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I couldn’t resist a quick dig around the CD shelves of the wonderful Oxfam whilst passing through Herne Hill on Saturday. I always enter here with expectation, I never leave with disappointment. Not to mention some new additions to the collection.

Saturday was no exception.

“Give me five minutes, five minutes max.”

…I uttered to my Herne Hill walking partner. True to my word I gave it a quick shifty from left to right and then down the three CD shelves and immediately homed in on Saint Etienne’s excellent Fox Base Alpha debut.

My Herne Hill walking partner owned this on cassette back in the day. It hadn’t been played for around two decades or so, even though we both loved the album. She agreed to allow me to sell it for 20 quid or so on eBay.

We’ve come full circle now with the CD now being bought for cheapo cheapo three quid at Herne Hill.

It’s a fantastic album. In particular the Neil Young cover of Only Love Can Break Your Heart is just pop perfection. I only came to the Neil Young original after hearing the Saint Etienne cover, which I assumed was the original recording for 20 years or so.

I did ponder over a few other bits and pieces at Oxfam in Herne Hill, mainly of the PONCE clothing variety. You get a particular type of PONCE walking the mean streets of Herne Hill

But five minutes was what was promised and five minutes was delivered.

Only Herne Hill can break your heart etc.

“Perhaps the critics, themselves, are shaped by the narrative of those who control the film industry. Perhaps that’s why they just don’t get the impact of Digger. Capitalism in action. It’s what the film warns us against. How clever is that!”

Morning Star on Digger.

I’m still not entirely sure what I made of the film. My instant hit and miss blog post was certainly critical, but reading around the context of the film from other sources, I can now see that it’s a lot more of a deep rooted piece of storytelling. It’s certainly no masterpiece, but it may warrant a second viewing.

Some snaps from some random Transpontine wanderings.

It was more a day of chores on Saturday, going back and forth here and there, all over my little patch of South London. As ever, have camera, will travel.

There wasn’t really any rough route but in no particular order we went from Brixton to Brockwell Park, on to le Velo, and then a bit of a schlep back through Herne Hill, touching the edges of Stockwell towards Wankerville.

Always changing, always the same. The landmarks remain but around the periphery new buildings and frontages appear. It’s sad to see some familiar clubs and bars boarded up.

In their place is, of course, luxury accommodation. People just don’t build new pubs anymore. They always build luxury accommodation.

Whatever.

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.