Friday 3rd March, 2023

BLOGGED: And So Farewell Labour’s Cllr Adam Fox

“And so farewell Cllr Adam Fox – around these Sunny Colch parts, anyway.

The Deputy Leader of the council has announced he’s stepping down from his role. Fox, who’s also the Leader of the Labour Group, will be leaving the council come May’s local elections.”

Overnight woes with WordFence. Some fucker tried their luck at getting into the rowing club site. They were persistent, but WordFence held strong. My first task on Friday morning was to add more security layers to a site where there isn’t anything to gain from hacking.

It was a morning of water themed activities. The sailing club subscriptions were up for renewal. Some sense of harmony has broken out between the rowing club and the sailing club since the horrid Battle of the Hard Wars. We actually feel rather welcome these days.

But the sailing club have got ANY river based users by the balls with the monopoly it has on access to the public hard.

*shhh* entryism, innit. If you can’t beat them then take them over.

Ha, bloody ha.

Having paid my membership for the year ahead, I made my way to the sailing club for a sunrise row with WivGigs. We had two crews and two boats – not bad for 8am on a cold Friday morning.

The conversation was as ever, very social. I’m finding that I’m being asked by a number of folk around Weird Wiv of late about the Rebels basketball up at the University. I pimp it out on social and it seems to get a positive reaction.

But I’ve yet to see the Rebels organisation make any attempt to promote the club down in the town. There’s been a few training sessions on the public court with the kids, but no week in, week out sustained push.

There’s huge potential here, if my conversations with local people are any indicator. The women’s team get the biggest crowds in the league. But there’s room for more in the Essex Sports Arena. I’m pondering what I can do with some form of informal arrangement.

The rowing session was brief, but very productive. It was a coaching row in our boat with a focus on technique and timing. One of our crew members was VERY brave with his shorts on. I never really got warmed up.

The tide wasn’t that favourable with little water for a lengthy row. This meant we got a bird’s eye view of… the birds. I’ve no bloody idea what they were, but they kinda looked pretty dipping around in the Weird Wiv mud.

The flyover from the geese was spectacular. We paused training to take it all in.

Surprisingly the dirty, dirty river looked remarkably clean. The last time I graced the boat with my presence we had to row through a river of shit. I got to cox the boat for the return leg back to the sailing club. I didn’t bank us, which is the best you can hope for.

Album of the Day: The Verve – Urban Hymns

Christ, this was turgid. Bailed after three tracks. Played some Sam and Dave instead.

R and I have now clocked up 300 consecutive days of listening to a new album on the 1001 Albums list. That’s quite an achievement, quite a discipline.

It’s very rewarding, opening up your tastes and venturing outside of your comfort zone. We have broadly similar tastes. The stats show that reggae, soul and post punk are our sweet spot. Metal is shit; metal is ALWAYS shit.

The scaffolding geezers rocked up mid-morning.

And so it begins.

Within a couple of hours they had the whole house covered in scaffolding. It looks like our home has been assimilated by the bloody Borg.

Robert Elms was as entertaining as ever. There was a great interview with some fella who has a book out on the pleasures of vinyl.

There was also a conversation about the Battersea Affordable Art Fair. £7,500 for a piece of art doesn’t seem very affordable to me.

Sleaford fucking Mods dropped some new tour dates. Ally Pally at Christmas looks lush.

I booked some tickets for The Globe this summer. I say it every year: it remains the best ticket in town at a dirty fiver for each performance. How do they still manage that? There’s been no price increase for groundlings since the Wooden O opened. It’s what keeps me coming back.

A little bit of a garden tidy up took place ahead of the full on Armageddon building work. I took all the moss out of the patio. It appears incredibly dry this year.

I shifted all my vinyl upstairs, out of danger from the builders. Vinyl is bloody heavy.

There was time for a late afternoon escape and a swim. The bicycles are out of bounds. I’d need to navigate the scaffolding obstacle course to get them out. Apart from the Brompton. Hurrah for the Brompton.

It was weird cycling to the pool without half my life on the front and rear carriers. It’s my Sunny Stockwell commuting mule usually.

There was a smell of spring out around the University. It didn’t feel like it temperature wise.

The swim was decent. I dipped under seventeen minutes again for the forty lengths. Some young kids then rocked up and SCREAMED the pool down. I retreated to the steam room.

Friday night was spent on Picard catch up duties.

Make it so!

Links for Friday 3rd March, 2023

Dream build – Vol.1 The Millionth Brompton

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