Excellent Essex

Good to see there's a new book on Essex out, Excellent Essex: In Praise of England's Most Misunderstood County by Gillian Darley. The Guardian described it as, "an original and beautifully written celebration of a much maligned county." A review will be published shortly…

Sunshine on Leigh

The Crow Stone at high tide

Enjoyed a fine weekend trip to Leigh-on-Sea. A mixture of sunshine and strong winds made for a very enjoyable walk along the beach, watching the choppy waters of the estuary at high tide and seeing windsurfers shoot across the waves. Our party's dogs Vulcan and Livvy enjoyed being allowed to race across the sand towards Chalkwell, surely the most scenic commuter station in the country. 

We looked around the Leigh Heritage Centre in the Old Town and learned a lot about the history of Leigh, which was once a deep sea port and home to an impressive shipbuilding industry, before silting eroded its role. The centre also has a renovated fisherman's cottage attached, where the parents and eight children would have slept upstairs. The day was rounded off by excellent fish and chips in the Crooked Billet and a pint of Jack The Lad IPA. Forget Kent, Londoners in need of the sea can find the charms of Leigh just half an hour from Barking on the C2C line.

Firestarter dimmed

Very sad to hear of the death of the Prodigy's Keith Flint at his home in Dunmow. Keith had a difficult upbringing in Braintree, but always retained strong links with Essex. He looked demonic but according to DJ Jo Wiley he was "an absolute sweetheart" in real life. And in happier times, Keith had a sense of humour. Love the story that at the pub he owned, the Leather Bottle in Pleshey, he had a jar into which customers had to put a pound every time they made a Firestarter joke when he lit the pub's fire. The twisted Firestarter will be missed.

Essex Girls fight back

Interesting article on whether the term Essex Girl is at all relevant to 2017 from BBC Essex's Jodie Halford. Like Essex Man, it's a stereotype that had some basis in truth when applied to Estuary Essex (just look at Towie), though there was always more to the county than the media image. Indeed there was a campaign to have the term removed from the dictionary last autumn.

Dr Terri Simpkin of Angia Ruskin University points out in the feature that there was certainly an element of snobbishness to the Essex Girl stereotype: "Essex became a corridor between dormitory towns and London, so we saw a rise in people having social mobility. Out of that came a level of snobbery and a disparaging view of people who had become more aspirational and affluent. But with women, there was gender discrimination as well, because so-called Essex girls weren't wilting wallflowers - they were more overt as sexual beings, they took control of their own sexuality." 

And perhaps Southend playwright Sadie Hasler has it right when she argues: "If you could take every negative stereotype about Essex girls, and turn them into positives, it would be amazing to see Essex girl come out and say love your body, make the most of what you've got, own it, don't take lip from anyone, say what you think, defend yourself and don't be a wallflower. The thing about Essex girl is she actually represents lots of positive messages for women - but they're currently dressed up in the most hideous way." Click on the link to read the whole feature.

Richard Madeley recalls leather-clad Philip Hammond in their Shenfield School days

Just seen a tweet with an interview with Richard Madeley on Newsnight (originally shown in Nov 2016) talking about his days at my old school of Shenfield, where he was in the same year as Chancellor Philip Hammond. Madeley recalls of Hammond: "He used to wear quite a long black leather coat and black leather boots and he had very long jet-black hair that hung down like crow's wings. He was tall, striking and super confident and that had an impact on the girls. He always finished his class work before everybody else. Then he'd put his big boots on the desk and start reading the Telegraph and swapping political dialogue with our history teacher who was a Guardian reader. This was a 15-year-old schoolboy!"

Hammond was a few years older than myself, so there are no distinctive memories, apart from him running a mobile disco with Graham Norton (not that one) and the fact his parents used to play bridge with my friend's parents. Shame he ditched the long leather coat and boots though, could have have livened up his Budget no end. Click on the link to view the full Newsnight profile of Hammond. While Newsnight again visited Shenfield on Budget night, talking to Hammond's old neighbours and even stopping for a chat with  the landlady of the Hutton pub.

Signs of the crimes in Blackmore

The Daily Telegraph reports an outbreak of strange vandalism in Blackmore. All references to Blackmore on the village's signs have been erased with grey paint, and even the stocks on the village green have been daubed with paint. Why would someone want to erase all traces of Blackmore? Is it something to do with the Mountnessing People's Front, the People's Front of Ingatestone or someone looking back in Ongar? Or someone with a grudge against former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore? Mulder and Scully are set to investigate soon…

Mersea oysters on Countryfile

Good to see Mersea Island featuring on last week's Countryfile. Plenty on the problems of keeping the native oysters going and some nice footage of Matt Baker going out looking for oysters with seventh-generation oyster fisherman Richard Haward and learning how efforts are being made to replenish the depleted native oysters; and also of Shauna Lowry on the banks of the River Colne with reintroduced water voles. Click on the link to view.

Is Essex Man still a Thatcherite?

My book The Joy of Essex gets a mention in this BBC article on whether Essex Man is changing his Thatcherite image. Certainly the image of Essex Man has become a bit cuddlier and more emotionally aware than in the 1990 Sunday Telegraph profile where he was described as "Maggie's mauler."

The BBC's Jodie Smith talks to Alex Otaka, a graduate in Billericay who works in insurance and is leaning towards Labour after voting Lib-Dem last time. Of Polish descent, he's more concerned about the closure of Billericay police station than immigration. Paul Whiteley, a professor of government at the University of Essex, also has some interesting points to make about the county's political image.

And all this on the same day that it emerges another stereotypical Essex Man, Joey Essex, is veering towards the Lib-Dems. He's just interviewed Nick Clegg, and after learning that it's not 'Nick Leg' or the 'Liberal Democats', he describes him as "quite an honest person" and manages to get a confession from Clegg that he's not going to win the election. Essex also advocates voting, unlike another Essex icon, Russell Brand. Question Time surely beckons for Joey…

Dagenham salad

A lot of things might be associated with Dagenham: Ford Motors, Sandie Shaw, Dudley Moore, Sir Alf Ramsey, Terry Venables, Jimmy Greaves, John Terry, the film Made in Dagenham and the song Dagenham Dave by the Stranglers. But salad? Yes, the Stoke Newington-based organic vegetable box scheme Growing Communities now has a farm on an ex-council nursery site in Dagenham, complete with a full-time grower, and is  offering the finest Dagenham Salad in its bags. This should put a rocket leaf under the notion that Essex's signature dish is chips. Could be the biggest boost for the county's cuisine since Jamie Oliver. Dagenham — it's the new centre for Essex foodies.

Phill Jupitus's family values

Nice piece on the Family Values of Leigh-on-Sea's Phill Jupitus in the Family section of Saturday's Guardian. Phill talks movingly about being brought up by his mum Dot in Stanford-le-Hope and on not knowing his late biological father. Plus some wise words on how he sees parenting being about being "a safety net". Jupitus is currently appearing in Mel Brooks' musical The Producers, touring in the UK. For more of his thoughts on Essex there's a whole chapter on him in my book The Joy of Essex, where we discuss the joys of Two Tree Island, the cafes of Southend's Arches, Canvey Island and the view from his home across the Thames Estuary.

Resurrection of the Essex Whovians

Sixty Whovians packed into Loughton Library for a great Essex Books Festival interview session with Mark Campbell, author of Doctor Who: The Complete Guide. Mark had some really interesting answers to my questions — we had comfy chairs and a microphone, so it almost felt like Parkinson — including his views that Jon Pertwee was brilliant and his Carnival of Monsters was filmed partly on the Essex marshes, Matt Smith has become a caricature of himself and The Day of the Doctor was great but The Name of the Doctor was a huge disappointment.

We also learned that Campbell projected images of Doctor Who on to his house in March 2005 when the new series returned after 16 years, and that his marriage somehow survived after his wife forgot to record the last episode of The Curse of Fenric. The audience was a mixed age group with both Peter Capaldi-age and teenage Whovians, and it was great to see so many interesting t-shirts (Time Traveller from Gallifrey, Daleks, Rose and even a renegade Star Trek one) and hear kids defending Colin Baker and Attack of the Cybermen. Lots of interesting questions in the Q&A session too (silence did not fall when the question was asked) and a nice anecdote from the man who said none of his schoolmates would go to the shops after Spearhead From Space was broadcast and those shop dummies came alive. And thanks to my wife Nicola and daughters Lola and Nell for attending. Despite being 'not-we' Nicola even discovered that she understood a lot of what people were talking about through a curious process of Whovian osmosis.

Good signing session afterwards where my book The Joy of Essex was also on sale, complete with Doctor Who references in the Colchester chapter. Doctor Who: The Complete Guide is a great tool for any Whovian, covering all 26 classic seasons and new Who Series 1-7. Having watched every episode of Doctor Who ever made, Mark is now starting again and is currently up to William Hartnell's The Rescue. Now there's a man who knows his timestream…

Doctorin' the Tardis in Loughton

Whovian dad and daughter at the Excel 50th bash

Looking forward to interviewing Mark Campbell author of Doctor Who: The Complete Guide at Loughton Library at 2.30 on Saturday, March 29. He's watched every Doctor Who episode ever made and is currently rewatching them again. He's not afraid to be controversial either. Accepted classics such as Blink, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Green Death, The Ark in Space and The Caves of Androzani get ten out of ten, but Genesis of the Daleks only gets eight out of ten, The Daemons only gets six, and The Evil of the Daleks gets four. Other low scores include David Tennant’s New Earth and Matt Smith’s Let’s Kill Hitler, which both get one out of ten. Clearly he's set out to debunk some myths. We'll also be discussing his childhood spent recording Jon Pertwee episodes on his cassette player and later life travelling round the country looking at power stations that were once used in Inferno and indeed some Who locations in Essex. Should be a great afternoon, click on the link for details.

Billi gets flipping with Andy

Lots of loved-up pictures on Billi Mucklow's Instagram site of the Towie star with West Ham's Andy Carroll. She's included a picture of the pair tossing pancakes, which at least proves that she and Andy knows the difference between Shrove Tuesday and Sheffield Wednesday. Do hope she goes easy on our Andy though and bearing in mind his injury record doesn't insist on him playing too active a role in the kitchen. Even WHU gaffer Big Sam managed to crock himself on a granite worktop last season and you do fear the damage a carelessly tossed hot pancake landing on Andy's foot might do…

The Essex Liberation Front lives!

Enjoyed listening to Ian Sansom's Essex, My Essex on Radio 4 on Friday. Loved the section on the Essex Liberation Front, a spoof revolutionary organisation formed by Richard Edwards, Phill Jupitus and myself ("three blokes in the pub" was my description to Sansom) back in 1990. Its aim was to restore culture back to Essex - all very prescient post-Towie. 

The documentary managed to dig out the BBC South East coverage of the ELF's press conference and broadcast an ancient recording of our classic demands from 24 years ago, including an economy based on Tiptree jam and a younger version of this Essex Man shouting "self-determination for Essex!" Though if Vladimir Putin is reading this, you don't need to worry about us too much, as we're still in the process of annexing the county.

Other highlights of the half-hour show included posh limerick-writer George Courtauld, the the Vice Lord Lieutenant of Essex, stopping to shoot a pheasant, as you do, Penny Rimbaud from Crass discussing his open-doored alternative haven at Dial House, the Protect and Survive broadcast in the Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, and Sansom's cousin exclaiming "geezer!' upon Sansom's return to the county from his Northern Irish home. A fine eclectic view of a much-misunderstood county. Click on the link to hear on iPlayer.

Flying Flapjacks in Canvey

Lee Brilleaux of Dr Feelgood once told me, "a bloke had his finger cut off with a penknife right in front of the stage when we played the Lord Nelson pub on Holloway Road." But one menace Canvey's  R&B legend never encountered was triangular flapjacks. A year seven pupil at Castle View School on Canvey Island was hit in the face by a triangular flapjack during a food fight, resulting in the school instructing the cooks not to bake triangular flapjacks and instead make square ones. If the original Feelgoods were playing Canvey today even the hardest men in R&B would surely have to scarper from this new menace of flying flapjacks.

Barking balladeer back on form

Country music suits Billy Bragg and his new album Tooth And Nail, recorded in America, is more personal in tone and has echoes of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska and Lucinda Williams's best work. Don't expect Life's A Riot revisited, but it's his best work since William Bloke. Nobody Knows Nothing is Bragg's finest song in years ("What happens when the markets fall?") beautifully capturing the confusion of the times, while Woody Guthrie's I Ain't Got No Home sounds just as relevant today. And I might be wrong, but the excellent There Will Be A Reckoning seems to make campaigning against the BNP on a Dagenham council estate sound like it's written in the Deep South of the USA. "I'm a writer not a decorator!" also gets my vote as a motto on Handyman Blues. And as for the songwriter's beard - love the comment on Amazon from a reviewer who suggests "now he looks like the local bus driver". But a very talented bus driver it has to be said.

Ray Winstone meets Essex Man

Talking of Simon Heffer and Essex Man it's interesting to see the essence of Essex Man alive and well in the shape of ultra-geezer Ray Winstone. When discussing West Ham on Talksport Radio, Essex resident Ray's comments on tax could have been mouthed by Heffer's 1990 creation.

"I can see myself leaving here quite soon. I love this country but I've had enough of it. I don't see what we're being given back. I just see the country being raped," declared Winstone. And of the taxman Ray said: "What does he give you back? I drive down the road and there's more holes in the road than what there is in a tennis racket, you know."

He also criticised the building of the Olympic Stadium ("They spent billions and billions and billions of pounds on a stadium and we can't build hospitals and we close down fire stations") and sympathised with Mo Farah, "The kid's worked all his life to get where he is, if he's getting paid that, that's all right, I haven't got any qualms with that. He's trained hard enough, and also don't forget he's got a sleeping partner anyway – it's called the taxman, the government. He's not a sleeping partner, he's in a coma because what does he give you back?"

At this rate he might be Conservative MP for Brentwood campaigning on the A13 Bump Road to the Sea. Though having driven in the Solomon Islands two years ago, I can assure Ray that Essex roads are comparatively smooth. And can't all those four-wheel drives cope with the odd bump?

Robin of Essex

At the risk of perpetuating negative Essex stereotypes, check out Robin of Essex on Channel 4's Comedy Blaps. Set in medieval Essex, Robin announces himself with "Just nicked a load of shit off some rich people!"Other lines include "So are you going up the archery contest later? So how's it going with Maid Marion then?" It's all the work of Mick Bunnage and Jon Link, formerly of Loaded and men who should know better.  Loved the lines, "Alright Maid Marion how you getting on with that tapestry then?" and "'Ave you heard about King John's new fevver?"

The only debate in Essex…

Some 200 people turned up at the Ursuline Convent School in Brentwood for the Essex Book Festival's debate on What Next for Essex? with the spiritual father of Essex Man, the Daily Mail's Simon Heffer (who actually intended his 1990 Essex Man profile as a compliment) and several other Essex luminaries including Vic Goddard from Educating Essex. Read the Brentwood Gazette's review here. Even if Towie is past its vajazzle-by date, I tend to agree with Gazette editor Neville Wilson that if Essex can laugh at itself it's no bad thing. It's a county of contrasts, Estuary Essex, Towie Essex, coastal Essex, Posh Essex, Anglian Essex... Should it all turn into a Balkans-style conflict then at least there's a precedent — Oliver Cromwell once had his headquarters in Saffron Walden. And we could just annexe Bishops Stortford anyway, as it's really part of Essex.

Elevator pitch coming up...

Great Speed Dating for Writers event at Colchester Library last night as part of the Essex Book Festival. A team of 20 or so writers, publishers and agents had four minutes each with the audience to talk about writing and how to get published. A huge array of diverse writing from the punters, from a published human rights novel by Liz Fisher-Frank, to Mike Davies's children's books, horror, literary fiction, Tolkein-esque fantasies, rebellious teenager series, travel memoirs, tales of life as a milliner and deep philosophy. More elevator pitches than at the Empire State Building.

What do you you say to publishing hopefuls? I'd say be determined, don't be put off by rejections, write about what you know, use social media and don't be scared of publicising your work yourself. Poet Martin Newell said read a lot, don't be scared of your voice and don't spend forever getting it finished, while Syd Moore author of Witch Hunt said that on her creative writing MA she was forever told it was a difficult market but she's been published and she says, rather modestly, that if she can then anyone can.

Above all it made me grateful to have actually got some books in print, because it's something lots of people dream of and to judge from this event, everyone in Colchester has a book in them... and also thanks to Belinda and Jules for keeping us all going with those supplies of white wine. Speed dating can be thirsty work…