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Aston Villa's Nigel Spink. |
Monday, January 01, 2018
That, That and That: It's an 80s thing . . .
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Stone Over Water by Carl MacDougall (Minerva 1989)
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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.
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.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
The Shoe by Gordon Legge (Polygon 1989)
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Rude Kids: The Unfeasible Story of Viz by Chris Donald (HarperCollins 2004)
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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.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
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.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now: My Difficult 80s by Andrew Collins (Ebury Press 2004)
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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.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Melting Mowbray
Oh my. I wasn't expecting that.
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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.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Forty Days of Tucker J. by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1983)
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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.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner 1995)
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"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.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
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.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
The Sweet Forever by George P. Pelecanos (A Dell Book 1998)
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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.