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topdrawmedia.com web site design solutions that work! website design media design internet promotion www.topdrawmedia.com T: 0208 133 8279 www.essexrestaurants.com www.twitter.com/EssexRestaurant Page 28 Essex’s most comprehensive restaurant site. Hundreds of venues to choose from. The details you need to know. FIFTY...NOT OUT by Steve Ward Wimblebury As this edition of the Edge hits the newstands it will be early August and the damp and cold days that constituted June this year will be a far distant memory. Yeah, but. Two things happen every year in June, and although it was a couple of months ago, the chronology doesn’t really matter to the point to be made here. Mid-June sees the annual Festival of Middle England. No, not the church fete, or the family fun day (an oxymoron if there ever was one) but that gathering of the white and genteel class that descends on London SW19 every year. Or, if they can’t get there in person, they at least attend in spirit via the wonders of modern technology. Or in this case, the BBC, which isn’t necessarily the same thing. Yes, we’re talking about Wimbledon. This year, and with a level of wit that was as exceptional as it was unexpected, certain members of the crowd started shouting “C’mon Tim” at Andy Murray. What these people were doing, and you have to assume it’s unknowingly, is backing the argument made above that Wimblebore is a completely English middle classes thing. Murray is Scottish, and worse, a bit of a raggamuffin. He likes to win things and is prepared to be nasty to do it, if that’s what it takes. Sadly for him, he plays in an era where there are not one or two, but three exceptional players that make it very difficult for him to excel. But that’s not the point here. No, the point is that the crowd don’t want to have to cheer for a hairy rough boy; they want a nice, clean cut, mild mannered Tim Nice But Dim that represents them and all they aspire to. The sort of man they would want their daughters to marry. The annual Lawn Tennis Championships is one of the so called crown jewels of televised sport that, by law, Rupert Murdoch can’t buy up. Which is a huge shame, because the cosy BBC/Wimbledon relationship needs a damn good shake up. Years ago, the BBC was arrogant enough to assume it was the natural home for televised test cricket - until all of a sudden it lost the rights. Then Sky - big bad Sky - took over and all of a steveward2000@hotmail.com sudden we’re watching a totally different game. Hawkeye, hotspot, dozens of cameras, HD, super slomo. Do you really think we’d have all those innovations if it were left to the BBC? Of course not. We’d have old buffers in blazers. Or maybe, in what they mistakenly thought would be a modernising drive, old buffers in jumpers and slacks. The BBC’s coverage of the tennis is fronted by Sue Barker. Sue Barker, for chrissake. The most annoying public school jolly hockey-sticks head girl on the planet. It says it all about the BBC’s image of itself that it would allow such a total ninny anywhere near a camera. However, at exactly the same time, the complete antidote to Wimbledon also happens to be taking place. In fact, antidote is what it should be, but it too has succumbed to the white middle classes and is now exclusively their preserve. This time we’re talking about what the Daily Mash brilliantly described as “a muddy hellpit filled with twats”. Yup, Glastonbury. Or, as you’re supposed to call it to show how hip and on the ball you are, Glasto. So how can all that mud and squalor really be the same as those nice people in nice clothes at nice old Wimblebore? Well, for a start, it has its own rituals and air of good humoured camaraderie which are just as likely to result in the call for a sick bag as the tennis people’s behaviour is. Then there’s the fact that the audience is exclusively white. And, just like its SW London counterpart, Glasto will not be playing host to the inhabitants of sink estates. Food and drink at both venues is ridiculously overpriced - another means of keeping the oiks at bay. There’s one more similarity. The BBC. Yes, Glasto is now another of the BBC’s staples and one it plugs relentlessly. To be fair, the coverage is not as anodyne as that of the tennis, but it is very careful not to frighten the horses. Nobody sticks a camera in a tent to see what’s going on, because they may well get a nasty shock. The phrase ‘sex and drugs and rock and roll’ is not a lie, but the BBC pretends it is. Having berated the two events for being a bit too middle class, we should balance things up a bit by stating that nobody begrudges people sticking together with others of their ilk if that’s what turns them on. Neither should it be anyone else’s business if being ever so slightly naff isn’t a matter of concern to the individual concerned. But you can’t help but wonder if the BBC couldn’t be a bit more adventurous in its coverage of major events. It seems stuck with a mindset that thinks that just because something’s been done a certain way for the last 30 years, then it’s the only way to do it. Which is why Mark Lawrenson still has a job. Sadly.
WRITTLE INTERNATIONAL SCOOTER COLLECTIVE ‘The Collective’ congregated outside the recycling zone at Tesco - and some of ’em look as though they have been! The Edge got wind of this right local motley crew just before they scootered off for a right refreshing (aka boozy) long-weekend away at Camber Sands in Sussex (Pontins, that is). To be perfectly honest, it’s not often The Edge becomes intoxicated by anyone or anything it happens to interview, but the day after bumping into these guys of the W.I.S.C., I not so accidently found myself inside Newcombe’s on New Street in Chelmsford and almost purchased a ‘Limited Edition’ 300cc Vespa right there and then, such was the spirit and camaraderie that these guys evoked. But I’ve honestly never been into scooters. Not as an adolescent. Not even when Jamie Oliver first sprang onto our screens with his scooter in the hallway. Never. Not until I started hiring them out for peanuts on Thai holidays where you drive all over the islands without a helmet. Marvellous. I think that what it was....what it was when I first saw the W.I.S.C.....I think I just thought, ‘What a cracking excuse to have a mid-life crisis.’ Maybe some of these guys are reliving their youth? Whatever. But if I get a scooter, it’ll be a whole new ball-game for me as I’ve never even owned one before. Ozzie (Austen Burrows - below right) is their leader. Their Sting (in Quadrophenia - 1979). Their leading man. “Took us seven hours to get to Camber Sands in the end,” he informed The Edge, “what with all the breakdowns, punctures and fag stops. Sometimes we’d make detours through towns just for the crack and it was hilarious when all 32 of us poured into the same rickety little caff for a late breakfast. Poor old dear running the place didn’t know what’d hit her.” When the guys eventually reached their cell blocks at Camber Sands, they immediately set about getting stuck into the 350 quids worth of beer that their Albanian back-up driver had couriered down from Tesco, Chelmsford. Then it was a case of having the three esses - a shit, a shave, and a shower - before 3,000 scooter boys/blokes all congregated together for some serious drinking, dancing (dancing?) and partying to doubtless Mod-type-tunes until the Burger Van took a proper pasting at 4:00am. “Snoring’s a real problem,” admits Oz. “Our group do seem to be able to make a great deal of noise.” (Christ, let’s be hearing from some of their wives and girlfriends then, please, ladies!) Only this is what really worries The Edge: the guys were back up at 8.30am for a scooter trip en masse to Hastings, and seriously, how many of ’em would have passed a breathalyzer test, hmmm??? The Edge does take its hat off to ’em all though, because scootering is pootering and the bottom line is: it’s really kinda quirky, man! ‘Big Shaun’ in his Harrington jacket Paul Weller’s Dad, per chance? The guys stock up on isotonic drinks and health food bars for their ‘back-up vehicle’, pre their trip to Sussex. W.I.S.C. ‘leader of the pack’ Oz & his ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ t-shirt Edge Ed. gets straight down to Newcombe’s to try one out at the Chelmsford Beer Festival The Edge 077 646 797 44 Page 29
Page 1 and 2: theEDGE MACK Now Recruiting Full Ti
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Page 5 and 6: That’s Not Me So I’m sat with t
Page 7 and 8: www.theedgemag.co.uk Page 7
Page 9 and 10: OH NO, NOT AGAIN, MAURICE! Hi Shaun
Page 11 and 12: The Editor assures me that, contrar
Page 13 and 14: Looking Gooooooooood! A lovely coup
Page 15 and 16: And cheers to you too, sir. My word
Page 17 and 18: If you have been fruitlessly search
Page 19 and 20: X-Walk exercising in the great outd
Page 21 and 22: LOOK HOW EXPERTLY YOUR EDITOR CUT O
Page 23 and 24: The Grumpy Goose! The Catholic Chur
Page 25 and 26: ‘GOLD! Always believe in your sou
Page 27: A better way to divorce? If you are
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