onionbagblog

I ride to work year round. Here are my top tips for making it actually enjoyable through the gloomy months ahead

Physical separation between cyclists, pedestrians and motorists key to safer streets, research shows No shit.

Blimey. I missed this one: the Betas are back playing together live once again. There was a couple of Roundhouse shows earlier this month.

Twenty one years after one of the most spectacular fuck ups in music history, they’re back making a familiar glorious racket.

Brilliant.

The Beta Band should have been a stadium band. Somehow we ended up with shitty Coldplay instead.

Life - and in particular the music industry - is never fair.

They didn’t exactly do themselves any favours back in the day. The £4k velcro suit is the stuff of music industry legend.

But it’s good to have them back, albeit briefly. Just don’t go raising your expectations.

Meanwhile, In Bowie News: I managed to blag a ticket for the V&A Archive for next week.

Hurrah!

A pleasant early autumnal walk along the Trail towards Sunny Colch. Not a bad little place to live, etc.

Billy Bragg has a new book out. Billy Bragg often has a new book out, and they’re all bloody good.

The Andrew Collins biog is pretty much the Bragg Bible when it comes to the official detail, documenting his forty years or so of being the One Man Clash.

Progressive Patriot is worth a re-read during these times of social division.

The new Bragg book is The People’s History. A grand title for what looks like a grand read.

It’s essentially a scrap book of material put forward by fans and Uncle Bill himself. He adds in the commentary to give each artefact a little context.

I really should have kept my ticket stub from the old Mean Fiddler in Harlesden during election night back in 1997 - probably the best gig I’ve ever been to. I hope the dude who bought it off me on eBay appreciates it.

Bragg is a guest on the latest Word In Your Ear podcast - always a decent listen. He’s on fine form as well, promoting the book.

He describes how the contribution of fan culture has led him to questioning his own understanding of what took place twenty, thirty and forty years ago.

It’s a dangerous game to mess with other people’s memories as you put over your understanding of what actually happened.

Which is why a blog is such a bloody good idea.

Ha, bloody ha.

I confess to making little inroads in the fourteen CD Bragg box set that I bought over the summer.

Blogs, box sets, and Bragg - some projects you never really finish, and that’s often the point.

But not if you are already a member of ahem another political party.

The gathering of the clans up in Norwich last weekend looked like a right old bloody rave up. I like the member led direction in which it is all going.

Good luck to the Comrades. They’re going to need it.

Your Party is doing it all over again in my Sunny Colch patch this weekend at the Community Stadium. Comparing the turn out with what Col U draw in these days will be interesting.

Ah - but who is on the up? Your Party or Col U?

I can’t but help think that a spectacular own goal is going to be scored soon.

I bloody LOVE this from Dyche. As the comments suggest, he’s probably rehearsed the line in the mirror beforehand. But it works.

The legacy media wet dreams over Guardiola go right over my head. Unlike the ball, etc.

#AgainstModernFootball is a hashtag I can get behind.

It’s not that I want Forest to play a BC old school style 4-4-2. Nuno tried that once at home to Fulham and was found out.

But please don’t hold up Guardiola as some GOD of evolving football tactics. Forest - and others - were doing this decades ago. It was just called football back in the day.

I’ve not watched the full presser. It was over an hour long. I don’t think he mentioned Burnley or Everton once.

Et tu, Mad Ange?

As I type, Dyche has yet to even take his heated seat in the Forest dug out. He’s won me over with this short clip alone.

Let’s see how I feel at FT following the Porto match.

Too much to take on board here - especially during a working morning.

It served the purpose of background music that didn’t do my nut in - which sometimes, is all you want from a background music working album.

Nice analogue sound with a warm bass and drum thing going off. No shit, seeing as though Tusk was from the analogue era.

Oh - and it’s bloody long. I persisted, only because I couldn’t be arsed to break out of the working mindset.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Some half decent thoughts on Forest from Matt Forde on the latest Forest Focus.

I can’t say I’m a fan of the centrist political bollocks he usually comes out with - and yep, he even manages to get a dig in at Corbyn on a Forest pod, ffs.

But he is the voice of reason when it comes to our current situation, with talk of the “Forest family.”

“I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about it.”

The point is that he doesn’t give a shit what other clubs and mainstream media are saying about us. We’re a family and we stick together.

Plus also it’s better that we are being talked about, rather than being Championship fodder and an irrelevance.

Forde then adds to his theory, referencing that underneath all the current mainstream madness, many fans of other clubs are still rooting for us.

I think this is true, but it’s not high on my agenda.

There was a patronising feeling when we were first promoted that it was good to have little old Forest back in the PL.

And then when we started to sign up twenty three players, this soon switched to wtf are Forest doing?

We’re here to compete, mate, not make up the numbers.

Yes, there is a constant noise around the WFCG, largely due to an ‘enthusiastic’ owner. But I would rather have my owner on the pitch after a game than being on the other side of the world, not giving a shit.

There’s still a nostalgia for us and the Glory Days amongst a certain strand of football supporters. We’ll never lose that, and nor would we want to.

But I’m warming to the “I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about it” perspective, as long as we are doing our thing and winning.

Have I become a bloody centrist in the course of one podcast listening?

Send help.

It’s obviously decent, but a little too dreamlike for my tastes. I want some more BALLS in my electronic music. Otherwise it’s just digital folk. The Hall and Oates sample just about saved it.

⭐ ⭐

The daily Forest Fan TV catch up.

Oh Lordy.

“You’re much better than Sean Dyche”

…said Everton Mike. And he should know.

I went to bed full of optimism for what’s about to follow at the World Famous City Ground. I woke up with a great big POW! Right in the kisser.

And that bloody hurt.

As ever, I am hopeless at making any objective, rational views when it comes to all things Forest. I even thought Mad Ange’s final team selection for Chelsea at home looked half decent.

If they’re wearing THAT badge with the two stars, then everything will be OK, yeah?

Although Taiwo did make me chuckle…

I know that FFTV is clickbait, albeit a little more restrained in the longer form interviews. But I’m tending to side with Wolfie right now, thinking that maybe Dyche isn’t what we need.

Two wins on the bounce - a big ask - and the season is back on track.

And Forest have yet to click a ball under Dyche.

Fickle football fans, innit.

I am enjoying all the Forest p0Rn, currently being pumped out by the club showing an Old Boy’s reunion.

Woan and McGovern together?

SWOON.