onionbagblog

Woh.

Where to start here?

This was possibly the best ball game I’ve seen.

tl;dr the game was tied at the buzzer. Two periods of OT followed. There was very little to separate these teams. Newcastle just edged it.

Arse.

The first quarter started at an incredible pace. Surely both teams can’t keep this up for four quarters?

Erm, yep. Plus another ten minutes if you don’t mind.

Value for money, etc.

Miles Brown hit some big three pointers in the first quarter.

Rebs' Captain Tom Childs sat down his rival guard, delivered a killer pass, and then another three pointer was sunk.

“If you’re here supporting the Newcastle Knights, make some noise!”

…was the rather ironic words of encouragement from Mr MC.

There was no noise.

Ta for coming, etc.

Rebels took a 45-39 lead into the half time buzzer.

The Duck Tax was the HT fun. Parents of kids are ‘encouraged’ to part with £1 for a plastic duck, that is then thrown on to an archery style parachute on centre circle.

Even Rachel Reeves would blush, such is the fiscal soft hand technique used to raise a little extra revenue.

I sat on my hands.

The third and fourth quarters raced on by. Tom Childs played another massive game, dominating play and setting up the chances.

Rebs looked as though they had won the game, but a few costly errors led to five minutes of an OT shoot out.

To their credit, the Rebs reset, and went again. A rough period of play followed with some very physical passages of play.

Five minutes were up, and still you couldn’t separate the two teams on 103-103.

Shall we do it all over again?

SHOUT OUT to the home crowd. Everyone in the Arena got behind the Rebs. It was the best atmosphere we’ve had so far this season.

Some calm finishing from Newcastle saw the visitors over the line.

The Rebs bench looked broken at the buzzer.

They shouldn’t have. This was a marked improvement on the last home game two weeks ago.

We may not be the most talented team, but the commitment is there to see on court.

Jersey Night at the Essex Sports Arena. Which means fans are encouraged to wear their fave replica basketball vest.

Brrr. It’s a bit chilly for short-sleeves, let alone a vest. I opted for the black RUBBER rain mac instead.

I wasn’t invited on to centre court at the interval to parade my finest fashion wear.

Their loss.

The Rebels women got off to a dynamite start at home to a strong Oaklands Wolves. Rebs put 19 points up on the board before the Wolves were able to reply.

Everything seemed to be going the way of the home team. All the free throws were sunk, whilst Oakland looked nervy from the free throw line

A 31-11 lead for the Rebs at the end of the first quarter looked like game over already.

The pace picked up in the second. Wolves refused to fade away, with the score pegged back 50-38 to the Rebs at the break.

Natalie Chou was outstanding for the home team. She dominated every area of the court - in attack, defence and everything in-between.

Olivia Forster meanwhile played a fiery game. She was in the face of her opponents and wasn’t about to be intimidated by some rather big and bruising Oakland players.

The away team did manage a comeback of sorts in the third. They took it to a five point game - which was a little too close for comfort.

The Rebs were tested in the final quarter. In previous season they would have collapsed. But not so the Rebs of 2025.

They dug deep and left the court with a fantastic 92-78 home win.

Up the Rebs!

Vauxhall Could Get One Of The UK’s Tallest Residential Buildings

I’ve long since lost track of the new towers around the VNEB cluster. I rather like them as a spectacle. London is nothing if it stands still. The fight against global capital was lost decades ago. This doesn’t mean that developers should be given a free ride - or Lambeth, for that matter. But if you can’t stop this endless march of capitalism, then at least try and appreciate how London never stands still. This is a good thing.

“Our political system suffered a massive virtual oil spill thanks to Twitter, which we have yet to begin to clean up”

Dave Winer on Thanksgiving.

City Ground honours heroes of ’79 as Dyche’s rejuvenated Forest march on

The Morning Star’s Tricky Tree Correspondent has been busy again.

Spotify tried to serve me up three and a half hours of this. No ta. I pressed on with the original release. The storyline is BONKERS. I tried to ignore this and focus on the music instead. Rock and opera should never appear in the same sentence. It’s a mess of an album that lectures you. YOU MUST LISTEN! I’d rather buzz off me tits with some drum ‘n’ bass tbh.

⭐ ⭐

One Day in ‘79 was the strap line Forest used for the marketing push ahead of Malmo at home in the Europa League.

One Evening in ‘25 turned out to be half decent as well.

Forest do these grand occasions VERY well. As soon as the draw was made in August pairing us up with Malmo once again, I just knew that the Big Fat Greek would embrace it.

It was a magnificent gesture to invite - and pay for - both teams from One Day in ‘79 to be guest of honours at the World Famous City Ground.

Not everyone could sadly make it. Up until very recently I thought that the Miracle Men were just that. As players from other great clubs passed on, somehow the Forest team were all still amongst us.

Tricky Trev’s departure hurt hard. He was the £1M Man. He wouldn’t be the first to go.

I watched the Forest YT stream from the red carpet from 5pm. David Prutton did a decent job of door stepping old men - who probably wanted to tuck in to the freebie food and booze.

There were some lovely moments though. Colin Barrett and Bomber Bowyer both brought the humour. I confess to a Pavlovian shout of “TINA! TINA! TINA!” when Shilts appeared on screen.

He bloody loves it.

The stream finished an hour later. The final word went to Brian. The final word should always go to Brian.

What a club. What a legacy.

Now then. Down to business and One Night in ‘25.

The team news shortly dropped. SEVEN team changes. Blimey.

I wasn’t sure about John in goal. It was great to see Zak starting. I was looking forward to seeing what McAtee can do. Ditto Kalimuendo.

The old fellas from One Day in ‘79 came out to meet the crowd shortly ahead of KO. Some muppets in the Malmo end got a little over enthusiastic.

I hope we bloody stuff you now.

The sight of Ryan Yates leading out Forest at the World Famous in a European fixture was something to savour. The Skipper rose to the occasion with one of his best games in the Garibaldi.

And it wasn’t just the tops, either. I bloody love it when we wear red shorts. I think it’s an emotional attachment going all the way back to Munich ‘79.

The teams lined up, the game kicked off.

Hang on. Murillo is playing at left back? Blimey.

Yates and Abbot both linked up well. It was genuinely lovely seeing the two Forest Academy boys playing together on the European stage.

A Captain’s goal soon followed.

GEDDIN the Trent, etc.

This was an incredibly one sided contest. Malmo looked like a team that had come to enjoy the occasion, rather than win the game. They were the most passive team we have seen on Trentside in years.

What was the point in travelling all the way over from Sweden, and then not being arsed to even leave the halfway line?

Forest sensed this and tried to kill the game off within the first thirty minutes. I lost count of the number of chances we had.

A goal from Kalimuendo followed. That will do wonders for his confidence.

The third goal after the break from the Serbinator sealed the game. I bloody love VAR, me.

Time to get Murillo and CHO off. Feet up lads, ahead of the Premier League.

But wait! What’s this?

ATTACK! ATTACK!

ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!

Attacking subs were brought on. Whatever happened to Dyche the dinosaur with his defensive style of play?

The game then had the feel of an international friendly. Substitutions broke up the pace of the game.

Yates was brilliant from start to finish. Write him off at your peril.

And so One Day in ‘79 became One Night in ‘25. The 3-0 win won’t be as significant as the magic of Munich, but it will do wonders for our Europa League standing.

Another great European night on Trentside.

This is a very classy - albeit slightly bonkers - club.

More NEW BITS, via This is Clobbered once again.

K-Way is a new brand to me. It specialises in retro cagoules. The USP is that the zip is at the centre of the design.

Apparently they are all the rage amongst the kids.

I still count, right?

This reminds me of the Nike cagoule craze back at school in the early days of hip hop. Some bastard nicked mine from the cloakroom. It was returned a few months later with fag burns.

I bloody hated school, tbh.

But here I am, still living out those early electro fantasies, still got it.

Just.

This look needs a pair of ski goggles btw to complete it. This was the style back in ‘84, and I see no reason not to ponce it up once again.

I actually bought a pair of ski goggles from Lidl last week.

No shit.

No change to Cycle to Work Scheme in Budget, Treasury confirms — despite reports spending cap would be introduced

And so wtf was that all about?

Hudson-Odoi says Dyche has ‘reconnected’ Forest squad

A further update from the Morning Star’s Tricky Tree correspondent.

Fancy some more KLF mixes?

COURSE you do.

This is pretty cool - an archive of personal mixes of all things KLF inspired, now dumped on the modern interweb and ready to download.

There’s quite a story behind the philanthropic sharing as well:

“I am a 72 year old totally anal KLF fanatic and sometime DJ …think squats and forest clearings back in the day. Though now on palliative care (dying) I would like to share my vinyl with you all.”

It’s impossible to put together any definitive KLF discog - either official or bootlegs. There’s so much out there, most of it worthy of a listen.

You get the impression that this is encouraged. It’s not as if the KLF themselves were shrinking violets when it came to copyright lifting for their own work.

They’re still at it as well. The KLF name may be gone, but new music - or projects - continue to drop frequently.

Mu Mu Land is a never ending story it seems.

There’s even talk of a Sunny Stockwell gig back at Transcentral in… 2323.

We’ll al be pretty ancient by then.

Yep.

To the Table of Dreams!

…on Wednesday lunchtime. We were both free. There was brilliant Estuary Wilds blue sky up above.

Make bloody hay, etc.

The tactical decision was taken to play with the conventional, non-wind ball. This took a little getting use to.

We’re use to TWATTING the extra heavy wind ball around the table.

It’s great for rallies where you are both playing power shots and smashes, as each player moves further away from the table.

It’s a macho style of play, almost reduced to an arm wresting contest.

But I like to embrace my, ahem, feminine side in table tennis every now and then.

Spin it to win it, Jase.

The conventional ball is a delicate affair. It needs caressing. It needs the dog shit from the public playing field to be wiped off before play.

The scores were level at 2-2. This would usually be signal to get bored, start showboating and walk away with yet another defeat.

But not on Wednesday. I found a new cautious side to my game. Play safe, wait for her to make the mistakes.

Oh dear, luv. You didn’t want to do that.

My feminine side was well and truly embraced, even if was playing wiff waff whilst wearing the most ridiculous pair of wellies.

I’ve been listening to Beth Orton’s brilliant Weather Alive album once again. I say once again - I never really got going with the 2022 release.

As ever - I’m a slow listener, reader, watcher.

Beth has been under my radar for the past thirty years or so. I’ve always been aware of her, and in particular the singles. But I’ve never really taken it further.

And then three years ago, she put together an incredible live set for Gilles Peterson at Maida Vale to promote the Weather Alive album. I was hooked.

An ebay deal was done for the album. The entire back catalogue soon followed.

Weather Alive is a haunting album. Her voice sounds so fragile, almost to the point of breaking down. The lead song Friday Night is my soundtrack for walking the streets of South London alone in the evening.

There’s a strong hat tip to John Martyn. I think the Weather Alive album title might even be a reference to Bless the Weather?

So what if I’m running three years behind here. Music is right, right? Any listening is good. Especially if it’s Beth Orton.