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May Fair 2011 - how was it for you? The music, the conversations and the friendships made it fantastic for me. The police sirens late in the day did put a bit of a downer on the experience. A brief trawl through twitter - that ever reliable and factual source of information - shows that *most* folk at May Fair 2011 came away with sunburns and smiles.

Everyone will have their own unique May Fair stories and experiences. You can’t capture the essence of May Fair in a throwaway blog post - you probably wouldn’t want to either.

May Fair for me was very special. My experiences of the afternoon are unique to me, and this blog post is primarily for my purposes, to capture, document and remember what was something of a rather special afternoon.

Along with @AnnaJCowen and the pneumatic recovering house guest, I came close to being up the wotsit creek without a paddle. We were keen to show the pneumatic recovering house guest the delights of the Rowhedge Ferry. Time and tide wait for no May Fair man. Swimming to the KGV almost became a possibility.

Midday tea in the Rowhedge Heritage Hut was when we first heard the chords strike up across the Colne. Time to board the Ferry back to base, time to join the queue of twenty, thirty, forty ferry passengers, all with the same idea.

Whoops.

The good skipper had the foresight to make short shuttle runs across to Ferry Marsh. But with the water fast disappearing, the roundabout route back to the Quay was required.

We did the mental maths and worked out that we may just make the final sail before the ferry became stranded. The boat had become something of a booze cruise, with Rowhedge folk crossing the Colne with boxes of beer.

Anything to declare, Sir? We really should tax that other lot once they land in Wivenhoe.

Back on dry land and we snaked our way around the station, over the foot bridge and towards the KGV and beyond. By 1pm and it was clear that May Fair 2011 was simply MASSIVE.

We missed local lad Lou Terry up on the Sunrise Stage, such was the effort involved to walk from one end of the KGV to the other. An age demographic was clearly in place - fresh-faced yoof were down towards the rear of the field, with the more mature crowd camping out at the top. I have no shame in stating that I was two thirds up, with a preference to continue the ageing process.

Conversations followed - an ever present smiling Mr Mayor and the Lady Mayor, as well as two separate catch ups with middle aged men whom I usually associate with my semi-naked experiences every morning in a steam room out towards the Hythe.

Hot pants appeared to be the May Fair fashion accessory for this spring. I don’t think I’ve got the legs to carry it off, but then again I would also struggle with the balding Goth look, another fashion favourite for 2011.

Transition Town Wivenhoe, Wivenhoe in Bloom, Moving Image - all the great and good of local groups were out in force. The pneumatic recovering house guest came close to a cure in the Healing Field. I pitched in with a rather random and unexpected offer for work with a local organisation.

I’m not sure what happened to the Main Stage running order, but we took up a strategic position towards the right, just in time to catch the ace @AdyJohnsonUK. A shortened set from Colchester’s finest, but one that seemed perfect for the occasion.

Pink Flamingo peaked as MY May Fair moment. Only a couple of months earlier I had been privileged to catch Ady singing a short secret set @15QueenStreet. Seeing the songs from the Worry Doll album being transferred to the Wivenhoe May Fair, and still working with all the intimacy from earlier, had to be a highlight.

The pneumatic recovering house guest had to head back to the big city, and so our May Fair was cut short around 5pm. We walked back down towards the train station, seeing Wivenhoe Wood become a temporary toilet for the afternoon. Not great but hey - at least the greenery got a well needed watering.

The first police sirens started soon after, and then whilst back at base catching the close of play at the cricket, the helicopter action started. I didn’t personally witness anything, and so I’m not going to let it get in the way of MY May Fair 2011.

However if I were in the HEADLINE act, CAV OK, I’d be pretty peeved to be told at the last minute that the set has been cancelled.

Seeing this rather fine chap below wave us a Wivenhoe farewell is the memory that I would like to leave with.

*Heads up Mr Mule

Full flickr set over here.

Sunday evening in Wivenhoe: a bonkers film exploring Cardiff and Patagonia connections through the international language of screaming, chips “blessed by God” down by the Quay and then five lads from Wivenhoe who shook, um, the Station Hotel with some rock ‘n roll music.

Any old way you choose - it’s not exactly your typical Essex Bank Holiday experience.

Blimey.

To the Philip Road Centre first for a screening of Separado! as part of the Moving Image May Fair weekender schedule of films. The black out curtains just about survived the late afternoon sunshine streaming in from the High Street. Sadly my tired and emotional state from the night before didn’t as I battled with a back and forth head rocking motion and sleep deprivation.

Missing the odd stolen seconds here and there didn’t exactly aid me with the mad as a wet hen story about searching for your musical roots in deepest Patagonia. The plot centres on Gruf Rhyss of the Super Furries going in search of his long lost exiled wing of his Welsh family over in Argentina.

A “horse race that went wrong” in the 18th Century was the reason behind the exodus. The outcome is that there will always be a corner of South Wales somewhere in South America with a penchant for crazed pagan psychedelic music. Passing this message on in an old school hall in Wivenhoe on a Sunday evening somehow just about made artistic sense.

Music may be the food of love, but with an evening of booze to follow, it was that time of the evening when a young man in Wivenhoe goes in search of chips. With the pneumatic recovering houseguest for the weekend looking a little pale around the gills after an afternoon stretch out towards Alresford, we punched the air in celebration when strolling along East Street and found that Papa’s was still frying.

The conversation within is always lively and worthy of your loose change alone for the entertainment value. Never mix religion and politics, but mixing secular beliefs with a big fat saveloy seemed right of a Sunday evening.

Refueled and ready to rock, The Station Hotel was next on the set list. Dan, Daryl, Martin, Phil and Roddy were performing for one night only (actually there may be more to come…) The Beatles back catalogue with a Wivenhoe twist.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling it WivRock, but the punk take on the traditional standards seemed to fit the spirit of the occasion. Unofficially a May Fair warm up, The Station became Shea Stadium (seriously) with She Loves You through to Hey Jude being carried along on a wave of pre-May Fair anticipation and five pints of Carlsberg.

With the town about to change beyond all recognition for Bank Holiday Monday, this was a Wivenhoe moment, with many familiar faces welcoming the May Fair madness that is about to come.

The recovering pneumatic houseguest is as confused as he is enthused.

“Is this what you do every Sunday evening around these North Essex parts?”

Oh no - Antiques Roadshow, Evensong and half shandy in The Greyhound is my usual Sunday evening exuberance. That’s enough to make anyone look a little pale around the gills.

God knows what he’s gonna make of May Fair…

They can’t quite claim to help cure phenomena that the current house guest is recovering from, but the Poppy Fields of Wivenhoe certainly had some healing benefits during a mid-morning walk out towards the Alresford on Sunday.

This was something of a The Way We See It (it’s a London thing, not to mention a hacked site…) photography reunion. It made perfect sense then to fire up the SLR’s and take part once again in some good-natured photographic rivalry.

The house guest of course came out with the more interesting images. He always does. You can take the urban city photographer out of the urban city environment, but you can’t take… etc.

@AnnaJCowen meanwhile was keen to harvest some of the poppy seeds for personal use. Nothing to do with any narcotics nonsense, but the green and pleasant land that we call a back garden / canoe landing space needs sprucing up with some colour.

Perfect timing then to meet in passing The Squire, the multi-talented pantomime / planting Overlord. Tips were swapped, seeds were sown. See what I have done there?

I don’t think that the Poppy Fields of Wivenhoe have officially been adopted by the developer’s down by Cook’s. It is one of the few remaining patches of land that has yet to be colonised by the development.

The corporate flag was flying at full mast as the estuary wind rattled its way up towards the top of the town. The house guest and I picked up some poppy speeds and let nature take its course.

Gone to seed, gone to The Station.

Chin chin.

This piece was first published in the brilliant Colchester 101 magazine. Copies are available for free around pubs, shops and other public places in the town.

Did you get the chance to vote in the recent Colchester Borough Council local elections? Was your ward one of the twenty seats that were rotated in the rather bizarre Election by Thirds system that is operated in Colchester? Notice any change overnight?

Welcome to the new boss - same as the old boss.

No seats changed hands. A big civic congratulations to the seventeen Councillors who retained their seats, plus the three incoming Councillors replace their retiring colleagues from the same party. Colchester Borough Council is still made up of a ruling coalition of 26 LibDems and 7 Labour seats, with 24 Conservatives and 3 Independents in opposition.

So what the chuffers was that all about, then?

Accountability, keeping Councillors on their toes, and working for every single vote are the arguments in favour of asking the residents of Colchester to vote three years out of four in a ward rotation system. The electorate also has the chance to kick out any party that isn’t performing, rather than wait once every four years in the traditional all up for grabs system.

It can also lead to instability if the Council changes hands each year and there is insufficient time to implement the manifesto. Which may just happen to be very convenient for a local political party…

But here in Colchester and there is a tradition of consensual local politics. Some tribalism exists come election time, but when it comes to making Colchester a better place to live and work, most local politicians present a rather united front.

The coalition may be a little rocky at Westminster, but the current Colchester coalition between the LibDems and Labour seems to have found a positive, working compromise. Decisions are made in an almost apolitical vacuum with the good of Colchester genuinely being the driving force for local political policy.

Which all makes the farce and cost of mounting a campaign three years out of every four something slightly unnecessary. There is almost the danger of manufacturing division within what is a relatively unified borough. With major events such as the city status bid, the Carnival and the Colchester Free Festival all coming up, consensus politics is vitally important for our town right now.

Add in the uncertainty of economic funding from central government - something that all borough councils of all persuasions around the county are having to confront - and you can see how doing the dirty on your Colchester coalition partner on the door step can’t be a positive approach for the challenges that lay ahead for us.

And so if you did get the chance to vote in the recent Colchester Borough Council local elections, then here’s hoping that you actually took the opportunity to participate. Political apathy is even less preferable to Election by Thirds.

If you weren’t in one of the twenty wards that had the opportunity of a trip to the polling station, then no worries - your time will come round, sooner rather than later. But for a unified borough, I can’t but help think that we need a unified system of an election system.

For a town that has many dark tales to tell all about black magic, here’s something slightly more uplifting heading our way over the May Fair weekend: Urban Magic by Lee Moss is heading our way, to liven up the streets of the town with some magical performance throughout the Bank Holiday.

Alfie, the finest barber in Wivenhoe, is bringing Lee down to Wivenhoe over the May Fair weekend to try out some of his urban magic skills with the locals. Black Buoy Hill isn’t exactly the urban environment of Brixton, but it will be interesting to see the reaction that Lee is able to achieve.

Lee describes his art as:

“A unique and contemporary twist to magic, leaving even the most sceptical of people picking their jaws up from the floor.”

Which is more or less the scene that you can see at closing time at The Station on any given weekend night.

The last time I was involved in a local card school it involved half a bottle of whiskey, sexual politics and a sore head (and the rest) the following morning.

Ace, etc.

…for just one May Day Bank Holiday. Anyone seen Mr B around the town yet?

And while we’re at it: John, Paul, George, Ringo and, um, Martin, LIVE at The Station Hotel, Sunday, 8pm.

Phew, rock’n roll, kids.

To @15QueenStreet in Sunny Colch on Thursday evening for the Creative in Colchester meet up for May. I dislike deserting Wivenhoe once a month, especially so with Thursday night being something of a social high spot around these parts.

Apologies once again to poetrywivenhoe and the Funny Farm. Future dates are in my diary and if I ever feel the need to substitute my Sunny Colch socials with either Wivenhoe prose or punch lines, then I promise to make an appearance.

My social membership @15QueenStreet has become a working one of late. A bit of business upstairs first with the fine company of Bruce Burgoyne, and then it was back down to the serious business of booze.

As I’ve blogged before, I think that the perfect pace is now in place for these monthly gatherings for any folk with an interest in creativity. The wall-to-wall chundering [that we don't really talk about...] is now subdued into a social sandwich.

The filling either side of the alcohol intoxication this month was a couple of talks from local artists. @AndyWinmill explained more about his theatrical and production business, whilst Jamie Moakes came clean with a Colchester confessional.

Cripes.

Mr Winmill is the man behind much of the madness that you might be experiencing at the KGV this weekend when the May Fair brings peace, love and misunderstanding to Wivenhoe. Trained as a theatrical actor, Andy has progressed to producing both theatre and live music.

He spoke with passion about a new project he is currently putting in place involving setting up a Colchester based theatrical company. Much like the vision that @WillRevWright enthused about last month, the idea is for the whole company to have Colchester connections.

Mr Moakes meanwhile left the entire room, himself included, scratching their heads and giving back a cheeky wink in recognition of the mischief that the naughty, naughty young man is currently creating.

I’ve come across Jamie before on m’blog as part of the Ram Man project. He also runs his own Talent Agency, @HESAIDTalent, successfully sourcing bookings for various live art performances and contributors.

The talent roster is extensive as it is fictional. I’ve been given the nod and wink to blog about this: HE SAID Talent has no talent, apart from Mr Moakes himself. He has been fooling producers for a number of years, which to be fair, is probably the right thing that one should do.

What followed @15QueenStreet was something of an existential conversation where Jamie tried to explain himself, with the audience asking more questions that probed the inner working of the Puck like mind of the performance artist.

“He’s a North Essex Tony Clifton,” as @AnnaJCowen commented to me as I tried to understand the merry dance that Mr Moakes has been guiding us through of late. As ever the girl has good judgement, and Colchester is all the better for having the tease that is HE SAID Talent.

Apparently Bowie is on the books and is booked in for blah blah blah…

Definitely booked in to play the *ahem* main arena of @15QueenStreet, and making a spectacular sound that shook the windows was the three-piece Agitpunk-skiffle flamenco rock of Animal Noise.

The Colchester based band reminded us throughout their short set that they were playing a mellowed down acoustic performance to fit the laid back occasion. I’d hate to see these boys when they are angry then.

Finger picking flamenco, a tight bass and a backbeat that made me want to take up playing the drums - Animal Noise are playing live this weekend at the Love Stock festival being staged at the Minories gallery.

The comedown came from @cantcutcarwyn, Colchester’s finest mixer of all things soulful and sweet. A little samba was thrown into the set for the evening.

The excitement was all too much for a young Colchester groupie lady, who wandered past @15QueenStreet and was inspired to show us her sweater meat as the samba beats carried through the Colchester night. I made a mental note to start my own vinyl samba collection the very next morning.

Speaking of shameful acts, I had the front to finish off the very last bottle of booze for the evening, before boarding the 11:07 back to Wivenhoe.

I’ve got a month to recover, before the first birthday party of @15QueenStreet is staged next month. It may seem strange to celebrate the birthday of a building, but it is much more about how the physical shared working space has enabled many to connect creatively within Colchester.

The message continues to spread - it was great to see the good @zemblamatic coming along this month. More members, both resident and flexi are always encouraged.

My creative vision is to bring both poetrywivenhoe and the FunnyFarm over to @15QueenStreet for one Thursday evening only. My suspicion is that @HESAIDTalent is probably behind two of Wivenhoe’s leading artistic events. He was probably behind the angel cake dance by the samba groupie as well.

*I* said talent, etc…