onionbagblog

To Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club! …on Sunday afternoon. This was the second time that the old ground had the pleasure of my company over the weekend.

The red carpet wasn’t quite rolled out for me. Instead I had to wait as a car was reversing around cow corner. That’s something you don’t often see happen at Lord’s.

Great Bentley had made the short journey to take on the Wivenhoe Sunday 11 this afternoon. It was a local derby with plenty at stake.

My fashionably late arrival meant that I rocked up with Wivenhoe on 133 for 2 in the 23rd over of a 40-over match.

Once again, Phew Wot a Scorcher, etc. It was a little too much for one of the umpires in the middle. He was applying the laws of the game out in the middle in his bare feet.

The first major action of the afternoon was a spectacular catch at mid-off by a Great Bentley player. The poor chap then had to leave the outfield to get some ice on his hand. He was replaced by a very young kid who came on as twelfth man.

I did take up a very ambitious position right in front of the pavilion with the Estuary Wilds sun up above. My balding head lasted less than five minutes before I had to head for the shade of a nearby tree.

Out in the middle it may have been a 40-over match, but some T20 theatrics were in place. A ramp shot was tried, a ramp shot was failed.

Great Bentley had a fantastic young female bowler. It was great to see her putting the male Wivenhoe batsmen through their paces.

A century soon came up for one of the Wivenhoe openers after a bit of a loose full toss. A late run push then followed as Wivenhoe attempted to make hay.

Mr Century then went a little bit too big and hit the ball sky-high. He was finally caught for a very impressive 106.

The run chase set by the home side for Great Bentley was 256. The away team came out after a short tea break and didn’t hang around. They tried their best to do some serious damage to the nearby allotments with the ball.

Sadly I had to disappear for some work commitments with the Great Bentley innings in full flow.

Another decent afternoon watching the Hoe.

Another Sunday morning, another good old 10 km walk. I’m still in tattoo recovery mode. It may have been pushing 30° out there, but I was still wearing trackies with all my ink covered up.

There was a warm wind as I strolled out at a not-so-brisk pace along the estuary. The other rowing club were coming in to the sailing club hard. They looked rather majestic with an incredibly well-timed and synchronised oar action.

The mud along the muddy banks is extremely parched. Where you would normally not want to head out and stray along these parts through fear of sinking, you now have a cracked surface.

Out on the estuary distance I could see the sailing club yachts out racing. They had picked a good day for it with the right mix of warmth and wind.

In the AirPods, as ever, was Robert Elms on BBC Radio London. He dropped My Friend the Sun. I confess to having sung it maybe a little too loudly as I thought I was all alone walking through the shaded woods. I was caught out, natch.

A little further up towards the creek and the blackberries are starting to appear way too early in the season. Mother Nature is pretty much fucked around here.

There were some enthusiastic young bathers out along White House Beach. I was half tempted to join them, but my ink recovery mode means this is an absolute no-go.

I headed up towards Alresford when I reached the creek. I walked along the main road, past a man in black looking very much the North Essex persona of Johnny Cash waiting for a bus. He wasn’t exactly walking the line.

The final stretch is usually pretty hellish. It involves hugging the side of a main road and having to pull over into the hedgerow when a car approaches.

I had the brainwave of crossing the road to see what’s on the other side. Oh lookie, lookie over here. It’s only a footpath which has escaped my notice for the past sixteen years.

I blame the heatstroke.

The new album from Haircut 100 is a hell of a lot of fun. Boxing the Compass is 44 years in the making. These boys make The Stone Roses appear almost hyper-productive.

Back in the day and a jazz samba rhythm was always at the heart of The Haircuts. Sure, they felt the need to add in some pop perfection in order to gatecrash the charts.

Unboxing the Compass retains the classic Haircuts horn section. This is sunshine music that leaves you with no other option but to smile.

The lead single The Unloving Plum seemed to have dropped over an age ago. The wait for the remaining tracks was worth it.

Pelican West was absolute perfection from The Haircuts. The new record, almost half a Century later, picks up the pieces.

The foppish good looks and persona from the band back in 1982 may have weathered slightly. Nick Heywood, however still retains a certain schoolboy charm.

The Haircuts haven’t lost it.

Hurrah!

One artist’s mission to paint every council estate in London amid regeneration concerns

via swlondoner

To the allotment! …late on Saturday afternoon. I was under strict instructions to complete one task, and one task only: Mow and strip back the grass verges ahead of the next Town Council Gestapo allotment inspection.

I rocked up at the allotment. It was bone dry absolutely bloody everywhere.

This meant that the prim and proper grass verges around our patch were singed and flattened. My nifty electric fly mow wouldn’t have even touched the surface.

What a waste of a trip.

Instead I hung around for a few minutes to see what the fruits of our labour will soon deliver. The courgettes look like we are about to have a wheelbarrow load. Likewise for the tomatoes. I like that. I can live off courgettes and tomatoes, right?

Elsewhere I confess it looked a bit of a mess. We had some wonderful wild flowers and poppies blooming all over the allotment before the most recent three heat waves. These now look almost skeletal and are a rustic brown colour.

I think I need to dump my cheapo Lidl lemon tree that has failed me yet again this summer over on the allotment.

To Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club! …on yet another heat wave of a Saturday afternoon. The First Team were at home welcoming the visitors from Bury St Edmunds.

For the neutral this seemed like an unfair contest. This was the Wivenhoe First Team up against the Bury Edmonds Second Team. Don’t be fooled by the semantics. Both teams were full of big hitters and this was a highly competitive contest played out on a dust bowl of a pitch.

I arrived fashionably late, natch, with Wivenhoe batting. They had raced to 266 for nought in the 27th over.

This was not an afternoon for falling around on a rock hard surface whilst out in the field. Instead the Bury captain had set up his field to try and take catches on the boundary. A couple were dropped in spectacular fashion.

Bury didn’t also hold back with their bowling rate. Wivenhoe managed to match this with a rapid run rate to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

This was a highly competitive game. Both teams had plenty of encouragement from their respective team mates and supporters back in the pavilion.

The Wivenhoe opener finally fell for a very tidy 99. Close but no cigar, fella, but well battered all the same.

It was also hard work watching. I managed to doze off in the afternoon heat. I was woken up when a ball cleared the ground.

A century soon followed for Wivenhoe’s second opener. Meanwhile down by the boundary fence and tops were left to hang out to dry on the makeshift washing line.

A massive six then followed for Wivenhoe that not only cleared the car park, but also pretty much the driveway leading on to the main road.

After their 50 overs Wivenhoe had racked up a highly impressive 297, which was a competitive score for Bury to try and chase down.

The restart after the tea interval was slightly delayed. Both umpires were having a crafty fag on the boundary.

Wivenhoe took an early wicket with a Bury opener falling for one. Thanks for coming, etc.

I think I succumbed to some mild heatstroke. I have a lack of details to follow. I did see a classy catch from the Wivenhoe keeper as he lunged forward to take yet another Bury wicket.

Allotment watering duties on the other side of the field beckoning for me. I had to depart early.

A quick online shifty back at base later in the evening revealed that Wivenhoe had won by only 11 runs. This is village cricket at its best.

And so on to Friday night in Canterbury and the oldest rivalry in world cricket. That’s a load of hairy old bollocks. Who really gives a stuff about Surrey vs Kent as being rivals? It’s all about the action with that other lot on the other side of the river, rather than the Country Bumpkins.

And so on to the penultimate game in the group stages of the Blast this year. There was plenty to play for. A win for Surrey would give us a plum home quarter final tie.

Surrey in the Blast can be hit and miss, home or away. The main concern here was the balance sheet and what wonders it would do for the club to have 15,000 or so pissheads in the old ground for another tie.

Meanwhile, this was a must-win game for Kent. All of a sudden that old rivalry bollocks looked a little bit more interesting as we had the chance to eliminate them from the Blast this season.

For some strange reason I decided to say sober. I found myself having logged very little detail in which to bash out a Crap Match Report. Maybe I should return to the booze more often when it comes to watching cricket.

Friday evening in Canterbury certainly looked like a booze evening. The atmosphere had something of an out-ground feel. I had never been to Canterbury. One of the main areas is simply a banking of grass. This seemed to be where all the Friday night booze action was taking place.

I really can’t be arsed to log all the finer details of the game. I did note down that E. Singh of Kent came out to bat looking like he had an absolutely massive arse - or perhaps it was just the padding on his backside?

Anyway, Singh went for a song, treading on his own wicket. Oh dear. I did note down at this stage that Kent were 75 for 5 on what the local YouTube commentators were calling a batting wicket.

That soon became 82 for 7. Kent were in all sorts of bother. Harry Finch was the last hope for the home side. He was comically run out.

Surely not even Surrey can fuck up a run chase of 102? This was a piss poor score in which to be set. There was no need to take risks.

J-Roy stepped up to the crease, playing a cautious game for the first few overs. He then thought, sod this, and TWATTED the ball around the ground to get Surrey comfortably over the line.

And so we’re all set for a home quarter final in the Blast, probably on Wednesday evening. It may clash when England possibly have a World Cup semi final taking place. This could mean an afternoon T20 game. The Oval may yet still be empty for that.

“And as with blogging and podcasting, started 20+ years ago, we’re going to follow what people do with this. RSS will fade into the background and do its work quietly. Its job is to give users choice. Remember, every part is replaceable. If one is not, it’s not part of the web.”

Dave Winer on rss.chat

I bloody love The Fall - even though I can never decipher the lyrics and haven’t got a clue what he’s banging on about. The Wonderful and Frightening World is nominative determinism personified. This is a collision of sounds with guitar rackets crashing in and the double drums trying to drown out all the nonsense from yer frontman. It leads to an inner desire to dance - not in a rhythmic way but more of a stomp, chanting out random Mark E Smith mantras as you go along. There is nothing like them. It’s highly unfashionable music yet in some circles it remains almost peak hipster. I just love the experimentation, yet still being grounded in traditional meat ‘n’ two veg guitar sounds.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I don’t want to become something of a Pink Floyd completist but I’m going down the line of becoming something of a Pink Floyd completist.

Atom Heart Mother is an album that I’m surprised it’s taken me 56 years of age to become familiar with. I was already bored of Dark Side by the time I hit 21.

Atom Heart slots into the Pink Floyd discography four years or so ahead of Dark Side. It’s that moment in time where Pink Floyd hadn’t shaken off all the hippy shit, but were starting to blossom to become something else.

It’s quite a diverse album as well - that is if you can describe late 60s prog and experimentation as being diverse.

It starts with some rather theatrical music hall and then ends with the more acoustic peace and shit that you tend to associate with Pink Floyd.

I wouldn’t say the best thing about it is the cover art but I do like the simplicity of the cow. The late 60s were very, very odd.