onionbagblog

I actually went to the playback of this album at Abbey Road back in 1997. Christ, was it really almost 30 years ago? Despite hearing the album through the Grade A setup at Abbey Road, little of it now remains familiar. The World Night prompted some vague memories, but if you had asked me to whistle this to you then I would have been left a little clueless.

It’s pretty much McCartney by numbers. That’s no bad thing. He rarely writes a poor song. Jeff Lynne has his fingerprints all over it. It captures that moment in time where Lynne was auditioning to be the new fifth Beatle and to try and get the show back on the road again.

Take away McCartney’s vocals and it could easily be an album by Tom Petty. His voice still holds up here. No surprises that 30 years later, and it’s pretty much shot. Not a classic album but pleasant enough.

⭐ ⭐

And so whilst you were watching England scrape through in the World Cup, I was pissing myself watching the live stream of the first Lambeth cabinet meeting of the new Green administration. Life in the fast lane etc.

I tell a lie, but of course I was watching the football, but I don’t really give a shit about England - always club over country. I had the pictures on and followed what proved to be a more dramatic viewing back in Lambeth Town Hall.

Just let it go, Jase.

I did allow myself a smile within the first few minutes. The most routine matter of any local authority meeting is to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. These are always approved; no fucker raises any queries.

But wait! What’s this?

The last Lambeth cabinet meeting was way back in March. That didn’t stop the old goat Green Councillor Scott Ainslie from questioning the minutes.

Long-term observers of Lambeth Council will know that Councillor Ainslie is a bit of a sticker for protocol and routine. He is never shy of quoting the Council Standing Orders and raising questions where need be.

His concern with the minutes from the Labour cabinet’s meeting back in March was regarding the building of council houses. The new Green cabinet member wanted to query the number quoted in the previous meeting compared with the reality.

Oh Gawd, here we go.

Councillor Ainslie referred to a long-lost Brixton Buzz FOI where I revealed that Lambeth Labour managed to build a stunning four council houses in a four-year period. Central government funding etc is a consideration. But they had promised to build a thousand in the same time frame.

I thought that would be it, there and then. The previous Labour minutes will be corrected for the record and we could all move on and see what bright new hopes the Green Party have for the borough.

But nope, the first Green schisms were already on show in the public domain.

I don’t think it’s any secret that the Lambeth Green Party old guard were pretty much pushed aside in a bit of a coup when the party took control of the council last month.

The likes of Councillor Ainslie, as well as Jon Bartley and Pete Elliott, may be in cabinet but they are very much the old guard, offered portfolios without actually pulling the strings.

New Council Leader Councillor Martin Abrams lingered on the point of order put forward about council houses. It could have been a slam dunk win for him to say, “Yep, I agree, Lambeth Labour were shit, they built four council houses,” but instead he had to take legal advice about what to do over the discrepancy within the minutes.

I was still watching the football by this stage, by the way.

A bodge of sorts over the validity of my FOI was agreed. An asterisk will appear in the March minutes, which doesn’t show tremendous transparency, as was the pledge from the Lambeth Greens.

The business of the meeting then carried on. It was fairly routine stuff and rather dull. There was an interruption midway through the first item on the agenda from Acorn Housing, wanting to question why the new Housing Portfolio Holder, Councillor Elliott, had been ignoring all correspondence. This didn’t feel very much like the start of a new era.

I did like the way Councillor Abrams handled this. Previous Lambeth Labour leader Angry Holland would have shut down any interruptions from the floor and threatened to kick out members of the public. Not so Councillor Abrams: “This is your town hall and we welcome your suggestions.”

It was fascinating to see the new dynamics in place. This is the first time the Greens have been under any scrutiny, yet they’ve barely had enough time with their feet under the table to actually achieve anything.

Sure they have done some great things in reversing instantly the closure of the dementia centre on Central Hill, as well as making a very bold pledge not to work with immigration officers when it comes to Lambeth residents.

I did piss myself seeing Labour melt Councillor Danny Adilypour being given his three minutes of opposition time to speak. Thankfully the camera was showing the back of his head so you couldn’t see his usual smirk. This didn’t prevent the new Labour dickhead from trying to rewrite history.

The Greens are managing to deflect all of the criticism so far with a blame game of saying it’s all Lambeth Labour’s fault. It’ll be interesting to see how long this time frame is able to play out.

Councillor Adilypour did mention for the first time a threat of government inspectors coming in to take over the council should it continue to fail. That’s something he never mentioned when his Labour lot were in power. Fancy that.

The familiar line “We refuse to be lectured” was played out for the first time. I expect more of the same to follow over the coming months.

I’m not sure how many of my other Brixton Buzz FOI’s the Greens will be able to pull out as they try and get to grips with the absolute shit show of a mess that Lambeth Labour inflicted on the borough.

Welcome to the new boss…

FFS, Forest. Here we go again.

And so Romano is reporting that Vitor Pereira is unlikely to start the new season as head coach at the World Famous. Oh Lordy, that’s just what we need ahead of the players about to return for pre-season.

We’ve been here before of course, many, many times. I was really hoping that the new season ahead for Forest would be one of stability, starting with the same coach as last season - and preferably ending with him.

A top ten finish would be fine. A decent cup run and a possible Wembley appearance is all that we ask for.

But nope, Marinakis wants it all. You have to applaud the Big Fat Greek for his ambition but I’m not sure we have the infrastructure, or even the current fan mentality, to be able to match the dizzy heights in which he has set.

Something has to give. You keep on pushing for more and more and then eventually something breaks at the seams. Just look how the bubble imploded at both West Ham and Leicester.

Sure Pereira didn’t exactly trail blaze us into an end-of-season glory, but he was very, very good with his tactics. He did the job in keeping us up, something we were told was the main criteria in hiring him.

He skilfully managed the demands of Thursday in Europe and then Sunday back in the Premier League. A semi-final appearance in a major European competition is simply stunning for a club the size of Forest.

We came so, so close. Villa were a far better side for the away leg, and were tactically organised sufficiently to get the job done.

I really thought Pereira would survive at least until Christmas. There have always been whispers about his start of the season at Wolves last year. As long as he didn’t have too much say in the transfer window then I was confident that his coaching would be all that was required.

There was the red herring of a possible move to the Saudi Super League. Maybe that wasn’t a red herring? It all did feel a little odd when the contract talks were on and then both sides diplomatically said they were happy for them to be put on hold.

I get tired of saying trust in the process, trust the Big Fat Greek. Each time he more or less seems to deliver with the right person waiting in the wings.

But for every Steve Cooper and Nuno there’s also a Martin O’Neill and Sean Dyche. Oh Gawd, how Dyche must be pissing himself right now.

This is all so unsettling for the players. Elliot Anderson is about to kick off in a few minutes in a World Cup knockout match. Technically he’s still a Forest player. I doubt the news has even reached him that his club coach is on the verge of being replaced.

I really can’t be arsed to look online for the odds as to who is favourite to replace Pereira should the Big Fat Greek pull the trigger button. Marco Silva would be the fans' favourite but that ship has long since sailed.

I was getting a little excited about pre-season. I even thought through the possibilities of a trip back to the Fair City for the Notts pre-season.

I can’t be bothered now, knowing that there is so much uncertainty behind the scenes.

I really want to be part of a club that is pushing forward together, on and off the pitch. That’s the cliche that Forest fans sing but the reality is far from different.

It’s time for the Big Fat Greek to recognise that a compromise is needed for what his ambitions are and what the fan base wants. We want stability, we want certainty. We want glory but not at any price.

“I honestly cannot remember the last time I visited a museum and felt as disappointed as I did when walking out of the cafe – I mean, museum – as I did here. It’s basically just a cafe with a few small objects dotted around, and well, that’s all there is.”

IanVisits on the Museum of Youth Culture

Much to my surprise I’ve never actually heard this album before. It’s one of those records where the cover is iconic and you think you already know it inside out. Not so. Pink Floyd, without the lyrics, is so easy going on the ear. For such a challenging band this isn’t very challenging music. I rather like it that way. Plus it’s quite incredible to think this was released in 1970. Only seven years earlier it was all about Twist n Shout. That’s one hell of a leap in musical progression! Sure Pink Floyd weren’t alone in being responsible for this but it still blows my mind that you can go from Mop Top Mersey Beat simplicity to something like Atom Heart Mother in only seven years. This is basically a freefall jazz album. I know loads of shit comes bundled up with such a tag but I quite like all that shit.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I wasn’t even sure that there was such a thing as spaghetti courgette. I thought my allotment partner was taking a piss when she returned with the green curly wurly and declared it a delicacy.

A quick online shifty confirms that such a thing does exist. Gawd knows what it bloody tastes like. And why is it so wonky anyway? What’s wrong with a more conventional courgette?

So far we’ve returned with two courgettes from the patch. One was shaped like a football and the other looks more like a rather long elongated earpiece.

Funny old business this allotment growing.

A couple of CDs. You don’t say.

Let’s start with the absolute bonkers bat shit crazy first. Here we have Aphrodite’s Child and their 666 masterpiece. It’s a double album, and it came shrink-wrapped and box fresh. I wasn’t expecting that.

This stumbled into my feeds a few weeks ago. I knew nothing about it before then. It turns out it’s some late 60s prog effort that actually boasts Denis Rousos on lead vocals.

It’s absolutely NUTS. The Wikipedia entry informs me that it attempts to retell some biblical story. This gets lost after the first track.

It doesn’t sound like it’s a late 60s prog effort. In fact, some of the tracks have quite hypnotic beats and could quite easily fit into a GP playlist.

I absolutely bloody love it. It’s my summer drop for 2026. Never say that I am behind the times.

And then we come to Miles. Last month was pretty much all about Miles with the hashtag #miles100, all over my audio feeds.

Someday My Prince Will Come is Miles at his most accessible. There’s nothing wrong with some of the deep shit that Miles got up to during his peak period, but also you can’t go wrong with something light and breezy like the Someday album, especially on a lazy summer afternoon.

If you were to tell me 30 or 40 years ago that I’ll be closing my days out listening to late 60s prog and Miles Davis, then I would have told you to get a fucking life, Grandad.

Like a fine wine I like to think that my musical tastes have aged well.

A morning spent pounding the mean streets of C07, delivering some more leaflets for the lovely local Green Party.

But wait! What’s this? Surely there’s not another election is there?

Not another one etc.

Nope. These are the thank you leaflets. The Greens are very thankful people like that. We’re delivering leaflets throughout the town to thank the many people who came out and gave us some support.

In the end it was a very close thing. Well not exactly close, but we put in a bloody good effort. We went from pretty much 0% of the vote up to a thousand actual votes cast. We still need to find 500 or so more to get over the line. We’re building…

I picked up my two leaflet rounds. These were actually available last week, but there was no way I was dragging my hairy arse around the town with temperatures coming close to 40 degrees.

I wasn’t surprised to see I’ve been allocated the very, very top of the town. No worries, I do enjoy a good long straight walk, especially so with some podcast listening to catch up.

During the election campaign I pretty much wiped out my entire Forest bank catalogue of podcasts to catch up. These have slipped in recent weeks. It was a pleasure to go out pounding the streets once again with Forest Focus in the AirPods.

Last time I was around these parts, pushing Green leaflets through letter boxes, there was optimistic talk of reaching a Europa League final. How did that one work out?

In the AirPods today was how do we go about spunking the hundred million pound plus for the sale of Elliot Anderson? It’s almost enough to distract you from doing your leafleting job.

One thing I noticed whilst out doing the door-to-door thing was the changing nature of the gardens over the past six weeks or so. I know this first round inside out. I’ve delivered three or four leaflets to each particular house.

Small changes are visible, such as seeing builders or gardeners six weeks ago working in individual houses. The jobs are now complete. Haven’t they done a good job?

There were a few houses where I felt a little nervy about the leaflets. When you see locals out on the garden then it feels rude not to say hello and ask them if it’s okay to pass on a leaflet.

Don’t forget that we’re up against a legacy mainstream media that does its best to try and demonise Polanski and others within our party.

I approached one particular female who was out doing a bit of digging. I asked her politely, “Is it okay to leave a leaflet with you?” She looked at me momentarily concerned for a few seconds and then clocked it was a Green party leaflet.

“That’s my party! I would love one!”

I took some pleasure as well in delivering to the one house in the whole town that had a Reform billboard up during the election campaign. Read and learn, my friend. Read and learn.

It got a little tricky around some of the outposts with their more obscure front doors. Post boxes are not always obvious.

A couple of hours later my first round one was done. Round two takes me into the Here Be Dragons territory for Weird Wiv.

I’ve got a month or so of Guardian Politics Podcast to catch up with. I wonder if they will break the election result?

This still sounds so fresh, right from the opening synth drum beats of New Life. There couldn’t be a more perfect opening to an album with the nominative determinism to welcome it. Depeche Mode were always at their best when they were young, clean, and full of optimism. Speak & Spell personifies this approach. For a band so young at the time, the depth of songwriting is impressive. Big Muff always raises a smile. An album that defines modernism at the start of a new decade.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Some do New Music Monday. I like to do Tatty Tunes Tuesday.

And so there I was about to fire up another Drum and Bus Show when R pinged me early on Tuesday morning.

Hey! Are you enjoying that current toe-tapper that everyone is talking about? Synthesising the Silk Roads… somehow passed me by on the Smooth Radio playlist this week.

Blimey.

And so what we have here is forgotten underground music from 1980s Soviet Central Asia. As the title suggests, it fuses disco, rock, electronica with traditional Silk Road folk and jazz. It’s not going to bother the top 40 anytime soon.

A lot of the album comes from dead stock vinyl that was pressed in the Soviet era plants in Uzbekistan. If dear old Andy Kershaw was still with us, he’d be having multiple wet dreams over this.

It’s not for the faint-hearted but then again it really is quite accessible compared to some of the crap I try and silence on the radio these days. I barely get beyond two to three minutes of any contemporary station before Alexa is told to change.

I’m always up for experimentation, and synthesising the Silk Roads is a step in the right direction. You’d go pretty batshit crazy if this was your only musical exposure. It’s all about dipping in and dipping out of different styles and tastes.

I continued the game of musical ping-pong. I pinged back over to R Redman International and We Run Things. This is a 40-track compilation of Ddgi dub from the early to mid-1980s.

It’s not a million miles away from Synthesising the Silk Roads in terms of aspirations, if not influences. Music is all the much better when different genres blend together. Digi and dub work just as well as disco and Uzbekistan folk.

Fancy that.