Monty Cheesewick's Guide to Essex

12/06/2025

The lights are strong
The orders are in
The dance commanders ready to sin
Radio message from HQ
Dance commander, we love you

Working from home alternative classics ➤ https://bit.ly/3aOLq7HThe third single, taken from the album "Fire".Subscribe to The Arkive ➤ http://bit.ly/2ELeyze ...

11/06/2025

Brick Lane Bagel Company... the best beigels this side of Mile End

26/05/2025

Basildon town centre – the Essex jewel with a chip on each shoulder and a Greggs in each fist, where time, hope, and phone signal go to die. It’s not a town centre, it’s a state of emergency.

Let me take you there, dear reader. Imagine if a forgotten B&Q car park mated with a 1980s municipal swimming pool and gave birth to a concrete baby that smelt of Monster Munch and despair. That’s Basildon town centre, shimmering proudly under a sky the colour of wet pigeon. The architecture is best described as “post-Brutalist meat locker.”

You enter into the concrete plateau where the air smells of Lynx Africa, despair, and whatever Greggs deep-fries in when it’s angry. Shop windows are smashed, boarded up with what looks like cereal boxes painted beige by a man called Darren who only owns one brush and keeps it in his sock. One window simply has a handwritten sign: "DON’T" – and frankly, that’s fair.

Above the shops, flats loom - Brooke House - in Stalinist brutalism, like Soviet lego, some windows are punched out and replaced with chipboard. You half expect Brezhnev to lean out and shout for a Pot Noodle. You look up and see a man in a vest shouting at a plant. The plant appears to be winning.

The broken windows wink at you as you pass, like cheeky pensioners in a do***ng layby. Some are boarded up with MDF that's been painted a defiant beige, as if someone whispered, "Don't look at me, I'm shy and flammable."

The shops themselves… a study in post-apocalyptic enterprise. There's at least four v**e shops, all named things like V**e of Thrones, Cloudz4Dayz, and Sir Puff-a-Lot. One is styled like a Victorian apothecary and sells "Dragon’s Armpit" flavour. Another offers a "Mystery V**e Experience", which turns out to be licking a radiator while a man named Clive screams about crypto. You accept it. You thank him. Each one has neon signage so intense it could revive a fainting goat, and their interiors glow like the inside of a Dalek’s dreams. You pop in for a coil and emerge reeking of blueberry despair and existential cinnamon.

Tucked between a shuttered Claire’s Accessories and a v**e parlour called “Fogfather 2: The V**ening” lurks "ESCAPE 2 PAIN" — an escape room experience that appears to have been designed by a man who once got lost in a Wickes and never fully came back. The windows are smeared with brown sauce handprints and feature crudely painted slogans like “ONLY THE CHICKEN KNOWS THE WAY OUT” and “BRING YOUR OWN WEEPING PERMIT.” Inside, dim lights flicker over mannequins dressed as regional TV weathermen, all pointing at a single sausage on a plinth. Locals say if you book a session, you must sign a waiver written in marmalade and agree to be pursued for an hour by a man called Trevor No-Bones, who communicates solely through bassoon and wears a boiler suit with "ADMIN" stitched across the chest in toenails. Nobody has ever successfully escaped. Some never even began.

By the bins, a man sings. Not for coins – no, no – for power. He’s got a plastic bucket. His song? Haunting, off-key versions of “Eye of the Tiger” and “Careless Whisper”, with occasional freestyle interludes about a pigeon named Kevin, and his dream of owning a pedalo. No one bats an eye. He’s known locally as Barry Shard, the Spirit of Basildon. Every time he hits the chorus, a nearby pigeon explodes out of sheer emotional resonance.

And then... the teenagers on bikes. Dear God. They skitter about like caffeine-addicted meerkats in Adidas tracksuits three sizes too big. They’ve got energy drinks where their souls should be. One rides a stolen Aldi trolley like it’s the chariot of Mars, screaming “RESPECT THE CODE!” before vanishing into a bush. You don’t ask. You don’t want to know the code. You lock eyes with another of them, briefly. He senses weakness and throws a cheese string at your feet. You cross the street.

By the bus station, things get serious. It’s where hope goes to get mugged. You get the sense something is watching you – not CCTV, but something older, angrier. There's a strange tension in the air, like you might be knifed, or offered a half-eaten chicken bake, or both – by the same person.

Possibly a disgruntled ghost of Arriva past. You sit on a bench designed by someone who hates the concept of sitting. The benches have been designed to actively repel the human arse. Everyone’s on edge. Even the pigeons look like they’ve done time. A man in a leather trilby and camouflage shorts mutters something about the Illuminati being in charge of the timetables. You believe him. Two men are arguing over whether Danny Dyer or the moon is more trustworthy.

You slip on a wet leaflet advertising a “Psychic Dog Fun Day” and catch a glimpse of something beautiful: an old man slow-dancing with a traffic cone while ‘Sandstorm’ by Darude blasts from a nearby Citroën Saxo.

But amid the wreckage, the madness, the lurking stench of wet concrete and nostalgia for Wilkos, there’s a sort of strange, battered poetry. A pride. A weird charm. Like a once-glorious pub carpet now clinging to life in a Travelodge corridor. Basildon doesn’t want your pity. It wants your spare change and maybe a puff on your v**e.

01/05/2025

KEVIN THE PEACOCK: LOVER, WANDERER, SHED-DWELLER

Somewhere deep in the undergrowth of suburban Rayleigh, beneath the screech of Aldi car park gulls and the faint hum of a man in Hockley playing Simply Red on panpipes, a renegade bird walks among us. His name? Kevin. His mission? Intimate emotional connection.

His weapon? An enormous iridescent arse.

Kevin is a rogue unit, a beaked Casanova, a walking B&Q lampshade of lust, and he is NOT coming quietly.

He burst out of his Ashingdon enclosure on the 30th of March like a feathered Steve McQueen escaping a romantic prison built entirely of high fences, dashed hopes and leftover corn.

“I’ve had enough,” he whispered to a nearby horse. “There’s no vim here. No verve. No vavavoom. I’m off to find someone who appreciates a 6ft train and a sensual rattle.”

Since then, Kevin’s been eluding capture like a caffeinated ghost. He’s strutted his stuff across gardens, pub roofs, and one suspiciously sensual trampoline in Langdon Hills. He’s been roosting in trees, sunning his glutes in Rayleigh, and once reportedly challenged a delivery driver to a staring contest outside Five Bells.

“He looked into my soul,” said the driver, “and I felt judged… but also deeply aroused.”

The Pursuit
Dartford Animal Rescue (successfully captured eight peacocks before, not that they mention it every six seconds) are on the case. But Kevin is too slippery, too sassy, and reportedly once turned into mist when cornered near a compost bin.

“He was just gone,” said one volunteer. “Like a glittery fart on the wind.”

At one point, they brought a real-life lady peahen to tempt him down from a tree. Kevin stared at her for 45 minutes, sighed, and then moonwalked backwards into a hedge.

The Seduction
Let’s be clear: Kevin is in heat. Not medically. Emotionally. Peacocks do mad things for love. They shake their backsides like Elton John’s glittery ghost, fan their tails like tropical dish racks and emit low booming noises that sound like someone trying to start a Renault Clio in a swamp.

He’s not being difficult. He’s flirting, hard.

“He came into my garden,” said one Basildon resident. “He ate the cat’s food, gave me a wink, and then performed what I can only describe as a seductive lunge while making a noise like a broken oboe.”

Another woman reported Kevin crossed the A127 dual carriageway during rush hour “with the calm authority of a man who’s done ta***ic yoga with Sting.”

Home Awaits (But Kevin Isn’t Bothered)
Back home, his owner has imported two lady peacocks, one white and one grey, like feathery henchladies in a Bond film. They’ve even got names like “Cinnamon” and “Elaine” probably, and they’ve made themselves comfortable by the peacock shed.
Kevin, of course, is unaware. Or worse… unimpressed.

“He’s gone off-piste,” says one local psychic. “He’s transcended peafowl monogamy and entered a phase of radical emotional exploration.”

The Shed Gambit
Every night now, residents are whispering into the ether:

“Kevin… if you feel like wandering into a nice shed, please do…”

This has become Essex code for spiritual surrender. Men mutter it when they can't find their car keys. Women sigh it over microwaved pasta. Children sing it at school like a hymn.

Kevin ignores it all.

Because Kevin, my friend, is on a higher astral journey now. He doesn’t need sheds. He doesn’t need tracking. He needs love, ideally on a patio in Thundersley, under a waxing gibbous moon, with ambient jazz and maybe a sexy badger looking interested.

If you see him:
Do not approach.
Do not engage in direct eye contact unless wearing protective glitter goggles.
Do not offer him seed unless it's artistically presented on a reclaimed wood board with a dab of balsamic glaze.

Instead, simply bow your head, and whisper:
“May your tail be ever glorious, and your heart find its mate, O Kevin.”

For more, go to: Adventures of Kevin the Peacock

22/04/2025

Poppadom Preach

22/04/2025

Welcome to Braintree

19/04/2025

12/04/2025

Review: Hoover “Wash and Dry 350” – The Laundry Cult That Ate My Mind

Let’s not beat about the bush. The Hoover "Wash and Dry 350" is not a washing machine. It is a sentient ritualistic monolith and quite possibly a portal to another wetter dimension. Yes, it is a deeply mystical appliance, designed not for people who wear clothes, but for those who wish to enter into lifelong laundry-based communion. It assumes, quite confidently in the 32-page manual comprising of arcane instructions with footnotes and sub-clauses, that your top priority in life is achieving the optimal rinse depth for handwoven socks made of sadness and nettles.

I bought this contraption thinking I’d get a basic washer-dryer that made my shirts smell less like chips. What I got was a mystical appliance forged in the lost city of Whirlpoolithica, possibly by druids in aprons. It has so many wash cycles, it requires its own parliament, with regional representatives for Wool, Synthetics, and Unspecified Beige Things.

Upon opening the door, I was greeted by a blast of intelligent steam and a small hologram of a man called "Clive the Fabric Whisperer," who asked me gently, “What emotional state is your laundry in?” I panicked and said “mildly anxious,” and the machine launched into Therapeutic Soak Mode with Gregorian chanting.

Now, the control panel. Sweet merciful Persil. It’s not a dial or a few buttons. It’s a pulsing touchscreen Ouija board, where you must enter your wash preferences in a sequence of encoded gestures, emojis, and minor key whistling.

I selected “Quick Wash” once and accidentally initiated the ceremonial cleansing of the Elder Towels, which took five hours, involved a goat, and ended with a legally binding contract. I attempted a “Delicate Wash” and the machine replied, cryptically, “What is delicacy if not strength misunderstood?” I found myself apologising to a towel.

The options include such classics as:
• “Cotton – Full Moon Setting – Rinse with Purpose”
• “Antique Fabrics and Forgotten Sins”
• “Quick Wash (Temporal Anomaly Enabled)”
• “Babywear, but if the baby’s also a wizard”

Oh yes - and it’s Wi-Fi enabled, Bluetooth synced, and apparently emotionally reactive. I once looked at it with scepticism and it unpaired from the app out of spite. I don’t know what it’s connected to, but it’s definitely not me. It once paired with my neighbour’s smart fridge and tried to cancel my oat milk order. It’s building alliances. I can feel it.

It also tweets. Yes, the machine tweets. Mostly haikus about drum balancing. Sometimes passive-aggressive notes about my fabric choices: "You chose hot cycle / For polyester again? / Must be chaos there."

There’s a “Smart Eco Mode” which, according to the manual, uses “AI to balance water, energy, and your spiritual chi.” I ran it thinking it’d take 30 minutes. It took nine hours and wrote a novel about regret in Morse code on the display. By the time it finished, I’d forgotten I ever wore clothes. It practically initiated a time loop. I watched the same sock spin for four hours while the machine hummed a tune that triggered ancestral memories of rain and abandonment. When it finally stopped, the day had turned to ash and I had to tumble dry everything using the tears of the last tree on Earth.

Let’s talk about the sounds it makes. When it finishes a programme, it doesn’t just beep. No. That would be too normal. Instead, it makes a metallic clack-clack of an old-timey revolver being cocked with intent. It is less "your laundry is done" and more "someone is escaping from Broadmoor and you’re next." The first time it happened, I hit the floor and phoned a friend. The second time, I lit a candle and whispered, “I accept your judgement.”

I miss my old machine. You put stuff in, pressed a button, and it spun. The Hoover 350 assesses, judges, and occasionally sings. If you open the drawer too fast, it hisses and retracts like a sentient squid. If you put in socks without pre-declaring their emotional baggage, it sulks and starts a defrost cycle on your freezer.

Final thoughts? The Hoover Wash and Dry 350 is a mad, glorious, over-engineered shrine to obsessive laundering. It doesn’t clean your clothes—it tests your resolve. It reveals your weaknesses. It might even bring you closer to the divine, assuming the divine smells faintly of lavender and regret.

Zero stars. Or maybe five. I don’t know anymore. It just winked at me and started humming and clacking again.

01/04/2025

Hail to the chief

21/03/2025

It is a curious Wednesday morning when the residents of Chapel Hill awaken to find Steve Fisk has transformed his hair salon into a gallery of dangling ingenuity.

Female mannequin heads—freshly coiffured with vibrant technicolour waves—hang intriguingly upside-down from scaffolding, gently swaying like whimsical sculptures in the breeze.

"It's art," Steve announces with cheerful conviction, "my students' wonderful creations!" Clearly, Steve’s visionary approach makes hairdressing an adventure rather than merely a necessity.

Steve, whose reputation effortlessly balances delightful eccentricity and creative brilliance, currently takes young, aspiring hairdressers under his nurturing wing. For a mere £30, adventurous customers can entrust their heads to the imaginative talents of Steve’s protégés, receiving not just a fresh colour and cut but an experience fondly recalled with friends in boozy dinner parties. Meanwhile, the mannequin heads—playful sentinels of style—hang overhead, proudly showcasing student artistry.

Beyond his innovative exhibition, Steve is locally celebrated for his devotion to the ever-so-modest Sinclair C5, a whispering ghost of electric transport. Residents have spotted Steve gliding silently along village lanes, his knees humorously raised high, and hair streaming gloriously behind him like a shampoo advert come alive.

During the pandemic lockdown, Steve’s creativity expanded further as he ventured into scrap metal collecting. Rusted sprockets, antique ironing boards, and retired toasters find pride of place in his shop window, arranged as lovingly as rare antiques. “It’s modern archaeology,” Steve explains earnestly, “just watch out for the tetanus!”

Chapel Hill embraces Steve Fisk’s salon as an unofficial landmark—part beauty parlour, part art installation, entirely delightful. His commitment, especially working late into the night for the appreciative women of Stansted, is nothing short of admirable. And though residents might never fully grasp the symbolism behind the inverted mannequin heads, they wholeheartedly celebrate Steve’s boundless ingenuity and generous spirit.

17/03/2025

Ah, St. Patrick's Day! That sacred annual tradition where Americans with a genetic link to Ireland so faint it could be classed as spectral come together to prove their emerald authenticity by shouting "to be sure, to be sure" at startled pigeons and necking green beer like it's a potion brewed by a leprechaun with a craft ale side hustle.

It's the day American politicians collectively transmogrify into shamrock-fuelled hallucinations of Oirishness. Wearing a cloak made entirely of Guinness coasters, former President Joe Biden claims ancestral roots in County Mayo and has the blarney stone on speed dial. He declares to the media: "The spirit of Limerick lives in my elbows and also possibly my left kneecap!" before challenging a filing cabinet to a wrestling match.

President Donald Trump, not to be outdone, declares himself "the most Irish person, maybe ever - tremendously Irish," while unveiling a golden leprechaun statue bearing his own face and a built-in casino.

Congressman Paul Ryan, who once claimed his family "might've been Irish, or possibly just fond of green things," insists on summoning the spirit of Saint Patrick by chanting, "To be sure, to be sure," into a pint of green jelly. The jelly hums ominously and then tries to crawl away.

By nightfall, the lawns are littered with abandoned potato hats, half-eaten baguette-shillelaghs, and the faint echo of bagpipes playing "Who Let the Dogs Out" backwards, summoning spectral hounds made of mist and ancient folklore. It is as if Ireland itself blinked, whispered, "What are ye at?", and quietly moved to another dimension.

In downtown Chicago, they've dyed the river a shade of green so vivid that the fish are wearing sunglasses and contemplating eco-activism. Big Jim O'Shanahan—whose ancestors once looked at a map of Ireland from the deck of a passing ship—dons his ceremonial 'Kiss Me I'm Oirish' hat, a luminous green behemoth shaped like a potato, possibly cursed. "My great-great-grandmother once sniffed a shamrock in 1872," he proclaims proudly, before challenging a lamppost to a jigging competition. He loses, naturally. The lamppost's footwork is electric.

Meanwhile, Kathleen McMurphy—whose claim to Irishness rests on her cat being named Guinness—has assembled a platter of "traditional Irish snacks." These include Lucky Charms, green bagels, and something she calls 'potato cola,' which is essentially mashed spuds dissolved in soda water. She insists this was St. Patrick's favourite tipple, though historical evidence suggests he preferred a quiet mead and avoiding snakes.

At the parade, floats pass by in a cascade of cultural confusion. One features a man dressed as an Irish wolfhound tap dancing to techno remixes of "Danny Boy." Another is an inflatable pint of Guinness so massive it causes local flight diversions. Children hurl plastic shillelaghs into the crowd like it’s some sort of ancient Celtic discus contest. The air hums with the sound of tin whistles, bagpipes, and someone awkwardly trying to explain why leprechauns are now considered an official security risk at airports.

Later, the pub scene descends into ritual madness. Tim O'Johnson, whose only Irish credential is that he once owned a green jumper, decides tonight's the night to discover his "inner Celtic warrior." He challenges an elderly man to a duel over the last packet of Tayto crisps. The duel involves drinking three pints of green ale while reciting limericks about disgraced priests and flatulent donkeys. It's an ancient tradition, dating back to approximately twenty minutes ago.

As the night ends, a quiet hush falls over the revelers. The streets are slick with spilled Guinness and the faint echo of misunderstood heritage. Somewhere, in the distance, a single accordion plays a lament for dignity. Big Jim O'Shanahan lies in a doorway, clutching his potato hat like a relic, whispering, "To be sure, to be sure," into the cosmic void, as if hoping the very stars might confirm his genetic entitlement to all things Irish.

And they do not, of course. But he'll be back next year, ready to prove it all over again, with more green dye, more bad accents, and possibly a new hat shaped like a leprechaun's left boot. It's the circle of craic.