onionbagblog

Far Out Magazine recently did a comparison between Tom Petty and Elvis Costello. It made the case for their careers being played out in parallel on different sides of the Atlantic. I had never made the connection before. I always thought of Petty as being pure Americana whilst Costello was the twisted, bitter Englishman.

I’ve been wanting an excuse to dive into early Tom Petty for some time. I can now see the point Far Out was making. This could quite easily be early 80’s Costello but with a slight American twist.

He knows how to craft a song but more importantly he knows how to add a twist to the lyric, leaving the songs to mean something else entirely. There’s also more than a hat tip to early Springsteen. Petty is great at crafting mini soap operas around his characters. This is a very worthy album.

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A half-empty Trent Bridge for a major domestic quarter-final. The ECB really fucked up here.

It didn’t take a forward planning genius to work out even six months ago that Wednesday evening was a potential World Cup semi-final for England in the football. A 4:30 pm start for such a high-profile Blast match is crap.

Surrey travelled up to Trent Bridge for the latest instalment in what is becoming something of a recently developed rivalry. It is starting to heat up rather nicely.

Notts didn’t hang around as they opened the batting. Haynes was on a charge. He was helped by some comedy fielding overthrows, not once but twice, from the ‘rrey.

The consensus on the Notts YouTube channel seemed to be that 150 seemed par for this pitch. Runs were hard to come by but Notts were making a decent fist of it.

A breakthrough came for Surrey with CJ taking two wickets and setting himself up for a hat-trick. The second wicket in particular was pretty special, sending furniture all around.

Notts then got penalised for a run short. I wasn’t even aware that this was such a thing in cricket.

A particularly expensive final over from the not so death bowler TC didn’t exactly help Surrey.

A quick break and then up stepped J-Roy and Laurie Evans to try and get Surrey over the line. J-Roy in particular looked up for the challenge. He slogged Paterson White for 14 of his first over.

It was all going so well for Surrey with J-Roy reaching his half-century of only 32 balls. We were in control of the game and were leaning on our experience to get the job done.

It then got a little squeaky bum time as the run rate reduced. I was surprised to see Fernando bowl once again for Notts after looking like he had broken his finger in attempting a caught and bowled.

The boundaries dried up for Surrey. Hang on, we’re really up against it here. How the fuck did that happen?

A superb final over from Ollie Stone saw Notts over the line.

And so Surrey miss out yet again on the Blast. Hopefully this will finally put to bed all that mainstream media narrative of Surrey being the darlings of the T20. We were almost a quarter of a century ago but not a lot has happened since then.

Oh well. That will make for a stress-free Finals Day viewing on Saturday.

Bland as fuck.

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Solitude Standing was absolutely everywhere for me during the summer of ‘87. It was pretty much played on repeat as I worked the summer at the local Virgin Megastore, plus it was then wall to wall with even album tracks being played on daytime Radio Trent.

It captures a moment for me, rather than being a peak musical performance. That being said it’s still something pretty special. I find it difficult to listen to Tom’s Diner without wanting the Soul II Soul style back beat. Luca and its social importance is well documented. I’ve forgotten what a glorious song Gypsy is.

This is a very, very classy album. It was a pleasure to revisit it once again.

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A mixed session for me at the Sailing Club Monday evening table tennis social. I was absolutely on fire for the first game. My opponent didn’t get a look in. Everything I hit was gold. I even had a smoking gun celebration moment.

You dick.

It was another hot and sticky one up in the Sailing Club loft. We had the balcony open. This led to one shot from an opponent heading out the balcony doors and landing pretty much down below on the Sailing Club hard. A rescue mission took place with a friendly face down below.

There was also a Sailing Club committee meeting taking place downstairs. Apologies to the more sedate members who were sat around the big table deep in discussion. When I celebrate a winning shot, then fuck yeah, I celebrate a winning shot.

I was particularly pleased with an absolute smash of one return that landed on my side of the net, but the momentum was sufficient to propel it over and then stop dead right on the other side. There’s no coming back from that.

Despite all this hyperbole I was actually pretty crap for the rest of the session, all fur coat and no knickers so to speak. I can talk a good game yet delivering when it matters is something completely different.

#tabletennisdick

A courgette hearing aid, innit.

Some reflections on Surrey versus the Essex Slappers back down at the Oval on Sunday evening.

tl;dr that was shit.

With qualification already assured for the quarter finals of the Blast for Surrey, up for grabs this evening was a plum home tie in the last eight.

This is not to be sniffed at, not only in terms of the sporting advantage, but also what it means to the club when it comes to the BOOZE fest such an event brings to the bar.

Chin chin.

Essex meanwhile, also had plenty to play for - much more to play for. They needed a win to guarantee their progression. I think you know what’s coming, right?

The game itself also had some very odd scheduling. A 6:30 pm start on a Sunday evening in term time is just odd. There was absolutely no reason why it couldn’t have been brought forward, apart from the women’s game starting earlier in the afternoon.

‘cos that’s gonna bring in the punters to SE11, yeah?

True to form Surrey had labelled this Blast game the Sustainability match. I’m all for sustainability but I still see absolutely no reason why a bloody game of cricket in the Blast needs to be given such a tag.

Just to rub salt in your sustainable wounds, it wasn’t that sustainable for Surrey out in the middle. Evans, J-Roy and Philippe were all GAWN cheaply. It was left down to Dan Lawrence to try and salvage something against his old club.

In the end the inevitable Surrey collapse occurred. It’s always criminal not to bat out your 20 overs in a T20 competition.

The Oval crowd was very quiet. The highlight of the evening appeared to be the scrambling of towels in the home dressing room to block out the sun rays bouncing off the fancy new players’ balcony.

The changing rooms were refurbished last summer. They don’t seem that… sustainable.

The run chase set by Surrey was a stroll in the park for Essex. They won off a wide, which kinda summed up the whole evening.

I returned to the walk along the trail early on Monday morning. I had a few errands on the other side of town. The mountain bikes are still inaccessible and so a walk along the trail it was.

This is the first time that I’ve been along here in possibly around a month. That’s the beauty of a blog. I could just do a quick search and Bob is your blog uncle, or something.

The little stretch leading away to Ferry Marsh is now completely inaccessible. The growth has taken over the entry gate leading on to the marsh.

I know that this was always the plan to try and let Mother Nature do its shit and reclaim the marshland. It does seem a little harsh though in blocking off human access. Betcha the birds and all that nature shit bloody love it.

The main traffic along the trail were the early morning runners. These were of varying abilities, ranging from those that looked to be in training for some serious endurance events, to those whom I managed to overtake whilst walking.

Mental note to self: The sloes along this route are already starting to ripen. Come back here in a couple of weeks to snaffle up a tupperware container or two ahead of a winter of sloe gin drinking.

Chin chin.

It was a little cooler this morning, although the big Essex skies were already starting to form.

I approached the University stretch. There was some loud music banging out around 8:30 a.m. I think this is to do with graduation week.

My chores were ticked off down at the Hythe. I then turned around and walked the less scenic route back past the university.

I was surprised to see Strava tell me it was almost to the exact measurement a 10 km circuit.

An email lands from Wivenhoe Town FC. Yep it’s that time of year again: season ticket renewal.

If I was a Premier League season ticket holder, then opening an email with my new renewal price would be a task that would fill me with fear. Not so with Wivenhoe.

Oh look, prices have been frozen again for the third consecutive season. £80 for a full-on adult season ticket is a fantastic price in which to watch live football.

The quality of the product, as we must call it, that is on show at Broad Lane is not exactly Premier League standard; but just having a non-league team on your doorstep where you can watch football every other week is not to be sniffed at.

I’ve got plans for the season ahead. These are personal plans but hopefully they will stretch out wider into the community. Watching Wivenhoe last year was a pretty soul-destroying experience. The inevitable relegation was somehow reprieved. Something has to change.

I’ve long since thought that the Dragons may be in Wivenhoe, but they don’t feel part of Wivenhoe. This wasn’t always the case. Some kind of local sense of connection within the community has been lost. I want to take very, very small steps to try and rebuild this.

I’m going to go active online and do all the big-mouth shouting thing to try and get more people up at Broad Lane. I’m not talking the masses, perhaps just three or five extra people on the gate for the first home match.

If they enjoy it then perhaps they might bring along a friend for the next game. It’s here where hopefully we can start a snowball effect and try and get more locals through the gates once again.

I see so many football fans walking around the town wearing their Premier League and Championship tops. They can’t all be going off to London every other weekend or making the short journey to Ipswich. If you’re a football fan you just want to watch live football, right?

The optimism from last season was the small dedicated band of teenage ultras that appeared out of nowhere. They were bloody fantastic. They banged their drums from start to finish and made a right old bloody racket.

It’s this type of local enthusiasm I want to try and capture and hopefully make sure that the club doesn’t have another season like the one we have all just experienced.

Of course I could always freelance it and call in my old friend Wolfgang Moneypenny to help turn around a failing non-league club. The downside there, as Wolfgang knows only too well, is that one man’s personal crusade to create a footballing fiefdom somehow ends up as bloody gentrification.

I don’t think that’s going to happen at Wivenhoe Town to be honest.

Endless Summer is pretty much Beach Boys by numbers. There’s nothing wrong with that. All killer, no filler, etc. This compilation was a new one on me. The very ropey cover art suggested something a little different but no, it’s just hit after hit after hit. These songs are built so deep into your conscience that there’s not a lot new going off. It’s an album that only really works as summertime listening. You wouldn’t put this on in the dark, deep months of December. They’ve always been a joyous band. Four stars for what the album represents, rather than the musical content.

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