The tree is said to have sheltered Robin Hood, the legendary 13th-century bandit who stole from the rich and gave to the poor and took refuge in the forest when being pursued by the sheriff of Nottingham.
It got its name after being mentioned in a book on oaks by Major Hayman Rooke in 1790 that led to the first wave of fans who flocked to the forest.
Now they just need to find that sword Excalibur that King Arthur used.
This time of year is pretty stressful for a subset of teams that play up and down the English Football League pyramid, as this is when select teams lock promotions and relegation from one league to another. Up and down the EFL food chain, the better teams get promoted to the next league, while the bad teams get relegated to lower leagues. There are huge financial implications to all of this. If you want a crash course on the system and how a team can go from the lowest league to a whisper away from the Premier League, watch ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ on Hulu.
A photograph has emerged of the Southampton analyst allegedly observing Middlesbrough’s training session last Thursday, just 48 hours before the two clubs met in the Championship play-off semi-final first leg.
The photograph, originally published in the Daily Mail but which The Athletic has also obtained, shows a young man standing, half-covered by a tree at Middlesbrough’s Rockliffe Park training ground holding up his mobile phone. He has been named as William Salt, a member of Tonda Eckert’s backroom analysis team.
The image will form part of the evidence Middlesbrough provide to the English Football League (EFL) as they seek to have the greatest sporting sanction possible imposed on Southampton, including expulsion from the play-offs. Middlesbrough also have details of a credit card used by the ‘spy’ at the golf club adjacent to Rockliffe.
Middlesbrough are gathering other evidence and have a statement from a former member of Southampton’s staff regarding the practise of ‘spying’ on opponents before matches, according to sources briefed on the matter. The Teesside club have engaged the services of high-profile sports lawyer Nick De Marco and want the EFL hearing to begin before the weekend. The play-off final is May 23, with Hull City having already booked their place.
Michael Walker – The Athletic
Hearkens back to the ‘original’ Spygate between the New England Patriots and the NY Jets (a controversy that was really based on a technicality of where the video was being captured from, but I digress…) only this one is interesting because of the stakes involved and the fact that the winner of this match is slated to play Hull City in 10 days time to determine who gets promoted to the Premier League. At the same time, I don’t know how much of an advantage can be gained from watching a soccer/football team practice compared to, say, learning the signal patterns or plays of an American Football team where success is so much more reliant on knowing the set plays about to be run. Soccer/football is such a more fluid sport where broader game strategy and tactics produce advantages.
The story of Robert Johnson and his “deal with the devil” to obtain his legendary guitar skills still peaks people’s interest – from Keith Richards to Bob Dylan to the movie Sinners as the most recent example. So when a newly discovered recording of his “Cross Road Blues” surfaces, you need to give it a listen:
Though it contains no reference to any such unholy pact, nor to any denizen of the underworld, “Cross Road Blues” does have a haunting sound that goes with the shadowy ambience of the man’s short life story. Some of that had to do with the less-than-ideal quality of the recordings that have long circulated, but this test pressing of Johnson’s second take sounds different. Uploaded by sound restorer Nick Dellow, it was originally made in 1940 straight from the metal master by Columbia Records producer George Avakian, who would go on to work with everyone from Miles Davis to Edith Piaf to John Cage. The sonic muddiness of most Robert Johnson releases thus far has done its part to prevent modern-day listeners from getting quite what the big deal was about him. But perhaps the unprecedented clarity of this recording will get the hair of young musicians and mature connoisseurs alike standing on end.
Yes, this video is having a moment. But the choreography is spot on. And you also can’t keep your eyes off of Yung Lean in the center of, er, the storm. No notes.
On July 8, 1989, a young music fan named Aadam Jacobs, with a compact Sony cassette recorder in his pocket, went to see an up-and-coming rock band from Washington for their debut show in Chicago.
After a blast of guitar feedback, 22-year-old Kurt Cobain politely announced to the crowd at the small club called Dreamerz: “Hello, we’re Nirvana. We’re from Seattle.” With that, the band, then a quartet, launched into the riff-heavy first song, “School.”
Jacobs surreptitiously recorded the performance, documenting the fledgling band in raw, fiery form more than two years before Nirvana’s global breakthrough with the album “Nevermind.”
Jacobs went on to record more than 10,000 concerts, with increasingly sophisticated equipment, over four decades in Chicago and other cities. Now a group of devoted volunteers in the U.S. and Europe is methodically cataloging, digitizing and uploading them one by one.
The growing Aadam Jacobs Collection is an internet treasure trove for music lovers, especially for fans of indie and punk rock during the 1980s through the early 2000s, when the scene blossomed and became mainstream. The collection features early-in-their-career performances from alternative and experimental artists like R.E.M., The Cure, The Pixies, The Replacements, Depeche Mode, Stereolab, Sonic Youth and Björk.
Christopher Weber – AP
For all you audio slaves out there, Jacobs’ full collection is now digitized on the Internet Archive site for your listening and downloading pleasure. While the collection includes a ton of bands that I have personally never heard of, it also includes concerts from, beyond the bands noted above, well known bands like Belle & Sebastian, Pavement, The Sugarcubes, The Afghan Whigs and The Cardigans to name a few.
My personal favorites are below, and they sound excellent:
Just a stunning photo from the Artemis II mission of the moon eclipsing the sun. No notes.
Take a few minutes to check out the rest of the photos (on their Flickr account no less. Blast from the past!) from the mission. Some really incredible shots including the below.
This absolutely incredible photo taken (by Kayleigh K) moments after LA Angels Right Fielder Jo Adell robbed a *third* home run of the night off of the bats of the Seattle Mariners. You can see all three of the catches in the below video.
There are several things going on here that bring this into focus:
First of all, the game had very few runs, ending in a 1-0 victory for the Angels. So right there, these three catches saved 3 runs (all three of them were hit with no men on base) and the game for the Angels. Who says defense is not important!
Then, the last two catches happened in the top of the 8th and top of the 9th innings respectively, with the Angels still clinging to that one run lead.
Finally, if you watch the below video and pay attention to the replay of the last HR saving catch at about the 3:25 mark, as Adell falls into the stands, you can see the photographer of the above photo – Kayliegh K – quickly get to her feet and have the presence of mind to get her phone camera fired up to take the above photo. Really amazing to see her react like this in real time as its happening just feet in front of her!
Over the past few weeks, I have been doing a lot of clean up and updates to this site, mostly with the help of Claude – my new AI friend (LOL). Over this period, I have updated the site with a new theme that feels much faster, fixed several little bugs and details that have bothered me for a while, added “NEW” and “UPDATED” flags for images that have been updated/added to the Wallpaper galleries, fixed my 404 Error page (refresh it a few times), and several other minor changes.
But most importantly, Claude helped me clean up and fix many many issues and items behind the scenes on the server. This included clearing out about 1.1GB of unused images, cleaned up and optimized numerous CSS files into one ‘master’ file, and some WP Database cleanups.
All of this is stuff that I’ve wanted to do for a while but did not have the skills or knowledge to know where to start. By ‘vibe coding’ with Claude, I was taken step by step on the process and as part of this, I learned about how to interact with the AI engine and how to make edits to my website server via SSH and Terminal.
This didn’t come without some hiccups including twice having my site barf and render nothing but code on the homepage in two different instances – issues that we were not able to triage and figure out what triggered these issues. Hopefully they will not resurface.
So, overall, I have to say that this AI thing may have a future.
Last night at Brooklyn Steel, a concert venue in the Williamsburg section of the NYC borough, Michael Stipe – former lead singer of R.E.M. (one of my favorite bands) – took the stage with Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy to sing “These Days” and “The Great Beyond”. This was the first time he has sung these songs on stage in about 18 years. I happened to be at this show with friends – all of us hoping this would happen. The show itself was fantastic. Having Michael Stipe make a cameo took it to another level. I took a video of the performance from the back of the room that I would have posted, but I then found the above video on YouTube that was far better than mine.
Mr. FitzGerald, strong-jawed and sarcastic, said by his own account that he was not especially good at running the finances, which often created stress for his family. “I’ll go down as one of the rottenest businessmen ever,” he said. But making money was never the point for him. “My art was solving problems and making this block come to life,” he said, and “I picked a great block.”
Before the vintage shops and tattoo parlors of today, the plot of land several miles north of the Battery had been many things: in the seventeenth century, Peter Stuyvesant’s farm; in the eighteen-thirties, a home to the Manhattan developer Thomas E. Davis, who built a row of brick Federal houses and named the block St. Marks Place after the church around the corner. By the early twentieth century, it was a hardscrabble community of working-class immigrants.
When Mr. FitzGerald arrived in the 1950s, the block “was not hip,” said Ms. Calhoun. “You would have seen Ukrainian immigrants sweeping their stoops, grandmothers leaning out of windows, children running through the streets.”
Alessandra Schade, NY Times
The article notes that Mr. FitzGerald has been living on St. Mark’s place since the late 1950s and has been in his awesome (!!!) apartment, also on St. Mark’s, since 1974. Over the years he acquired several properties on the street and has made it his mission to ensure that those who operate on the street help preserve the vibe that he has worked so long to keep alive. This is the NYC that we will lose as it gets taken over by franchises and new buildings.
Sadly, David Rosen, the founder of SEGA has died. However, check out his obit in the NY Times and the lead header image/gif which is a gif of Bare Knuckle II. It is fantastic! The obit is also very much worth the read – Mr. Rosen was so far ahead of his time!
From the obit:
During the 1990s, Genesis was seemingly everywhere: in commercials during the MTV Video Music Awards; on an episode of “Roseanne,” when the title character’s son, D.J., huffs off to play Genesis at a friend’s house when his parents won’t buy him a Nintendo; and in the 1996 movie “Swingers,” when Trent, played by Vince Vaughn, makes Wayne Gretzky’s head bleed in a popular hockey game.
And of course, how could you forget ads for Sonic the Hedgehog and other games that invariably ended with a character from the ad saying a quickly vocalized “SEGA!”
The old Pennsylvania Station in NYC has always been a fascinating topic for me. I wish I could have seen the grandeur of that building when it was vibrant and active. Imagine the beauty of today’s Grand Central Station in Midtown, only on steroids. From what I have been told, the scale of the old Pennsylvania Station was breathtaking. If Pennsylvania Station had survived through to today, I could only imagine what it would look like if the same care and attention to restoration was given to it as was given to Grand Central.
This is about a month old but wanted to post about it anyway. There was a really interesting article in the NY Times talking about the albatross of fixing Penn Station in NYC to both attempt to make amends for the both disastrous 1963 decision to raze Penn Station AND try to fix what has easily become the worst traveler experience in the country (and maybe the world?).
The article describes how so many competing stakeholders – NJ, NY, Port Authority, Amtrak, NJ Transit, LIRR, NYC, Madison Square Garden – and the insipid politics that come with all of those groups have left us where we are today – where commuters to NJ and Long Island essentially have to burrow themselves into a soulless hole in the ground under /Madison Square Garden in order to get home after a long day at work.
In New York, a long line of strong-willed elected officials — Mr. Spitzer included — have pledged that a makeover of Penn Station was on the way.
In 2006, Mr. Pataki, the Republican governor, spoke of creating “a visionary new Pennsylvania Station.” His successor, Mr. Spitzer, said in 2008 that he was committed to a revamp of Penn that would “redefine Midtown Manhattan.” In 2016, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo likened the station to “seven levels of hell” and, rolling out his own $3 billion plan, vowed, “This will get done.”
Most recently, the current governor, Kathy Hochul, said that “New Yorkers do not deserve what they have been subjected to for decades at Penn Station” and presented a revised version of Mr. Cuomo’s proposal with an estimated cost of more than $6 billion.
After all of that talk about all of those visions, Penn Station remains a confusing, overburdened labyrinth of hallways and stairwells buried beneath a 20,000-seat entertainment venue.
What I found most interesting is how the same 21-track layout built 100+ years ago for less frequent train routes is still in use today – making for additional delays as the higher volume of trains need to get in and out of the station, and that the already cramped platforms were made MORE cramped because 1,000+ additional pillars needed to be added underground in order to support the weight of MSG. Maybe that was the signal to those wizards back in the 1960s that their decision was not a really good one.
After living in the NYC area for most of my life, and after visiting different countries and cities around the world, I can easily say that Penn Station and much of the public transport infrastructure in the NYC metro area (NYC, Long Island and New Jersey) has been woefully under-invested in. It is a complete failure that the whole of all NY and NJ elected officials and anyone even remotely associated with this situation are owners of.
I mean, take a look at this Fantasy NYC Region Transit map that was recently posted on Reddit. How great would it be to have a seamless transportation system where the NYC region could function as a real metro area – where I could take a train from New Brunswick, NJ on one line “directly” to 79th Street, as opposed to fragmented systems siloed by cities and states. One can dream.
The above photo – haunting, devastating and yet beautiful all at the same time – from the Eaton Fires in Southern California in January, 2025. This and others can be found in the Top 25 News Photos from The Atlantic. Kinda surprised the collection didn’t include a screenshot of “Signalgate” chat that Jeff Goldberg was included in.
An absolutely insane apartment hit the market on October 15th in NYC’s legendary “The Dakota” apartment building on Central Park West on the Upper West Side. It is the first time this unit has been on the market in 40+ years. The apartment is a 3 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom unit with 13.5 foot ceilings, with most of the unit overlooking Central Park. Take a look at the listing here – the place is incredible. According to the listing, the apartment is going for a cool $24 Million. A 30 year mortgage with 50% of that sticker price as a down payment would run about $74,277 a month and monthly maintenance is an equally staggering $18,693 (Bringing the total monthly cost to about $92,970).
From the listing:
The gracious layout unfolds from a handsome mahogany-paneled vestibule leading into a stately central gallery. From here, the magnificent park-facing library-with its original fireplace and intricate detailing-opens via pocket doors to an expansive 600-square-foot living room, where wonderful Central Park views create an atmosphere of timeless elegance. Across the gallery, a grand 24-foot formal dining room, complete with fireplace and original pocket doors, overlooks the Dakota’s enchanting interior courtyard and fountains.
The Dakota got its name because when it was built in 1884, there was absolutely nothing around it, so for its residents back then, it felt like they were living in the Dakota territory relative to the rest of NYC, that was situated so much further downtown.
The Dakota is also famous for being the location where the 1966 Roman Polanski film “Rosemary’s Baby” was filmed. It is also, sadly, the site where John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980.
Last weekend I finished updating all the Wallpapers for the English, Scottish and European leagues featured on the site, reflecting the club kit designs for the 25-26 season. My goal is always to try to get them done before the start of the season in England/Europe however I am finding that harder and harder to achieve with the sheer volume of items to update coupled with the the fact that the kit designs are usually not announced until the late summer.
I found that this year there was a high number of kit designs that employed some pretty complex patterns and graphics (Netherlands club Volendam and their insane third kit being the winner in that category! :). While that was challenging to deal with, the new toy on the market to help me out this year was Generative AI, and specifically Google’s AI Studio, which did a more than respectable job of replicating some of these complex patterns. Now that I am past the ‘crunch’ of getting them all done, I will circle back and see if I can improve on any that I’m not exactly thrilled with. And of course, if any kits that have not yet been updated are subsequently announced, I will update them accordingly.
Another little feature that I added to my Wallpaper galleries is a small yellow “NEW” icon/bug on the top right corner of Wallpapers that I have added to the site over the past 7 days (it is based on the upload date of both “net new” and “updates” of older versions). When you hover over the icon/bug, it also displays a little tool tip indicating the day that I added/updated it. This little feature is more valuable in galleries like College or the US pro leagues, where items there do not get updated as frequently, and therefore, you can see when something has been updated. I have tested it on Firefox, Safari and Chrome/Brave browsers (Desktop only) and seems to be working fine but let me know if there are any issues. This feature is only active on the Desktop version of the site.
So there you go, Internet. Show off your loyalties to your favorite team on your favorite computer/device.
I’ve updated the English Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two and National League desktop wallpaper collections/tabs for 2025-26. Unbelievably, this is the 10th year that I have done this. I have recently posted an Archives page that goes back to 2020 (didn’t keep copies prior to that year). It stated back then because I was not happy with the different wallpaper designs/options for the teams that I support. In addition, I really liked the unique designs that appeared on different team uniforms/kits and was surprised that I could not find computer wallpapers that reflected those designs. I was further inspired by the simplicity of wallpapers on this site and, as they say, the rest is history. :)
I do my best to replicate and be as true as I possibly can to the team / kit’s original design, however there are often circumstances where I have to take some artistic liberties and license due to unique elements of the pattern used on the original and not being able to find the same design online. The advent and advances in AI capabilities is making this a bit easier to handle and manage.
Now that I have finished the top four five English levels, I’ll next take on the English National Leagues North and South. I’m also debating going to do the European ones first (already did Belgium) and then returning to do the English National Leagues.
For the four English leagues I’ve done so far, I’ve updated 100% of Home kits, 97% of Away kits, and 77% of Third kits (as of 5 Sept 25). A handful of these missing kits (mostly 3rd kits) have not yet been announced as far as I can see. I’ve experimented with using AI to help generate some of the more complex patterns, with middling results. :) I will circle back on them at a later date. If patterns are omitted, it was a decision, and I will also circle back on them at a later date to improve them.
Nice and relatively well edited/selected list of the Top 100 Movies of the 21st Century from the NY Times. As you can see from the above image, I am proud to report that as of today, I’ve seen 62 of these fine feature films. For what it is worth, there are several of the remaining 38 that are on my ‘to watch’ list which would have brought that total up a bit higher.
The ageless wonder Mel Brooks announced that they are making “Spaceballs 2” with a pretty funny reveal video. The original is a hilarious spoof of the Star Wars universe, featuring such characters as Yogurt, Dark Helmet and Colonel Sandurz and such classic cheesy humor lines like “May the Schwartz be with you.”, “She gives great helmet.”, and “Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!” to name a few. I just hope Mel is around to see this movie’s release in 2027.
If you’ve never seen this classic comedy, you can watch it on YouTube (rent) or it is available on Max (Or HBO or HBO Max or whatever they are calling it today).
