Our family played a lot of board games. This was the 70s and early 80s when computer games might just about mean tennis being played by two sliding blocks on a TV screen or going to an arcade. A time of three TV channels. Long school holidays and wet weekends lead to boredom.
We played Monopoly. Mike was great at that, even when we discovered he was cheating. There was Cluedo. Scrabble – my grandmother loved crosswords and Scrabble. Frustration (Ludo on steroids), Ker Plunk, Operation and Masterpiece (an Art auction game – probably the only source of art knowledge I had for over 30 years). Mike and I played a lot of strategy games like Chess, Junta and Admirals. I believe that playing games as a child teaches you strategy and analysis.
Trivial Pursuit arrived a bit later. Remember Trivial Pursuit? The multiple-choice trivia board game that was incredibly popular in the mid-80s. You would go round the board trying to answer questions to win a token in each category and the get to the centre to ask one more question. Opponents would analyse your weakest area to try and stop you winning.
We tended to play in teams at home. One Christmas Mike and his girlfriend Julie, Alison and her boyfriend Michael Duffield were playing as teams against Frances (on her own). Frances is seven years younger than me and 5 years younger than them. They were enjoying beating her soundly. I came down having been working in my bedroom, saw it, and asked if I could join her as a team to even it up. They were already halfway to winning and agreed. Fran and I won, much to her delight, as they had been being mean to her.
Of course it was popular at university. No teams – just dog eat dog. No clues, no quarter. One night when we should have been working Alex, Fai and I played. Fai was stuck on one question to win – who painted Starry Night? This had not been in Masterpiece so I had no idea. Fai sat their thinking, certain that his failure to get it would mean one of us would likely win.
At university Fai Au Yeung had three cassettes. In our first year when we hung out in his room we got one of the three whenever we were in there. Now Fai was a great guy but musically? He was a man who thought Wings were far superior to the Beatles and that Band on the Run was one of the greatest tracks ever – that his first cassette, some Wings compilation. His second cassette was the best of Don McLean, on which there was a song that started Starry, starry night.
I started singing this out of boredom, despite some dirty looks from Alex (which I assumed were because I can’t sing), and suddenly Fai realised the answer. The song is called Vincent and is about Vincent Van Gogh. In my defence I didn’t know and we had heard that damn song so many times it was going round my head.
His final cassette was a best of Chris De Burgh. This was before his fame with the syrupy Lady In Red. That changed his career towards emotional love songs (maybe his albums were different but there is only so much time in life to listen to artists). Before this he had a much wider palette – A Spaceman Came Travelling, High On Emotion, Patricia the Stripper, Ship to Shore, In a Country Churchyard and Waiting for the Hurricane.
This is his best track. Cheers Fai, if you are in Hong Kong now I hope you are ok.
As a family we always had pets. There was a lot less to do in the 70s and we lived in towns with plenty of green areas. Our first pet was Daisy – a long haired cat that we got while we still lived in Luton. She came with us to Royston and then to Brightlingsea. The long hair made her look far bigger than she really was. She was remarkably tolerant of two young boys who did not treat her with the respect she deserved all the time. She did have her feline side. When I was about 7 I came downstairs one morning to find feathers everywhere. Our budgie’s cage hung from a stand very high up. Somehow Daisy had jumped up, clung to the cage and torn the budgie’s wing off.
As more pets were added she was very much the matriarch, treating them dismissively. She was already 14 when we moved to Brightlingsea. She took to living on top of the boiler in the kitchen. She spent a pleasant last four years in the warm – I am convinced that warm let her live longer – before slipping away not long after I went to university.
Judy was a Jack Russell, ostensibly a present for my Dad just after we moved to Royston. He had had an Alsatian called Judy when he was younger, so this was Judy mark 2 for him. There is a common misconception that small dogs need less exercise – do not believe it. Famously when Anne and Dad climbed Cader Idris in 1976, one heck of a climb if you walk straight, she walked about three times the distance, yet remained ready for another walk on her return. She also had a habit of infiltrating every family photo.
Sandy was my sister Alison’s cat. A ginger Tom, he was sadly run over. His replacement Sammy was another ginger and an alpha male (even though he had been neutered). He was an amazing hunter, leaving us birds and vermin as presents. When we moved to Victoria Crescent from Poplar Drive (still Royston again) in 1976 the house was next to the council depot where they stored the refuse trucks. There were plenty of rats there – Sammy liked that. He sometimes came home looking like he had had a good fight, but that cat was worth his keep.
The final pet we got in Royston started the family trend of giving homes to the unwanted. Piper was a black and white Great Dane (Scooby Doo is a Great Dane). He was a pedigree, but one of his white “socks” was longer than the other three, so he would never win prizes. His owners could not cope, so he came to us for a visit and never left.
Piper, like Winnie the Pooh, had very little brain. He weighed around ten stone and could have been dangerous, but he was as soft and loving as a dog could be. He only ever hurt people by accident. He once sent my youngest sister, Frances, flying because he could not stop in time. Often his front legs would stop before his back ones leading to a chaotic twisting stop (maybe like dinosaurs he needed a rear brain). He once bit Dad quite badly – but Dad was trying to force medication down his throat. We had all suggested that the pill was just put in cat food as he loved that and never let it touch the sides. After that his medication was delivered in Kitekat. He loved his food. A great help to children who were given something they did not like to eat. He would sit beside the table, his head at just the right height. It was so easy to feed him Brussel sprouts, but everyone would know later due to his terrible wind. He ate anything, including milk bottle tops and pen lids, but drew the line at cucumber….
He had a habit of wandering off as we did not have a front gate. He once followed a neighbour to morning mass. Waited at the back of the church then followed him home, as we searched for him. Another time he found heaven as he went to a house where the owner fed him a half a cake before calling us (from his collar tag). She was bemused he did not want to leave – after a whole fresh cake we were surprised we could drag him home.
He used to love lying on the settee – the problem was that, if he did, no one else could get on it. Great Danes only live about 8 years and he died not long after we moved to Brightlingsea. Judy went downhill until we got Tess (after Tess of the D’Urbervilles). She was a mixed breed and a runaway, probably about 1-2 years old when we got her, but we never knew exactly. Judy perked up a lot for the last year of her life, trying to keep up with this exuberant, young dog. She also died when I was at university.
Tess was the loveliest dog ever and my favourite pet. She had an incredibly sweet nature and she was also very loyal. After calming down when she arrived, she was well behaved and combined being an alert guard dog with a motherly nature. One day when my twin nieces were asleep inside in their rockers we all went outside for a barbecue. Tess was (unusually) nowhere to be seen. When she came out she was agitated – it turned out that as soon as one of the twins had woken up she had come out to get us. It is a shame she never had puppies.
(Tess)
We had a tortoise called Percy (short for Persephone when we finally found out that she was female – I’m not sure you could get more middle class than that or Tess). She had the habit of trying to escape to the school on the other side of the stream at the bottom of the garden. Several times she was found floating upside down with her head up like a periscope. She did make it across a number of times, presumably on the bridge (tortoises move faster than you think), once for several weeks. Ostensibly she belonged to Frances, but when hibernation season was over it was always Dad who had to check for life signs.
In the year I left university we got two cats after Sammy died. Cagney and Lacey were one step away from feral, not very loving. We lived on the main road through Brightlingsea (though by the standards of the average village that was still a quiet road) but Lacey died young. Cagney was run over too, luckily Alison was training as a vet nurse and the four-figure medical treatment cost a bottle of whisky. Cagney as in casts for ages, but, survived and lived for many years.
(Cagney)
I first met Gemma when babysitting for the Cruickshank family. She was a tiny mixed breed puppy (quite a bit of Labrador). They did not walk her enough and it was like a cartoon as she ran around, I was barely able to see the movement. A couple of months later she came to live with us. I have never known a dog that would chase a ball so much. Mike and I would through the ball from one end of the room to the other (we had a very long rear lounge), we never found out when she would get bored as we ran out of patience first, Every time and I am talking hours throwing. When we played cricket on the field over the road there was no need for any fielders, that was her job.
(Gemma)
Everyone loved her, at least that is what she thought. She would cuddle up to any visitors, even if they hated dogs, which Rudi Drost did. Gemma viewed him as a challenge.
They all died after I left home. Gemma was only 8 years old when she died of leukaemia over Christmas 1995. We loved having them, so I am grateful to Mum, Dad and Anne for putting up with them and doing most of the work.
Remember the music magazines a couple of posts ago? One of them did a supplement on 100 albums that changed music. I was quite pleased with myself as I had listened to a lot of them, but was definitely interested in listening to the others on the list.
Marvin Gaye was the man who had a successful career at Tamla Motown, then disappeared until he released (Sexual) Healing when I was in the sixth form. Then he shot his Dad and committed suicide. What a load of cobblers my ideas were.
Like a lot of Motown artists (notwithstanding the great pop music they made there) his best years were after he left. In the early 70s he released two classic albums – Let’s Get It On and What’s Going On? The first R Kelly made a career out of copying and then used that to sexually abuse young women (see my earlier piece about how difficult it is to disassociate yourself from the creative work of someone you like when they turn out not to be a good person). The latter is a prescient masterpiece.
When I moved to London I lived in a shared house in East Ham. Most weekends I went back to Brightlingsea to see family and friends, occasionally I stayed (work or a work-related social event). On one of those Saturdays I went shopping on East Ham High Street North. There was a small Our Price music shop and it had both Gaye albums, so that was that.
People who are not from London think of it a homogeneous urban mass (well some do and I did). Actually, a lot of it is more like a collection of towns and villages with retails centres. High Street North had a WH Smiths, a Marks and Spencers, a Woolworths, a C&A, a Sainsburys and the Who Shop (the national shop for Doctor Who merchandise). It wasn’t as big as nearby Ilford, but it was like a reasonable size town centre.
The arrival of various retail parks – first Lakeside (15 miles away, but with free parking and only 20 minutes down the A13), Gallions Reach (smaller but with some big stores and only two miles away), Bluewater (awful place, but the parking is free) and finally Westfield in Stratford (huge, paid parking and there are 24 traffic lights in the three miles between my home and the car park! – hugely popular with school age young people) devastated High Street North, just like High Streets everywhere. The WH Smiths is now tiny, Sainsburys is there and there is a Primark, apart from that there are charity shops and mobile phone shops. Even the Who Shop moved.
High Street North was a community hub – especially for the old people in the area, who either had limited access to transport or limited mobility. To finish it off properly the local council sold the only car park for housing development. So, all the barbers and hairdressers and other small businesses get less customers (the same thing to a barber I used for years in Plaistow – there were local roads where you could park – they made them residents only; on my last trip I told him that was it as it took me 45 minutes to get to him by public transport and the same home, as opposed to 10 minutes by car). I know buses are more eco-friendly than cars, but if you have piles of shopping or mobility issues, or are time poor it is not the same.
High Street North is still there, but you can’t just use it and survive. You need the internet or to travel elsewhere. Newham Council has done some incredible feats of regeneration since I lived here but their management of High Street North has been disastrous (the council offices were there for many years, helping local businesses – then they moved to a new development on the docks called Building 1000, causing issues in that area as it had no parking and devastating businesses in East Ham, there are no businesses near Building 1000).
Music storage and playing is in a constant state of revolution.
At St Catherines the record library started buying CDs, much to the annoyance of most of the students who used it, in our second year. In 1986 it was a new format that promised a better future for recorded music. We were just annoyed as the stereos that we used had no CD player. Obviously, in retrospect, the students running the record library were right.
On graduation my parents (and step parents) were quite proud of me (despite the terrible hangover that I had on graduation day – jointly the fault of the College Madeira at the mandatory graduation dinner the night before, plus following it with a lot of lager with my mates as it was our last night there). My Dad and Anne got me a stereo for my 21st birthday, which was a couple of months after graduation. It was not a well-kept secret and I went out the Saturday before and bought three CDs. I forget one of them but the other two were Suanne Vega’s Solitude Standing and Bonjovi’s Slippery When Wet.
Bonjovi were part of the last stand of what was called hair metal. Perma haired men, usually from the West Coast of America (Ratt, Motley Crue, Guns ‘n’ Roses) and clad in spandex – the music actually on the softer metal side. Grunge largely took this out of the mainstream. Bonjovi survived pretty well – their drug issues, if any, less than other bands.
You could not get a CD player for a car, at least not at a reasonable price, so you had to tape your CDs for car use. Not that I would have trusted any decent cassette in my car’s stereo anyway. I had an old Ford Escort purchased at auction (with my Dad’s assistance, well he did it and I watched – no one can buy a car like Dad; for my last car I managed to get £2,000 off, an extra £1,000 on trade in, free wax treatment, mats, an upgrade to a digital radio and various other bits and pieces thanks to his training). No way would my precious tapes would be trusted in the knackered old tape player.
Later cars had tape players and then CD players. My latest car has a usb port and blue tooth facilities. The biggest problem is controlling what I want to listen to.
The next development was the Sony Walkman so you could listen to CDs on the move and car CD papers that could have half a dozen discs in. Then Steve Jobs came back to Apple and the iPod arrived (supplanted by the iPhone these days). I know a lot of people do not like the way music has been reduced to electronic files and that vinyl is making a comeback. I listen to music on the move and I am willing to accept the reduction, if any, in sound quality in exchange for portability and choice.
This was the first track that was played on the stereo on my 21st birthday.
After spending the late 80s becoming less and less interested in music the arrival of the Madchester scene reignited my interest in new music. I had never liked the music papers like the NME, Sounds or Melody Maker. I discovered Q magazine, in depth features and interviews, not just with new artists but it also covered established artist with big career overviews. Pre-internet this was just about the only way to find out about a band (unless you bought a book about them).
Then Vox started, which was IPC’s rival to EMAP’s Q. It felt a bit more contemporary focused, though its larger than A4 size and lack or perfect binding (that Q had) made it more likely to getr damaged and fall apart. Finally, there was Select, which seemed like the kid sibling to the others. Much more about dance music (and later Britpop) and current bands. Even though there could be quite a lot of overlap I had to get all three.
One bad thing was that now I had loads of details about upcoming CD releases. This included re-releases on CD as the record companies had originally reissued old albums on CD with no work done on dodgy mastertapes. Now they were remastering them, including bonus tracks etc. A great way to milk their back catalogues and get fans to upgrade their vinyl. I had a pull list at Compact Music of what upcoming CDs I wanted, to ensure that I got the various limited edition special versions of what I wanted (for instance the Chinacrisis compilation had a limited edition double CD version, why I wanted thus rather than the standard version I do not know – I am not a big Chinacrisis fan).
(Sidenote – this milking of the back catalogue is just one of the reasons I have little sympathy for record companies. Some albums were repeatedly released with a little bit each more to get multiple fan purchases. They also tried to label CDs with longer running times as extended CDs and charge a higher price – Queen’s Greatest Hits was one example, even though it had a been a single LP when released on vinyl.
The introduction of the CD did lead to some confusion for artists and labels. Most vinyl LPs ran around 40 minutes (just about perfect to put on one side of a 90 minute cassette; my brother and I hated the ones that ran over 45 minutes as 60 minute cassettes were almost as expensive as 90 minute ones). A CD held about 78 minutes of music. As some bands started to take advantage of that there was a move to make albums longer and 60 minutes, or more, became the new norm. In some cases this was an explosion of creativity, for others it led to a certain amount of substandard material padding out the album.)
The music magazines sometimes featured free tapes (later CDs) of material – usually around a theme, though some just seemed like a group thrown together by a record company PR team. Most of it was remixed, live tracks or demos but they served a purpose if they could get magazine buyers interested in a band and go and buy a CD (pre Internet again). I was perfect for them – almost always I would discover a new track or band that I liked. This was one of them.
The summer between A levels and university was a long one. The exams are over by the end of June and your siblings have three more weeks at school. Then they are back at school at the start of September, you have another 6 weeks before university starts.
After a pleasant post exams holiday with my grandparents there was a lot of time in Brightlingsea. We were all waiting for the results that would determine our next steps and had little money. It was a warm summer and the Los Angeles Olympics were on. Due to the time difference only people who were not working could really appreciate it. In some ways it was disappointing, as it was boycotted by the Eastern bloc, as the USA had boycotted the 1980 games over the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The UK was a lot less successful in those days – even without the doped up Eastern Europeans.
Daley Thompson won the decathlon and made some pointed comments about Carl Lewis’ sexuality. Seb Coe came second in the 800 for the second time, so never got gold in the event that he was best at. He did get the gold for the second time in the 1500m. At one wonderful point in the race near the start of the final lap Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram were hovering in second, third and fourth. Sadly, Ovett had to drop out (he was borderline to complete anyway) but Coe and Cram took the one two. The home straight is an object lesson in class and how Coe could kick twice. Coe kicks for home with Cram on the top of the final bend. Cram tries to take him on the straight and Coe just moves away so easily. Wonderful race.
Outside that I finally managed to improve my pool playing a bit. John H is the best snooker or pool player I know (he actually makes breaks at snooker and watching him pot and plan his way through a game is like poetry). I remain the worst player in our group, despite all his help and tips when he is landed with me when we play doubles. We would go over to St Osyth (only a short distance from Brightlingsea on the water, but several miles by car). There was an amusement arcade with tables there and we would play in the daytime. At least after that I was not totally embarrassing at university.
In our house you were not allowed to lounge around doing nothing. I did chores and dog walking. I earned money babysitting (amazingly easy in a sailing town in the summer – babysitters were like gold dust if you did not like sailing) and got unemployment benefit from September for four weeks, one of the benefit tricks students had from that was closed down by the Thatcher government.
In the end Neil and I went to university, Dave and John went to work. Obviously this was not the end of our friendship😊
There was a bit more choice on the radio that summer (for reasons I will explain another time) and this was on a lot. Firmly in the Dad music category, this is a great song. Growing up means realising music did not start when you were 11 years old.
While lockdown goes on there are some amazing podcasts to listen to. You can find them on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and many other platforms. This is not in any order of ranking, I love them all.
Why you should listen to this: The first and best of the true crime podcasts. It has spawned a huge number of imitators but none do such a good job as this. If you don’t come away from season 1 with huge doubts about the conviction of Adnan Syed you have not listened properly.
Avoid this if: You think the police are never wrong. You do not care about justice.
The Bechdel Cast
Why you should listen to this: The hosts Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus are brilliant. It is a podcast about representation in films. It gives new insights into films. It is fun listening to people debating films. It has Cat Facts with Caitlin. It has Jamie’s adulation of Alfred Molina. They love Titanic.
On the Bechdel Cast the questions asked, do movies have women in ‘em?
Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism?
The patriarchy’s effing vast, start changing it with the Bechdel Cast!
Avoid this if: You say things like “It’s political correctness gone mad.”. You hate intersectionality. You do not care about media depictions of women, people of colour or LBGTQ+. You don’t like Titanic or Alfred Molina. You ever want to watch a George Lucas film again without feeling sick.
Why you should listen to this: If you are interested in films or the history of Hollywood, especially the real stories behind the myths. You want to hear the best voice for podcasts ever. You want to go behind the stories of the famous, especially from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It gives great ideas for old films to watch.
Avoid this if: You never watch films.
The first one is missing unless you really hunt, but it doesn’t matter. At the start of the series they are all stand alone.
Why you should listen to this: Real lives that have been affected by miscarriages of justice. Of all the true crime podcasts that followed Serial this is the best. Season 2 is the one where a podcast has done more to affect the fate of a man than any other – Curtis Flowers life has been totally changed. Evidence they gathered got the case heard in the US Supreme Court. Ignore season 3 – just another Covid-19 podcast.
Avoid this if: You don’t care about injustice. You don’t care about racism.
Why you should listen to this: Stephen Bush is brilliant. It covers the British political scene each week, but not in a pompous way. It is different now Helen Lewis has gone, but more often there is a team of four and the diverse voices are creating an interesting new dynamic.
Avoid this if: You say things like, “That Jacob Rees-Mogg makes a lot of sense.”
Why you should listen to this: If you are interested in local UK politics. If you are interested in cities. If you are interested in transport systems. If you like variety in your podcast, topics vary massively. Jonn Elledge is always interesting to listen to. Jonn and Stephen discussing which lines are part of the Tube system is hilarious.
Avoid this if: You are not interested in the world we live in today.
Why you should listen to this: Katherine Ryan is one of the funniest people on the planet. She is very honest. It is new so there are only a few episodes to catch up on.
Avoid this if: You don’t like Katherine Ryan (but do get help, you have a problem).
Why you should listen to this: You care about the truth – you should be reading Private Eye anyway. It only comes out once a month, it is not a huge commitment. You want in depth analysis of injustice.
Avoid this if: You are happy with a biased news media. You prefer ignorance.
Why you should listen to this: You are a Remainer. You are Remainer curious. You want to hear proper analysis of Brexit issues, rather than trite phrases like “Get it done”. Ian Dunt. Naomi Smith. Ros Taylor. Alex Andreou. Andrew Harrison. Dorian Lynskey. Top smart people.
We took exams at university seriously. Despite tutors saying that our failure would reflect worse on the admissions tutor than us, as Cambridge did not accept people who could fail. First year exams were particularly scary as we did not know what it would be like.
So, we decided that we would go out for a big blow out night and then knuckle down to work until the exams were over. Sunday 28th April 1985. Seven of us went to a Chinese Restaurant on St Andrews Street, near Parkers Piece. There is a Chinese restaurant there now, but it is far more casual than it was back then.
We ate and we drank. Boy did we drink. They got a bit nervous about the amount of wine we ordered, given that we were students, they were worried about whether we could afford it. We were a bit loud, but compared to the posh boys and girls, who made up the majority of the university, we were a model of restraint. Our main noise was a loud discussion of the forthcoming Ashes tour (the Australians played the University at Fenners where I briefly met the legendary Allan Border – it was already obvious their chances that summer relied on Border’s batting prowess and there was a long debate comparing his talent and application with England’s premier left -hander, and captain, David Gower).
By the time we left the restaurant at around 10pm the plan was to get to bed promptly, as we had lectures in the morning. Someone had the idea to check on the world snooker final. Gary was the only one who had a colour TV, so we picked up some lager and piled into his room.
This was the legendary Davis – Taylor final, where Davis was 8-0 up then Taylor came back to 9-7 down. It was nip and tuck on the Sunday evening as we watched it go to 15 all. Everyone else wanted Taylor to win as Steve Davis was boring (he so is not, but he really only revealed that after retirement); I felt an Essex loyalty to Davis.
We had assumed it would be over quickly, but the match ground on to 17 all. The final frame lasted 68 minutes (we had restocked on lager from the College bar). It finally finished with Taylor winning on the black at 12.23am. A drunken collection of students staggered out, three went to bed. Alex, Dave Carter and I thought it would be funny to brick Gary up in his room. There was building work going on at the College and we had seen a supermarket trolley on the way in, left over from some prank by the public-school sports people. We filled it with bricks and managed to get it to the first floor.
(St. Catherines at night).
We didn’t have cement, but we were pleased by the wall we built and went to bed at about 1.30am.
I went to my lecture at 9am with one of the worst hangovers of my life. No one else went to their lectures or supervisions that day. Gary’s wall was there until the evening meal at 6pm. He finally emerged and knocked it over very easily. It lay there in the corridor for a few days before it was taken away by the porters.
I remember the afternoon of the 29th trying to revise with the radio on. I loved this song, but my head was too bad to keep it on.
Radio 1. In the 1980s this was the main source of pop music for the UK. There were some commercial channels, but they were not devoted to music (though Londoners were slightly better off). I wanted proper music, but some slots of the radio were aimed at other audiences – despite it being the only channel playing contemporary music.
Tony Blackburn was the first breakfast show presenter. He got a bit of a bad rep after an on-air meltdown when he split with his wife and for being a bit too “smooth” but he is a serious music fan. He was succeeded by Noel Edmonds, who is the first person I really remember in that slot. A long way from the obnoxious idiot who was staple of 80s Saturday Night TV and foisted Mr Blobby on the world in the 1990s. Mike Read was probably best of the bunch in the morning, he did champion music and not talk too much. On the downside he was responsible for the banning of Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, looked very like Cliff Richard and has some very dodgy views.
I missed out Dave Lee Travis, as he is now wiped from history due to allegations concerning behaviour. I do not condone sexual assault in any way whatsoever. The 70s definitely had different morals though and it is very hard to judge that behaviour on what is normal now (I am not saying that sexual assault can ever be right, but if you look at the culture of groupies and the fall out from the 60s it definitely sent out some wrong indications about what was right). I do not know enough about the DLT allegations to judge his position with regard to this.
Mike Read was succeeded by Mr Bland – Mike Smith (how he attracted Sarah Greene from Blue Peter is a mystery) and I stopped listening. Except for one week. My sister Frances wanted to a be on daily quiz he did called the Crew of Two. Dad went on it with her. Anyway, they won the quiz and got special jackets. One the last day Dad namechecked a number of people, including his kids – Alison and Michael. Not me. I was driving at the time and was surprised. Dad had done it off the top of his head and was totally mortified – if he is reading it all my mates and I thought it was funny. It wasn’t Fran’ sonly Radio 1 appearance, she also went on the review show Round Table one time.
After the Breakfast Show was Simon Bates and his excruciating Our Tune – a tale of (usually) tragic love, often involving illness. Simon Bates was considered to be aimed at housewives by the people I was at school with – we only him heard in the holiday, like the other daytime DJs like Paul Burnett (an affection for country music) and Andy Peebles.
I hate Steve Wright. He was given the afternoon slot, so I started listening to taped music. I remember when his show was extended from ending at 4pm to 5pm. Peter Powell, who followed him lost an hour, he was audibly furious on air when this happened. I was annoyed to as Powell would play interesting bands and try to focus on music. Radio 1 did “Sessions” where a band would come in and play four tracks in a studio and be recorded. Powell played one track a night. David Jenson payed one whole session and John Peel played two a night. A good indication of how serious they were about music.
Younger people now would probably be surprised at how much radio meant, but with only three TV channels radio was still very important. Daytime radio one at the time over focussed on the charts. In the holidays some tracks would be played on every show – pretty awful if something bad was at number one (Goombay Dance Band anybody? Or Shaddup Your Face).
Most of the original DJs had come from pirate radio and will not be around much longer.
Just a warning at the start the video is NSFW. It is not the one seen on TV and could quite easily be another example of misogyny under the T.A.T.U. entry. I have seen the track on Sky channel 372 a lot and it is always a version of a stage performance In fact I think this video manages to be offensive to quite a lot of people – being disrespectful of Hindu icons may turn out to be just as dangerous as other forms of religious disrespect if Narendra Modi has his way in weaponizing Hinduism. There are other religious elements in there as well as the topless women and faux lesbianism.
Scooter were never fashionable in the UK. They reminded me slightly of one of my favourite groups, the KLF, especially in this song. This is a cover of an Earth, Wind and Fire song. It just shows how if you want to do a cover version you can make it really different from the original. In the 90s and early 00s it became popular for boy bands to do cover versions of previous hits. These were usually anodyne copies, with the most interesting bits smoothed over. Take That did How Deep is Your Love, A1 did Take On Me, Westlife did Uptown Girl (amongst many others). All duller and less interesting than the originals, just trying to sell something to committed fans. This happened a lot at the dawn of Rock and Roll, when British artists would cover American singles that were not available in the UK, but hardly an excuse now. The other reason in those days was taking album tracks and making them singles – the Beatles were so amazingly creative that their album tracks became huge hits for other groups (quite apart from donating songs to other artists, including the Rolling Stones – Lennon and McCartney were insanely creative for about ten years).
I have no intrinsic objection to cover versions, but it should be a reinterpretation, adding something new to the song. Donna Summer’s State of Independence is a great example. Bjork’s It’s So Quiet, The Fugees’ Killing Me Softly or Soft Cell’s version of Tainted Love are famous others.
The twenty first century feels like pop music eating itself. Boy bands first (and girl bands, though there were less of them) followed by the Pop Idol, X Factor era. The latter is a karaoke pop. Week after week singing the blandest possible version of a hit, in a shortened version to fit TV time, usually with that a soaring soul voice that has heard Mariah or Whitney and not understood about what made them great.
Rant over. You could never call Scooter bland.
They respect the KLF – see the cover below and the title above. This is my favourite Happy Hardcore album.
Five Miles Out 