Towie oil traders cash in

We had The Wolf of Wall Street, the Wolf of Shenfield and now it seems the Wolves of West Horndon. The Daily Mail contains a great story about nine 'Towie oil traders' operating as Vega Capital London out of an industrial park in West Horndon, who have made a claimed £487 million trading in futures, gambling on the price of oil going down during the pandemic. 

Even better three of the Essex high-rollers are nicknamed Cuddles, Ari and Dog, support West Ham and like to visit Marbella. The only downside to their nice little earner is a trading lawsuit from the US, though the so called 'oil oiks' insist they acted on a 'blaring market signal'. Essex Man is nothing if not entrepreneurial and really futures trading can't be that different to trading on Romford Market. Though you do wonder how they'll spend all that money in West Horndon — it's only got one pub and one restaurant. Expect a movie very soon.

Walking class heroes in West Horndon

Just spent an afternoon walking in a sun-drenched West Horndon. After lunch and a half of IPA at the Railway pub we went under the railway bridge and straight out into the countryside. Here there are more than enough wheat fields for Theresa May to run through and within a few hundred yards of the station you're in a world of isolated farms, old barns, combine harvesters and huge tractors – the first real fields beyond East London. We ended up on China Lane and turned left for Bulphan (pronouced 'Bull-ven' by locals) where there's a very distinctive old wooden and flint church. That stretch of flat agriculture land stretching from West Horndon to Orsett and the Thames is another of Essex's underrated charms.