onionbagblog

To Firstsite! …on Wednesday afternoon to have something of a shifty at a couple of new exhibitions that have recently opened.

First off we have Polly Braden and Against the Tide.

This is a small but very compact photographic exhibition, along with some multimedia, which explores themes of what does it mean to grow up by the seaside?

Polly’s background is in Jaywick. She describes having a love hate relationship with the local area. If you watched nothing but those crappy Channel 5 docs about Jaywick, then one half of this equation might push through stronger.

But wait! What’s this?

Those shitty programmes never really get behind what’s really happening in coastal towns. They’re just chasing the next Daily Mail headline.

The exhibition shares the stories of young people living in coastal towns across England. The photography borrows a lot from Martin Parr, but it’s never intrusive or even taking the piss.

We spent most of the time watching a really informative film, which put together a short story from the House of Wingz dance studio in Blackpool. This was all about young kids in the area learning street dance and seeing where it can take them.

There were some pretty powerful social messages as well. Many of those speaking in front of the camera focused heavily on housing. The connection was made between poor housing and the lack of life opportunities, especially in coastal areas.

The adjacent gallery space at Firstsite was handed over to Simon Carter and his exhibition From the Landscape. The blurb explains how Simon has walked and sketched out the North Essex landscape around his home near Frinton for over forty years.

What’s on show here at Firstsite is a physical landscape being created within a sterile art environment. You need to really walk around and experience it to get the full effect.

I would hesitate to call it immersive, but you do feel that you’re actually walking around a location, rather, within a gallery.

Each gallery space changes colours to reflect the changing light. A nice touch was a soundscape of coastal sounds, such as birds.

The space within Firstsite is used superbly. There are a few false walls in there, giving the effect that you are exploring a kid’s den.

It was also great to see a half decent use of the infamous Firstsite sloping wall. There was a large landscape minimalist painting stretching all the way around the gallery, showing a coastal scene.

The dead swan buried in the floor at Firstsite was a bit of a downer.

A decent afternoon at Firstsite. It’ll be interesting to see how the gallery benefits with the more rock ‘n’ roll Banksy exhibition next door at The Minories. I suspect they’ll both supplement each other and go hand in hand.

Erm… I’m listening to this tone deaf. I have no concept of how to assess or appreciate classical music. Apologies to all the purists, it’s just noise, right? There we go, destroying centuries of culture in one throwaway hit and miss shit sentence.

But honestly it is just noise to me: pleasant noise but noise all the same. I can’t distinguish between this and other classical music. That says more about me than the medium. I think I’ll line up some Sleaford fucking Mods next.

⭐ ⭐

There was just enough light left late in the day for a bicycle ride on Tuesday. My window of opportunity for escaping is narrowing. I need to make the most of the conditions whilst there is still sufficient light.

The rain from earlier had thankfully dried out. I had OCD pleasing bone dry roads. There would be no manic Mr. Sheen polishing taking place back at base once the bicycle ride was complete.

I timed the ride just perfect in order to beat the school run. The rush hour was still an hour or so away.

This was the first time this season that I was rolling out wearing full on gloves. They felt like a comfort blanket, having had something of a wash and spruce up ahead of the winter beastliness that is to come.

Less than two minutes in and my cycling spiritual, zen like state was destroyed by some close passing dickhead. It wasn’t the wisest thing to do fella, close passing me a your work van when I’m clearly showing a sign that I’ve got a video cam on board.

A bicycle ride is a bicycle ride, though. I’m always at my happiest when I’m out on my bike.

I reached the lanes. I accelerated into turbo mode a few times in order to overcome a growing headwind.

In Endless Road Closure News: there are still endless road closures around the bloody Estuary Wilds.

I deliberately picked the Lawford route, knowing that the usual Bobby George BONER circuit was subject to some big red signs saying road closed. I can now add Lawford to that list as well.

Whatever. I pressed on.

I decided to ignore the nasty Patriot flag flying from one particular cottage. I don’t think we’re talking American football Patriots here either.

Much more pleasing was seeing one of the local fields being worked by half a dozen or so detectorists. I wasn’t the only one making the most of the early autumnal sunlight.

Dig for victory, live to ride, etc.

Talk Talk’s debut, The Party’s Over. It’s only taken me 44 years to own a copy of this. Blimey.

And that completes my Talk Talk collection: five albums over a nine year period for the band. Blimey, I never really considered they were as prolific as that.

I can’t say I’ve actually played The Party’s Over. All I’m familiar with are the singles.

At the time I think I pigeonholed them as second division new romantics. It must have been the name: Duran Duran, Talk Talk, etc.

Oh how they flourished, oh how the other half diminished.

There are a few early signs in the singles as to where Mark Hollis would take the direction of the band. But it’s still one hell of a leap from the lead single Talk Talk to where we ended up with Laughing Stock in 1991.

Music is pretty cool like that: you never stand still, always move forward.

A morning trip to the allotment in order to dispose of a week’s worth of discarded veg and tea bags. To be fair it was more discarded tea bags than veg. My current mug count is approaching twenty a day.

Whoops.

It’s all looking a little threadbare up at the allotment, to be honest. We’ve done well to survive into mid-October and still be producing a harvest.

A rucksack full of tomatoes was harvested at the weekend. If we left them in the ground any longer, then the dreaded autumn blight would get them.

Chutney and tomato soup, here we come.

It’s good to see that a lot of the green has now returned to the allotment after the endless heat waves of the summer months. I might just need to mow the pathways in a couple of weeks in order to keep the Town Council from sending out nagging emails.

The major development in recent weeks has been placing some stinking sheep’s wool around the various beds. It absolutely bloody reeks. The local monk jack deer seems to like it and have already rearranged it for me, which is nice.

Sadly their particular style when it comes to product placement doesn’t tally up with where I have lovingly arranged the sheep’s wool. It’s all over the bloody place.

Looking around the plot, the only disappointment this year has been the raspberries. They failed to produce any produce but then they did go in rather late.

The canes are still growing so they might deliver next year. We should have left them in the garden.

Plenty of work is still needed on the allotment over the winter months. It’s become something of a dumping ground during a home garden renovation, but once again please don’t tell the Town Council.

What has worked out really well is that the wisteria we chopped down has found a new home. The stump has been positioned on the allotment as a possible bug hotel.

Not a bad first season. There’s still plenty of tasks to be getting on with over the winter months. Disclaimer: I won’t be getting on with plenty of tasks over the winter months.

A challenging evening of table tennis down at the Sailing Club on Monday evening. That’s challenging for me, not so for my opponents. tl;dr: I was absolutely shit.

I think I may have won the first match, but then that was as good as it got.

I managed to convince the other players that we should play to the international standard rules of first to 11. This makes it all the more important to be on your game right from the start.

In my defence, I did experiment with wearing my specs. I really struggled to see the ball last week. I rocked up, looking cool as fuck with my specialist sports glasses. Sadly, the look wasn’t replicated with the style of play.

I pretty much shot my load, getting very excited with some smash shots. A couple of them went in the corners, but the rest of them missed the table by a long distance - a bit like my fancy sport specs.

Oh dear.

I wasn’t quite as unfortunate as one of the other players who went to take a dive shot and allowed his table tennis bat to take his weight as he fell to the floor. Sadly, his weight was heavier than his table tennis bat, which came off with a snapped handle.

Whoops.

I didn’t fare any better when we switched to doubles towards the end. We played on to 21, which gives you a bit more time to experiment. By experiment, I mean twat around and try shots that you know you can’t pull off. I lost all three games of doubles that I played.

That kinda evening.

Another album, another artist completely new to me. This is clearly ambitious, although running at over one hour long did lead to a bit of an eye roll moment for me. It almost sounds like The Big Brother for the Daisy Age: a lot harsher, a lot more critical, but still something of a swagger to break up the beats. It did get a little nauseating half an hour in, mind.

⭐ ⭐

This is such a sophisticated listen from the Cool Ruler. His voice is so smooth. It captures an age where reggae was on the cusp of all the digi developments just around the corner. It shows what’s possible with pure roots and a soulful voice. The album title Soon Forward hints at what is to come. But for now this is a charming timepiece that allows the music rather than the bragging to be presented.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I did bash out some very detailed notes whilst watching what was one of the most bonkers games of football that I’ve seen in years. As the game progressed the notes got a little more absurd and even surrealist, both in content and in form. The typing went to shit - a bit like Forest. The notes got lost somewhere down the modern interweb and so I’m writing from scratch.

Maybe Forest should start from scratch.

I’m not one of those doom mongers that’s already parading around the modern interweb saying: “Glassner out!!!!” We know he’s streaky, we know he’s a slow burner but you have to ask: how long will the Big Fat Greek invest in a slow burner when, right in front of our eyes, it’s not looking that great at the moment?

I never thought I would say this but thank chuff for a three week international break. I do fear that with a hellish fixture list coming up, if we had approached a November international break still stuck on five points, then the Big Fat Greek might press the Rapha Benitez button.

But it’s not all as bad as that. The team at least showed we had some limited flexibility. We were pre-warned with the three possible injuries ahead of kick off. It was great to see Nico out there once again. I was surprised to see no Sangare and was even hopeful of CHO, but nope, Glassner is rigid.

The afternoon got off to a half decent start with good old Harry Hodge on BBC Radio Nottingham retelling his famous Palace story once again. I never tire of hearing how BC disliked the South London club so much that he pulled off Harry, so to speak, and allowed Forest to play with ten men back in the day to prove a point.

Such an act these days against such a faux rivalry would have caused a riot down at Selhurst.

The game kicked off. WTF? Forest were absolutely dominant, which makes the mockery of writing a Crap Match Report saying we were crap all the more so. This was possibly the best 45 minutes we’ve seen so far this season.

Sure, Palace had the odd chance to break through what looked like a very wide and exposed Forest defence, but when we were attacking we were shit hot. It’s just a shame that we weren’t ruthless.

The early goal of course steadied the nerves as well as silencing Selhurst. The key for any successful team is then to build on this and kill off the opposition there and then. We should have been 4-0 up at half-time. Instead we were trailing 2-1.

Funny old game, eh?

Selhurst was awakened. It wasn’t exactly a beast being awakened but Selhurst was awakened. Fair play to Forest for not crumbling but coming back from what then became 3-1 down and still pressing right until the end.

Glassner at least showed some flexibility in bringing CHO on. He looked a little off the pace.

Sangare was dominant. I still love the way he looks so slow and sluggish moving around the pitch but somehow manages to progress the ball.

Chris Wood tried but is clearly lacking that sharpness he had during that Nuno season. It was that kind of game where, as good old Billy Davis was fond of saying, small margins, etc.

And so lay off with your Glassner out, modern interweb statements. Do you really think we would be in a better place if we were to go for what would be our sixth manager in almost 12 months? And who would you want exactly?

We need to accept that Glassner is a project builder. I’m in no way comparing Young Nigel to an elite European manager, but just look at what the Number 9 is achieving up the road at Field Mill after being given time - plenty of time - at Mansfield.

Five points at this stage in the season is poor. I do fear for what’s to come with Arsenal at home next weekend but we know we have the players, if not the luxury of a large squad, to help us see it through. Plus I still think Glassner can deliver if he perhaps just shows a little more flexibility.

Well done Palace. I really haven’t got any ill feelings towards you. I can’t be arsed to get sucked into what is a fake rivalry. Enjoy your moment and then we go again.

Oh yeah, Glassner made some pretty bat shit comments afterwards on BBC Radio Nottingham. It wasn’t just that he was referring to how much he enjoyed the adulation from both sets of supporters but he also put the defeat directly down to him, saying he was the distraction.

No one likes a football club to be all about themselves, not unless you’re BC and can get away with it.

The second game in the Essex Rebels' double header at Our House on Saturday evening saw Loughborough Riders rocking up at the Essex Sports Arena.

Also present were two ex-Rebels coaches in the building, as well as new Head Coach Josh Perkins.

It was great to see Ross Norfolk doing his snapper duties, as well as Jordan Ashley on the officials' bench, keeping order with everything taking place on centre court.

Both ex-coaches are always welcome. Ross managed to steer the club through a very difficult time during his period in charge.

Only last week Jordan Ashley was leading the men’s Div One team to a fantastic home court win against Newcastle. It would be good to see him back one day coaching the Div One men.

Loughborough Riders weren’t quite as exciting. They took to the court wearing their dull grey kit - think Man United away at Southampton vibes back in the day.

It didn’t help that one of their players insisted on wearing the most ridiculously long pair of shorts. They were basically down to his ankles. He looked a bit of a dick, to be honest.

The two teams came out. Home hero Tyrese Hudson was clearly pumped up for this.

Also impressing was Kyron Martin, who sunk a couple of massive three pointers, leading to the first time out in the game being called by the Riders.

Still filing into the arena was a steady procession of student latecomers. Never change.

A hard fought first quarter led to the Rebels taking a 29-16 lead into the second. I didn’t keep track of how many points Tyrese Hudson struck up but he was working hard under the basket with his rebounds and making them sink.

A bit of house business then took place with some messages on the big screen for the students. We were surprised to see Fresher’s Fortnight being plugged. Hang on, FORTNIGHT? When do they actually start studying?

The action returned in what was always going to be a high scoring game. Both teams were resilient out there, taking no prisoners in both offence and defence.

The Kiss Cam then appeared on the big screen. This was my cue to go for a brief toilet break.

MWAHHHH

Rebels were always ahead but they just couldn’t quite get enough space between them and their visitors. A well executed set piece three pointer right on the buzzer allowed Riders to trail by only 7 points at the halftime break.

The third period was incredibly strong for the Riders. They could see this game was far from gone. SHOUT OUT to the dude sitting in front of us who insisted on playing FIFA on his phone throughout the whole game.

Rebels took a 76-63 lead into the fourth. Riders had to be praised for pushing it but Rebels even more so for not allowing them to catch level.

Then we come to the fourth quarter. Oh boy, where to start?

Basketball is a physical game. You don’t see the petulance often on show in professional football, and there’s none of the fisticuffs associated with sports like ice hockey. But it still is pretty intense out there, with plenty of rough and tumble.

There was clearly some beef between Tyrese Hudson and one of the Riders players. I have no idea if there’s any backstory to this.

What can be politely described as a friendly tussle led to the Riders player being tripped by Tyrese, and then around ten seconds later, both were squaring up after a separate incident, eyeball to eyeball.

Oh dear.

There was something of a minor bench clearance. Three Rebs players left the bench to stand up for their teammate. I actually quite like this even if the basketball laws of the game might disagree.

What then followed was endless deliberation by the referee. This went on longer than any usual VAR crap in the Premier League. Almost ten minutes passed before the judgement came.

The outcome was two Rebs players being ejected from the game and somehow Riders having an incredible six free throws from the line.

WTF?

Five of these were sunk with ease. Fair play to the dude but he kept his cool and did the business, taking Riders level with the Rebs. We were heading into overtime with the scores at 90-all.

There was only one way this game was going to go. The Rebs were clearly rankled by the scuffles and then the bench clearance. The six free throws were just taking the piss.

Riders time managed the game extremely well, took their shots, went ahead, and then killed it off.

A final score of Loughborough Riders 101, Essex Rebels 99 seemed a little unfair.