onionbagblog

There was a small but enthusiastic turnout for the Monday lunchtime community pickleball session up at the university. We’re talking exam season here. Usually we play in the sports centre. Because of the students sweating over their finals, we got shunted into the big boy sports arena.

The very mention of the word sports centre and exams still terrifies me. My place playing pickleball on Monday lunchtime was much more preferred.

The sports arena is absolutely outstanding. The facilities are incredible. A cheeky trip to the toilet involves using the professional changing rooms of the Rebels. We’re talking almost Premier League standards here.

Anyway, the pickleball; it wasn’t exactly elite level, but I am improving.

It’s not unknown to have up to 18 players rock up for these community sessions. Today we had a dedicated player quota of five pickleballers, which is a bit of an odd number when you’re playing doubles.

We played a game with one person sitting out and then rotated. One of the players was a new face. He was a student who had obviously come straight from the world of tennis.

My calf held up well. Recent pickleball sessions have seen me laying off slightly and not quite going 100%. I didn’t get pickled once today.

Blimey. The new album by The Coral is bloody decent. They’re a band that I’ve always liked, but one that I’ve also not always known too much about.

I managed to keep up with them for the first four or five albums. They then became so prolific that any new music seemed to pass me by.

But here they are, back for the summer of 2026 with an absolute banger of an album, 388. I’m not sure what the 388 stands for. Maybe it’s their 388th album?

I was first alerted to it via the always excellent Gary Crowley on BBC Radio London, and then the new Q Online despatch this morning had an extensive interview as well as some useful links for the album. This included an impressive Spotify playlist that clocks up almost five hours.

At first I wasn’t quite sure of some of the track selections that were curated around the album. Most of it appeared to be early to mid-seventies reggae, a lot of it centred around Lee Scratch Perry. I know The Coal are quite a diverse bunch, but even that sounds a little odd for them.

I fired up the 388 album. Straight in there with the first track, and it sounds like it could have come out of Scratch Perry’s own studio. There’s an incredible amount of detail that has clearly been paid to the production and trying to sound old school analogue with that early ska beat.

The band are a real anomaly. I’m not even sure they know which universe they exist in. You can always blame the hard skunk, but I prefer to view The Coal as being musical geniuses that haven’t exactly slipped underneath the radar, but they should be a lot bigger than what they actually are.

There’s also some genuine soul moments on the new album. It sounds like they had a lot of fun recording it. To their credit, it’s not one of those albums that is a deliberate head nod to all their influences. Springsteen fell very short with his soul covers album from a few years ago.

The Coal are so unpredictable that it might be that their next release is a death metal album. It’s probably already been recorded and will be out next week, soon to be followed by a disco anthems classic.

Another day, another run. By this, I mean a proper run this time. Sure, it wasn’t the usual 10 km that I crave, but I did manage to get just under 5 km back in my legs.

This horrid, horrid injury has dragged on for far too long. My calf first went pop! back in early November. I’ve managed some rehab over the past couple of weeks, back on the treadmill in the gym. Small steps, etc.

I took it easy out there today. Sure, there’s no such thing as an easy run whenever I am concerned. I always aim to put in a PB. Today was maybe a very doubtful PB, let’s just tread very carefully around the mean streets of CO7, and see where it ends up.

20 minutes or so later, I was beaming. Running really is an aphrodisiac for the soul.

The first major harvest of the season. Ha! Blink and you might miss it, etc. But yep, these are nature’s bounty from our own first personal harvest. We inherited a patch of land that included some very limp rhubarb stalks, as well as the fag end of a leek crop. The strawberries and the raspberries are our own making. Tuck in!

This isn’t the hippy shit I feared. As the title suggests, it’s actually rather, erm, electric. There’s more of a blues feel than all the peace and love bullshit. I can’t quite place it culturally, but I get the impression that it’s a bit of a piss take in places with plenty of comedy. A pleasant surprise. Still a crap name for a band.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I’ve been thinking about the Colchester City Council coalition fuck up. Make no mistake, this is a right old balls up that has no easy way of being resolved.

The bonkers election by thirds system of local governance doesn’t help. It just means that when you have new politics and a multi-party format coming into play, then the old structure struggles even more than a more traditional four-yearly cycle.

With so few seats up for election each time, a complete change, as is the case back in Lambeth, is almost impossible. The system was designed for incremental changes, with the old three-party structure only being able to form a new administration and take control if there was a momentous shift in the electorate.

What we now have, with a multi-party system in the Town Hall, coupled with the three Labour splitters, is something of a right old cock up.

I’m rather pleased, to be honest. The Lib Dems and Labour took this for granted for too long. There was almost a sense of entitlement that they could rely upon each other, or even some random Green support to bail them out with a rainbow coalition.

I’ve absolutely no love for the Colchester Tories. In the 16 years I’ve been living here, they have consistently held the largest number of seats. They’ve been locked out of power for all but one of those years. This doesn’t feel right.

Throw into the equation, to add a little extra confusion, are the five new Reform Councillors. It seems that they are too extreme for the Tories to consider forming a coalition with.

Which leaves us with a right old mix of different political parties that have varying levels of agreement, but are unable to work together to form one consensus administration.

The Labour splitters are key to all of this. Sure, they have their reasons. These may - or may not - be the reasons given to the local paper. They bemoan the lack of funding for their own particular wards. The local Labour Party, like most local Labour parties, is dripping deep in bitterness and factionalism.

All eyes now turn to a reconvened AGM scheduled to take place at the town hall on Wednesday. It seems likely that a Tory-led coalition with the Lib Dems is the only possible solution.

Colchester is a funny old town/city, in many aspects. One of those is the very well-meaning centrist Lib Dem streak that still runs strong throughout the town, if not the whole of the borough.

It’s almost a civic interpretation of what it means to be liberal with a small l. There is local pride in the area, often channelled through a centrist streak. I can’t see this core part of the electorate reacting favourably if their elected representatives decide to prop up a Tory administration.

It’s the system that is fucked, of course. I hate the phrase that voters get the administration they deserve. People voted for different parties for many different reasons.

Having a bonkers election by third system, also weighed down heavily with first last the post has finally snapped in Colchester. Proportional representation can’t come quick enough.

A most unsatisfactory performance from Surrey in the T20 Blast this afternoon against Kent down at the Oval. I know I really shouldn’t give a toss about the Blast. I stopped attending pretty much soon after the COVID years. It’s still Surrey, wearing a Surrey top and none of this nonsense franchise business.

I really couldn’t be arsed logging down any of the scores. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t really anything worth shouting home about for Surrey. Not a single player stood out with either bat or ball. There was a very lacklustre batting performance, followed by a spell in the field when nothing really happened for the home team.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this Surrey white ball team. I’m not quite sure what to make of the Surrey red ball team right now either, to be honest.

We seem to be going for a mix of young academy talent with the old pros. I was a little cynical with the likes of Jason Roy, Laurie Evans and Reece Topley still hanging around, but apart from the last couple of games, they’ve held their own, so to speak, in the Blast.

It does seem a very one-dimensional team. I’m not saying the solution is a return for The Skipper opening with Sibley, but if we go deep in the competition and make it to finals day, then the scheduling with the ECB makes it unlikely that we’ll have any of the star name players available anyway. So why not just go with youth and build for the future?

What hurt a little more today was seeing Adam Hollioake as head coach for Kent. I can’t but help think this is a trial run ahead of hopefully taking over the top job at the Oval one day.

I felt a little sorry for the many families that were there. Sunday was deemed family day down at the Oval. It didn’t look like happy families, to be honest.

Will I ever make a return to the Blast? Unlikely. The prices and the piss poor performance have put me off. I’ve got another championship away day planned for next week. Let’s see if Surrey can try and salvage something from what has been a very average start to the season.

Another day, another game of table tennis down at the table of dreams. We rocked up to find the public field rather busy. In particular, there was a gathering of primary school boys hanging around the table. Here we go, I thought.

The little shits had commissioned the table as their HQ for some kind of water fight. The table was covered in water whilst they were filling up balloons and water pistols etc. No harm done, but hey! I really want to play table tennis.

Rather harsh but friendly words were exchanged. I asked them if it was ok to play, and then encouraged them to tidy up the mess they had made all around the table. They looked a little sheepish. Whatever.

We pressed on with the game. We weren’t the only Sunday lunchtime locals enjoying the facilities. A rare game of boules was taking place on the recently installed court.

The wind picked up and it became more favourable for boules players than table tennis hopefuls. My playing partner blew me away with a predictable 3-2 victory.

Another day, another walk. I’m rapidly running out of options around these estuary wilds parts in which to go wandering.

It doesn’t help that my bicycles are still behind closed doors. The scaffolding around the side passage is preventing any access. My legs are itching for a decent bike ride.

I made my way down to the river. There was plenty of aquatic traffic, as my walk was timed with another spectacular high tide.

The sailing club had some kind of dinghy race reaching its climax. I wasn’t the only person caught out on the shoreline when the rather loud horn was blasted out.

The weather conditions had taken a slight dip from the previous day. There was still plenty of sun, but the blustery winds made for favourable conditions for the sailors.

Not enjoying the wind so much were the two Wivgigs boats making steady progress back down towards the sailing club hard. I gave them a random wave, but I doubt they had a clue as to who I was in the distance.

I reached the wooded area along by the estuary. The Sunday afternoon walkers had dispersed. I had some bliss with Robert Elms in my airpods and a feature all about Northern Soul.

I reached the creek. I had a moment sitting on Fat Bloke’s bench. I took in my surroundings, and then retraced my steps and headed back to base.

I’m urgently in need of either some new routes or access to the bicycles once again.

Another day, another game of table tennis down at the table of dreams. We rocked up to find the public field rather busy. In particular, there was a gathering of primary school boys hanging around the table. Here we go, I thought.

The little shits had commissioned the table as their HQ for some kind of water fight. The table was covered in water whilst they were filling up balloons and water pistols etc. No harm done, but hey! I really want to play table tennis.

Rather harsh but friendly words were exchanged. I asked them if it was ok to play, and then encouraged them to tidy up the mess they had made all around the table. They looked a little sheepish. Whatever.

We pressed on with the game. We weren’t the only Sunday lunchtime locals enjoying the facilities. A rare game of boules was taking place on the recently installed court.

The wind picked up and it became more favourable for boules players than table tennis hopefuls. My playing partner blew me away with a predictable 3-2 victory.