Stone Over Water by Carl MacDougall (Minerva 1989)

Tuesday, Aprll 22:

Helen ls too attentive. I think she knows more than she pretends to know which would not be hard since she pretends to know nothing.

Miranda's eyes are everywhere. On Monday I phoned her and she phoned me today. The message is always the same.

Last night I went to the attic and found three pages typed on the Underwood. It's bad enough discovering your father was a closet radical without extra evidence arriving daily.

If I find more of my father's writings, I'll burn them.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON SCOTTISH DEFINITIONS WITH A VIEW OF THE NATIVE PHILOSOPHY

The ensuing remarks are not intended to trespass upon the domain of such specialist publications as The Scottish National Dictionary or Dwelly's Gaelic-English Dlctionary. I merely wish to inform our English and foreign visitors of certain usages which are common throughout the Lowlands, Borders and most tracts of the English-speaking Highlands and Islands.

HOW SCOTSMEN DEFINE EACH OTHER

A Braw Bugger(1)

One who can shite(2) with the best of them.

A Dour Bugger

One who cannot shite yet refuses to take the medicine.

A Thrawn Bugger

One who can't shite, takes the medicine yet refuses to shite.

A Canny Bugger

One who can't shite, takes the medicine, still can't shite, returns the medicine and has his money refunded.

An Uncanny Bugger

One who can't shite, takes the medicine, won't shite, returns the medicine, has his money refunded, then shites.

Note that the Braw Bugger and the Uncanny Bugger, the alpha and omega of this spectrum, have one common characteristic - their bodily functions are unimpeded by normal imperatives.

1: The term bugger when applied by one Scotsman to another has no sexual significance, even even in sheep-rearing parishes. Since, to the Scot, a man is the highest form of created life, to call a man 'a man' is to overpraise him.

2: The male Scot prefers excretion ro sexuality because, although both are equally inevitable, the first is less expensive.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

The Shoe by Gordon Legge (Polygon 1989)

They always had good rants, Mental and Richard. The miners' strike provided eighteen months of debating material. Mental was completely disillusioned with the Protestant work ethic and found the refusal to hold a ballot smug and disturbing. Richard blamed the miners' loss on their amateurish use of the media and the media's innate bias. He talked of camera angles, interview locations and distorted emphasis. A ballot was useless, Richard said, since the media determined the information supply and the media was biased. The miners had elected leaders to make decisions on their behalf. That's what Scargill's job was. But Mental was unimpressed. The miners represented everything he hated about the 'mince and tatties mentality': 'All these places are Hun cities. Take Bo'ness, for example, typical fucking mining community. Hun bastards. You've got all these fat bastards moaning about not having any food. And I hate the word "scab". People degrade themselves by using that kind of attack.' They all wanted to see the miners win and they all agreed that Leonard Parkin was a fascist. But mostly they wanted to see Margaret Hilda Thatcher melt.

The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)

1985AD

Damn, I'd forgotten how good this song was.

From one of the best albums of the eighties, Colourbox's 'The Moon Is Blue':

Whatever happened to Lorita Grahame and the Young brothers?

Where's the Facebook campaign to make Colourbox's 'Official Colourbox World Cup Theme' the number 1 single during the World Cup? And throw in their cover of 'Baby I Love You So' as the Xmas number 1 whilst you're at it.

Rude Kids: The Unfeasible Story of Viz by Chris Donald (HarperCollins 2004)

John was always keen to make a Viz TV programme. It wasn't an idea that had occurred to me, but John envisaged films and TV shows, and all the money and showbiz kudos that came with them. He was constantly on the phone reminding me to write a Viz TV show, as if it was something we could do in our lunch break.

In 1987 I met someone else who also had visions of Viz on TV. I'd never heard the name Harry Enfield until September of that year when the man himself rang me up and explained that he was a comedian and a big fan of Viz. He wondered if he could come up to Newcastle and meet me. He brought with him a producer friend called Andrew Fell and we went to Willow Teas for lunch. Harry was a big sniggerer - he laughed and chuckled a lot - but he was also smarmy. he'd studied politics at York University and seemed to be employing the tricks of that trade to further his career in entertainment. At one point he whispered that I should just ignore his friend Andrew as he'd only been invited along to pay for the train tickets and the lunch.

Harry said he was interested in doing a television equivalent of Viz, a sketch show based around lots of different characters. Would we be interested in helping to write it? As with Jonathan Ross, I nodded politely and said I'd think about it. Not long after that meeting Harry was on tour and performing at Newcastle Polytechnic along with the Scottish comedian and writer Craig Ferguson, who in those days was fat and went by the stage name of Bing Hitler. I'd never seen Harry perform, but from what he'd told me his act was made up of various characters, a bit like Viz. One of his jokes, about him being so sexy that a taxi he was travelling in exploded, had been lifted straight out of our Tony Knowles story in issue 11.

Slaves of New York (1989)

God Save The King (2005)

Who's That Girl (1987)

Going home at half time 'cos it's too bastard cold

Further to this recent post, it turns out my memory isn't too shoddy after all.

As revealed by this list it was Mark Goodson who played for Hemel Town FC back in the day. Other names from that list transporting me back into a fug of early eighties football nostalgia include Tony Horsfall; Dave Edwards; Steve Hoar (a drinking mate of my Dad); Steve Wilson (a workmate of my Dad); Mick Vipond; and Hugh Boycott-Brown (with a name like that, should have been a backbench Tory MP. I seem to remember him as a free scoring centre forward.)

Last post was entitled Tony Horsfall's black and white army. For some reason, in my mind's eye, I primarily remember Hemel playing in white shirts and black shorts but they must have mostly played in their usual red strip when I used to watch them. So why can't I remember it? Maybe all my memories of Hemel playing have been crystallised into one particular match where they happened to be wearing their change strip of black and white?

It's amazing the stuff you think of when you're sleep deprived by a 15 month force of nature.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now: My Difficult 80s by Andrew Collins (Ebury Press 2004)

Ben Elton is my big favourite at the moment. He's my guiding light. My moral compass. He's mobilised all the instinctive humanitarian, left-wing feelings that have brewing up in me since leaving home and given voice to the way I feel deep down inside. I've never before been this laid bare with guilt - but good guilt, useful social guilt, practical guilt; not abstract, debilitating girlfriend -induced guilt about having a happy family or parking inconsiderately. In the space of just a few weekly stand-up routines in that crap suit, Ben has succeeded in making me feel guilty about a much broader range of stuff.

Ben Elton speaks directly to me, he speaks directly to all of us, from his pulpit on Saturday Live. I've never seen the halls coffee bar as packed as it is now is every Saturday night at ten. Standing room only. The committee don't bother hiring a video in any more and the poor old Prince Albert empties at 9.45. One week he's exposing the folly of trying to get a double seat on a train and speaking of the repressed British character, the next he's damning Benny Hill for chasing women round the park when in fact street lighting is inadequate and women are too scared to walk through parks. On occasions we've all found ourselves clapping the TV. Saturday Live makes me glad I'm back I'm back in the halls.

Melting Mowbray

Oh my. I wasn't expecting that.

I will always remember where I was when Celtic recovered from a 3-0 deficit, to steal a 3-3 draw against the best team in Austria: lying on the couch . . . with the laptop on my belly . . . half-watching the Magnum PI segment on BBC's I Love 1981.

Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987)

Forty Days of Tucker J. by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1983)

Tucker walked outside. Paddy was still there.

Hello, Peter, then. I see you've joined the toiling masses.'

'Wish I had, Paddy. Are you out of work, then?'

Paddy smiled: 'No, I'm not. I'm doing this for a friend. Just to give a hand, like.'

Tucker took a leaflet and walked away reading it.

'Fight for the Right to Work' said the leaflet.

They must be joking.

The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner 1995)

Brownlow went on with his packing but kept stopping to look at Shahid - who was turning the aubergine in his hand - like he wanted to say something. "The thing is, this religion - the superstitions, cults, forms of worship, prayers - some are beautiful, some interesting, all have their purposes. But who'd have imagined they'd survive rationalism? Yet just when you thought God was dead and buried, you realize he was merely awaiting resurrection! Every fucker's discovering some God inside them now. And who am I to challenge this?"

"Exactly. I'd say you're just a weak bastard, Dr. Brownlow."

"Thank you. Are they the fools or am I the fool? Where does that leave me?"

Where could it leave you?"

"Because, because, you i-idiot, everything I believed has turned into shit. There we were, right up to the end of the seventies, arguing about society after the r-revolution, the nature of the dialectic, the meaning of history. And all the while, as we debated in our journals, it was being taken from us. The British people didn't want e-education, housing, the a-arts, justice, equality . . . "

"Why's that?"

Because they're a bunch of fucking greedy, myopic c-cunts."

"The working class?"

"Yes!"

"A bunch of cunts?"

"Yes!" Brownlow struggled to contain himself. "No, no, it's more complicated. Very complicated." He was sobbing. "I can't say they've betrayed us - though I think it, I do! It's not true, not true! They've b-b-betrayed themselves!"

He untucked his shirt and wiped it across his drenched face. He threw down his hands, put his head back and, with his lips quivering, angled his thinker's forehead at the ceiling.

"C-c-cut my throat. Please. Lost in more than my fortieth year - no direction home! End me before things get w-w-w-worse!"

Shahid leapt up and rushed to the window. Thinking he'd heard Chad coughing, he concealed himself behind the dusty curtain and peered outside.

"You don't have to plead, Brownlow, the throat-cutters are checking the address right now. They'll be coming up the front path. If you stay in that position, redemption will be on the way!"

Shahid could see no one. But it was dark, and if his enemies did reach him, he'd be trapped here; and Brownlow gibbering like Gogol's madman awaiting the straitjacket, would hardly provide cover.

John Hughes Montage

Nice reprise of John Hughes best films from the eighties. Not a Curly Sue in sight.

I guess that Breakfast Club sequel will never be made after all.

Oi For England (1982)

The Sweet Forever by George P. Pelecanos (A Dell Book 1998)

"Karras crossed the avenue, approaching Stefanos and the kid from behind. As he neared them, Karras saw the televisions in the window were all tuned to the same image: Len Bias, wearing that jazzy ice green suit of his, standing out of his chair at the calling of his name.

All right, it was news. But why were they running the draft highlights again, two days after the fact?

"Nick?" said Karras.

Stefanos and the boy turned their heads. The black kid was crying freely, tears running down his cheeks.

"Dimitri," said Stefanos, his eyes hollow and red.

Karas felt hot and suddenly nauseous in the sun. He backed away to a government oak, leafy and full, planted by the curb. Karras stepped into its cool shade.

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. It was better there, standing in the darkness pooled beneath the tree.

Thank You Wiki (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)*

Never knew that. Procrastination sometimes has its own rewards.

Turns out that the bloke who produced the first two Duran Duran albums, Colin Thurston, also produced the following seminal records:

Human League's 'Reproduction'

Magazine's 'Secondhand Daylight'

Our Daughter's Wedding 'Digital Cowboy'

Talk Talk's 'The Party's Over'

KajaGooGoo's 'White Feathers'

Well, seminal records for me, I mean.

And people still insist on sneering at Duran Duran after all these years. Dismissing them as being nothing more than vacuous pretty boys. Pop culture harbingers of Thatcherism.

"Pretty boys"? Have you ever seen John Taylor in his natural light? Fulham's Jimmy Bullard scrubs up better. If it weren't for the tunes and Simon Le Bon's Sondheim-like lyrics, Nick Rhodes would still be second assistant at the bovril stand at the Holte End to this day.

*With regards to the title of the post; Yeah I know that Colin Thurston didn't produce that particular classic Magazine track, but the song was ringing through my ears whilst spewing out this post.