And nothing’s ever worth the cost

I am not much of a sportsman.  I blame the school system for my lack of interest when I was younger.  Greneway focused on basketball, hockey and athletics (try high jumping in a sand pit).  At Meridian it was a term of football, a term of rugby and a term of athletics, with cross-country (bad weather) and rounders (usually when there was not enough teachers about to supervise it properly) occasionally enlivening the mix.

One thing that annoys me about rounders is the system where you only get a rounder when you get all the way round in one go.  That is not the rule in baseball and it seems unfair that you get no reward for clever running.

In 1989 there was a rounders tournament at the Brightlingsea Football Club on the August Bank Holiday.  There were no rules on how many men and women were on each team and ours was split down the middle.  We were the internationals as we had people from, or their families were from, France, Germany, Spain and the UK.  We did really well and made the final – Neil and John combining well at backstop and first base, Dave’s throwing being deadly from the deep.

A team of almost all men beat us in the final but that was a great day.

A few years later we were playing a friendly game in Thorrington and I still could not hit a rounder – though I was much fitter then.  By the time I had gone round once we had no rounders and everyone apart from Neil and me were out.  Neil told me not to get out and he would get the runs.  He was promptly out.  The other team were laughing as they thought that they had won.  I thought about it and realised that everyone had a tendency to hit to the leg side and if you could do the rounders equivalent of a cut there was no one there.

One rounder.

Obviously they put fielders there so the next time I hit the ball straight up the field – over 2nd base.  I just got home. 

Two rounders, but I was panting (and in those days I was really fit).  They realised that all they had to was put fielders deep and run me out at home plate.  I went back to hitting on the leg side and was run out inches from a third rounder.

We had the last laugh as they were bowled out and we won.

My increased fitness had come from racquet sports – initially tennis, then badminton and squash.  These were what I really enjoyed.  Dad taught me badminton and then I played Dave a lot.  I never had time to do it seriously but I beat a county level player at a Rotoract tournament once.  I hope PE is taught better at school today rather the miserable experience that it was in the 70s and 80s.

Bat Out of Hell was a phenomenon that stayed on the album chart for years.  Meatloaf were Marvin Lee Aday and Jim Steinman, but the record company did not value Steinman as a writer/ producer.  He did not even produce the first album.  The second album was wrecked by Aday’s losing his voice and became Steinman’s solo album Bad For Good (tracks from which were recycled into Bat Out of Hell 2) – any fan should listen to this as well.  The second real Meatloaf album was Deadringer.  The title track (a duet with Cher) was a big hit in the UK. 

(It was an odd time for singles.  Top of the Pops was the biggest influence on the UK charts and it was on TV on Thursday nights.  The charts had been compiled at the end of Saturday sales – an appearance on TOTP could send sales rocketing as casual viewers heard a track that they liked and got it when they went shopping.  Deadringer’s video was on and it barely moved up the charts, but the following week it climbed massively.  On TOTP  it was shown again and it barely moved, yet another week later it went top 5.  Turned out the contract for the charts had been moved to another company.  To save money they were doing sales Thursday to Thursday, thus an appearance on TV did not impact for 10 days.  The charts were a bit mad and they eventually moved back to close of play Saturday.  Charts were important then.)

Steinman and Aday went their separate ways after that and Aday had diminishing returns whereas Steinman had success with Bonnie Tyler, Barry Manilow and the Sisters of Mercy.  They reunited in the 90s for Bat Out of Hell 2 – a big success but not a patch on the original.

Bat Out of Hell

Playlist:

  1. Bat Out of Hell
  2. You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth
  3. Paradise by the Dashboard Light
  4. Deadringer For Love
  5. Peel Out
  6. Read ‘Em and Weep
  7. I’m Gonna Love Her For Both Of Us
  8. Midnight at the Lost and Found
  9. Modern Girl
  10. I’ Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)
  11. Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through
  12. Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)
  13. Everything Louder Than Everything Else
  14. Lost Boys and Golden Girls

It Flies Sideways Through Time

It is funny to have two songs on this list with Lemmy as a vocalist.  Lemmy from Motorhead.  Lemmy with a voice like gravel combined with misaligned gears.

He was in Hawkwind – a band that has existed for 50 years with a rotating line up, styles changing all the time.  I only really love two Hawkwind albums – The Chronicle of the Black Sword (about the Elric novels) and Quark, Strangeness and Charm. 

Lemmy was booted out as his choice of drug was speed not weed.  At least that was his story, the arrest going into Canada would not have helped, as it would have made touring the USA almost impossible.

Perry Rhodan is the Peacelord of the Universe.  A real space opera series of books.  Originally (and still being) published in Germany where they have gone past 2,600 volumes.  The books started in 1961 and described a future history, commencing with a moon landing ten years later in 1971.  It was set in a world where the USA, USSR and China were on the verge of a thermonuclear conflict (it was interesting to include China in this and this was written a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis).

(Perry Rhodan)

Rhodan and his crew find a crashed Arkonide space ship on the Moon.  The ship is wrecked but it has a smaller shuttle ship on board (only 60 yards in diameter as opposed to the half mile diameter of the main ship).  They return to Earth, set up their own state in the Gobi Desert and put a stop to armageddon.  He gathers together a group of mutants (this precedes Marvel creating the X-Men) caused by radiation induced genetic structure changes, so most were Japanese – the teleporter Tako Kakuta, the doomed time traveller Ernst Ellert and a host of others.

Rhodan has a love/ hate relationship with one of the two Arkonide survivors, Thora – they eventually marry, in a revelation that did not surprise me even at the age of 12.  After a few books they visit the star Vega and get caught in the middle of a massive invasion and their ship destroyed.  In the space of around 500 pages Rhodan repels the invasion, obtains a replacement half mile wide Space Sphere (Stardust 2) and becomes a hero to the locals.  He then embarks on a successful quest for eternal life before heading back to Earth to stave off nuclear armageddon again.

This is where I came in.  In 1976 my parents had split up and I was on holiday in Norfolk with my mother, brother and my grandparents.  We stopped in a village and Mum went to a newsagent while I sat in the car.   Mum came back with a surprise.  I had hoped she had someone found a Doctor Who book that I did not own (how she would have as I owned every single one that they had published and this was a newsagents in Hicksville, not a bookshop which may have a new one, did not occur to me).

It was not a Doctor Who book – it was Perry Rhodan 15 – Escape to Venus.  I had no interest in reading it but I knew that would be rude not to so I reluctantly started it.  By the end of the evening Perry had joined the Doctor and Mr Spock as one of the heroes of my youth and the rest of the holiday had me searching every bookshop we passed for more editions.

Luckily only 18 had been published in the UK and within weeks I had numbers 4-18.  The first five were double length and nowhere could I find the first three.  It was also odd as the fourth, Invasion From Space, hinted that the evil alien Mindsnatchers would be back soon as they were still on the Moon, yet never appeared (that book also has the heart rending story of Ernst Ellert being lost in time, presumably the writers realised a time travelling mutant could remove most of the peril from future books).  Much later I discovered that when the books were translated in the USA they had skipped some stories that they considered less interesting.

There was a bookshop in Royston, where I lived – but it did not stock Rhodan (or Doctor Who books).  Luckily in Newmarket, home of my mother and grandparents, they did have shops that stocked them.  On my regular visits I would carefully search everywhere for them.  Even better a trip to a big town like Cambridge or Stevenage would mean a better chance to find the latest edition.

I even spent our free day on scout camp in 1977 (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1814 ) searching Great Yarmouth for Rhodans – finding a couple.  I read them out of order as I got them and would then read all I had in order to get the big picture.

Then they stopped at number 39.  In the middle of a story (there were two to go before the end of the original 50 book arc, the other nine being the doubles and missed books).  I was in limbo – no internet or way of getting news about what had happened.  Searching market stalls I found the first three books eventually (I was buying all books second hand by the time I was 13 – loads more for your money).

That should have been it.  Huge amounts of time passed – well it seemed huge to a 12/13 year old.  Two years later for some reason we went shopping in Luton – to the Arndale Centre, I have no idea why (or why I went as I could have stayed at home – maybe seeing a shopping centre intrigued me as they were rare in those days).  I went off on my own and wandered.  Going outside was not an option, it looked rough (I was born in Luton but had we had moved away when I was four).

There was a market type area in the Arndale and I found a stall that had loads of Rhodans in the 50s, 60s and 70s.  I did a deal with the stallholder but only managed to get a dozen and an Atlan book (a related series).  They did not have whole runs so I just picked the ones with the best blurb.  I realised that they were American and were way better than the British editions as they had extra stories in – reprints from the golden age of science fiction.

Now I had to find more.  Every time the family was out I would look but none were to be found.  Just after we moved to Brightlingsea in 1981 my father and stepmother took us to Southend (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/2198 ).  Not sure why as the move had been chaotic and there was lots to do to the house – for days we did not have a cooker and had to eat every meal out.  My youngest sister, Frances, was not with us but Michael, Alison and I were given £5 each and told to go and amuse ourselves (at what I guess is now Adventure Island).

I was walking down to the seafront to play video games when I saw a remainders book shop.  Usually these are just full of recent book failures at low prices, but I was time rich and cash poor and would assiduously search through every pile and shelf to find a gem (I used to hide books I wanted but could not afford at the back of the wrong section so it would still be there when I came back, I know others did the same thing as I could see the results of their handiwork in various places).  Inside were loads more Rhodan books from around 45 up to 103.  I managed to get all the ones I did not have for the £5 and was left with over 3 hours to sit and wait with no money.  Who cared? I was in heaven.

(On the way home from that day out was the first time that I ever remembering having KFC – it is odd about what sticks in the memory).

I had around 80 books from the first up to 103.  I managed to fill in the gaps in the story by hints in the ones I had, but that was the end of getting the range.  Not that I stopped looking but no more seemed to be escaping the USA to come to the UK.  The Rhodan books had been published up to around 137 in the USA before stopping.

My tastes were changing anyway, I recognised it as pulp space opera, maybe it was aimed at adults but it was not very scientific.  Huge fun for an SF mad child/ young teen but not really for a serious minded older teen.  Of course now that I am an adult I do not care what people think and will happily read tem again.

The invention of the internet and the wonders of mailing lists and torrents now mean that I have electronic copies of all the English Rhodan books, including the ones originally not translated (one has the wonderfully mad title of the Menace of Atomigeddon). 

Rhodan is actually a bit of a fascist dictator when you look back on it, but he provided my imagination with great time as a child.  The books are short and you may enjoy them if you try them…..

This is Hawkwind’s most famous track

Silver Machine

You puttin’ me through changes

I maintain that the sixties (the sixties being defined as 1963-72 as a cultural phenomenon) was the defining cultural period of the second half of the twentieth century. 

I do not know how well the Carry On series of films are known outside the UK, they seem so rooted in British ideas of class and sauciness I am not sure how well they would travel.  They remain staples of Bank Holiday television in the UK, despite their lack of political correctness and off colour jokes. 

Despite the sexual nature of the humour, they are loved but children for the slapstick and silliness.  I did not get the rude meaning of Carry on Up the Khyber until I was an adult, some adults I know still do not get the joke (cockney rhyming slang; Khyber Pass – arse).

I was still under 7 when I first saw Carry On Camping (the first film my parents saw at the cinema after I was born).  My brother and I sat in silence watching, scared that any sound would get us sent to bed as it was well past that time.  The fact that it was shot in November (with the ground sprayed green) and is blatantly a set of short vignettes linked at the end did not bother me.  I loved it.  I know my brother was very much affected by the famous Barbara Windsor bra scene.

It is always said that the films are the cinematic version of the saucy seaside postcards beloved of the British.  I imagine they were liked as Britain remained repressed about sex to a far greater degree than many other European countries, as well as for a lot longer.

The films did not quite start like that.  The first few focused on professions starting with the Army and National Service (following by nursing, the police and teaching) which do feel very like the 1950s.  The next one was a combination of many jobs (Carry on Regardless – one of the worst examples of the films being a collection of sketches with a tenuous linking thread (Carry on Loving is a later example)).

The series is odd, as a couple of films were made Carry on Films late on (Carry on Cabby and Carry on Jack) both with few regulars and a couple that were part of the series that were not advertised that way on initial release (Carry On Don’t Lose Your Head and Carry On Follow That Camel – the titles are a giveaway really as they do not really work).  The films become saucier throughout the sixties with a mixture of genre spoofs (Carry on Spying, Carry on Screaming and Carry on Cowboy) and historical romps (Carry on Henry and Carry on Up the Khyber), they also return a further three times to the hospital environment which offered so much opportunity for humour with randy doctors (horny for the Americans reading this) and busty nurses.

(Carry On Screaming)

The trouble was that society caught up and went past what the films could do and the cast were getting older.  Sid James was a comic genius and never looked young, but the sight of him chasing young girls as he reached his late 50s was worrying to the production team, even then.  Sid would have been in even more films if not due to his health as the roles of Harry H Corbett (Screaming), Phil Silvers (Camel) and Windsor Davies (Behind) are totally written for him.

Carry on Abroad (a rehash of Camping with added foreigner jokes) and Carry At Your Convenience were the final hurrahs really.  They tried quite an extensive recasting in Carry On Behind (partly due to financial considerations, but they were being beaten in the sex and nudity stakes by other films.  The least said about the last two entries in the 70s the better.

They did the job and are a definite taste of being young for me, though I am not blind to their flaws.  Their evolution reflects the changes in Britain over a transformational period.  Watching them can give insights into societal changes over a key period of change.

(The Walker Brothers)

This entry is backwards musically as I discovered Scott Walker’s solo work first (and that features higher up the list).  When I was one of Compact Music’s highest spending customers a Walker Brothers compilation came out.  I knew The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore (though check other versions like the one by Jay and the Americans too) and First Love Never Dies, Mike Read on the Radio One Radio Breakfast Show played that a lot.  First time I heard this track I was blown away by how good it was.  The horns, the violins and the voices.  The Walker Brothers’ evolution through Scott’s solo career and their mid-70s reunion are a microcosm of musical changes in that period.

Living Above Your Head

Playlist:

  1. Make It Easy On Yourself
  2. First Love Never Dies
  3. Love Her
  4. My Ship Is Coming In
  5. Young Man Cried
  6. In My Room
  7. Saturday’s Child
  8. Living Above Your Head
  9. The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore
  10. After the Lights Go Out
  11. Saddest Night in the World
  12. Deadlier Than the Male
  13. Archangel
  14. Mrs Murphy
  15. Everything Under the Sun
  16. Orpheus
  17. Stay With Me Baby
  18. Turn Out the Moon
  19. Walking in the Rain
  20. Baby Make it the Last Time
  21. No Regrets
  22. Boulder to Birmingham
  23. Lines
  24. The Electrician

She ain’t no human being

Are you a citizen of the UK or a subject in the UK?

Whatever you think it is the latter.  We are not even citizens of our own country we are all subjects of the monarch.

I remember Princess Anne’s wedding, but it was Charles and Diana’s wedding that annoyed me first.  Not only the extravagance while the country was in a financial crisis, but also the way the whole country came to a halt – whether you liked it or not.  I remember being on holiday on the Norfolk Broads at the time and I said something about the life of privilege they led.  Someone told me they did, but different rules applied to them, they lived a life in the public eye and could not divorce.

(Even worse was when the country came to a halt when Diana died to have an orgy of self-flagellation from people who did not know her.  Both BBC Channels showed footage at the same time and the country shut down for the funeral.  Yet less than a third of people watched the funeral and the level of complaints was so high that policies were changed for when the Queen Mother died).

We all can see how that turned out.  Whilst the Queen may behave the same cannot be said of any other member of the family.  Margaret’s drinking and lechery.  Philip’s adultery.  Harry’s dressing up in a Nazi uniform.  The ongoing behaviour of Charles, Camilla and Diana, not to mention the more recent revelations about Andrew.

Yet there are more important issues.  The Queen and Prince Charles are consulted about legislation that affects them, being allowed input.  Why?  It took years to get copies of Charles’ letters released and then Freedom of Information Law was changed to stop it happening.  It was clear that he had blatant self-interest, including wanting state money for quack remedies like homeopathy.

It has recently become clear that rather than an archaic piece of theatre that this has been used to change legislation.  The scope of affecting The Queen or Charles extends to anything in their private life as well as in their state roles.  The Queen negotiated for animal cruelty laws to be unenforceable on her estates.  Maybe because the House of Windsor likes shooting animals so much?  This is a serious point though – politicians still kowtow to the Royals and defer to what they want.

One argument in favour of the monarchy is the dislike of the idea of an elected, political head of state (and I will address political change in another post).  Yet this flounders on two points – firstly the Queen has shown that she will not interfere when she should (even flunking the one time she should have when she should have stopped the illegal pro-roguing of Parliament) and would another monarch be like that?  She seems to have no issue intervening in her own self interest.  If you say that she had to take government advice, then she is just a figurehead and no break on constitutional malfeasance.

(For those who say that she could not interfere in a serious political way it is worth remembering that she enthusiastically conspired with the Governor General of Australia in 1975 to overthrow a legal government and has spent huge sums of money trying to stop the proof being revealed, but the Australian courts have done it).

The Royals used to be funded by a Civil List, but every time they wanted a rise it was a PR nightmare.  In 1971 there was an extended debate about this in Parliament in a select committee.  Except the whole thing was stage-managed and questions cleared with eth Palace in advance – it was all a sham. The Queen Mother even got a rise in her payments, despite her declining level of official activity – she was able to keep a staff of 50 people up to her death.  The Civil List was to cover costs for official activities so was all (or mostly depending on who it was) tax free.  Yet the Queen and her father and grandfather, as well as younger royals made savings from this, tax free, and used it for personal activities.  This was actually fraud but of course it was never prosecuted.

The Cameron government replaced it with a sovereign grant – 25% of the Crown Estate income (despite it being owned by the public not the Crown).  A little-known clause is that the money can never go down so if there is a bad year the percentage goes up rather than the funds cut.

The Queen and Charles also get the income from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall despite there being a very strong legal case that they transferred to the government over two hundred years ago.

The cost of the monarchy that they advertise also does not include the huge costs of security provided by the Police.  Even minor royals like Eugenie and Beatrice have round the clock royal protection teams.  Harry and Megan were rightly told to pay their own costs when they exited the UK.

Even their public engagements add up to rather less than you would believe from the publicity.  It has been worked out that Charles is effectively paid £38,000 per engagement (and that includes ones that he lists that actually relate to his private businesses).  Even the hardest working Royals do no more than the full time equivalent of 75 days a year.  As for royals like Andrew, who used his trade ambassador role to fly about, play golf and earn the nickname Handy Andy at our expense- my blood boils.

Recent research shows that the royal’s value as a charity patron are non-existent.  The overwhelming majority of their appearances and efforts go into charities they have set up.  The cost of security for these appearances is a state donation to the causes closest to their hearts, rather than what the nation considers important.  Details of patronage and the cost to the nation are impenetrable and the palace will not provide any disclosures.

Andrew, his mother’s favourite, it seems that no amount of evidence and accusations of his sexual misadventures are enough for him to actually do the decent thing and be interviewed by the FBI.  He is still listed as patron of an NSPCC campaign that ended over ten years ago on the palace website. 

There are other things like royal wills now being habitually sealed, not a longstanding privilege but one that started in the twentieth century.  The monarch’s was sealed by longer tradition but others started to be sealed due to legacies to mistresses and illegitimate children, this morphed into hiding wealth and avoiding Estates and Inheritance Tax.  A new wrinkle introduced in the 90s was that assets passed on from the Queen Mother to the Queen (and thence to Prince Charles) would be free from Inheritance Tax.  The idea was to stop assets like Balmoral or Sandringham having to be sold – in practice it has been used on all assets.   Instead they are already using it to avoid tax on personal wealth.

The Royal Family have made it clear that they think Inheritance Tax (or Death Duties or Estate Tax before that) is unfair on wealthy landowners.  They have used every legal wrinkle to reduce the tax.  It is interesting than when Margaret died her children had to sell some assets to pay Inheritance Tax.  They sold a small part of the Estate – the funds raised from these 97 pieces were greater than the probate value of the whole of her estate two years earlier.  It would seem that the valuation (and thus the tax) was massively under stated.  The assumption that has to be made that this has happened on all those other times will have been sealed).

I could go on.  And on.

We are a grown-up country it is time for a grown-up way of running it.  The assets that belong to the UK are ours – a cut down Royal Family can be kept as an attraction.  Self-financing and paying for their own security.

In 1977 for the Silver Jubilee there was a bank holiday and street parties (the government bribes the country with special days off and the like to promote the monarchy).  The Sex Pistols, enfant terribles of punk rock, released their version of God Save the Queen.  It was banned from radio and TV, yet it made number one for the Jubilee.  Instead the charts were fixed so it remained at number two.

While groups of the privileged and unelected remain at the top of the country Britons will never be free.

Forty-three years later it is still true.

God Save the Queen

Playlist:

  1. Anarchy in the UK
  2. God Save the Queen
  3. Holidays in the Sun
  4. Pretty Vacant
  5. Bodies
  6. My Way
  7. Silly Thing
  8. EMI
  9. Submission

Exit light. Enter night.

This is the comic for people who do not like superheroes.  Mainstream and accessible, though with a goth sensibility.  It has tenuous links to the DC Universe, but you need no pre-knowledge to understand the series.

The Sandman.

All 75 issues and assorted on-offs were written by Neil Gaiman.  It was structured in a way that different artists could be used on different volumes.  The collections are split into 10 volumes, five of which are full length stories and five compilations of shorter stories that either build into a whole (like volume 1) or are thematically collected.  The Collections do not collect the series in quite the order it was originally published.

It is based on the premise of seven fundamental beings called the Endless.  The titular Sandman is Dream (all the Endless have names starting with D).  It starts with Dream being captured (later explained as him being weakened after a great battle) by a human warlock for a huger chunk of the twentieth century.  The first volume is the story of the capture, escape and regaining of his power.  It includes a trip to Hell, introducing the fallen angel Lucifer and a story set in an American Diner over 24 hours which is truly horrific..

(The Endless – Death, Destiny, Dream, Spoiler, Desire, Despair, Delirium)

With the Sandman you never knew what you were getting issue to issue.  The second volume, The Doll’s House, is broken up by two single issue stories, one about a former lover exiled to hell and one about a man who refused to die.    The main story of The Doll’s House is about a serial killer from The Dreaming – this was before the current craze for serial killer and true crime drama.

The third volume, Dream Country, is four single issue stories that are completely different – one about a world where cats rule, one is a Shakespeare story, one about a Muse and a story about a woman who cannot die.  Death is a very popular figure in the series – but then she does not look like classical Death.

A Season of Mists has Lucifer abandoning hell and giving the keys to the Sandman.  (This led to a spin off from Michael Carey about what Lucifer did afterwards which shows that the concepts Gaiman tosses out nonstop have huge mileage in them.   Shame the version of Lucifer they did on TV just goes police procedural rather than the far more complex storyline in the comic).

A Game of You is the least popular volume, but my favourite.  A woman stuck in a fantasy world and a collection of women who have to deal with it – one of the women was born a man (this was the early 90s, Gaiman was way ahead of his time).

The whole story builds to a climax and shows that there was a plan all the way through.  It repays several rereads as the foreshadowing and links are very well done.

Despite DC owning the copyright they have treated Neil Gaiman far better than Alan Moore, whose work has now been merged into the DC Universe.  Some people have done spinoffs, but there is no ongoing Sandman title.  Gaiman has come back and done a couple of projects including a prelude to the main storyline.  These are not only commercially huge but also massive critical successes.  I assume that this is more valuable to them than it being altruism.

Read this.

I had not been into Metallica.  Some of the people we knew at university promoted the virtues of …. And Justice For All and it is a good album, but you really have to be a metalhead to appreciate it.  In 1991 they released Metallica, commonly known as The Black Album – for obvious reasons.

(Metallica or The Black Album)

Truly a classic metal album the lead single, Enter: Sandman is not just a genre classic but a classic of popular music.  Ominous and scary, even without the video (which takes it to another level) it is remorseless and powerful.  Dumper played it live, like many other covers’ bands, and it always went down a storm.

Enter: Sandman

Playlist:

  1. …And Justice For All
  2. Harvester of Sorrows
  3. Enter Sandman
  4. Nothing Else Matters
  5. Wherever I May Roam
  6. The God That Failed
  7. Sad But True
  8. King Nothing
  9. The Outlaw Torn
  10. King Nothing
  11. Fuel

He takes off her dress now

I love Southend.  It is one of most Brexit supporting places in the country which shows that they cannot see that the damage has been done by the Tory party not the EU.  But it is the seaside town I like, not the residents.  To be fair a lot of the residents are ex-East Londoners, as there is something that makes Eastenders think moving out is a sign of success.

I love the freshly made doughnuts, burning your mouth as they are straight out of the machines.  There is the Crazy Golf course (and Southend has 18 holes on its course).  There is Adventure Island with its multiple roller coasters and other rides.  There are amusement arcades (though I am not sure how they make a profit in the age of home video games).

The British seaside is the smell of chips and salt, the sound of video games and seagulls, a Russian roulette of weather and half-forgotten stars in end of pier variety shows.

(Adventure Island at night)

I have a love for this as a lot of our holidays when I was young were far more worthy.  Hiking in the Lake District, explorations of Cornwall that kind of thing.  In retrospect I really appreciate those holidays but at the time I would have loved more trashy holidays.  Especially in Great Yarmouth – the Blackpool of the East Coast.

My first experience of abroad was a school trip to France that was truly dreadful.  From the miserable ferry crossing, the shared double beds and terrible food in the hotel.  No one even explained to us what a bidet was for.

I was 24 when I went abroad again, three years of accountancy exams made me miss out on group holidays in 1987 and 1989.  I definitely fell in love with the Greek islands, especially the Dodecanese.  It is not just the climate or the beauty, but the people have a much better attitude to life.  Of course they want money from tourists, but if you take the opportunity to get away from the tourist areas you get wonderful service and relaxed pace of life.  It isn’t just Greece, the same attitude is seen in Italy and Spain, the Mediterranean countries so beloved of health gurus.  I think in hot countries people just have to be more relaxed and chilled as, in the heat, you just cannot be as excitable or angry.  Somehow the British see the Mediterranean peoples as hot blooded and excitable.

Age has made me realise that the richness of variety of countries, peoples and their cultures is something that we should glory in and enjoy.  A closed, nationalistic mindset just leads to a poorer and narrower life.  That is what is wonderful about the great metropolitan centres where the cultures mix and fuse.  Totally the opposite of the prevailing mindset in Southend.

I first heard the Killers on a trip to Southend.  I admit that I was sceptical but hey won me over in the space of a CD.  It is really hard not to pick the less famous A Dustland Fairytale, (a song about the lead singer’s parents that I wrote a whole essay interpreting as being about the Kennedy White House years) but it really has to be this track.

Mr Brightside

Playlist:

  1. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine
  2. Mr Brightside
  3. Smile Like You Mean It
  4. Glamourous Indie Rock ‘n’ Roll
  5. Andy You’re a Star
  6. Sam’s Town
  7. Human
  8. Spaceman
  9. A Dustland Fairytale
  10. Joy Ride
  11. Losing Touch

Something always fires a light that gets in your eyes

This is a big thank-you to Graham Wright.  Living in the musical wasteland that was most of Brightlingsea he sent me a tape of two Rush albums.  I had only heard of them just before I left Royston when our maths teacher, Mr Stevens, let us do an end of year quiz and one person kept asking questions about Rush – at the time a very prog-rock Canadian band.  They had evolved over the last few years and the tape was of Signals and Grace Under Pressure (the gaps on the 90-minute cassette filled out a couple of tracks by the Bloomsbury Set, a group that never made it).  I was astonished by the quality – one of the best things that music fans can do is turn their friends on to great bands. 

This was the point in their career when they became far more accessible and yet they never managed to crossover into a wider audience.

I was at university when Power Windows came out and it was one of the first albums I got on CD when I got a player after I graduated.  This is my favourite album by the band and one I can play repeatedly.  Like all their albums it is intricate musically, but this had really nailed a combination of soaring anthems with interesting lyrics.  My sister Alison will probably say they all sound the same, even though it is not metal.

Graham (again) was the one who first played me Hold Your Fire when I visited him in Nottingham for a weekend while he was still studying to be a GP.  This was an interesting experience as I really had not hung out with medics at university and they are different.  I do not know how anyone sticks doing medical courses (Graham’s account of his experience in gynaecology made me wonder how doctors ever manage to have relationships).  Time Stand Still is a lovely track about experiencing things and making the most of what happens, but overall, the album seemed less than the sum of its parts.  It turned out that the 4-album venture into more synthesized music was over and the follow up, Presto, marked the start of a return to a more guitar-oriented approach.

1991’s Roll the Bones features the outstanding track Dreamline and I decided I wanted to see them when they toured in 1992.  I wanted to see them when they were still playing the tracks I loved.  None of my mates wanted to go and I was pondering whether to go alone or not when a new guy at work, Jim, was talking about music and it came up that we were both Rush fans and he was going with his friends and I could tag along.  I would even get a lift to the gig in London.

I was really looking forward to this, but I never got to see Rush.  I came down with laryngitis.  Some people say that this is just a sore throat – do not believe them.  I have suffered with sore throats all my life, but this is another level.  My throat was on fire – at work the day it started I drank two ice cold milk shakes to numb it.  It did not work and a trip to the Doctor warned me that trying to talk could damage my vocal cords for good.  I did not eat for 6 days and could barely sleep due to fever or pain.  My family were on the verge of taking e to hospital when it finally broke and I started eating small amounts again.  If anyone you know gets laryngitis be very sympathetic.

(Jim got my money back selling my ticket to a tout).

Any plans to try and see them again were scuppered – they did not tour the next album, Test For Echo, in Europe.  Then tragedy struck drummer Neil Peart – his wife and daughter both died in quick succession.  The band went on hiatus for several years as he rode his motorbike across the USA.

They came back again after his odyssey was over with Vapor Trails.  It is a good album, but their golden days were long gone.  They were admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, long after they were eligible and they should have been in far earlier.  The Hall of Fame has never liked prog rock, even though they were not any in any real way prog after 1980.

One of my favourite music jokes.  How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?  Five.  One to change it and four to say how Neil Peart would have done it better😊

(Others are: what do you call a talentless person who hangs round with musicians?  A Drummer.

What do you call a cross between a musician and a drummer?  A bass player).

There will be no more tours as Neil Peart passed away in 2020.  Rest in Paradise – he was an awesome drummer and the group is massively overlooked.

This is my favourite track from Rush’s best album – Power Windows.

Marathon

Playlist:

  1. A Farewell to Kings
  2. The Spirit of Radio
  3. Tom Sawyer
  4. Red Barchetta
  5. Subdivisions
  6. New World Man
  7. The Weapon
  8. Digital Man
  9. Countdown
  10. Distant Early Warning
  11. The Enemy Within
  12. Kid Gloves
  13. Between the Wheels
  14. The Big Money
  15. Manhattan Project
  16. Marathon
  17. Middletown Dreams
  18. Force Ten
  19. Time Stand Still
  20. Lock and Key
  21. War Paint
  22. The Red Tide
  23. Superconductor
  24. Available Light
  25. Dreamline
  26. Roll the Bones
  27. The Big Wheel
  28. Alien Shore
  29. Everyday Glory
  30. Vapor Trails

Rollergirl, don’t worry

Dire Straits were never fashionable.  They emerged from South London with two albums – Dire Straits and Communique – in a post punk scene where their melodic rock and Mark Knopfler’s virtuosity were totally out of place.  These two albums are not really worth searching out, apart from the song that looked like it would define their careers (but didn’t) The Sultans of Swing.  Beautiful, shimmering and mesmeric, it was hard to believe that they would ever do anything better.  But they did.

I first encountered them due to the singles from their third album – Makin Movies.  Tunnel of Love, Skateaway and Romeo and Juliet.  One whole side of the album.  The other side was not as good but featured a song called Les Boys about a gay bar in Berlin – something astonishing to me at 15.

It looked like they would be a big act, despite swimming against the tide of fashion.  Yet they managed to make a follow up album that featured only five tracks (Love Over Gold).  The lead single – Private Investigations – is over six minutes long and is musically sparse with sound effects.  The best track – Telegraph Road, is a 15-minute story of a town becoming industrialised.

Their fifth album Brothers In Arms was released quietly and the first single, So Far Away, was a small hit.  It was the second single that launched their career into the stratosphere.  Money For Nothing, with Sting on backing vocals, was the perfect song for the MTV generation; coming with a part cartoon video it had heavy rotation on TV and made them a worldwide stadium band.

Not only that it was the kind of intricate, crisp album perfect for the new medium of the Compact Disc.  The music industry marketed CDs as a more robust media than vinyl or cassette (and do not let vinyl aficionados say that is not true; vinyl scratched so easily and could not be played in a car).  That may have been true but what it gave the industry was a chance to release all their old material and sell it over again to consumers.

They used every shitty trick in the book.  The first time an album came out on CD they would just take the old masters and stick it out.  A few years later there would be a remastered version with the sound cleaned up.  A few more years and that version would come out with some bonus tracks (B sides, demos or live music).  A few more years for the biggest bands and there would be a special anniversary multi disc release.

CDs were also able to contain more material than vinyl – one disc being around 78 minutes long.  Until then albums had run 40 to 60 minutes.  Now there was a perception that not filling a disc was somehow short changing people.  Some record companies used the length to charge a massive mark up for a ”long play” CD – like Queen’s Greatest Hits.  Gouge away.

The industry was making money hand over fist with this model, until streaming arrived and put a real crimp in their act.  Not only was the back catalogue not so valuable they were not able to monetise this change in format to make money the way they had with CDs.  I do not advocate illegally obtaining music, but the music companies should look at how they treated music fans from 1985 to 2000 and think that maybe they fostered a certain amount of resentment.

It is hard to follow up such a massive album and it was the nineties before On Every Street was Dire Straits’ last studio release.  In many ways it is their best album.  Iron Hand (about the 1984/5 miners’ strike) shows an unexpected political side whilst The Planet of New Orleans is a beautiful composition that builds in swirls and layers.

Consigned by many as vapid, disposable soft rock, Dire Straits actually have an enviable legacy of finely crafted songs.  From Makin’ Movies, the closest thing the album has to a title track.  I love this song.

Skateaway

Playlist:

  1. Sultans of Swing
  2. Once Upon a Time in the West
  3. Tunnel of Love
  4. Skateaway
  5. Romeo and Juliet
  6. Expresso Love
  7. Solid Rock
  8. Les Boys
  9. Telegraph Road
  10. Private Investigations
  11. Love Over Gold
  12. Money For Nothing
  13. Brothers In Arms
  14. On Every Street
  15. Fade To Black
  16. Heavy Fuel
  17. Iron Hand
  18. Planet of New Orleans

From the pouring rain, very strange

The Beatles were your Dad’s band.  A relic of the past with the individual ex-members producing music that probably would not have got the attention it did without their legacy.  Dad had the second Beatles album and I listened to it, but it seemed like nothing special.  Like many things you had to compare it to what else was around at the time to appreciate its significance.

(The Beatles before their fame – Lennon, Harrison, McCartney and Pete Best)

Michael liked the Beatles and got the Red Album and the Blue Album on vinyl for Christmas one year (they were both double “best of” albums and when they were rereleased on CD they put the Red one on a double CD despite the running time being able to fit on one CD, so as to charge more money).

We had limited musical choices at home and I tried them and decided that I liked the later material.  At a similar time Paul Gambaccini did a show about his favourite English bands.  He usually did the US chart countdown on a Saturday so never got to talk about English music.  He talked about the Beatles and played the track that remains my favourite.

After I left university I was not enamoured by the late 80s music scene – Stock Aitken & Waterman, plastic pop and no innovation – so I started buying albums by classic artists like the Doors (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1982 ) and the Beatles. I started at Revolver as it was generally accepted that was where the more mature half of their career started.

There is Sergeant Pepper, The White Album and Magical Mystery Tour (really a compilation of an EP and some singles).  Let It Be is a mess and was released last – Phil Spector added his typical wall of sound (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1484 ) much to McCartney’s chagrin.  Eventually he got a version with all the strings and wall removed – I prefer the Spector version.  I am glad this was not the last LP they recorded and they made Abbey Road.  The most moving track is Carry That Weight – a very short piece of a medley on side 2 about how, after Brian Epstein’s death, Paul had to carry the band on his shoulders to keep them going.

(Supposedly Paul was dead and replaced as he was barefoot)

When I learnt more about the music scene in the late 50s and early 60s, after Elvis joined the army, their early work takes on a totally different light.  The raw energy and exhilaration combined with their songcraft must have cut through the bland manufactured stars.

(Just 8 years later – Harrison, McCartney, Lennon and Starr)

The Beatles were gone in 1970 – never officially split but Lennon was moving in new directions.  He was only 30, Harrison was only 27.  Suddenly the most important part of their lives were over, whatever they did the rest of their lives they were all ex-Beatles.  None of them produced anything that was as game changing again.  If there was any benefit to Lennon’s early death it was that there was never an embarrassing reunion.  McCartney’s performance at the 2012 Olympics was quite sad to see (Stan Laurel was a recluse in the last years of his life so that people would always remember the best version of him).

Undoubtedly the most important group in the history of popular music, whether you are a fan or not their work has influenced everything you hear.

This song was one side of a double A sided single.  Both sides were about the childhood Liverpool that they remembered.  It was the only Beatles single in a run of 18 releases not to top the charts, only making number 2.  The best double A side ever.  The other side is Strawberry Fields Forever.

Penny Lane

Playlist:

  1.  Please Please Me
  2. Twist and Shout
  3. Do You Want To Know a Secret
  4. All My Loving
  5. A Hard Day’s Night
  6. Can’t Buy Me Love
  7. Help!
  8. Eight Day’s a Week
  9. Ticket To Ride
  10. Yesterday
  11. Drive My Car
  12. Nowhere Man
  13. In My Life
  14. Tasman
  15. Eleanor Rigby
  16. Here There and Everywhere
  17. Doctor Robert
  18. Got To Get You Into My Life
  19. With a Little Help From My Friends
  20. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
  21. Within Without You
  22. Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite
  23. A Day In The Life
  24. Magical Mystery Tour
  25. Fool on the Hill
  26. I am the Walrus
  27. Your Mother Should Know
  28. Penny Lane
  29. Strawberry Fields Forever
  30. All You Need is Love
  31. Back in the USSR
  32. Helter Skelter
  33. Glass Onion
  34. Ob la di, Ob la da
  35. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
  36. Revolution (single version)
  37. Piggies
  38. Something
  39. Here Comes the Sun
  40. The Abbey Road medley on side 2
  41. Hey Jude
  42. Let It Be
  43. Old Brown Shoe
  44. Across the Universe

Tonight I should have stayed at home

First there was Joy Division and their lead singer committed suicide (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1803 ).  A lot of bands would have folded in the face of this.  They didn’t but nor did they keep the Joy Division name, linked forever with the late Ian Curtis.  Instead they added a new member and renamed themselves New Order (both group names redolent of Nazi imagery).

Early New Order did not sound that different from Joy Division – industrial sounding synth music like the Ceremony/ Everything’s Gone Green double A side. 

Their real breakthrough was Blue Monday.  A song that combined the synth sounds of the New Romantics with the dance music coming out of New York.  It was only released on a 12-inch single and the case was designed to look like a floppy disc (it was so expensive that the record label lost money on each one sold).

(Floppy discs were once the external computer storage medium.  The first generation were actually floppy and over 5 inches across.  These were superseded by rigid discs, still known as floppy, about 3 inches wide.  CDs, writable DVDs and finally USBs have become the storage media of choice).

Blue Monday charted twice – in 1983 and later, on a release for the rave generation, showing how far ahead of its time it was.  It was followed up by Confusion, another song that fitted the New York club scene of the period. Before producing a string of half a dozen hits of sublime quality like Perfect Kiss, Subculture and True Faith.

In 1990 the England Football team looked like genuine contenders for the World Cup (I mean fans think this every time England qualify, no matter how bad the team is but in 1990 there was a core of players from the last two tournaments like Butcher, Lineker and Beardsley as well as talented newcomers like Gascoigne and Platt).  Up to that point football songs had been pretty terrible singalongs from the squad like Back Home, This Time or club songs like Ozzie’s Dream and The Anfield Rap.  The song for Italia 90 was different.  World In Motion was attributed to EnglandNewOrder and only featured a few members of the squad with the group (and Keith Allen – later responsible for another crap football song – Vindaloo).  John Barnes raps and is actually really good at it.

It was not end of good football songs.  In 1996 David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/357 )  made Three Lions (hiding Baddiel’s profound lack of singing talent), which really appealed emotionally to the perceived hurts of England.  It was rewritten for 1998 to take into account England’s 1996 near miss, but the 1998 tournament was a massive miss after the Football Association sacked Terry Venables over non-football matters and replaced him with Kevin Keegan.  The 1998 version includes the line “And Psycho screaming” that the FA videoed.  The video featured a lot of Germans wearing the shirt of Stefan Kuntz – can’t see the FA approving of that either.

New Order became immersed in the rave culture and they made two albums that were huge in Ibiza – Technique and Republic.  I bought these at my very first visit to the Lakeside Shopping Centre, five years after it had opened.  Another 25 years on and all these shopping centres seem to be in grave danger unless they change their use.

Without the money from New Order there would not have been the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester – the centre of so much rave culture.  It was them that, after Factory and the Happy Mondays almost bankrupted themselves (The Mondays were recording in the Caribbean and were mainly ingesting drugs rather than recording) saved the label and the Hacienda.  Eventually the drug culture overtook the Hacienda and it closed in 1997.

This is my favourite track from that sublime run of late 80s singles.

Perfect Kiss

Playlist:

  1. Ceremony
  2. Procession
  3. Everything’s Gone Green
  4. Temptation
  5. Blue Monday
  6. The Beach
  7. The Perfect Kiss
  8. Sub-culture
  9. Shellshock
  10. State of the Nation
  11. Bizarre Love Triangle
  12. True Faith
  13. Touched By the Hand of God
  14. World In Motion
  15. Fine Time
  16. Mr Disco
  17. Regret
  18. Ruined in a Day
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