To Great Bentley! …on Saturday afternoon in search of the Beast of Great Bentley. @AnnaJCowen and I didn’t find Mr Mule’s mythical monster, but instead a traditional village fete being staged on the largest village green in the country.

Cripes.

Or even Grrr, as the Beast of Great Bentley might roar.

My village fete curiosity was aroused earlier in the morning, having cycled through Great Bentley as part of the VC_Revolution Saturday morning club run. Marquees were being erected, large courgettes were fondled and the show ground for the Great Bentley Dog Show was being laid out.

Splendid – erections, fondlings and getting laid was exactly how I was going to sell the show to @AnnaJCowen. And get this – it’s all happening in sleepy Great Bentley!

Blimey.

To call it a village fete isn’t actually very flattering. This was a most magnificent coming together of all that is good in Great Bentley and surrounds. The country’s largest village green may have become the country’s largest car park for the afternoon, but there was still space for Great Bentley FC to have a run out as part of #nonleagueday.

We wandered straight into the traditional Scottish country dancing, being staged on the North Essex peninsula. I’m not saying that it is an inclusive lifestyle, but the opportunities for Essex expansion must be limited.

The gents of and ladies in full costume were wonderful. I rather like the good mannered bowing and curtseying at the end of each jig. I’m sure there’s a fertility rites message mixed up in there as well.

A walk around the village green then followed. A slight mishap with the map reading skills, but I came close to walking away as a fully signed up member of the Young Conservatives.

Cripes, Comrades.

It almost all kicked off with the canines in the dog show arena. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but @AnnaJCowen was in contention for the Best Opposite Sex category.

Easy, Bonzo.

The one-pound admission to the judging tent for the fruit, veg and artwork entries was the best investment of the day. Actually, it was the only investment of the day.

The geometric precision spherical tomatoes were a fine specimen. The prize courgette put my efforts back at base to shame. Having the heaviest truss of tomatoes is perhaps our best option for next year.

A brief read of the village fete programme as the belly dancers appeared (blimey!) and it seems that for £10 you can hold the esteemed title of a Vice President of the Great Bentley Show.

I started to fill out the application form, listing the Beast of Great Bentley as my nom de plume. If I’m having a fancy VP title, then I need a fancy pseudonym to match.

We never did get to find Mr Mule’s beast (fnar) – @AnnaJCowen came over all sensible and suggested that the largest village green in the country is more deserving of a VP with bog standard boring name.

Grrr, etc, etc.

Full flickr feed over here.

[kind facebook readers - you may want to head over here for the full embedded multi-media twaddle of an extravaganza...]

I have heard so many tales told about Jaywick during my relatively short spell out here on the estuary wilds. I’ve heard the contradictions between art deco splendour and the dereliction and poverty of the place. I’ve heard about the pride that the locals have for the area and the ridicule that other North Essex folk inflict upon the village. I’ve heard about the unique charm of the Jaywick Martello Tower.

Time to explore for myself I thought, and so after a few false starts, Friday afternoon presented me with the perfect opportunity to become a back seat driver as the good @LeePugh10 put the pedal down and lived the dream with a road trip to Jaywick.

Some things hurt more than cars and girls, baby. Jaywick is sadly one of them.

I fell in love with area as soon as we started the descent down towards the sea. The randomness of Jaywick is unique and inspiring. A lone beach shop was optimistically pushing dinghies and beach balls during a blustery late May afternoon. The Brooklands estate carved out a community that you are unlikely to find in Clacton or Colchester, with the ad hoc architecture creating a mini-town of extensions and planning by mistake. The jellied eels stall was closed.

This is a place where I want to live, I boastfully declared to @AnnaJCowen. My driving companion almost came a cropper as he composed himself as we navigated the rubble track down towards the Jaywick Martello Tower.

Ah yes – about that North Essex Napoleonic military structure that is now home to a thriving community of artists as well as being a focal education point within the area…

Built in 1809 as part of the twenty-one coastline protection fortresses from Monsieur Bonaparte, Jaywick has somehow survived military service, two World Wars, dereliction, decline and now rejuvenation – all without a single cannon fire being blasted in out in North Essex anger..

It now not only survives, but actually triumphs as the focal point for the local community. Established artists such as Nathan Coley have exhibited nearby; local artisans and local schools use the space in-between.

The ground floor offers a traditional style museum exhibit with the first floor put aside to a more contemporary gallery space. Poking your head above the parapet and the outdoor upper level provides the perfect vantage point to survey your North Essex kingdom and beyond.

With Clacton to the left, Brightlingsea to the right, and even a clear view stretching ahead to the Kent coast, you can see why Napoleon was fearful of the North Essex locals back in the day.

I was introduced to the very fine company of Kerith Ririe, the Tower Manager at Jaywick. The sense of history and opportunity for future optimism needed some perspective. Kerith very kindly agreed to record an audio conversation, providing the perfect feel between the past and present that the Jaywick Martello Tower has to offer.

The scene as we looked out from the viewing tower continually changed throughout our short conversation. What a most fascinating place to work, observing the ever changing climate and being the key holder to a unique part of North Essex coastal history.

I spent half an hour then trying to capture the ambience of the Tower on camera. This was very much a living building, with local mums and kids coming and going as the afternoon unfolded.

The future for the Jaywick Martello Tower seems secure. If it can survive the threat of an invading French army, and then some two hundred years later have an online twitter presence, then I like to think that the rather random and odd looking little gem on the North Essex coast can be with us for another couple of centuries to come.

With the good @LeePugh10 putting his foot down once again for Exit Jaywick, my back seat driving skills centred once again on the craziness and character of the forgotten coastal resort.

All road trips eventually end in Heartbreak. To Clactonia! was the shout, as I turned my head and looked back towards the Tower.

Never look back, Jase. Never look back.

The romantic within wants to return to Jaywick and become involved in the charm of this place. The Jaywick Martello Tower and I have some future history to record.

Full flickr feed over here.

Plus: here’s the audio only, just in case the bandwidth hungry audio slideshow at the top of the post decides to topple my server over once again.

Plus plus: a selection of images, including some very kindly supplied by Kerith showing the Tower under construction before opening as a local arts and cultural site.

Who are the people behind the blog?

My blog is essentially my own personal online home, where I can create and dump any digital content that comes my way.

My day job involves managing online communities, as well as producing online content for local schools. Sitting somewhere in-between is my blog, hopefully as a platform for local co-operation and engagement.

When did you set up the blog and how did you go about it?

I started blogging in 2003 using Blogger. It was the online equivalent of the old punk rallying call of here’s a chord, here’s another one – now go and start a band. Starting a blog was as simple as setting up an account with Blogger.

I’ve since moved platforms to a WordPress self-hosted site, which offers more flexibility and control over the design. But ultimately it really is still all about the content.

I’ve changed direction, if not focus, in the eight years that I have been blogging. This shift more or less reflects my own offline lifestyle changes from sport, to local community issues, and then my current lifestyle change having moved out of South London to the North Essex estuary wilds. Essentially I blog about what I see around me.

In Lambeth I witnessed an incredibly poor level of local accountability when it came to local council matters. The press gallery for Full Council meetings was often empty, with local journos guilty of being caught asleep on the job.

Through blogging and tweeting about some of the political twaddle that was taking place, I was able to engage the local community in how petty local politics can often appear from the outside.

It is great to now see many similar local blogs carrying on this level of political accountability, as well as the traditional media taking to tweeting from within the Town Hall.

What other blogs, bloggers or websites influenced you?

The mighty Urban 75 has always been an inspiration in terms of community passion, and what is possible to achieve collectively online.

The South East 853 blog often overlaps with similar local authority themes that I addressed in Lambeth.

Lurking About SE11 was an online neighbourhood friend, although we only ever met once by accident, despite constant accusations that we were in league together.

memespring is doing some very interesting work with data journalism in South London.

Since my move out towards North Essex, Keep Colchester Cool and the online/offline creative hub at 15 Queen Street have both offered much support and many opportunities for collaboration.

There is a tangible sense that Colchester is going through a period of positive creative growth. It is no coincidence that this move coincides with the emergence of the Cultural Quarter in the town.

By continuing to blog about hyperlocal matters in my new home of Wivenhoe, I have been able to connect with others members in the community and share ideas as to what direction our estuary town is hopefully taking.

How do you see yourself in relation to a traditional news operation?

The distinction is often one that is made by the traditional news media, and not by bloggers who are simply going about their business. We are all observers and reporters of events that happen around us. Traditional media may make money out of this process, but that is the only difference.

I personally operate best in a news patch that I know inside out. Size is all-important here – I have little interest in what is happening in a one mile radius outside of where I live and work: that is for others to look into.

Traditional media spreads itself thin by the very nature of being tied down to a financial model of covering a greater footprint.

Having moved into a new town, I am slowly, slowly finding my feet, and finding out more about the social history. Being active online in the area is a great opportunity to go about learning more about the sense of history in the place I now call home.

What have been the key moments in the blog’s development editorially?

Covering local sport was a large part of my old blog. I then began to ask more questions about how local decisions were made, and why this supposedly democratic process was often leading towards a shambles of democracy in the local town hall.

Attending my first Full Council meeting was something of a key moment, and one that was almost on par with this despair of watching sub-standard non-league football.

This has led to breaking new stories such as the Lambeth Councillor who attended only 50% of meetings yet still claimed his full allowance ; the local journo who received a police caution for the common assault of a cabinet member and the allegation that the Leader of Lambeth Council ordered an apolitical officer to hack into the email account of a fellow Councillor.

Sadly the downside to this local level of journalism is that you don’t exactly make yourself popular with the local politicians that you are holding to account. I felt some sense of justice when a Lambeth Councillor who left a completely random comment with racist connotations on my blog, was then ordered by the Council to participate in social media training.

Moving forward and I have recently set up a hyperlocal forum for the community where I now live. The Wivenhoe Forum is growing organically, and it has been great to see how locals are joining the online community and starting conversations about how we can make out town an even greater place to live and work.

What sort of traffic do you get and how has that changed over time?

To my great surprise my traffic levels have doubled since my blog took a more rural direction along with my house move.

I prefer the more qualitative approach to measurement than quantitative. Many new opportunities come my way via my blog. I am able to make offline connections in the local community, something that a daily data report of unique users is unable to compare with.

Meowww.

The struggle to engage with people in a meaningful and shared co-existence.

Crappy local media.

The tawdriness of the West End, the supposed showpiece of London.

Not knowing anything about North London.

The disguising of the traditional class structure, with crude wealth replacing the means of production.

Cycling along Park Lane.

Bulls******s.

The lack of respect for our shared surroundings. Fly tipping, spitting and urinating outside my house.

The price of general amenities around town, and the blatant belief that just because you are in central London, charging £2 plus for a cup of tea is somehow justifiable.

The restrictions of the river. The Thames IS London, and should be opened up for us all to enjoy and explore. Being unable to walk from East to West in your city, unrestricted, should be a right.

Self-styled creative types, with no evidence of creativity, but a passion for talking about themselves.

Falling asleep on the tube and waking up in the hellhole that is Morden.

The SW8 street drinkers, nutters and con artists.

The defining of the individual by their work status, and not by what skills they can add to the community.

The lack of integration of the transport network.

Fat, cockney plumbers.

The crap that builds up along London roads whenever it rains, ruining the inner workings of my bicycles.

People that SHOUT for no reason.

People that confuse car horns for front door bells.

Being stuck in traffic on a crowded bus, on a steamy hot afternoon.

The ugliness of the outer architecture.

The pockets of extreme poverty, with gated affluent dwellings within walking distance.

The realisation that politicians will never resolve the problem of the four towering chimney’s of Battersea.

The Ali G language, adopted by suburban Yoof.

Not knowing who I live next door to.

Incompetent local politicians, more concerned with their career than the genuine needs of the local community.

The Northern Line.

The 37 bus route.

Being told in Lambeth Life each fortnight how brilliant our local council is, by… our self-proclaimed brilliant local council.

Chicken wing shops and nail bars on every South London street corner.

Watching rubbish football teams.

Bike thief scum. Especially the little s**** that then sell on their loot around Brick Lane on a Sunday morning.

Trying to live the Love Me I’m a Liberal metropolitan lifestyle, but finding that my morals are being shifted further to the right by the behaviour of the very people around me I should be taking pity on.

The price of milk in my corner shop.

Local ice hockey and basketball being spoilt for me by petty, political in-fighting.

Junkyard neighbours.

Negativity from those around me.

The madness of SW8 meaning not being able to sleep with the windows open during the summer months.

The perpetual disgusting nature of the changing rooms at Brixton Rec.

The lottery of having to hire an electrician, plumber, or gas man, and not knowing about the quality of service when compared to the cost.

NOISE.

The magical open spaces of Brockwell Park and Clap’ham Common.

Procrastinating the entire summer away at The Oval.

Early Saturday morning starts, rolling out with the Dulwich Paragon.

Monthly conversations with Keef, the finest window cleaner in South London.

The bicycling community at Herne Hill velodrome.

The beauty of the inner architecture.

Bob’s Bikes, SE17 – the best bike mechanic in London.

The majestic splendour of Lord’s.

Climbing College Road on my way up towards Crystal Palace, or climbing Chalk Farm Road on my way up towards Hampstead Heath – a London bicyclist’s rites of passage.

The Secret Garden at Brockwell Park – *shhh*

Being able to find people, just like you, in such a large city.

Tuttle.

The smell of lavenders around SW8, radiating from Vauxhall Park.

99p shops.

Being able to find whatever you want from around the world, all within a three-mile radius.

Crossing the Thames, South to North, or North to South – always a pleasure.

Afternoon tea at Chumleigh Gardens.

Drunken Brixton nights out at High Does It Feel.

The intimacy and warmth of Shakespeare’s Globe.

The secret tunnels, rivers and societies.

The finest French stick and olive bread in South London, all baked right on my SW8 doorstep at Di Lietos, South Island Place.

Riding the escalator at Angel tube.

Bonkers Brixton Windmill.

Performing my own personal time trial, cycling down The Mall.

The challenge of the weekly WWSI photo shoot [R.I.P]

Curry Club at the Crown & Sceptre, Streatham South Circular.

My man Goran, the SW8 handyman whose business card informs me that he has ‘a licence to drill.’ Better believe it.

Buying up half the hardware on sale along Tottenham Court Road.

The patient manner of Rabia, my lovely dentist for the past fifteen years: “I know you’re not a very good patient, and so I’m going to knock you out and put you right under for the rest of the afternoon.”

The veggie buffet currie at Chapel Street Market, Islington, and confusing Eat As Much As You Like with Eat As Much As You Can.

Humming Waterloo Sunset in my head, each time I cycle between the Imax and Aldwych.

The view from the top tier of the member’s Pavilion at The Oval. The panoramic of the city stretches from Battersea across to St Paul’s.

The bonkers bicycling jumble sales held at Herne Hill Velodrome.

The Greenwich foor tunnel.

The view of the four towering chimney’s of Battersea.

Vauxhall City Farm.

The run of charity shops in Clap’ham from KFC down to Blockbusters.

Living in Little Porto, and partying with the crazy locals every two years when their team does rather well at a major football competition.

South London sun tans.

Sitting at the front and driving the DLR.

Living within walking distance of Brixton Academy, and feeling smug at having out-touted a tout, buying up a ticket for a fiver once the band are on stage.

The smell of the Thames.

I arrived in Brixton back in the summer of 1995, full of hope, high on optimism and with a huge appetite for ambition. None of these have been played out to their full potential, but I feel that I am leaving London as an all round better person.

I’ve been enlightened, enriched and inspired by London. But it comes at a high price, both financially and physically. London demands everything of you. There’s no hiding away if you want to experience the benefits that this city has to offer – you’re either in or you’re out.

I want out.

After fifteen years of running around town, it’s time to come up for some air. We both need a break, and one that allows us to put our feet up, laze around in the garden with a bottle of bolly and just generally live a slower pace of life.

Plus if truth be told, the tipping point came last summer when South London Yoof decided to camp out on my newly varnished front garden fence. It wasn’t particularly anti-social behaviour, but then neither was my response of blasting out some Billy Bragg from my front bedroom to shift South London Yoof along.

I just want a bit of peace, space and respect, bruv. I can’t find that in Sunny Stockwell any more. I live in fear of becoming what I despise – a right wing bigot, albeit with some sense of justification, given the actions of those around me in my current surroundings.

We have lived in the city for fifteen years because we wanted to. We wanted the convenience of being close to the cultural capital of the world; we wanted the opportunities that living in such a densely populated environment presented, and most of all, we wanted to be part of something that was much greater than we as individuals could ever be. London allowed us to live this lifestyle.

But that period in our lives is now in the past. We’re both ready for the next phase, searching for more solitude and a less frantic lifestyle – and yeah, one which probably involves keeping a well stocked wine cellar and not feeling guilty about procrastinating and enjoying life for itself, rather than with a specific reason to achieve or obtain career fulfillment.

I’m failing to find the love that I once had for this great city. Weekends of hunting down specific events or meetings are long gone. The enthusiasm for anything outside of my micro #hyperlocal patch of South London is non-existent. I’m even struggling to see anything of interest for me around here locally. A man who is bored of London is bored of life. I need to therefore try and find a new life out in the wilds.

I’m giving up pretty much everything that has been my social existence for a third of my life: the korfball club, watching cricket, the cycling community at Herne Hill and of course the lovely lido (although if truth be told, it’s not been a great season down in SE24.)

I feel that I’ve run my course with each activity. With no physical or geographical work restrictions keeping me in place, it’s time to move on. I am a nomad of technology: have broadband (just) will travel.

And so where to next? Well, we’re going back to the future to find a familiar lifestyle of old. Almost twenty years ago to the day, @AnnaJCowen and I first met as undergraduates at the University of Essex in Colchester. We’re now heading back to North Essex / Suffolk border, just up the road from the campus to the quayside town of Wivenhoe.

When we lived in North Essex, we couldn’t wait to leave for London. Weekends were spent going back and forth to Liverpool Street. It now seems that we have come full circle, and we can’t get wait to get back to the Wivenhoe rural way of life.

The city has served me well, but I can no longer keep up. I need an environment that hopefully will begin a new period of discovery. Yep – I’m becoming a hippy.

There’s a cycling club, estuary swimming, county cricket in nearby Castle Park, a sailing club and a jazz club. I think I’ll be busy, in a more laid back, middle-aged sort of way. Plus Wivenhoe is Constable country. I don’t think I’m going to take up landscape painting, but think of all those wonderful wildlife photographic opportunities.

That purveyor of objectivity and truth, um, the urban dictionary, rather helpfully adds:

“[Wivenhoe ] Small town in North East Essex. The town is home to an abnormally high percentage of musicians, artists, actors, and assorted TV and media people. The University of Essex at the top of the town is famous as a Communist stronghold in the 1960′s – the town also was home to The Angry Brigade at that time.

The Wivenhoe Folk Club is recognised as one of the best in the country, and regularly attracts big name acts. Other Essex villages consider Wivenhoe to be full of drunks, layabouts, hippies, arty-farty types, Pot-Heads, gays, and prozac-dependants. Small wonder then, that it was recently rated as the second most popular place to live in the whole of the UK.”

Blimey.

We’ve bought an old Victorian cottage with views out across the North Essex estuary. We’re keeping our properties down here in South London, still doing the landlord and tenant nonsense. Needs must. Plus you never know when you might miss the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell and long for a return.

Or maybe not.

As for m’blog? Well, it never really was about South London per se – more about my life in South London. The Wivenhoe lifestyle will undoubtedly present many new opportunities, and I’ll probably end up blogging all about these.

The countdown to the North Essex coastal adventure started in earnest some eighteen months ago when the plan was first hatched. We’re now approaching the Sunny Stockwell end game, with all the final arrangements being put in place.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has helped to make our London life so special. The memories will remain (um, online…) as we reach out to create new ones.

London loves, the misery of a speeding heart.

Time for the Great Escape.

Lordy.

A quick rally around of the troops, and we soon had two London bloggers and a bit, all bound for EC2; the fine @Darryl1974 and, um, @AnnaJCowen both accompanied me to my favourite London museum.

What I absolutely adore about the MOL is that is *the* museum for Londoners. It has no pretensions to take arid artefacts and present them as some great moment of social history. It simply tells the story of London, as experienced by everyday Londoners.

Back in the day job and I usually visit the MOL a couple of times a year. There’s a huge gulf however in safely guiding the kids over to the Great Fire exhibit, and then having a whole Monday morning to yourself to see what else is on offer.

The recent refurbishment has somewhat passed me by. I didn’t see what was wrong with the old exhibits, and to be honest, after my Monday morning trip, I didn’t actually see anything new of great significance.

The massive sprawling map that greets you by the main entrance is a work of art in itself – nope, it *really is* a work of art, lovingly printed on to a vast canvas and spreading out to show the entire South East in micro detail.

We spent at least five minutes marvelling at the map, and then five minutes further coming up with a list of other London bloggers that I bet would spend at least double the time taking in the delectation of the cartography.

What then followed was a quick spin in the time machine as we raced from Roman London through until contemporary times. Men in skirts ‘aint really my thing. It was more of a gossip with the good @Darryl1974 as we ploughed through Ancient, Middle Age, Medieval and Jacobean London.

I’m more interested in modern day history, and so we took it at something of a more gentile pace come the turn of the nineteenth century. This is where the MOL becomes political with the suffragette and Trade Union movements first both appearing in tandem.

The Struggle for the Living Wage placard could equally apply to Lambeth 2010, as it did to old London town in 1910. Likewise for the exhibits depicting the appalling state of social housing.

Fearful or rejecting all that had gone before, it was still the 1960′s, ’70s and ’80′s that I was interested in. It’s a mighty long way from mini-skirts to Miss Dynamite, and I know which of these still holds more contemporary relevance.

The early covers of Time Out reminded me of the downward social history trajectory of the magazine. A poster for the Rock Against Racism gig at Brockwell Park in the summer of ’94 reminded me of my age. @richardgallon probably actually wore the original Stations of the Crass T-shirt on display.

Much of the new MOL appears to be of the dreaded interactive variety. At least this will keep the kids happy back in the day job, when they bore of the endless Great Fire images.

But it is still the old style exhibits that kept my interest. The MOL is the type of attraction that you can visit and re-visit each month, each time finding something new and fascinating. In true timeline fashion, @AnnaJCowen and I are fast running out of diary space to take in future MOL visits. Time to make some personal history of our own…