Ipswich in the teens

♫ Tonight Peppery Productions present (we think for possibly the second time) Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys (including BJ Cole and Spanner Robinson) at the Manor Ballroom Ipswich.

Lowestoft had a fishing village known as The Grit, and Poetry People are presently touring a words, music and film show about the lost village.  You've missed it in Halesworth but there are shows this week in Ipswich, Leiston and yes Lowestoft.

Despite miserable weather yesterday a very decent turn out for St Elizabeth Hospice's Bubble Rush in Ipswich.  For the first hour or so the weather flirted with raining but then got going along with a chilling wind but rushers kept rushing, the arch on the blue bubble station reenacted the flamme rouge collapse in the 2016 Tour de France and the stewards at the finish kept dancing and giving cheerful encouragement.

We weren't optimistic about yesterday's Ipswich Cardinals v London Blitz B because the Cards had lost 55-00 to the Blitz earlier this year.  In the event on a ... more here

Yesterday at the Ipswich Inspire Kent Men's Roller Derby v East Anglo Smacksons and Suffolk Roller Derby v Dorset Knobs (it's a kind of biscuit).

At the end of last season with minutes to go a one point kick would have put the Ipswich Cardinals into overtime against the Essex Spartans ... they went for two ... more here

Tomorrow afternoon in Stowmarket professional wrestling including a womens' three way and in the evening Wes Weston's Bluesonics at the California Social Club Ipswich, reckon you could probably take both in. ♫

This all sounds a bit Police Interceptors, in the very early hours this morning a shop burglary in Melton, a car chase and finally a burnt out car in Ipswich.

Blimey!  The Ipswich Wolsey are already punting next winter's Christmas panto?

♫ You don't have to be pretentious (though it might help) to enjoy opera especially the comedies.  In April the excellent English Touring Opera return to the Snape Maltings with The Marriage of Figaro and much nearer Thursday OperaUpClose present a stripped down modern The Magic Flute at the Ipswich Wolsey.

Who would have thought it?  There are two hockey teams in Ipswich, SEVEN and East.  Sunday the ladies second teams were derbying next to the Ipswich Cardinals practice.  SEVEN won two nil and it was preceded by something that involved loud(ish) pop music but we couldn't give it much attention as we needed to avoid being flattened by american footballers.

Sometime in the early nineties we went to the National Cyclocross Championships in the woods by Ipswich's speedway track ... it was a low key event.  In 1983 we went to the World Cyclocross Championships in Birmingham ... it was a low key event.  The 2018 national championships are in Sunderland and being streamed by the BBC live tomorrow ... perhaps not so low key.

In total a squall of six burglaries today and yesterday in Ipswich, Melton and Martlesham.  Officers are investigating if the crimes are linked.

Last Saturday at the opening of the Alde Valley Spring Festival in Great Glemham Maggi Hambling was just as funny as last year, there was someone off the telly we couldn't put a name to, Ipswich MP Ben Gummer with baby son and Alex Johnson being violent towards a dead tree but for us the stars were the country mice.

A tragic irony in two road crashes around Ipswich last week.  Serious but not life threatening injuries from the scary looking crash in Foxhall Road Saturday night whilst a twenty month baby girl died in hospital after a Thursday lunchtime Martlesham crash that following drivers may have thought not serious.

Sometime in the 1960s Bowie was our solo support act and even then he was visibly creative.  Despite this slight association we were soon bored by news people suddenly having an opinion about him.  We seem to be alone in boredom so you'll probably be interested that Pump and Grind Ipswich will be playing non-stop Bowie this weekend and DK's Saturday Sessions Norwich is a Bowie tribute.

Encouragingly two days after a Hacheston burglary last week a 46 year old Ipswich man has been arrested.

This LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) price list shows that surprisingly (to us) in 1937 Wickham Market had markets on Mondays and Saturdays (return third class ticket from Darsham 1/6d, that's 7.5p).  Rather less surprisingly a return ticket Wilby-Ipswich (markets Tuesdays and Saturdays then in Ipswich) was just over four shillings but still a little surprising that somewhere as small as Wilby ever had a station.

Just where the grass starts at the back of the Whitton Everything Centre is the Ipswich bicycle speedway track which was wind swept yesterday but the rain just held off so we could snap the first Grand Prix cycle speedway of the season.  Not much warming up but much tyre cleaning by riders of actually all ages (girls too) for racing that is potentially contact but essentially good humoured.  There are track lights and photographing an evening meeting would be interesting ...

♫ The thing about Balkan music is it's totally bonkers, like totally ... it seems The Magic Tombolinos who Peppery are presenting at the Ipswich Manor Ballroom tomorrow night take even fewer prisoners than the gloriously mad Orkestra del Sol ... mind you the Tombolinos don't have Miss Olga

We got to mouth off about roller derby and councils last night to musos Shane Kirk and Neale Foulger on Ipswich Community Radio's Why the Long Face?  Shane and Neal have been doing it for three years and have got boys' banter well polished.  An odd experience, the BBC's motto may be Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation but how do they know?  When you're sitting in that studio you might be the last person in the universe.

We arrived at Suffolk Pride in Christchurch Park, Ipswich early this afternoon and it wasn't that well attended, long silences from the stage ... the crowd started to grow and drag acts Miss Leslie Lush (the divine one that is) and the Killer Queens (they're from Norfolk ... where else?) raised a good time atmosphere, and the very pink Sugar Plump Fairies and the naval gentlemen in a bath created surreal interactions in the crowd, very jolly!  Immaculately clean portaloos but no hand basin, antiseptic hand foam instead and bloody smoothflow the only draught on offer but a very child friendly and FREE day out.  We'll be going next year ... more pix on Facebook.

Tomorrow will be the fourth anniversary of the then teenager Luke Durbin's disappearance in Ipswich while on a night out.  Police are keen to trace a silver car seen on CCTV in the early hours of that night.

Richard Vass New Party candidate for Central Suffolk held a public meeting Monday night in the magnificent and perhaps a teensy bit intimidatingly posh setting of Kesgrave Hall, Ipswich.  We arrived before the meeting start and it has to be said ... more here