What do you mean you’ve never seen anybody play table tennis in a squash court wearing a running head sweatband?

The poor form upon arrival continued with poor form into the game. I collapsed right from the very, very first shot.

Soon I found myself 3-0 down.

“This isn’t working out, is it?”

…observed my playing partner.

Cheers for that, luv.

I turned to desperation. Desperation and table tennis and me are not great bedfellows.

This means I arsed around with my serve, trying all sorts of stupid things in a misguided attempt to pull back the points.

One of the tricks I have is just to smash the ball down on my side of the table so it bounces up incredibly high at the other end. It’s a shot that confuses the opponent.

Not so this lunchtime. My playing partner simply TWATTED it back right into the corner.

I found myself 7-1 down.

Oh dear.

Time was running short and squash players were waiting to take over the court.

“Next shot wins the entire game.”

…I optimistically offered.

That didn’t go down very well.

It was something of an epic game, playing first to 11 and then 2 clear points if we were all square. I managed to push ahead, winning 15-13, leading to an overall 7-2 defeat.

Now I’ve got to a bloody run back, YEAH?

To Witham! …early on Thursday morning for the 40+ club ride - but not early enough. I missed the rendezvous once again.

Hey hoe.

Witham is a lot further geographically than what I think it is in my mind. I need a good run of two hours to get there comfortably without any stress.

The clock was counting down for the 9:30 am rendezvous. By 9:10 am I had given up and started to ghost along, knowing that I wouldn’t make it.

This soon became the Ride of the Sneeze.

I just couldn’t bloody stop sneezing. Once I break out into a sneezing fit it’s pretty constant for a couple of hours, and then it disappears just like that.

Atishoo.

At least I’m becoming familiar with the route from Weird Wiv over to Witham. It really is quite scenic, and yep, that includes the Pink Palace just outside of Tiptree.

It’s a FUCK OFF Essex mansion where everything is painted pink. At first you think, Oh dear. We’re talking the pink brickwork for the perimeter wall, the pink front door, and even the pink chimney stack.

But I’ve learned to rather like it. I’m sure the neighbours feel the same.

And so I made it to the rendezvous, albeit around 12 to 13 minutes late. By absolute luck I bumped into R, who was also a little behind the 40+ schedule.

He reckoned if we time trialled it together we could catch up with the main group. This involved a rather hellish ride along the cycle path that runs adjacent to the A12.

Most unexpected was an adult shop along one of the sidings of the A12. It looked like it was one of those old roadside cafes that had now been converted into something a little more spicy

‘cos you never know when you fancy some soft porn whilst you’re commuting on a main A-road.

Jeez, some people.

We caught up with the rest of the 40+ Thursday crowd just ahead of the coffee stop. The warmth for the cafe cum pub was most welcome. The customer service was absolutely crap.

“Have you paid for those?”

…came the rather abrupt questioning from a young member of staff behind the counter.

Yep, dude.

A couple of riders then put in a request for a top-up of their coffee. The young assistant took this as a signal that everybody wanted a top-up and went around one by one saying, “What do you want, what do you want?”

He looked right pissed off when I declined to take out a second order.

And then the 40+ ride pretty much split up as we all went our relative separate ways and headed back to base. I tailed behind R once again.

Don’t forget that a 40+ ride is not a 40+ ride until you have ridden down the obligatory Turkey Cock Lane.

I was solo by the time I reached the outskirts of the half town, half city.

I rode along the High Street. There was the loudest sneezing man ever. He was creating something of a scene. I think health issues of the mind may have been involved.

By now my own sneezing fit had come to a close.

What a find! and yep, that comes from a fella who rarely uses exclamation marks for fear as being seen as an extrovert! I still find it difficult to write or talk about jazz in a meaningful way. There are so many intricacies that blend in and out with the genre, but I do know that music like this connects to me. Red Clay could have been released any time in the past 40 or 50 years. It still sounds remarkably fresh. You wouldn’t think twice if some vocals are added and you were told it was by Ezra. A very uplifting album.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

‘Sorry, not sorry,’ Britain tells Commonwealth on slavery

via Morning Star

I’m a sucker for this fag end of the ’60s hippy shit. Hippy wigs in Woolworths, etc. The production here is absolutely lush, in particular Danny Thompson’s double bass, which sounds as though it is reaching beyond the speakers coming to pluck you out. Like I say I’m a sucker for this hippy shit.

This is a most uncommercial album. You wouldn’t want it any other way. You’re never going to be troubled by any of these tracks on any daytime radio station. Listening to the album from start to finish was an absolute joy. I was born in the wrong age.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

To Moving Image! …on Tuesday evening. Being shown on the multiplex screen in the poxy village hall was Tuner.

I’d seen the trailer a few times as part of our cheapo, cheapo, Sunny Colch grubby fiver deal. It was on our list of films to watch in the half town, half city but somehow time and tide meant it passed us by.

No worries, that’s what the local village cinema is for. A two minute trot across the road, and then I pinged a fiver over on my phone, and sat down in a not quite a multiplex chair to enjoy the film.

The not quite a multiplex chair needed a bit of manoeuvring first. I was sitting behind an extremely tall person. Thankfully a village hall chair has the option that allows you to simply stand up and plonk it elsewhere. And so I did. You try doing that in the Sunny Colch Odeon.

The next obstacle to overcome was a ringtone coming from the fella at the front who introduced the film. Don’t forget to turn your phone off mate.

Tuner was a bit of a weird film in terms of style and direction. I didn’t know that Dustin Hoffman was playing one of the lead roles. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t make it to the second half of the film but it was a nice touch.

The basic premise is a piano tuner - as the name suggests - who suffers with some extreme hearing issues. He does have pitch perfect tone and is able to go about his job.

He’s also gifted in that this almost sensory form of hearing allows him to manually open safes by listening, by default, to the clicking mechanism.

Nice work if you can get it, etc.

All this suggests that the film takes a turn midway through, which it does. It goes from being a rather charming and quite quaint New York romantic flick to becoming all of a sudden Pulp Fiction.

The soundtrack was superb. Not so much the use of classical music, which was all part of the plot, but some of the more contemporary songs, such as Nina Simone’s Sinner Man which was played out to great effect.

There was kind of a happy ending but it was also one of those films that left you wondering what exactly the conclusion was.

I managed almost an unobstructed viewing and no ring tones played out throughout the film. None that I could hear of anyway.