The Last Days of Disco by David F. Ross (Orenda Books 2014)

2ND FEBRUARY 1982: 2:26PM

Fat Franny Duncan loved the Godfather movies, but he did not belong to this new band of theorists who reckoned II was better than I. For Fat Franny, original was most certainly best, although, given the success of the films and the timelessness of the story, he was staggered that there hadn’t been a III, like there had been with Rocky. He also couldn’t comprehend why there had been no book spin-off, although, even if there had, he would certainly not be wasting his time reading it. He knew the dialogue from both films pretty much by heart, and used their most famous quotes as a design for life. Particularly the lines of Don Corleone, who Fat Franny felt certain he would resemble later in his life. He was, after all, fat. There was no denying this. Bulk for Brando’s most famous character helped afford him gravitas and – as a consequence – respect; a level of respect that Fat Franny felt was within his grasp. Michael was a skinny Tally bastard and, although he undoubtedly commanded reverence, it was driven by fear.

Malvinas Requiem by Rodolfo Fogwill (Serpent's Tail 1983)

Garcia had brought the newspaper photos showing the two sets of officers having tea together. The Brits had given him a bundle of photos of Argie officers who had surrendered taking tea with the naval captains from the British fleet. On the reverse were written the names of the Argentine officers, and of the place where each had surrendered.

'Chuck the lot of them!' said Viterbo. He was insistent. The Brits had asked the dillos to hand them out in the Quartermaster's, to hasten the surrender.

'Let's throw them away! No surrender! Let them kill each other, so they all fuck off and leave us in peace. We'll chuck the photos away and tell them they were distributed.'

So the dillos burnt them in the stove. There were lots of photos, the bundle was as big as a large ammunition box. It burnt slowly, giving off an acrid smoke, which made their eyes smart and their throats sore.

The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)

The Story Of Crass by George Berger (Omnibus Press 2006)

While Steve Ignorant had no qualms about describing himself as an anarchist back then, he's more reticent now. "I've realised now that I don't know what to call it, where my political thing comes from. My 'anarchism' - or whatever it was - didn't come from an anarchist background. I tried to read Malatesta once and I just got bogged down in it. And I've never read Kropotkin and Bakunin or any of those people, it just didn't appeal to me. It didn't make sense to me. I know that for reference if I need to look at those books I can, and I know they're making important points, but I know that for me, where I was coming from was the black and white sixties movies like A Taste of Honey, John Osbourne and a film called To Sir With Love.

"One day we were talking about books around the table," continues Steve. "Pen was talking about Tolstoy and I chipped in with To Sir With Love, and was met with roars of laughter, it was quite a joke. When there was the yearly clear-out of books, out it went. But the Maigrets stayed. That book To Sir With Love is about one of the first black men to go into the East End of London and teach unruly white kids how to respect themselves and other people as human beings. Which I thought was the basis of anarchism, wasn't it? . . .

The Falklands War Remembered

A couple of links:

From the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back: The Falklands War Remembered

From the archives of the Socialist Standard: 'Doing the Bulldog Thing'

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, when Argentina invaded those islands that Adrian Mole's dad thought were off the coast of Scotland.

Perhaps in light of more recent - and more bloody conflicts - it is a minor footnote in a world always seemingly at war, but for those of us of a certain generation (and nationality) it remains seared in the memory for the Sun's 'Gotcha' headline, the return of respectable jingoism to mainstream British politics and for supplying one of the major reasons that Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives secured a landslide majority at the 1983 General Election despite the fact that Britain was in the midst of its severest depression since the 1930s.