Beggars would work far better without the distraction of Sympathy. Sure, it anchors the whole album. But after opening with what is undoubtably a monument, there’s nowhere else to go. But without the Sympathy, then Beggars is a really interesting, ragged, almost kooky collection of songs. It captures the comedown of ‘68. Street Fighting Man should be the lead track. It shows that The Stones were once a very dangerous band.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
This is clearly a serious album. It wasn’t recorded with TOTP appearances in mind. It was slightly tedious, tbh. Nothing offensive in there, but it didn’t half drag. Worthy, laboured, lengthy.
⭐ ⭐
Another day, another mauling at The Table of Dreams. Following on from Forest’s fuck up at the World Famous, I needed a distraction to take my mind off relegation. Hey! How about getting battered at a game of wiff waff? I sure know how to take care of my health and wellbeing.
There was late afternoon sun across the Estuary Wilds. It was 4:30pm, yet still plenty of rays up above. I feel that we have turned a corner. Gosh, it’s been a long, damp, painful winter.
The game was pretty unspectacular. The park was busy full of local folk doing Sunday afternoon park things. We’re either on speaking terms, or head nodding terms with a fair few who walked past us. It would have been rude to ignore, despite our best efforts.
This all led to some confusion with the actual score. You try holding down a conversation for a couple of minutes, and then remembering exactly where you are in the game as your frazzled brain strays ever further down the middle-age mind map meltdown.
Let’s just say I’m winning, right?
And indeed I was at one stage. The game was then levelled at 3-3. We decided on a final winner takes all. But OF COURSE I fucked up, losing 4-3.
I also had a streak of mud down the side of my left cheek, something that neither of us could explain.
Oh woe is a Head Football Coach. Oh especially WOE is a Head Football Coach who has just overseen a stunning away performance in Europe for his first game, and then comes crashing down back at home with the visit of the PL title holders.
Liverpool should hold no fear for Forest. We’ve turned them over, home and away, in recent seasons. In your head, in your HEAD, Arnie, Arnie, etc. Vitor Pereira had the simple task of repeating whatever is was that Forest managed to pull off away in Istanbul, and bring it back to the World Famous City Ground.
Picking an unchanged team was a half decent start. This was not as straight forward as it sounds. We’ve seen how Ange the Clown and Dyche both struggled back in the PL after a European hangover. But how could you change a team that was so dominant on their midweek European jollies?
The 2pm sunshine KO on the banks of the Trent seemed familiar. Forest, Liverpool, Super Sunday. If you squinted you could almost see Ready Steady Teddy scoring the first live televised goal in the PL into what was then the building site of the Trent End.
We were dominant for the first thirty minutes or so. Forest needed to make this pressure count. Liverpool were unlikely to be so forgiving come the second half.
Sangare was a MONSTER once again - and a very tricky one at that. He almost plays the game at slower pace than everyone else. Yet somehow he still manages to find the time in the middle to control the ball, slowly turn around and find a killer pass.
MGW meanwhile was running the show. He looks slimmed down - not that he was exactly bulky at any time over the past few seasons. His slender frame allows him to cut through the middle and dictate the play.
Waiting on the end of many of these early MGW passes was Hutchinson, a player that is growing in confidence with every new manager. What a ridiculous thing to say for the club’s record signing.
On the other side of the pitch and you get the impression that Neco rather enjoys stitching up Mo Salah each time they are paired together. Neco will miss him when he’s gone.
Frustratingly Forest couldn’t find a breakthrough in what was an impressive first half for the home team. The second half was all about:
DEFEND! DEFEND!
DEFEND!
DEFEND!
DEFEND!
Oh bloody hell.
On came the bench boys, making way for some very tired European legs. This was always going to weaken Forest. £200m may have been spent over the summer to give us strength in depth, but I can’t see that we’ve moved on since the days of Silva and Sosa.
The final few minutes were heartbreaking to watch. FUCK ME, VAR. You make us fall in love with you in one moment, and then the very next, you’re shitting on us live on the telly.
And so the season now becomes all about out-shooting Nuno and West Ham. Whatever you can do, we can do better, etc. We NEED these Super Sunday afternoons down at the World Famous. I couldn’t handle a return to Millwall away, midweek.
We popped into The Minories whilst in Sunny Colch. I would hesitate to call it an art trail, but being right next door to Firstsite, and well, it would be rude not to have an extra serving of art or arse.
The current Anglian Abstract exhibition is very much of the art variety, rather than the anal. It celebrates modernism in East Anglia. This is a landscape that is often captured in watercolours, and not rigid, geometrical patterns. Anglian Abstract adds a little balance.
Many of the works on show are either models, or 3D in presentation. The artwork leaps out at you, not waiting for you to chin stroke and come up with some crap about what it represents.
It all felt very earthly, even for a medium that can be cold in outlook. It all felt very analogue and not of the modern world, despite the modernism tag.
Artwork with straight lines can work wonders for an OCD obsessed amateur art critic.
Sue Webster’s Birth of an Icon at Firstsite has the type of bombastic exhibition title that you would expect from a confident artist. Tell It Like It Is, etc. Thankfully she just about gets away with it.
Birth of an Icon is no doubt a little playful, a tongue in cheek description to herald her first major solo exhibition. It comes right out of the punk playbook that the exhibition celebrates.
Basically it’s an exhibition spread over four gallery spaces, documenting how the first four Banshee albums shaped the artist. There’s some incredible detail with the various artefacts on show.
The main gallery walls resembles the contents of your loft being carefully curated and put on full public show. It’s a timeline of late 70’s, early 80’s post-punk culture, all presented in not quite a lineal style.
What works really well is the orange string that joins up the dots. It can be confusing at first, but it makes all the connections, showing how different artists, scenes and experiences are all related.
I worked my way along the timeline, surprised to see that Bowie was nowhere to be seen. Ah, don’t worry; there he is in some of the few, final spaces, showing how he helps to hang it all together.
The second gallery space has a stunning collection of DIY punk leather jackets, all bastardised showing love for the Banshees. A third room has some self-portraits of the artist whilst pregnant in her 50’s. The final space was a little too happy clappy for me with scented candles.
Oh - and I bloody loved the Crazyhead reference.
To Sunny Colch! …on Sunday morning. We were both free for a few hours. The roads were still a little too damp for a serious bicycle ride. I’m currently crocked, and so running is not an option.
And so a walk instead. We plodded off along the Trail, walking the 7km or so towards Britain’s Oldest Recorded. Wellies were ditched, walking boots were worn. And they were needed. It may have been mild, but it was still rather squelchy along the Trail.
I’ve not been along here since, oooh, since maybe November? The first sign of mud means that my winter MTB heads out on the road, and nowhere near the Trail.
It was busy along the coastal path mid-morning on Sunday. Walkers, runners, birders - they were all out in force. I was ever observant, managing to clock a very friendly robin that followed us around for a short 10 metre stretch or.
Destination Sunny Colch was reached. I’m neither ashamed nor proud to say that this is the first time that I have left my Weird Wiv / Hythe radius for the first time in three months. I need to get out more, etc.
To the Table of Dreams! …on Saturday afternoon. For once, it wasn’t raining. The mud around the foot of each end of the table meant that wellies weren’t required. A layer of clothing was lost. This felt like the first springtime game of table tennis.
New season, same result however. I raced to a 2-0 lead. I think A was still a little knackered after a morning of playing silly golf. There’s a valuable life lesson in there.
True to form, I managed to swerve the GLORY, going from 2-0 up to a 3-2 defeat. It was a lot closer than that sounds. A 5-0 thrashing surely isn’t far away - her, not me.
A very mixed bag. First up is The Meteors. I was always on the edge of the psychobilly scene in ‘84 into ‘85, without ever fully living the lifestyle. Sure, I had the flat top. I even had the brothel creepers. But I still had a soft spot for Spandau Ballet and so couldn’t quite LIVE the dream.
I’m being drawn closer to all things psychobilly and rock ‘n’ roll in general as I approach my seventh decade. The flat top has long gone. I’ve been building up a collection of brothel creepers over the past six months or so. The Meteors are pure rock ‘n’ roll with a punk attitude. I wish the psychobilly scene would make a comeback.
The Ozrics meanwhile are never going to be assessed favourably when it comes to style. There’s always been a secret prog love to my musical tastes. I find this music ideal as the working soundtrack. I can take it all in, without being distracted by the lyrics. It floats over you, whilst still being able to create some very different moods.
A bit like Abdullah Ibrahim’s Water from an Ancient Well. I knew nothing about Abdullah until this dropped in the 1,001 albums list one morning. It’s South African jazz, and a most joyous sound. Anything that puts a smile on my face these days is welcome in my CD collection.
