Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook (Simon and Schuster 2016)

 

There was only one thing for it.

One of us lot would have to be the singer. To work it out, Rob thought it would be a good idea to put us in the studio with Martin Hannett, with Hannett in the Simon Cowell role and the three of us auditioning like a kind of post-punk X-Factor. It was a terrible idea, though. Martin had idolised Ian. Of everybody in the Factory family he was hit the hardest, and we entered the studio to find him medicating his depression in the usual way, with dope and coke. It didn’t exactly help matters that he’d always had a fairly low opinion of me, Steve and Barney anyway: ‘One genius and three Manchester United supporters’ was what he’d called Joy Division. Even though that’s not strictly speaking true, because Steve supported Macclesfield Town, but you knew what he meant. Being Martin Hannett, he wasn’t exactly backward when it came to telling us what a poor substitute we made for Ian’s genius.

Round 96: Smashing New Year's Darts Resolutions

Darts Thrown: January 26th 2020

Blog Written: February 15th 2020

Highest Score: 180

Lowest Score: 5

Sixties: 60

100+: 26

180s: 1

180s Missed: 3

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

New Year's Darts Resolutions (Updated)

• Hit two 180s in one day.
• Hit fifty 180s in 2020.
• Hit a high of 41 - as the lowest score - in a round.
• Hit 60 sixties in a round.
• Hit a 180 in a bar.
• Towards the end of the year, join a pub team and, naturally, go down in flames in ignominious defeat.

I'm now officially half way through my New Year's Darts Resolutions. I refer you to the documented evidence above to show that I've finally hit 60 sixties in one round. I guess the next goal is to hit 75 sixties but don't hold your breath on that one.

The song of the round? No rhyme or reason; I'm just another wannabe axe hero.

The Stone Roses - 'Love Spreads'

Stone the Roses

I knew that Manchester's Timperley's Monkey Man was long in the tooth, but I wasn't expecting him to be staring back at me at the bottom of the page of this excellent post from Mine For Life music blog.

It's the cheek bones and insolent stare that gives the game away, but does he go by Robin George or Ian Brown when curled up on the sofa with his laminated copy of the Timperley Village Anarchist? And you have to check out the chorus to 'Robin George's' 1985 non-hit, 'Spy':

"The FBI or the CIA or MI5 or the Red Brigade

I don't know

They're getting closer

Moving in on you

The FBI or the CIA or MI5 or the Red Brigade

I don't know you, moving in on you

Pisses all over 'Illegal Attacks'.