Sunshine (and hail) on Leigh

Leigh-on-Sea was looking particularly striking on a winter’s afternoon. Our party arrived at Westcliff-on-Sea station, surprised to discover the sea is only an hour from London. We walked along the seafront to Leigh, much to the delight of dogs Vulcan and Livvy. Even Kent Girl Paula was a convert. 

The tide was out and at times the sun glistened on the estuary mudflats, despite the wind and rain. While the layered clouds were various hues of gunmetal grey and Kent power stations brooded across the water. Chalkwell station has fantastic views out to sea and some fine Essex artwork in the ‘portals’ on the beach wall too. 

We passed the Crow Stone, a mysterious obelisk that marks the end of the City of London's authority over the River Thames. Our walk ended in Leigh, via the seafood shop and heritage museum. As the weather turned we headed for the pub. There’s little better than sitting in the warm window seat of the Crooked Billet looking out at the hail coming down, enjoying fine fish and chips and a pint of porter. We shall make more visits to estuary Essex in the winter.

Reading matters at the Essex Book Festival

Tomorrow, March 1, sees the start of the Essex Book Festival when it's opened by A L Kennedy. The ubiquitous Sarah 'Essex Serpent' Perry's session is already sold out, but there's plenty more to see, including the excellent Syd Smith (who wrote of tales of Manningtree witchcraft in Witch Hunt and The Drowning Pool), Ruth Rayner and Chris McCully taking literary inspiration from Colchester's Roman wall, local short stories from Essex Belongs To Us, Essex-based crime in James Henry's Blackwater, Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon at Layer Marney, Brix Smith on life in The Fall at Southend and Jem Lester in Brentwood discussing his novel of taciturn blokes, Shtum. Check out the link for the full programme.

Essex, serpents and Graves' Disease

Good news for Sarah Perry. My London book group is now reading The Essex Serpent to add to her sales among the metropolitan liberal elite. It's also been all over Waterstone's as the store's book of the year. Serpent is a great read and magically evokes the mysterious scenery of the Blackwater estuary, as well as containing the Colchester earthquake and some vivid writing on the Victorian conflict between science and religion. Check out Perry's recent interview in the Guardian too, where she reveals that the strain of writing and selling the novel might have given her the Gothic-sounding Graves' Disease (it affects the thyroid and leaves the sufferer exhausted). She says she lay in bed repeating every one star review on Amazon to herself, though she's certainly not had many of those and the critics' response has been overwhelmingly positive. Thankfully the Chelmsford-born Perry is now recovering from the worst effects of the disease and will hopefully be well enough to complete another book soon, because she's one of our most talented new authors.

Not with a bang but with a Wimpy

My pal John has just informed me that the Wimpy restaurant in Barking has just closed, marking the end of an era. For those who thought Wimpy bars died out in the 1970s. they've proved surprisingly resilient in Essex. Aficionados should note that the McDonalds-isation of fast food hasn't affected God's own county. Wimpys still stalk the county like throwback dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, living on in Billericay, Wickford, Basildon, Benfleet, Clacton, Colchester, Maldon, Rayleigh, Benfleet,  Leigh, Westcliff-on-Sea, Grays and Southend. 

Essex Book Festival kicks off with Grayson Perry

Plenty going on at the Essex Book Festival which runs from March 1-31. Grayson Perry launches the festival at the Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford on Monday, Feb 29, while Radio Essex is broadcasting live from the festival from 2.30pm on Tuesday March 1 in the lead-up to Vince Cable's event After the Storm. Highlights include Zoe Howe talking about her book Lee Brilleaux: Rock'n'Roll Gentleman, Lee Jackson's Dirty Old London session on Victorian London, Helen Dunmore's Exposure, Simon Callow's One Man Band, A N Wilson on Queen Victoria and former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis on her novel The Butcher's Hook. Plus lots of writing classes and a Golden Age of Crime weekend in Southend. Click on the link for the full programme.

Honest estate agent found in Leigh-on-Sea!

Leigh-on-Sea has made national headlines through having an honest estate agent (and that's not an oxymoron). Credit to Rob Kahl of Scott & Stapleton for describing the flat he was selling in strikingly frank terms, writing: "Wipe your feet on the way out! Not for the faint hearted this first floor flat is being sold as seen, rubbish and all! Having recently just had to evict some charming (not) tenants the vendors of this property have had enough and can’t even face setting foot in what used to be their sweet and charming home. I can’t flower this one up or use my normal estate agent jargon to make this sound any better. The property is full of rubbish, there is mould on the walls and I think there may even be some fleas there to keep me company when I carry out the viewings." His honesty was rewarded, as the flat sold for £22,000 more than the asking price of £125,000. Essex - where even the estate agents tell it like it is.

Essex loses out to Bad Urinal Etiquette

This week's Room 101 featured Countdown's Rachel Riley — who's from Southend and went to Oxford University — attempting to consign the Essex Stereotype to the dustbin of history. This gave Frank Skinner the chance to repeat an anecdote about Essex Man Brian Belo, winner of Big Brother 8, reading "the Haywain" as Hawaii on a quiz show. Rachel Riley then reminisced about meeting Joey Essex, who thought that Richard and Judy created the world, having confused them with Adam and Eve, as you do. In the end Frank Skinner couldn't condemn the Essex stereotype as so many people had money out of it; instead Essex was beaten into Room 101 by Bad Urinal Etiquette. That's taking the…

The only way out is Thurrock

Interesting piece in the Evening Standard yesterday saying that Thurrock is the number one destination for property-buying Londoners priced out of the capital. The average price of a flat is £120,556 and the average price for a house is £219,852. Despite some dodgy newbuild homes, Thurrock does have a lot going for it for those priced-out London. Fenchurch Street is only 35 minutes away by train. Other attractions include fine views of the Thames and Tilbury Fort, the best-preserved low-profiled artillery fort in the country. A bit further down the Thames is Coalhouse Fort. To the north is Great Warley and Miss Wilmott's garden at Warley Place, Essex's answer to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. Further down the train line lies the lovely old harbour of Leigh-on-Sea, Hadleigh Castle and Southend Pier. And parts of Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade were filmed in Tilbury Docks. Plus Grays is the birthplace of Russell Brand and it also boasts the best Essex shop name with an emporium called Curtains Babe. Click on the link to read the full feature. 

All Greek for Essex revolutionaries

The success of Syriza in Greece was forged in Essex, it seems. Syriza’s new Economics minister Yanis Varoufakis has a PhD from Essex University. Rena Doura, governor of Greater Athens, has an MA from Essex, and Corfu’s Syriza MP Fotini Vaki is also a graduate. Another of the influential Essex alumni is Sir Christopher Pissarides, a Cypriot economist critical of Greece’s debt repayments.

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Greek students love the University of Essex, with some 4000 graduating in the last 50 years. Perhaps we shouldn’t be that surprised that Greek lefties travel to Essex rather than Ithaca, because the county has a surprising history of revolutionary activity. Colchester Castle stands on the site of the Roman Temple that was burnt down by Boudicca in AD60-61. She went on to give the Romans a kicking in London and St Albans before committing non-electoral suicide.

The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 started in Brentwood, better known for Towie and Sugar Hut today.  The men of Fobbing were summoned to Brentwood for non-payment of the Poll Tax, but then attacked the Commissioner John Bampton, giving him a right slap and chasing him out of town.

Today we have Russell Brand from Grays peddling a book called Revolution and telling us not to vote. Chelmsford’s most famous transvestite revolutionary is Grayson Perry, who has taken to guest-editing the New Statesman and writing about the Great White Male and his love of the business suit. Could it be he’s planning to wear one soon and stand for Parliament? While Douglas Carswell has inspired a Ukip revolution in Clacton with his plans to introduce ever more balding ex-Tories to the joys of real ale served by English Pub Landlords.

Perhaps Joey Essex wasn’t joking when he suggested on Towie that there was a Prime Minister of Essex. He’s already stared travelling the world on a fact-finding mission in Educating Joey Essex. A telegenic man unencumbered by complex economic theories who is definitely anti-austerity. We might just have found Britain’s revolutionary answer to Syriza.

Essex,My Essex

Check out Radio 4 this Friday, February 28, at 11am for Essex, My Essex, by Ian Sansom, who grew up looking back in Ongar. Ian is now living in Northern Ireland, but returned to Essex to record a documentary on Britain's most iconic county. He interviewed me in the Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch and promises a host of other Essex ephemera…

Lav at Firstsite

Fifty four per cent of visitors to Colchester's Firstsite art gallery are only using the loos, claims an unofficial survey by Colchester residents. Though the gallery has responded by saying that even visiting the loo is a cultural experience as you have to walk past several works of art, including a Roman mosaic. I certainly enjoyed my visit there, described in The Joy of Essex, and can vouch for  the loos and the coffee as well as the art, which admittedly could be a bit more populist. Still, might not a quick visit to the toilet leave Essex folk flush with a potential for future, more aesthetic visits? With luck Firstsite could become Essex's answer to the Loo-vre.

Essex trivia # 7 Matt Smith's Doctor lodged in Colchester

Colchester attracted a Timelord in Doctor Who. Matt Smith’s Doctor rooms with James Corden’s Craig Owens in a 2010 story entitled The Lodger. In the later episode Closing Time the Doctor and James Corden are mistaken for gay dads, in what must surely be Williams & Griffin department store. The Doctor and Craig also see Amy and Rory out shopping at Williams & Griffin and presumably happily living out their post-Tardis days in Essex. Meanwhile there was a crashed cyberman spacecraft underneath the store and the cybermen were having to rebuild themselves with bits of Essex men and women and possibly some old Roman septaria too.

All facts are from Pete May's new book The Joy of Essex (Robson Press).

The Joy of Essex in the Independent

The Joy of Essex has been reviewed in The Independent by Tom Cox. Mentions for Paul Simon wanting to be homeward bound for Brentwood, the Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, the tanning both at Harlow station and Miss Willmott's garden at Warley Place, which can't be bad. Click on the link to read…

Tom Driberg and the Joy of Es(sex)

A free copy of The Joy of Essex is on its way to Dominic in Oxfordshire for enlightening me about the sex life of Tom Driberg MP and Jonathan Meades' esoteric closing line about Essex being a "voracious sump inhabited by an eternal mutating Driberg". Dominic, whose mum once camped at Driberg's mansion with Barking Labour Party, writes: 

"Yes that last line was a bit odd, wasn't it...? Driberg was MP for Barking as well, and lived up near Bradwell (frequently inviting local members of the Barking labour party, and others, to stay.). "Wild promiscuity" is probably the no 1 thing I'd associate with him - and he was quite open, even shamless about this, (well, flamboyant homosexuality and showy Anglo-Catholicism too) - so, excluding the homosexuality (and religion) thing, I suspect the point was a dig at the Essex stereotype of slappers in Romford/Basildon nightclubs, etc."

I'm still not sure about the word "spermophage" that Meade used to describe Driberg, but if you type it into Google, the search engine suggests some dodgy-looking porn sites… best not go there. 

Essex soap opera

The Daily Telegraph reports that "a number of patrons" (think that means punters) walked out of Dvorak's opera Rusalka at the Royal Opera House in protest at it's "vulgar staging" and "scanty costumes". "As long as I kept my eyes shut it was gorgeous," one Jane Tinkler told the Telegraph after walking out. "But the set and costumes owed too much of a debt to The Only Way Is Essex". It was also booed at the end by those who stayed. What snobbery. Opera is basically bird meets bloke with iffy results. If Towie isn't full of operatic passion then what is?