Time to close my mind and drift off

I swear John Bonney did much more in life than give me books.  Graham and John Bonney stayed in Brightlingsea in the summer of 1982 for a week.  Everyone else in the family was away and I was allowed to look after the house for a fortnight.  With two dogs, two cats and a tank of tropical fish it did save a lot on kennel fees (though as I am phobic about fish the feeding of them was 14 days of torment).  We played Dungeons and Dragons a lot when the guys came down for the first week.  When they left they bought me two books for being host – ostensibly they were both from each of them, but in reality they chose one each.  For the life of me I cannot remember Graham’s choice, but John’s pick was ‘Salems Lot by Stephen King (John had caused me palpitations when washing up, been using a brillo pad on Anne’s favourite frying pan – something my siblings and I had been warned not to do – repeatedly, luckily it was not too obvious).

I had a quite irrational fear of vampires that I did not share with my fellow gamers.  When I was around 11 years old and we lived in Royston I got some sort of virus which gave me a temperature.  I came downstairs around 11pm and the Hammer films version of Dracula! was on TV – the climax in Transylvania as Van Helsing desperately tries to stay alive against the Count.  I went back to bed after more medication and had nightmares about the Prince of Darkness.

So now the second week of everyone being away started and I foolishly decided that I should read ‘Salems Lot.  I was nearly 16, vampires held no fear for me now.  I was amazed by the book – it was the start of my love for King’s work that continues to this day – and to start with things are fine.  The tension and horror slowly arrive after laying the foundations of normalcy.

I was reading it in the evening when the horror of it really got to me.  I knew that I was not going to sleep at night with thoughts of it playing on my mind.  The family dogs were not allowed to sleep upstairs, but that night I thoroughly confused them by forcing them up to my room (the books was cleat that dogs know when vampires are about).  They happily fell asleep and I read all night.  By 7am I had finished the book (it is brilliant) and took the dogs out for their morning walk, ate breakfast and went to sleep for the day.

I got over my fear of vampires, the world is full of real dangers far worse than these imaginary ones, but no one can disturb my sleep like Stephen King.  I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer finally cured me, seven seasons of vampire slaying will do that.  Then Twilight vampires became the paradigm, all those emo Edward Cullen lovers should read a real vampire book and see if they feel the same way about creatures of the night.

My copy of ‘Salems Lot is pretty battered, in the sixth form a number of us swapped King’s books to read them all.

So that is a second thank-you to John Bonney for his excellent taste, even if it led to more nightmares than any other author in my life.

Visage were a New Romantic supergroup.  Members of Ultravox and Spandau Ballet with Steve Strange, the ultimate Blitz kid, on lead vocals.  Most famous for Fade to Grey, their first album is a classic of the era.  As in so many cases the second is more of a mixed bag but this is the best track on it.  Steve Strange had a nervous breakdown and died of a heart attack aged 55 in 2015.  Largely forgotten, the whole music scene of the first half of the 1980s may well have been very different without him.  Definitely not one of the damned.

The Damned Don’t Cry

Find a place to go

The Fixx were one of those British groups that never quite fit.  They were New Wave (like the Boomtown Rats) but were really only making it when the New Romantics were dominating music.  In the end they never made it in the UK but were far more successful in the USA.

One of the best things about going to Meridian was meeting new people.  Meridian staff came and spoke to us individually about the transfer (extraordinarily progressive for 1979) and they asked me about friends – I said that Paul Ashby, Ian Anderson and I had been friends for years.  Third form (year 9) was split in two halves, so even for maths (the only subject that had sets) and Games/ PE (done in half year groups) pupils in the halves would never be in the same lesson.  Ian and Paul (and Matthew Moorhouse) were put in the other half.

So I was friendless in a class group that the only people I knew I did not like.  There were these three kids from the other middle school in Royston  – Graham Wright, Graham Chappell and Julian “Davros” Knott.  As a group I think we were pretty unlucky – Davros was squeezed out after some incidents that proved he was not a good person to associate with (many years later I was told by the Doctor Who writer Craig Hinton that there were more incidents in the Doctor Who Appreciation Society – of course I do not know if they are true and poor Craggles passed away many years ago, but I believed him).

Graham Chappell moved away at the end of the third form and I moved away at the end of the fourth form.

Unlike the modern world staying in touch was much harder.  Phone calls were frowned on due to the cost and that meant letters.  Luckily Graham and I shared a lot of interests – Doctor Who, SF, HP Lovecraft, Dungeons and Dragon, lots of the same music and more.

I have a huge archive of letters we exchanged in the 80s.  He and his family welcomed me into their home on holiday visits many times.  One great one was in July 1982 when the Brightlingsea term ended one day earlier than the Royston one and I was waiting at the Meridian School gate for him – some shocked faces at seeing me.

Graham, John Bonney and Chloe in various combinations came and stayed in Brightlingsea too.  Anne loved Graham.

Graham and I went to Games Fair in 1982.  It was at Reading University and we met in London.  We went to the Virgin Megastore and then had to get to Paddington.  Graham claimed to have an unerring sense of direction and we walked for miles – I think we went through a street market in Soho, well a street market somewhere.  In the end we got to Paddington after asking for help at a police station.

Games Fair was fun.  Graham got placed second in the Dungeons and Dragons championship, run by the game’s creator Gary Gygax.  He was one of the youngest (if not the youngest) entrants so that was amazing.

Graham visits Brightlingsea – with my sister Alison)

Graham went to Nottingham to train as a doctor.  I went to Cambridge and then went to work.  We still corresponded but I know my schedule was a nightmare, though I managed to visit Nottingham once.

(Graham looking thoughtful)

I last saw Graham in 1992 and then he went to Australia to work as a Doctor.  He now has a big family and a lovely home.  Plus Leo the dog.  He remains one of the best people I have ever known – talented, smart and a person I will always aspire to emulate.  There are too few people like Graham in the world and it is a shame he is so far away.  At least with the internet we can be in touch.

He will always be Raloch Godslayer to me😊  Cheers mate – my life has been so much the better for knowing you.

Graham always liked the Fixx so…. Red Skies

Revolution a solution

Rap or Hip-Hop.  Not my favourite form of music.  Yet when I was reading the music magazines in the early 90s (see post https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/05/26/all-of-these-and-seven-more-wonders-i-will-find/) there were thoughtful reviews and features on the groups.  NWA were the bad boys out of the West Coast but the Kings of East Coast) and this was years before the Tupac/ Biggie feud) were Public Enemy.

Public Enemy were not focused on gang violence, drugs or sex like NWA.  Their leader likened them to CNN for the black community.  They were provocative and aggressive but they were also crusading.

I bought Fear of A Black Planet from Compact Music in Ipswich when it came out – to the surprise of the owner, Stuart.  Probably the worst place someone could ever start listening to Public Enemy, it is their Metal Music Machine, stripped down and very much just focusing on Chuck D rapping.

I was not beaten, their second album was the one listed in the 100 Most Important Albums ever – so I bought It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.  It is that important.

Their fourth album was Apocalypse 91 – The Enemy Strikes Black is their most accessible.  Stand out tracks are the reworked Bring Tha Noise with heavy metal band Anthrax (like Run DMC and Aerosmith a couple of years earlier the Metal/ Rap team up seemed odd at the time – but both were outlaw music, incredibly popular with nerdy white boys) and By The Time I Get To Arizona about two states not making Martin Luther King’s birthday a public holiday.  This featured a striking call to arms introduction by newest member of the group, Sister Souljah.

(The imposing cover of the fourth album with The Security of the First World in the back row, Griff, D and Flavor Flav in the front).

(1992 at Club 69, trying to look street with my PE shirt – failing)

Line-up changes were forced due to controversial comment in the media by Griff and Souljah.  Flavor Flav was eventually booted for supporting Trump, but Flav was PE’s Bez before there was a Bez in the Happy Mondays.  Most of them come back.  The one certainty is Chuck D – an eloquent and intelligent man (who is a lot funnier than his image suggests).

I saw them in Greenwich in the period between it being home to the Millennium Dome and the O2 Arena.  They were playing in the afternoon on a sunny day, but they had over 100,000 people in the palm of their hand -most of whom had just come to the festival, not specifically to see them.

This is from that classic second album.  On the album they use a sample from thrash metal band Slayer – the video has Public Enemy actually performing with Slayer.

She Watch Channel Zero

Celebrate the great escape

I do think year 10 (or fourth form as it was in the 1980s) is the biggest shock in the education system.  Things get more structured at different stages but now it is exam study.  Parents and teachers tell you how important these exams are.  In the 1980s they were both more important, as you could leave education after doing them, or less important as there were jobs that needed no qualifications at all.

At Meridian we went from having our lessons mostly in the same group (except maths) to O levels (or CSEs – you had to be entered for one or other rather than the better GCSE system where you can be split later on) in groups that varied from subject to subject.

(Meridian – no idea who the teacher is – way after my time)

There was still compulsory PE.  Our favourite teacher from the third form, Mr James, had gone and been replaced by what was almost a caricature of a PE teacher.  A borderline psychotic with a chip on his shoulder.  Mr Medland was a sadist.

At Meridian there was one indoor PE session a week and one outdoor games session.  Unless the weather was bad.  In that case the girls took the inside and the boys the outside, much to our annoyance.  On one winter day we were outside in sub-zero temperatures, in normal games kits (shorts and long sleeve shirts – no tracksuits allowed).  Medland stood there wrapped up in multiple layers looking like the Michelin Man, telling us we were wimps, and told us we had to run round the edge of the huge school field twice,  It was not just cold, it was snowing and a freezing wind was coming in over the fields.

I was no athlete at all but I decided the best thing was to get it over as fast as possible and for the first lap tried to stay with the leader (Mick Letch I think) who ran for Hertfordshire schools.  At the end of the first lap Medland looked amazed that I was in second place.  It did not last as my lack of fitness meant that I spent the second lap falling back, but I still managed a creditable sixth out of over hundred boys. 

Glen Dearman and Michael Noades had hidden in a corner on the first lap and waited, shivering to joining the pack second time around.  Luckily Medland spotted it and made them go round again.  Given how much crap those two gave me at Middle School I grinned as I saw them freezing going round the field from the changing room window.

Medland had spent the previous year in the USA and one day in the summer term decided to play American Football.  Loads of boys had got excuses not to do Games so Medland played at running back and chose the two biggest boys to be his blockers.  It was like no real version of American Football, but in those days it was not on British TV so we had no idea about how to play or the need for protective equipment.  Medland used it as an excuse to mow down smaller boys – Clive Hook took a hell of a hit.  I decided discretion was the better part of valour and stayed away from home.

There was a lot more homework in the fourth form.  I tried to do as much as I could in tutorial time or at lunch time, especially after Graham introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons.  Post school time was precious.

The Teardrop Explodes became briefly famous that year and seemed to be part of the New Romantic movement, but weren’t really.  They were Julian Cope and whoever could bear to work with him.  He went on to a solo career.  Their name came from a comic caption written by Bill Mantlo (one of the worst writers in comics to get a regular gig in the late 70s – he did create Rocket Raccoon, now a star due to The Guardians of the Galaxy movies) – he wrote “the teardrop explodes”.  Maybe it sounded less shit to Cope when he was on drugs.  (Bill Mantlo became a lawyer and then was in an accident that has left him institutionalised since 1992).

Passionate Friend

This is not a situation for a nervous boy

The first of many mentions for Clive Hook.  At the end of the fourth form (year 10) Clive had been put in charge of music for House assemblies (Scott, Rutherford, Kennedy and Churchill – so no over representation of white men there).  For some reason I was in Scott when most of my friends were in other houses.  Clive got me to help him and I showed up my ignorance of heavy metal in a big way.

One compilation tape he owned was Axe Attack.  14 tracks by different bands that is disproportionately important to metal fans of a certain age.   Even more surprising it was released by K-Tel, a label famous for its crap and cheap compilations.  I played my copy (of his original) to death and managed to get another copy made at university.  Now I have the tracks as a playlist on my phone (including the extra track I added as there was space on a 60 minute cassette).

Rainbow                                                              All Night Long

Ian Gillan                                                             Running, White Face, City Boy

Judas Priest                                                        Breaking The Law

Ted Nugent                                                        Cat Scratch Fever

Scorpions                                                            Make It Real

Girlschool                                                            Race With The Devil

U.F.O.                                                                   Doctor Doctor

AC/DC                                                                   Highway To Hell               

Whitesnake                                                        Ready & Willing

Iron Maiden                                                       Running Free

Aerosmith                                                           Sweet Emotion

Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush         You Got Living

Black Sabbath                                                   Paranoid

Motorhead                                                         Bomber

Lynyrd Skynyrd                                                 Sweet Home Alabama   (My extra track)

All of the groups in italics are on the list somewhere – either a great success rate for the album or it shows how formative it was.

Ted Nugent and Frank Marino have their fans and both tracks are good – the best they did (Nugent is a total hypocrite, after draft dodging Vietnam now he urges the USA to send its troops to war all the time).

Girlschool are a rarity – a real all female metal band.  Aerosmith are extremely famous, particularly for that annoying song they did for the film Armageddon.  Sweet Emotion is very soft, as if the compilers wanted one soft song that they could play on adverts to tempt in fans of middle of the road music.  Make It Real is a softer Scorpions track too.

Not only is Michael Schenker a great guitarist and UFO a prime example of German metal, but this track is used by Iron Maiden as the last track before they go on stage.  When it starts the fans know it is 2 minutes and 45 seconds until Maiden go on.  Happy days.

Doctor Doctor

Oh, oh, oh, memories of yesterday

I have always been a rule taker.  Obey the rules.  I wear a mask in the supermarket, I do put recycling in a recycling bin, I do not do drugs and I do not bunk class (a touch of speeding does not count).

Well, bunking PE in the sixth form doesn’t count – what mad school makes sixth formers do PE?  Richard Wigley and I would routinely just not turn up and spend a pleasant hour in the common room.  Until one day the deputy head, Mr Betts, was seen coming up the stairs.  We grabbed our bags and hoped he was not coming our way.  He was.  We hastily exited down the fire escape (proving how bad things were as it did not trigger a fire drill) and spent the hour hiding out.

Doesn’t count.

Well, there was one other time.  It wasn’t just me though, it was our whole group in the sixth form.  It was Michaela’s 18th birthday, on a dull Autumn day.  Her parents were out all day so we went in and registered in the common room.  I’m sure that the staff knew something was up from the behaviour.  Then, after our period one class it was round Michaela’s where we drank and ate all day, in a very convivial atmosphere.  Some of us did pop back for afternoon registration, already smelling of alcohol.  I did say that I was a rule taker.

To add insult to injury we had to leave as school ended as her Mum would be home.  So we went back to school for bridge club.  Talk about taking the pis – plus we were a bit drunk.  The teachers noticed a high amount of giggling and sternly warned us not to drink in school again – but we hadn’t. it had been at Michaela’s.

Michaela’s musical taste was different to a lot of us and it was her birthday.  She put a Supremes compilation on the record player.  It was a revelation to me as we sang along to Stop! In the Name of Love and You Can’t Hurry Love.  That was the day I fell in love with Tamla Motown.

Diana Ross left the Supremes and Motown now had two artists rather than one.  I love the reunion that happened in the 80s where they all came on stage and Ross took a step forward to be at the front.  The other two Supremes stepped alongside her.  Ross moved forward again and they did too, telling her that she wasn’t their boss anymore.

The material that they recorded after Ross’s departure is less well known, but there are a lot of standout tracks, like Stoned Love and Nathan Jones.  This is my favourite one.

Up the Ladder to the Roof

She’s knocked out on here feet again

In 2011 Dad and I went on an 8-day tour of Egypt.  It started in Cairo and then we flew to Luxor and cruised to Aswan.  Day seven there was a choice – either chill on the cruise ship or pay for an extra trip to Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is a long way south of Aswan, close to the border with Sudan.  There are two ways of getting there.  Either a seven-hour drive across the desert escorted by the military (to protect from the terrorists) or an hour’s flight.  Fortunately it was the flight that our tour had the option to do.  (In the film Death on the Nile they move from Karnal to Abu Simbel in a few hours – a pretty big distortion of the truth, even then it was not possible to get there on a cruise ship).

Our party of 27 had an English tour leader, Penny, and a local Egyptian guide, Randa.  One of the 27 opted not to go to Abu Simbel, which meant Penny stayed in Aswan (having a lazy day) and Randa took the 26 of us to Abu Simbel.

Upside stomachs had affected many people on the trip and this day was no different.  One of our party, Lady Margery, was feeling every unwell but did not want to miss Abu Simbel.  She made the mistake of taking different tablets she had been given by other members of the trip and looked unwell at Aswan airport,  Despite being in her late 70s Margery battled on to the plane and we took off.

Lunch that day was the only meal not catered for.  Some people picked up something at the airport, the rest of us trusted in finding food at Abu Simbel.  An unwise choice.

Not long after take-off she had to go to the toilet.  She did not come back and the air crew did not notice she was missing as we came in to land.  She had fainted in the toilet and then been thrown around on the landing, spraining her ankle.  She was in no fit state to walk the mile or so that would be needed and Randa had to leave her there on her own.

We got a shuttle bus to Abu Simbel, but lost one of our group – Jane.  Dad and I ended up doing the manager’s job shepherding the back of the party.  Some people had huge hand luggage so Randa arranged to leave it a café.  When we got to the entrance Jane realised that she had left her ticket in her hand luggage.  Two of us went back to get it for her.

Abu Simbel is magnificent – it was built by Rameses the Great, one of the most successful rulers in history.  It is doubly a great engineering feat.  The original buildings over 4,000 years ago, with entrance lined up so the Sun shines through onto the altar on Midsummer Day.

Abu Simbel was lost for a long time and eventually rediscovered in the 19th century when a storm partially cleared the sand away.

The second great engineering feat was in modern times. In the 1960s when the Aswan dam was built and Lake Nasser created.  This flooded the Abu Simbel.  It was painstakingly moved upwards to preserve the site for us today.  The back of it is disappointing as it is artificial – if you want to maintain the illusion do not circle the site.

(Dad and me leaving Abu Simbel).

We almost lost people on the way back, but Dad and I managed to stop that.  Margery was feeling better, but she had suffered badly and paid a lot of money to lie in the airport for three hours.  We collected Penny and Daphne at Aswan then flew to Cairo.

If you go to Egypt Abu Simbel is a must.

I had managed to go into the trip with plantar fasciitis and on the way to the airport a repetitive strain injury flared up in my left elbow.  In Aswan I had managed to badly twist my ankle.  When I’m in pain my go to music is the Velvet Underground.  Their debut album is rated as one of the greatest ever yet was never a hit.  The Velvet Underground and Nico.  The Velvets were not as good without Nico, but were the start of the careers of Lou Reed and John Cale.  It really is an album that everyone should hear.

There She Goes Again

I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen

I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen

How many people can leave a band before it stops being the band?  It depends on who the people are who leave I suppose.

The Who lost Keith Moon in the 70s and no one batted an eyelid, despite the fact that he may have been the best drummer ever.  The bassist, John Entwhistle died having sex with a stripper/groupie.  That still left the Who with their singer and songwriter and no one really commented.

In 1980 Led Zeppelin lost their drummer, John Bonham, to alcohol.  Zep were one of the biggest bands of all time yet took the decision to break up rather than continue without their friend.  A point of principle lost on most bands (there have been reunions, but mostly with Bonhams’ son in the drummer’s seat).

Iron Maiden are 45 this year.  There have been three different drummers and the definitive guy, Nicko McBrain, started in the band after The Number of The Beast.  There have been three vocalists – Paul Di’Anno left after two albums and Bruce Dickinson is the definitive singer.  He left for several years in the 90s and was replaced by Blaze Bayley – the two albums of that period are not creative high points, though the loss of guitarist Adrian Smith did not help.  In the end Maiden reunited as a six piece and are still together.

Marillion recorded for about 8 years with their original lead singer, Fish.  Since then Steve Hogarth has fronted the band.  Some people like both but for me Marillion were not the same band after Fish left and should have changed their name.

Guns ‘n’ Roses lost all their members bar Axl Rose, who had been smart enough to get the rights to the name.  Fans really did not consider the band really GNR without Slash, Izzy and Duff.

Duran Duran lost members bit by bit.  Guitarist Andy Taylor does not seem to be plugged in to the band gestalt.  After they reunited for money making tours in 2011 he only lasted a year.

Boy bands and girl bands are notoriously interchangeable.  Bucks Fizz lost their sex appeal when Jay Aston left (at least in wider opinion, Cheryl Baker was far nicer in my opinion).  Band members turned over to the extent that the band name is now owned by David Van Day of Dollar and Bucks Fizz can’t even tour under their own name.

The Sugar Babes just looked like a group composed of whoever management managed to get to turn up at each recording session.

The worst offenders are Queen.  Freddie Mercury sadly passed away and there was a massive tribute concert.  The huge royalties were not enough for drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May (bassist John Deacon has not been part of this).  In Doctor Who terms exploiting dead actors is called fucking the cold corpse of whoever – so in this case fucking the dead corpse of Freddie Mercury.

Half Queen have been willing to use anyone as a lead singer.  The guy who starred in the We Will Rock You musical (another way of milking money from their back catalogue), the boyband F!ve, Adam Lambert, George Michael, etc.  I think if you can karaoke sing Queen songs you have a chance of the gig.  They also managed to find enough material for a posthumous album and a third Greatest Hits (remixes and barrel scraping).  Fucking Freddie’s corpse indeed.  Yes, another entry about Queen not being as good as people think they are.

Van Halen changed lead singers and continued as a group.  People seem to either like the David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar material.  The band were successful with both.  I like both eras – Dumper did the Hagar era Ain’ Talkin’ About Love a lot and it is a bloody great song.  If (by my own rules) I could treat them as two groups that would be in the list.  The whole album is soft metal with synthesizers, the track Hot for Teacher has been used many times in TV and film.  This song is the best Van Halen track.  A huge hit while we were in the sixth form it is a heavy metal track that casual people like (because it is not really that heavy). 

So how many people can leave a band?  However many the public will accept?  Or it just depends who got the rights to the band’s name?  A lead singer will damage you a hundred times worse than a drummer though.

Jump

I’m going down the place tonight

At Grant Thornton (GT) we always needed clients – it was meant to be the job of the partners to go out and get them but they always seemed to be in the office – in the summer watching cricket in the boardroom and in the winter listening to it on the radio.  We took what clients we could get, but it should be a red flag when a bank comes to your firm and saying they want you to replace a company’s existing auditor.  Even more worrying when that company is in London and they bank in Ipswich – why would they do that?

OBAS was that client.  The Orthopaedic Bedding Advisory Service.  The firm we replaced as auditors operated out of an East End Victorian house.  Two huge rooms, one with two partners and grand desks in, the other with about twenty clerks rammed together amongst piles of boxes.  All still dressed as if it was pre-World War 2.

OBAS was near Mile End tube station.  Everyone knew that it would be a nightmare job so it was decided that we should stay in a hotel in London, as the hours would be long.  We stayed an IBIS hotel near Euston – nowadays there are hotels all over the East End, but then there were few.  Our team leader, Julie, had experience of one dubious hotel on a planning trip and decided that this would be better, even though we would have to go there and back each day.  To us the 10 minute walk to and from Mile End station was a step into a hostile land.

Of course it was a miserable January when we did the job, so we barely saw daylight.  I was optimistic as it was at OBAS House.  I learnt quickly that it was possible to change the name of anywhere to include house and make it sound posh.  It was mostly a factory downstairs and upstairs storage with some offices.  They all looked the actor Trevor Byfield.

(Trevor Byfield – but the look is so on point – it is coincidental that I was trying to work out who the face was and the day I actually wrote this I was flicking channels and saw him in Minder)

OBAS was run by Des Ward-Smith, a man who looked like he should have been a minor villain in Minder.  He was supported by a small band of East End wide boys who wore extravagant suits and jewellery.  All had a sales type background and were not details people.

The business model was to advertise in glossy Sunday magazines.  Not the Sunday Times or the Observer, the News of the World and the Sunday People kind of level.  It advertised a bespoke service where an advisor would call to see them to get all their personal medical details as well as specifics of any back issues.  A special bed would be built for them from this.  If they did not have enough money for an outright purchase OBAS would offer finance over a period of up to 4 years.

This should have rung alarm bells – finance over 4 years for a bed that cost around £500?  It was not interest free – they were aiming at the pensioners and the unemployed.  People with low incomes whose personal circumstances made them vulnerable.

I was auditing the finance company, Julie and Marcia the manufacturing company.  I had to construct a spreadsheet from all the contracts to show the income each year and find out which contracts were non-performing.  It was a long job but not complicated – it turned out that it was incredibly loss making and nearly half the contracts were non-performing.  The salesman got all their commission on the sale so did not care about the credit assessments of customers.  OBAS were losing the money for the bed and still paying commission!

I was left on my own in the hotel some nights as Julie and Marcia had university friends they took the opportunity to meet with.  The hotel restaurant did a lovely deep-fried brie with cranberry sauce – I had never seen that anywhere before.  I did not take the chance to explore that I should have done.  Maybe if the evenings had been lighter.

The job spilled into a third week and I helped Julie and Marcia after finishing.  A conversation with the factory manager revealed that all the beds were the same.  All the special design in the ads was bullshit.  He told me that they targeted the stupid who thought they were smart and made them pay £200 extra for a bed that they could get a better version of in the shops.  He also told me that the year-end stock take was rubbish and Des had inflated the stock value to improve their performance.  When I wrote that up in the audit file I was bollocked by my manager and told not to write stuff like that down.  Good on the ethics GT.

The audit over ran and still had not been signed off when I left.  Audits for years ending in 1988 and 1989 not signed off in 1992.  Even now there appear to be no sanctions from Companies House for late submission.  At some stage it went out of business – no bad thing.

I never knew much about the Jesus and Mary Chain.  Even though this was released in 1986 it was on whatever channel that was playing in the factory.  The mood seemed right for where we were.

Some Candy Talking

Here’s something you’re never gonna forget

People who know me, or read this, know that I like Doctor Who.  My knowledge of it is encyclopaedic and my collection of books on it is frighteningly huge (over 600 at a guess) and it is hard to say why.  I would not say that it was one of the best programs ever and swathes of it are arrant crap.  I think it imprinted on me at a young age that I wanted to be like The Doctor.  A scientist, smart and someone who solved complex issues.  I think I score about 1.5 on that scale.

The Third Doctor is looked down on by a lot of fans.  He is more of an establishment figure as he was exiled to Earth (for budget reasons) and works with the military organisation UNIT.  For people who started watching it other eras it seems quite jarring, but for those of us who started watching in the early 70s all the rest of Who seems a bit wrong.

Part of the problem is that the Pertwee era was lauded by fans for so long that there was an inevitable backlash in the 1980s and 90s.  I will be the first to admit that the special effects could be very ropey (the show was a pioneer in the use of chromakey, but the chromakeyed people look like they have thick felt tip outlines.

If you can ignore that there are some very good stories.  Pertwee’s first season has a much more adult tone and three of the four stories are excellent.  If you watch one then it has to be Inferno, an ecological tale, which shows the destruction of a parallel universe Earth before the Doctor returns to our Earth to make the last ditch save (The Silurians is also worth watching – racial tension and a plague, how modern).

(Fascist Earth)

When Barry Letts influence as producer takes hold it becomes friendlier and softer.  The Daemons (long held to be the best Who story ever, then suffering a major backlash from fans too young to have seen it until satellite TV or VHS arrived) is the first story I ever remember seeing (I was about 5 and I still love it).  I remember The Sea Devils vividly – the scenes in the sea fort, the visit to The Master and the land mines on the beach.  From Season 10 I made sure that I saw every episode.

The Pertwee era is comfort TV for me – I can watch it again and again.  I recommend Inferno, The Daemons, The Sea Devils, The Carnival of Monsters and The Time Warrior (one for each year).

So Pertwee was succeeded by Tom Baker – generally remembered as the best of the original run.  To me he was an imposter, a bohemian mess who was unpleasant to his friends.  Most people think his original three years under the Hinchcliffe/ Holmes team are a high point of the show.  More horror based than before it shamelessly stole scenarios from culture and created a gothic period.  It is interesting that the erudite Jonn Elledge, who came to the period as an adult, does not rate it so highly.  I know that my first exposure to these concepts was on Who so it was all new.

To be fair to the show Ark in Space is a PG rated Alien, except several years before Alien came out.  There is a Loch Ness story, a Forbidden Planet story, a Frankenstein story, a Mummy story, a Thing story etc, etc.  In retrospect I love it – watch Ark In Space, Pyramids of Mars and The Talons of Weng Chiang (if you can live with a white actor in Chinese make up – a sad misstep even at the time).

(The amazing Pyramids of Mars – Sorry Jonn)

The evil Mary Whitehouse (see earlier entries) hated the horror and violence and wanted to protect children, missing the fact that children loved it.  Hinchcliffe left and his successor, Graham Williams, ramped up the comedy.  Rampant inflation did not help as budgets fell apart through a season, add in a leading man who thought he was more important than the show and there were three years of declining quality.  It included Underworld, a story so awfully produced that the wonderful Jim Smith has explained that it actually is not broadcast quality television (and he is right – he usually is). 

Douglas Adams script edited the 17th season, just as his fame was taking off and he had too many irons in the fire for someone who suffered writers block.  A Who script editor often needs to rewrite scripts fast and he was not the right man for the job.  City of Death is held up as a masterpiece, but it really is a fairly good story surrounded by abject shit that makes it look better.

Wiliams was replaced by John Nathan Turner who would helm the show for the rest of its original run.  The show was brighter and more serious (I admit that it actually looks more dated now).  Baker’s last season features two stories by directors who try and do more than a cookie cutter TV approach – The Leisure Hive and Warrior’s Gate (it is definitely worth reading the Black Archive on the latter https://obversebooks.co.uk/product/31-wg/).  The quality of the writing is better and the comedy is balanced by tension.  The season ends with the return of The Master in The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis – two of my favourite Baker stories. 

So watch (one from each year) – The Ark in Space, Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng Chiang, The Horror of Fang Rock, The Ribos Operation, City of Death and The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis (they are really one story and it is my blog).

Ultimately Doctor Who came in lots of flavours in the 70s and different people prefer different parts.  That is what is so good about it.

This song has the pis taken out of it as a rock cliché.  It’s brilliant.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

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