We Are the Best! (2013)

 

Long Hot Summers – The Story Of The Style Council (2020)

 

Back to the Future (1985)

Breaking Glass (1980)

Flapping in the 20s . . .

I echo the sentiment . . . if not the choice of bands:

A Crafty Cigarette – Tales of a Teenage Mod by Matteo Sedazzari (Zani Media 2015)

Luckily for my father Theo did not press charges for criminal damage. Later my mother explained to him about my father’s problem with Charlie Cairoli. Theo, being the wise man that he is, totally understood and told my mother that he was once in The Kinks for a brief time, as 2nd guitar and backing vocals. They did a gig in Acton, this was before they made it big, by the way. Theo broke his strings during a song and Ray Davies never called him again, or so he told my mother. Now Theo can’t listen to any records by The Kinks and has to leave the room the moment their music comes on. 

Shit, both Vinnie’s father and my father could have been huge stars, that’s quite depressing.

Upstairs Planet: Cleaners From Venus & The Universe Of Martin Newell (2019)

The Red Machine: Liverpool in the '80s: The Players' Stories by Simon Hughes (Mainstream Publishing 2013)

On one occasion, Bates’s ego got the better of him. In the tunnel at Stamford Bridge ahead of a match and with a loose ball at his feet, he asked former Liverpool left-back Joey Jones to tackle him. So Jones did, leaving Bates in a heap.

‘Joey was a tough lad,’ Spackman says. ‘He and Mickey Thomas were nutters. They drove down to London every other day for training from their home in North Wales. Every Monday morning, John Neal would come into the dressing-room and say, “Sorry, lads, training’s been put back an hour – Mickey and Joey are stuck on the motorway.”

‘Because Ken Bates wouldn’t pay for them to stay in a hotel, they’d sleep in the referee’s room at Stamford Bridge on a Friday night before a game. It was a big room with a TV and a sofa, but not the ideal place to sleep if you’re a footballer preparing for kick-off. They’d walk up the King’s Road on a Saturday morning for a fry-up then go back to the ground and wait for everybody else to arrive. It was a ridiculous arrangement.’

Stamford Bridge was hardly a place you’d wish to watch a game of football, never mind spend the night.

‘It was big but a bit of a dump,’ Spackman continues. ‘There was one huge stand, but the rest of the ground seemed so far away from the pitch because of the greyhound track. You needed 25,000 in there to create any sort of atmosphere. The pitch was terrible, too. I was used to a nice bowling-green surface at Bournemouth, but at Chelsea – a club then in the Second Division – the pitch was a dustbowl. It made it difficult to play pretty football. Over the years, that’s probably why Liverpool found it difficult going there.

(From the chapter, 'SOUTHERNER, Nigel Spackman')

Round 202: Ooh, Gary Davies . . . ooh, Gary Davies . . . on my phone again.

Darts Thrown: April 4th 2019
Blog Written: April 4th 2019

Highest Score: 138
Lowest Score: 2
Sixties: 30
100+: 10
180s Missed: 1

Blogger's Note: Written in haste, so there will be spelling mistakes and slapdash grammar.

For some reason I was listening to that episode of The Sound of the Eighties again whilst throwing the darts. No idea why. I guess it was still on the phone and I couldn't be arsed to switch to something else. Anything to add to that show? Nothing much. Transvision Vamp are still shit. Early New Order sounded like Josef K, and 80s pop music really did turn irredeemably shit after 1985. Which sucked for me 'cos it was a formative time when I should have been lapping music up. I lapped something up, but it was thin gruel in comparison to music from the first half of the 80s.

Bingewatching the first season of Fleabag on Amazon. Grimly fascinating. Enjoying it more than I did first time round. I feel guilty watching it 'cos posh people usually get on my tits. It's why I've never watched Downton Abbey. 2016 seems so long ago  . . . or maybe it was never meant to be that kind of show.

The darts? I threw for a 180 but I bottled it. And I by bottled it, I mean the third dart hit the 18. That some jitters. I think next time I throw for a 180 I will close my eyes. What's the worse that can happen.

The book in the picture?  Toby Litt's Beatniks. Have I read it? Yep, about 20 years ago. I must have read it within months of it coming out. A random buy that bore fruit. I seem to remember reading it during teabreaks and lunch breaks whilst working nights on a nighshift in Hemel in 97 or 98. Would I read it again? I would . . . if I got my reading mojo back. I always thought it would make a great film.  There were rumours that it'd been optioned for a film but at the time of writing . . .  If Nick Hornby had written it  . . .  Two unfinished sentences for the price of one.

And, let's be honest, Beatniks were always more interesting than the Hippies.

Round 188: Another False Dawn

Darts Thrown: March 29th 2019

Blog Written: March 29th 2019

Highest Score: 140

Lowest Score: 3

Sixties: 31
100+: 6
180s Missed: 1

Blogger's Note: Written in haste, so there will be spelling mistakes and slapdash grammar.

I thought I might as well dive straight back in. Round 188 was thrown in one session whilst listening to Radio 2's 'Sound of the Eighties'. I've sub-titled it 'Another False Dawn' but that's bollocks. In truth, the darts thrown weren't that different from the previous round. I guess I hit more 100 plus shots this time around. And I did actually throw for a 180 twice. (One isn't shown in the pic above 'cos one of the sixties bounced out when I threw my third dart.)

Thankfully I'm not superstitious when throwing darts, otherwise I'd be locked into listening to Bananarama MegaMixes when throwing darts (fuck you Gary Davies), and I know I'm tired 'cos I was even enjoying a Terence Trent Darby track when throwing. (Sleep deprivation does that to you.) Before I leave the Sound of the Eighties, it was nice to hear Jody Watley picking Duran Duran's 'Save a Prayer' as her favourite song of the 80s. My first 7 inch. (Insert pic of Les Dawson here.)

Too many darts bounce out. I'm not sure if it's the board or the darts themselves. It's probably neither. I think my throwing acton can be a bit lack lustred  when I'm tired.

The book in the picture? B.J. Ripley and J. McHugh's biography of John Maclean. It was part of the Lives of the Left series that Manchester University Press published in the late 80s and early 90s. Have I read it? No. Will I read it? Not in the foreseeable future. Why did I buy it? "cos I'm like that. I read a few books in the 'Lives of the Left' series (the biogs of Kautsky, De Leon, Haywood and Mann off the top of my head) and I had even more of the series that I picked up as remaindered copies from London bookshops on my bookshelf back in Britain (all now in a landfill in the Home Counties, most probably), so the anorak in me means that I will still pick up cheap copies when I see them. Anyway, my excuse is that read Nan Milton's biog of her Dad years ago and I also read Harry McShane's autobiography around about the same time (both published by Pluto Press). I never really bought into the adoration of Maclean but that just might be my ingrained SPGB'ism. I do think it should be pointed out that he joined the Social Democratic Federation at the height of the impossibilist revolt within its ranks - 1903/04- so it begs the question, 'what was he thinking?'. I guess I'll leave that question for another day. There's a Denzel Washington film with my name on it.

Waiting for the great leap forward

Via a Facebook thread, one of those anecdotes you wish were true, if only to see Tom Watson and Nick Cohen's heads explode in indignation:

 "The competing Trot sects in 1980s Islington North CLP voted for Jeremy as their compromise candidate because each of them couldn’t accept that a member of a rival 4th International would be the MP".

"Dad, I went on a School Trip to London and all I brought back was this book on the Millies . . . "

Via Facebook:

A follow up to the album challenge.

Day #10
With no explanations, post ten books that have made their mark on your life. Once a day, post the book cover and nominate a new person.

PDH (The Tractor Millie)

It's Not a Runner Bean...: Confessions of a Slightly Successful Comedian by Mark Steel (The Do-Not Press 1996)

Geordie

'This is Mark, he's a comedian,' the man who'd set up the comedy night in Newcastle told his four mates. They looked like the four people you would choose from thousands if you wanted extras for a film set in a Newcastle pub.

'Ar, so yoor the comedian, well ah hoop yoor funna mairt,' they chipped in. We all went to the bar and ordered a round of drinks, and the stockiest among them decided to tell me a joke.

Ay, what do yer chuck a Paki when he's drooning? His wife and kids.' The others laughed.

What to do? Walk away and they'd have just thought I was weird, whereas anything that might have ended in violence was hardly an option.

The tough part of these situations is that when bigotry hides behind a joke, it's so much trickier to deal with. Launching into a tirade about racism would have only made them think, 'What a stuck-up, miserable bastard’. 'All right, it's only a joke,' they'd have said. And gone off muttering, 'He's not much of a comedian.' Besides it was quite possible that he wasn't a serious racist but had never come across the idea that jokes like that are just appalling.

The one thing I decided in the two seconds after he'd finished was that I'd say something. 'What's the matter?' he said, perturbed that I wasn't laughing. 'Doon't yer get it?’

’Na.he's a comadian,' said his mate. 'He's hewered it before.'

There's probably one time in most people's lives when, instead of thinking of the perfect answer the day after the event, it comes out at the time. I don’t remember thinking it but from somewhere came, 'Yeah, I have heard it before. But I heard the funnier version. What do you chuck a Geordie when he's drowning?'

There was another silence and for a moment I was expecting to end up lying on the floor, clutching my ribs, with blood pouring from my nose, mumbling, 'I was only making a point.'

But at the end of this tense three seconds he burst out laughing and said, 'Ya can see wha he's a comadian.'

With any luck he'll now be the Equal Opportunities Officer for the Anglo-Asian Community Relations Department on Tyneside Council.

Haircut One Hundred ‎– Pelican West (1982)

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Various ‎– Letter To Brezhnev (From The Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1985)

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Soul Boys of the Western World (2014)

Repossessed by Julian Cope (Thorsons 1999)

A Safe House of Sorts

For a few weeks there, the phone would not stop ringing. Our break up was big news and there was a lot of shit to wade through. I wouldn’t leave Tamworth because too many people needed things from me, so Dorian and I reclused out. If I went to London now they’d all be persuading me to finish the dreadful third/turd album and tie up all the loose ends. I knew that I was safe up here in Tamworth, safe from a culture which was currently buying the hated Blancmange LP in droves, the same crap that currently hung transfixed on our wall by a 6" nail, vinyl and album sleeve alike. Underneath the blistered spiral bum marks from our electric hob, cartoon kittens squirmed with horror as they all stood listening to music on headphones — from the faces they were making, it was clear they themselves were listening to the Blancmange LP. “Never mind,” said Dorian. “Americans don’t have the dessert and pronounce the name ‘Blank Man’.” Nuff Said.

The Mill Lane house was a three-storey fortress which had been part of a quiet terrace until the development of recent years. But 70s council planning had gouged out the heart of these turn-of-the-20th-century houses and left no. 1 teetering on a small and ugly ring-road through the town. Its frontage was ultra-narrow and unprepossessing, but fell back to a considerable depth, creating inside a cell structure of small dimly lit rooms.

For a while, we lived on toast and tea in the bedroom. All my records and the stereo and my atrociously-finished flight case of cassettes were piled up in there. I was so used to hotels that I couldn’t learn to spread out. We answered the door to no-one. I was so paranoid that I’d dive behind the kitchen counter if there was even a knock at the door.

Eventually, some time in early December, Paul King decided that it was time to sort out our finances. Our meagre £35 per week mysteriously rose to £100 despite our mounting debts. Dave Balfe made it clear that he had no desire to split up the group, as we were in debt. I told the bastard in no uncertain terms that the group did not exist to make money, that was a secondary inevitable part of the quest. The quest, Balfe. You remember that?

We will be remembered for our strength and foresight. We were not money-heads who insisted on releasing a shitty third album just to fulfil a contract. I’d felt like I’d already seen half of my favourite rock’n’roll groups in history fizzle out with a final album that bore no resemblance to the spirit of the original group.

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Rejoice, Rejoice!: Britain in the 1980s by Alwyn Turner (Aurum Press 2008)

With a few exceptions – the anonymous narrator of Raymond’s Factory novels, Rankin’s John Rebus exploring the seedier side of Edinburgh with ‘its crooks and bandits, its whore and gamblers, its perpetual losers and winners’ – these characters primarily inhabited the small towns and middle-class world that had characterized the golden age. Even in Taggart, firmly located in Glasgow, the murderers whose stories were told in the first three series included a couple of small businessmen, a guest-house owner, a doctor, a philosophy student, a dentist and an ex-probation worker, as well as a group of bereaved parents meting out justice to the drug dealer responsible for their children’s deaths. Despite the urban setting, this is a world away from The Sweeney; there are no car chases, just Sgt Livingston running after teenagers and getting bitten by the occasional dog, and there is little suggestion of a criminal class separate from society: these are just ordinary, respectable people caught up in their own lives. And, at the other extreme of television detection, there was Jim Bergerac, investigating much smaller problems on Jersey and learning ‘to take the smooth with the smooth’.

Though the backdrop might have suggested a retreat from the city to the closed communities of Agatha Christie (encapsulated by Colin Watson as Mayhem Parva), there was an edge, to the literature at least, that was far removed from the cosiness of Miss Marple, an engagement with society, a desire to comment on contemporary mores. And although the likes of Morse and Dalgliesh spent much of their time behaving as though they were still autonomous detectives in the tradition of Holmes and Poirot, capable of solving any case through the exercise of their intellect, the central characters were still police officers, and couldn’t fail to notice the changing role of the force in the modern world. In one of Rendell’s novels, Inspector Burden initiates the putting of coloured lights in the tree outside the police station ‘in the interest of promoting jollier relations with the public’. His boss, Wexford, disapproves of the gesture, but it’s revealing that there was a perceived need for such a move: ‘surely you couldn’t go on feeling antagonistic towards or afraid of or suspicious about a friendly body that hung fairy-lights in a tree in its front garden?’ Elsewhere Peter Robinson’s character Inspector Banks was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the new role of the force: ‘he had many objections to the way the government seemed to look upon the police as a private army of paid bully boys to pit against people with genuine grievances and a constitutional right to air them.’ He consoles himself with the thought that he’s a detective ‘and he didn’t have to go on crowd control, bashing the bonces of the proletariat.’ But even detectives are affected by the rise of what Reginald Hill’s Andy Dalziel refers to as ‘porkism’, as his own sergeant concludes: ‘A man’s got to be mad to stay in a job where the public hates you and Maggie Thatcher loves you.’

Most political of all was Derek Raymond’s detective sergeant, who reflects on the police powers promised in a new piece of legislation (presumably inspired by the controversial Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984): ‘It was what I thought of as banana laws – the law of a society in the process of breaking down. Once properly tightened up, it would have meant that I could stop and arrest a man in the street simply because I didn’t like the look on his face, or the way his pockets bulged. It would have synchronized nicely with the plastic ID cards that every citizen would be required to carry by then, and before long we would have turned the country into a birdcage.’

The Human League - Fascination! (1983)

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