Five Miles Out

I saw the writing on the wall

A lot of people complain that the modern world isn’t as good as the one they grew up. People want simple verities that are gone and we are not bound together as a country the way we were. The proliferation of television channels and then the ability to watch anything when we want means that people no longer have those discussions starting “Did you see last night…..”, more like “Check this out on Netflix…..” – we certainly have the latter at work, you need help to navigate the phenomenal amount of TV out there and find the gems.

Yet in the current pandemic crisis people turned back to the BBC.

The BBC is under attack. People from the right think that it is biased against them and is more focussed on being politically correct than it should be. I could say that this is because history will judge that their position is correct – just as it has for the last 40 years. I do not need to – the BBC is subject to stringent equality laws in this country, more stringent than if it was private sector, public sector bodies are judged more harshly if they fail to comply with legislation.

(I love the old station idents)

The BBC is attacked for lack of balance and I agree that is a problem, but not the one right wing attackers think is there. Take three examples – the climate crisis, Brexit and Nigel Farage.

When they did a piece about the climate crisis they could find no scientist to say it was not true. They got on Nigel Lawson for balance and did not challenge the inaccuracies and lies that he spouted. That is not balance – balance is not a voice from each side if one has no evidence and lies. That is the problem with balance as the Tories are scaring the BBC into it – lies are unchallenged in the interests of balance.

On Brexit the 500 leading economists in the UK were asked what the impact of Brexit would be. 498 said a disaster, one was non-committal and one thought it would be good. Balance would be splitting the time in that ratio, yet the BBC saw balance as allowing Patrick Minford’s singular view equal time to all the other experts.

Nigel Farage’s parties have never had more than a couple of MPs, but because he is always available he has been disproportionately on TV for the last decade.

If you are worried about balance think about headlines in the Mail or the Express that preface anything bad with immigrant or religion or race if they can. Except when it is white Christians. Did stories about the IRA in the 70s get prefaced with Christian terrorists, the IRA? No, they did not.

Individual BBC presenters have now been told they cannot even have an opinion in their private lives on take political standpoints on social media. This is because public figures calling the government out embarrasses them. Just beware the consequences of that it can cut two ways.

The Poppy has become a tool of the extreme right in the way that the Union Flag was in the 1970s. Fake stories abound online about poppies not being sold in certain areas or people finding them offensive. All utter lies propagated by the far right to sow discord. Not wearing a poppy has become a political statement – if it is not worn then you are called a traitor. I posted before that the last just war fought was so long ago that almost all the participants are dead and that is part of this country’s problem. As soon as a white poppy or any other colour is worn people are called traitors. I think this is divisive so according to those BBC guidelines maybe nobody should wear one at all. Give money to the British Legion if they want but do not wear it on air as that would be “virtue signalling” as much as opposing Brexit or supporting Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free meals.

Not that I want that – but let people support what they want and do not criticise them for wearing or not wearing a poppy or a Pride badge or any other campaign token.

The BBC is now criticised for making over 75s pay the licence fee when it is a government decision to not provide the funding for that. Of course the BBC will produce material not everyone will like. I don’t care about reality shows, game shows, soap operas or a load of their current sitcoms that are rubbish. I do like documentaries on BBC4 and they still make good drama. That is how the licence fee works – we all get something. Decriminalising paying the licence fee is a way to start destroying the BBC – keep it the way it is and add legislation about fee rises so the government cannot interfere with it for political purposes. An independent broadcaster is a bulwark against extremism.

At the moment there is a panel looking at the future of the BBC and Channel 4. Facebook, Endemol and Sky are on it. No one from the BBC or anyone representing viewers.

Who is behind the campaign to get rid of the BBC? Murdoch and the right wing. They see its position as an obstacle to milk even more money from us. They have already got the government to force the BBC to remove a lot of website services that were available for free so that the market can fill, them at a price. Defunding is what the right want so they can replace it and charge you way, way more. The campaign is led from the press – who owns that?

If despite all that you still think it is biased and that is wrong think about the balance of the national newspapers. Mostly right wing and owned by billionaires. How about them being subject to the same bias legislation as the BBC? That would be progressive.

The BBC and the NHS are two pillars of British life and they are both under attack from the right who see them as obstacles for making a profit. Do not fall for their lies and slurs and do their work for them. The right-wing Taxpayers Alliance criticises the BBC but does not mention the £12 billion wasted on Track and Trace. Think about why.

Defend the BBC. Calling for it to be defunded means you are calling for a Britain where the media is controlled by the right and everything is for sale. Next step will be the NHS.

Saxon were part of The New Wave of British Heavy Metal. A rawer form of metal than had been around in the late 70s. The most famous band to come out of that were Iron Maiden, but Saxon were big first. Their most famous songs are And the Bands Played On (about the Castle Donnington festival) and 747 (Strangers in the Night) a true story about a plane in trouble during a power cut in New York. My favourite is from their Never Surrender album – .

Princess of the Night

I see a shadow and call out to try and warn him

I have mixed feelings about Madness. They started out with some really great ska tracks like One Step Beyond and Night Boat To Cairo (which were part of a ska resurgence at the turn of the 70s into the 80s). Baggy Trousers struck a chord with all children of school age when it came out and they managed to make a hit of the instrumental single The Return of the Las Palmas Seven. They started recording more interesting tracks like Grey Day and were less self-consciously “nutty”.

(Early Madness).

Then there was House of Fun – a thinly disguised song about buying condoms and Driving In My Car. Both massive hits and two songs I detest to this day. Like many bands it started getting too much and keyboardist Mike Barson quit, but he was part of the single Michael Caine. Absolutely the best thing they ever did and seemed to indicate a future fruitful carer as a very English, thoughtful band.

Michael Caine is, of course, an iconic English actor who plays the part of Michael Caine in most films. Actually that is unfair but Caine is the kind of actor who has never let a poor script stand in the way of a pay cheque. Not all actors have to be artistes and nor should we expect them to be.

He seemed to embody that 1960s swinging sixties vibe. (Dad tells me that the vibe really existed in the cities rather than, say, Luton). His appearances in Alfie, The Italian Job and Get Carter highlight the changing mood of the times.

Alfie is tough to watch as the social conventions that applied at the time are so different now and were even by the early 1980s. The remake with Jude Law tried to get round that but the film is really is a snapshot of a society before the sexual revolution. (Law did not want the remake to be called Alfie so all through filming the crew had to pretend the title had not been decided, then it was issued as Alfie).

I love The Italian Job. I remember being made to watch it the first time (when I only wanted to watch science fiction). I was a bit shocked at the early scene where Charlie Croker’s girlfriend allows him to enjoy carnal pleasures with multiple women on the day of his release from prison. I really had the puritanism of the young who were embarrassed to watch that type of scene with their parents. It was my first exposure to Noel Coward and a whole host of other British actors like Irene Handl and Benny Hill (Hill’s reputation has suffered a lot after his retirement due to the sexual innuendo in his comedy but ignores his many talents and the fact that it was acceptable then).

The film is a wonderful example of a heist movie. It really is two halves stuck together though – the story part and then the heist. Some of it does not make sense in the chase sequence but it is not really noticeable, at least not the first time through. It is raised to greatness by the cliff-hanger ending, that continues to exercise the imagination over 50 years after it was made.

Let us never mention the dreadful 2003 remake that was not even set in Italy.

Get Carter is gritty and dark with Caine in quite an atypical role. It shows how films were changing to release such a downbeat story.

You should watch all three.

Madness became ever bleaker and gloomy – like a young person moving into a middle age longing for the lost freedom and optimism of youth. Of course I like this period of their work best.

They split up but you could not keep the Nutty Boys down and they have been back together for years. A British institution.

Michael Caine

It Makes Me Feel Like Crying

Straightaway it is another song produced by Phil Spector and the legendary Wall of Sound, like yesterday’s entry https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/11/23/ill-give-you-three/ .

Dad and I toured Italy for 16 days in 2015. I was recovering from glandular fever, him from cancer. After Venice we spent a morning in Pisa looking at the Leaning Tower and the other buildings on the site. Due to our respective medical conditions we could not climb the Leaning Tower itself, but there is a lot more to look at on that site.

The only problem, and this applied to loads of places that we visited, was the number of hawkers selling crap. In particular poor-quality selfie sticks. It was bad enough that walking around on the holiday there was the permanent risk of bumping into people lining up selfie shots without being pestered every minute by someone selling one. I know that it is part of tourism that you are deemed an easy mark, but it really was out of control in some places.

(Dad and me – I loved that T shirt)

(More gorgeous art)

The whole group met up at 1pm and there was the option to go back to the hotel to chill out or spend the afternoon in Lucca. By now we were starving and even if we hadn’t really wanted to see Lucca food would be available a lot faster eating there as the coach would stop there before taking the others back to the hotel.

By the time we were dropped off outside the walled town I could have eaten a horse. Our tour guide wanted to take everyone to a place in the centre of the town, but Dad and I stopped at the first restaurant we saw. It was a small, family run, establishment and they served the best gnocchi I have ever had in my life. When we walked through the town afterwards our food was far cheaper than it would have been in the main square.

(Lucca is beautiful and well worth a visit)

This was a problem endemic on these kinds of holidays. The tour guides were paid poorly and one way to supplement their incomes was to take groups of people to restaurants and get a percentage from the owners. Now we all do what we have to do but what I object to is being taken to crappy places for food, I suppose the good places don’t have to bribe the guides. We got caught twice – a terrible pizza parlour near Pompeii that was low quality and seemed to think that singing would make up for it. The second was a massive detour as we took the coach from the Amalfi Coast to Sicily. We diverted into a non-descript, dreary seaside village to have lunch at a minimalist restaurant with little choice. The people who elected not to eat there could only find an ice cream parlour to eat at. The whole village appeared to be completely closed. All I ate was chips and it is a long way from the Amalfi Coast to Sicily!

I had known and loved this song for years but now my enduring memory of it, outside playing it in Italy, is seeing it on Comic Relief (a charity telethon in the UK). I was drunk on the Friday night (not much surprise at that period in my life) and was watching TV to fall asleep. The video for the Righteous Brothers doing this was on, but with Postman Pat added in as the third brother. It made me laugh like a drain but I’m not sure it would be so funny sober.

You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling

I’ll Give You Three

No one really talks about Moonlighting anymore. It wasn’t such a big deal in the UK at the time as BBC and ITV mostly ignored overseas product (Dallas and Dynasty being big exceptions), partly due to agreements with the acting union Equity. Moonlighting was on BBC2 and starred famous (but not seen for a while) Cybill Shepherd and a pre-famous Bruce Willis. It was rumoured that Cybill Shepherd always insisted on a filter for her shots to make her look younger – if true it is only because TV remains a realm where it is ok for men to age but not women. She was five years older than Willis so kudos to the creators for actually casting an older female lead than a male – rare even now.

(David and Maddie)

Moonlighting was ostensibly a detective show, but one that broke the rules more and more as time went on. Breaking the fourth wall, doing a Shakespeare pastiche, songs, a dance number, pastiches of 1940s movies and so on.

At the heart of the first two seasons was the will they or won’t they romance between the two leads. They drove each other mad but the sexual chemistry was potent. They actually pulled the trigger on it before the end of season 2 as they fell into each other’s arms with the Ronettes’ Be My Baby playing. It should have ended the show, without their verbal sniping it did not work – even worse Cybill Shepherd had to be shuffled off centre stage for chunks of season 3 when she became pregnant in real life. The chemistry between them is even more impressive as in real life they really did not like each other.

The series constantly ran late and over budget and with Bruce Willis seeing he had a career in movies it was cancelled after four years.

The Ronettes were a girl band who had been discovered by Phil Spector. Lead singer Ronnie Bennett (Ronettes) later married him. Spector pioneered the Wall of Sound using studio techniques to make a huge, dense orchestral type backing for pop music. He used this on a lot of hits, utilising the talents of one of the most talented group of session musicians ever – The Wrecking Crew. They played on more than one song on this list and one of the Crew has an entry of his own as a solo artist very high up on my list.

(The Ronettes)

Ronnie married Phil and had to sign away custody of their sons and her royalties to get out of the marriage. She also alleges that he kept her as a prisoner at his mansion for the years they were married. His sons allege that he forced them to simulate sex acts with his girlfriend. Despite this all he remixed the Beatles last released album Let It Be (Paul McCartney hated his mix and many years later a version was released without all the overdubbed strings and orchestral parts) and worked with John Lennon and later the Ramones before effectively retiring.

(Spector in court with his wig on)

The allegations are given more credence by the fact that he has now been convicted of murdering a woman. He claimed in court that it was an accidental suicide but when the police were called he was heard saying that he had shot her. It appears his health is poor and that his prison sentence that started in 2009 may not be over before he passes away.

A sad position for a mastermind of popular music to be in. Though not as sad as what happened to his murder victim.

Be My Baby

I just knew

I like Only Fools and Horses (OFAH). Not the best sitcom ever as the British public voted it, not by any means, I mean better than Fawlty Towers or Blackadder? Hell, it’s not even John Sullivan’s best comedy – in fact it is arguable that it is his second best, but he was a very talented writer. OFAH is remembered, in a boiled down state, as the falling chandelier; the fall through the bar, and Batman and Robin running through the mist. That really does not sum up the program at all.

It starts as a three hander with three different generations of men – Granddad, Del and Rodney, they are family and love each other but do not much like each other. The series was sold to the BBC as a variation on the incredibly popular Minder, in fact Cash and Curry could easily be a Minder episode (and no surprise it is one of the best from the first few seasons). The main problem with the “Grandad” seasons is that they are a bit inconsistent – good episodes are followed by very average ones.

Trigger is the only person close to being a regular early on – and he is a small-time villain who supplies Del with goods, not the lovable, idiotic road sweeper he later becomes. The first appearance of Boycie has him as a malicious cheat who would willingly swindle the Trotters out of everything they own. Mickey Pearce steals Rodney’s money when they set up in business together and then goes off to Spain to spend it.

The replacement of Granddad with Uncle Albert marks an upswing in the humour, though the 1985 Christmas Special (To Hull and Back) is another Minder type episode – light on humour, long on nastiness, particularly DCI Slater who will be a recurring villain in the series.

The fifth season was going to be the last, but a late change of mind meant that the series stayed on as a Christmas Special a year in 1986-88 (The Frogs Legacy, Royal Flush and Dates). The comedy is much stronger and the nastier characters have had their edges removed. The sixth season was expanded to 50-minute episodes with Rodney meeting, and marrying, Cassandra.

Which brings us to The Jolly Boys Outing.

(Rodders, Uncle Albert, Boycie, Trigger and Mike)

I love The Jolly Boys Outing. I loved it when I first saw it and I will never turn it off when it is repeated. A splendid mix of comedy and drama that John Sullivan excelled at. It does not bear too many repeated viewings though as certain scenes can be seen to have really needed another take when you watch it for the seventh or eighth time. It also does look like three-episode ideas stuck together and the transitions are pretty obvious.

So, what’s the point? The Jolly Boys were the regulars at the Nag’s Head pub, which were suddenly every supporting cast member, whether or not they had ever been seen at the pub. Sid the café owner, Jeavon and Denzil; and they were all mates. Plus you had Rodney’s in laws, Marlene, Cassandra and the return of Raquel (last seen in Dates). Raquel’s return and reconciliation with Del after the bittersweet events at the end of her last appearance is what caps off a marvellous viewing experience.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a massive comic crossover done by DC in 1986 (“Worlds will live, worlds will die” – at least until they live again). Just about every character in the DC Universe shows up (not just Superman, Batman et al but also Anthro, the Haunted Tank and Tommy Tomorrow kind of characters) to have a massive fight against the Anti-Monitor (just to show how major it was both Supergirl and the Flash both died, though both have since returned – to be fair it took the Flash over 20 years to reappear fleeing from the Black Racer in Final Crisis, a scene that raised the hairs on my arms ).

(The absolutely final and total death of Supergirl. Until she came back)

This was the mother of all team up stories, the first massive crossover planned (even though Marvel’s dire Secret Wars made it out first) in comics, making it more explicit than ever it was all one universe. DC abolished their multiverse (The Marvel Family on Earth S, the Freedom Fighters on Earth X, etc.) and put them all on one new Earth. Rather than quirky individuality, the stories had to be part of one continuity. A blander continuity – a more homogeneous continuity without interesting experiments. DC even had a continuity cop making sure that all their books did not contradict each other – continuity was more important than good story telling.

In the The Jolly Boys Outing every character in the OFAH is pulled together. The world does not really exist outside this group and rather than nuanced characters they once were they are now a blander bunch.

OFAH had been threatening to end for a while; instead we get constant marriage problems for Rodney as the format did not work with him living away from Del and Uncle Albert. The OFAH universe got even smaller in the next season when it was revealed that long-time nemesis Slater (and schoolmate of Del, Boycie, Trigger and Denzil) was actually Raquel’s estranged husband. In comics the amount of retconning happening here would be laughed at.

It really was the fag end of OFAH after that – a ridiculous Christmas Special where rioters stop to let Del drive through the middle; an incredibly ill-judged visit to America (Miami Twice) that I cannot bear to watch again and the final trilogy. Three episodes and all I remember is the Batman Robin scene and ten minutes of schmaltz at the end. The less said about the second final trilogy seven years later the better.

After The Jolly Boys Outing and Crisis on Infinite Earths both universes were less interesting and less exciting. Blander and safer for mass consumption. Both are wonderful in their own way and worth searching out – most of what comes after is not.

The Utah Saints were a rave group who used samples to great effect, but even I have to say, were really a one trick pony.

Something Good

Episode watchlist:

Cash and Curry
A Slow Bus to Chingford
A Losing Streak
A Touch of Glass
Healthy Competition
Yesterday Never Comes
Who’s a Pretty Boy
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Tea for Three
A Royal Flush
Dates
Yuppy Love
The Unlucky Winner Is
The Jolly Boys Outing
Stage Fright
The Class of 62
Heroes and Villains
Time on Our Hands

You’ll sell the ground beneath your feet

The first of two appearance of Fish as a lead singer, this one as a solo artist. Fish had been the lead singer of Marillion and when he left the group in looked like a double your money situation. Marillion released Season’s End and Fish released Vigil In a Wilderness of Mirrors – both great albums. Both follow ups were far less impressive. Fish released Internal Exile. It not only featured a terrible cover of Thunderclap Newman’s Something In the Air, but half the lyrics of the best song, Shadowplay, were missing as they had not been finished when the sleeve went to the printers.

Since the 1980s and the Thatcher government privatisation has almost become accepted as the best way to do things. The inefficient public sector cannot be trusted to do anything efficiently – the private sector will do it better and more efficiently. To understand how this idea took hold you have to remember that a lot of things were nationalised in the 1970s. Car companies like British Leyland for instance – nationalised to stop the company going bust and to save jobs.

Private sector good, public sector bad is a belief that needs to be destroyed.

Let’s start with infrastructure monopolies. If there is no way for competition to enter the market in any meaningful sense then it must be public sector. Take water – Thames Water has pumped out huge amounts of dividends to its owners since privatisation and yet still has massive issues with leaks. To the extent they are now forcing water metering on their customers to reduce usage. Not only that they demand you take half a day off work so they can “install” it – even though it is usually five minutes work outside where you live not inside and then for the first year it is in try and bill you at a higher rate than the old, fixed rate as “you need a year’s data to establish metering rates and so it counts as not agreeing to install one for that year”. I successfully challenged both of these and they managed to turn up at an appointed time and bill me on usage.

I saw what happened to the nationalisation of the electricity companies as Dad worked for them as an engineer. They cut costs to pay dividends and they slashed training. When it was in the public sector they knew that you had to invest every year in recruiting engineers as some would not make it, some would leave and, sadly, some would die (it is a dangerous business). This meant that our infrastructure now relies on a group of older and older men and people imported from abroad to maintain it. By the time he retired dad was being offered crazy money to work even though he was in his 70s.

The railways have been shown up, after 28 years of privatisation as a disaster. The supposed reason for privatisation was efficiency and savings but as soon as one of the companies gets into trouble they walk away from the contract. They spent their time trying to increase fares and screw customers. Track maintenance is only done by private sector companies and is far more expensive than it was (even allowing for inflation) when it was in the public sector.

Private prisons are constantly being shown to be worse than public sector ones. Pretty obvious when you consider than they have to be cheaper than public sector ones after allowing about 30% of money to be taken out by the owners. Often calculations were fudged to allow private sector providers to be chosen or they reduced costs by basing themselves in tax havens.

The HMRC actually sold and leased back their buildings to a company in a tax haven. The calculations on whether private or public sector are best value is predicated ion the private sector company paying tax. With the use of offshore tax havens, or interest bearing loans from companies in tax havens, this rarely happens. The model has not been updated.

As for the probation service, privatised by Chris Grayling, it was an utter clusterfuck from the start. This is despite the private sector having the easy cases and the public sector keeping the hardest ones. Who can forget Group 4’s charging the government for monitoring released prisoners who were dead?

There seem to be very few, if any, penalties for failure for these companies.

Which brings us to the current moment in time. NHS Track and Trace that takes the NHS branding (beloved by the British) when it is a private sector operation. Run by Dido Harding – serial failure in business and married to a Tory MP, it uses call centre staff with minimal training to run the system. Despite getting 80% of the money, they only manage to trace less than 20% of the people found – again they get the easiest ones, so this is usually people who live in the same house. The public sector operations which get 20% of the money trace over 80% of the people found. This private sector failure means that less than half of the people needing to be traced are found.

Now it emerges that with four hours training (PowerPoint and YouTube, those well-known teachers) the minimum wage operatives in call centres are classified as clinically trained and able to provide more advice (and get more money from the government).

Privatisation is genuinely killing people here.

I am not suggesting communism. The government can allow entrepreneurialism in most areas, just not in utilities and infrastructure.

I am going to give Fish another try. Several people with good taste are fans – Graham Wright , Michael Ball and Helen Wright. I hope they are right. This a searing song from his first album.

Big Wedge

Then the cowboy turned the gun on himself

One Saturday afternoon in the sixth form I was listening to the Richard Skinner show on Radio 1. They had a group called Theatre of Hate in playing tracks from their new album Westworld.

“From the south on a wind in walked a cowboy

The saloon was dry but his guns were well oiled

Somehow he remembered when he kissed his wife

And when he said goodbye

But that was before the circus with the bear arrived

Oh the bear it roared as the gun was fired

Then the cowboy turned the gun on himself as he sang

“No-ones alive””

I was pleased with myself for understanding that the cowboy referred to Ronald Reagan and the Bear to the Soviet Union. When I mentioned my pleasure to Graham Wright he told me that it was obvious. This was quite devastating as I was repeatedly told I lacked common sense and to not have any ordinary sense as well was a blow.

One science lesson at Colne High proved my lack of sense. I have always been accident prone (or clumsy as the harsher call it), something I inherited from my maternal grandmother who once managed to break both her wrists at once falling over on some ice and sliding into a wall. There is no obstacle that I can’t trip over or bump into.

In a science lesson Dave, Neil and I were boiling brine. We had too much brine which meant that the experiment would last longer. The solution seemed obvious – reduce the amount of brine, but how? Dave suggested siphoning it off. This sounded crazy as you have to start siphoning by sucking the liquid. I said there was no way on Earth was I doing that, but Dave was game. I agreed to hold the Perspex flask we would drain it into.

Dave managed to do his part without getting a mouthful of boiling liquid (and being brine it was boiling at 106C). I held out the flask and what happened next depends on who you ask. I was always sure Neil jogged me at the last moment (by accident). Neil says I just slipped. Whatever the case I had boiling brine pour out over my left hand.

Our teacher, Mr Hellen, just told me to run my hand under the tap. I did this for half an hour annoying another group whose experiment relied on the tap water being a stable temperature and my using it for so long dropped it by one degree.

As soon as I got home it was an emergency trip to the Doctor’s, my father and stepmother distinctly unimpressed by the school’s negligent response. Nowadays if that happened where I work we would have called an ambulance and sent the student to A&E.

There were no long term problems afterwards but I continue to be accident prone to this day – not helped by having fibromyalgia – though washing my hair was problematic for a couple of weeks.

These days Westworld has a different connotation – the highly acclaimed TV series that looks at the consequences of artificial intelligence. Watch season 1, ignore the rest.

Theatre of Hate only had one single graze the top 40, yet their run of Do You Believe In the Westworld?, The Hop, Eastworld and Americanos is probably the best ever from a group that never made it. Kirk Brandon split Theatre of Hate and formed Spear of Destiny, they had some hits – most noticeably Never Take Me Alive, which nearly made the list.

A slice of Cold War commentary.

Do You Believe In the Westworld

It’s time to make our way through the fountained squares

Only fans have heard of John Foxx. He was the lead singer on Ultravox’s first three albums, which only spawned a couple of very minor hits. He was replaced by Midge Ure and Ultravox had an extended period of success. Foxx had a couple of solo hits – Underpass and No One’s Driving, but his career never really took off.

Ultravox had been recording at Conny Plank’s studios in West Germany and that is where Foxx continued to work. West Germany, due at least in part to being in front of the front line of the Cold War, was a hotbed of creativity and his cold, electronic sound was very popular.

(For younger readers the Cold War was the name of the confrontation between Western, mainly capitalist nations, and the Eastern Bloc overseen from Moscow. It was cold as there was a lot of posturing and sabre rattling but no actual fighting in Europe. They just did that in the developing world via proxies. It ran from the late 1940s to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989).

The Cold War was an incredibly fertile ground for fiction. You have to remember that travel abroad was far less common even into the 1980s. Exchange controls prevented people taking money abroad in significant quantities, though the rich always found ways round it. Having this conflict on the doorstep (internationally speaking) with what most people considered well defined goodies (us) and baddies (them) with the prospect of the end of the world drew interest.

The best of the TV series was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy based on John Le Carre’s book of the same name (I find Le Carre’s prose less than readable, but he is very popular so this is one of the times I prefer a TV adaption of a novel). When it was written the rumours of a mole in British intelligence (beyond Burgess, Philby and McLean who had defected in the sixties) were not widely known. The unmasking of Anthony Blunt as the fourth man in the Soviet spy ring (who had been left in post as Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures rather than have the embarrassment of unmasking him was typical of the British establishment) had made the prospect of a fifth man more likely and widely known. Chapman Pincher wrote several books on the subject in the 1980s.

A stellar cast led by Sir Alec Guinness, but also including Ian Richardson, Bernard Hepton, Michael Jayston, Beryl Reid and Hywel Bennett told the story of ow George Smiley comes back out of retirement to unmask “Gerald” the mole. Much better than the more recent film it really is one for cold winter nights. The early scenes in Czechoslovakia are quite chilling.

(Poorman, Tailor, Tinker, Soldier)

The Sandbaggers was an ITV series set around the British Intelligence Sandbagger team – the operatives who go and so the dirty work and operated behind enemy lines. It was written by Ian McIntosh (until his death and a couple of episodes were written by others). It is not James Bond – it is dirty and squalid. Several Sandbaggers died – Diane Keen played Laura Dickens and was shot in Berlin. Mike Elliott is shot behind the Iron Curtain and Willie Caine, Sandbagger 1, can’t get him out as Elliott is paralysed. Caine agrees to shoot him, but Elliott has already killed himself.

A totally different story, written way after the Cold War ended is Ur by Stephen King. It was only available on the Kindle originally and is about a Kindle that can access aletrnate realities. One reality accessed is a world where the Cuban Missile Crisis precipitates a nuclear war. Another chilling image. A revised version is available in King’s compilation The Bazaar of Bad Dreams.

(Europe after the rain)

I was on a political podcast held by The Bunker and Remainiacs crew and Andrew Harrison played this track as we waited for the team of presenters to join the Zoom meeting, asking if anyone knew what it was. I showed my geekery – and I think he was surprised anyone remembers this gem of a track.

Europe After the Rain

If I could buy my reasoning, I’d pay to lose

In Spring 1990 we had a university reunion at Dave Carter’s in the Lake District. I met Alex at a station near his house in Slough and we drove up together. It was a warm spring day, but the temperature progressively dropped the further north we went. By the time we got to Carter’s I was freezing. John Lunt had come down from Scotland and was as pale as a ghost compared to Alex and me.

We went to Carlisle to see Nuns on the Run at the cinema on the Saturday night. The other three had spent the day hiking but I had actually brought my accountancy notes with me as the final accountancy exams were looming and I had been incredibly busy. It was the first time I had been to the Lake District since 1978 (and I Have not been back since).

(Carlisle cinema)

On the Sunday we went to Sellafield on a tour as the weather remained dreadful. My questions about why its name had been changed from Dounreay and the leaks of irradiated material were unwelcome and I was threatened with being thrown out. I’m not against nuclear power but hiding radiation leaks from the public is just plain wrong.

The Lake District on a Sunday evening in 1990 is deader than dead. We got food and watched a full rerun of the 1966 World Cup Final. In that TV age this the first time that I recall it being shown in my lifetime and was a big thing.

It was not exciting and the standard was terrible. At the time I imagined that it would be a really good match, but the pace of it was so slow (though as some players still had half time cigarettes maybe that is not a surprise). If anyone tells you that football used to be better they are talking utter bollocks.

Alex and I drove back on the Monday. The last time that we met up was in early 1993 at Alex’s in Slough (he claimed it was Windsor😊).

We did the usual tourist stuff like going round Windsor Castle.

(Dave Carter, Alex Burton John Lunt).

This was the last time we saw Dave Carter and I can’t find him online – if you’re out there Dave get in touch. It was the last time we had a weekend like this. I offered to drive John back to London rather than him getting the train. I discovered that west of the A10 the North Circular Road is crap and it took hours to get home.

On the first night in the Lake District there this was playing in the pub. I had been a fan of Talk Talk since their first album was released in 1982, billed as the new Duran Duran. This was a really bad mischaracterisation, they were not pretty boys and progressively became further and further away from pop music (presumably just because their names were both one word repeated). Their lead singer, Mark Hollis, turned out to be a visionary musician. It’s My Life is from their second album and was not a hit when it came out. A few years later a slightly remixed version made it into the charts. We did have other friends outside this tight group – this week I learned that Jon Dick died earlier this year, just 54 years old. That is at least two people out of my year at St Catherines of just 120 that have passed away. That night we had it all ahead of us…..

It’s My Life

One cheap illusion can still be divine

Consider a counter-history starting in the sixteenth century. In 1588 Catholic Spain tried to conquer Protestant England – it failed, but what if it had succeeded?

England is conquered by Spain and becomes an occupied country. Spanish people settle in East Anglia and Catholicism becomes the state religion. Protestantism is outlawed and heretics are burnt at the stake.

Britain never unites with Scotland or invades Ireland. The British Empire never happens and the Spanish bestride the world as the mightiest force in the Western world.

The English and Welsh remain unhappy with their country being occupied by a foreign power and them being second class citizens behind the Spanish occupiers and their descendants. English is a second-class language – all official business is in Spanish. The Police are totally Spanish descendants, justice is administered from Spain and suggestions of independence are considered treason. Anyone of English or Welsh descent are always in the wrong when clashing with Spanish descendants. The justice system is entirely biased. The occupying puppet government uses the army to periodically put down revolts.

Finally, early in the twentieth century, it becomes too much and the Spanish reluctantly agree that Wales and parts of England can have their independence. The Spanish will keep Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and London. These areas will remain effectively governed from Madrid and the native English protestants in those areas will remain second class citizens.

Throughout the twentieth century a movement builds for England and Wales to be one country and Spanish control to be removed. The USA is very supportive of this due to Spanish neutrality in the Second World War making it last so much longer than in our timeline and their gratitude to the English, Welsh and Scottish people who fought in their army against Germany.

The Spanish hold firm against the idea of leaving England. The Pope supports them as it would be one less Catholic country as the Protestants in the free areas would swamp the Catholic majority in the occupied eastern areas.

What is the right thing to do? Would you campaign peacefully, or would you take up arms to remove a foreign power from your country? Would it be right to do that?

Never a hit, never famous. Another early 80s classic that is barely heard today. Peter Godwin had been in a band but after it split up he only recorded one studio album.

“Terrorists “ are what the big army calls a small, insurgent army. The insurgents think of themselves as freedom fighters.

If you thought that it would be right to fight to free England and Wales from an occupying power with force and have condemned insurgent groups in the past think about that again. Why does the western press consider Syrian rebels to be freedom fighters but ETA to be terrorists? Why were the Israeli groups in the 30s and 40s freedom fighters (though considered terror groups at the time) but not the PLO or Hamas? The South African regime considered the ANC to be terrorists but they fought for freedom – the IRA believed that they fought for a free unified Ireland (and many people outside the UK agreed with them). All these groups want (or wanted) to overthrow what they believe are illegitimate regimes. All these organisations, from their point of view, think they are the good guys.

I am not condoning terrorism or terrorist attacks on civilians. I am just suggesting that accepting media designations about these groups without a thorough knowledge of context is dangerous.

Images of Heaven