now

LIFE IN THE NEON UNDERGROUND
The life and times of a young man about town,
brought to you live and as-it-happens from the
1980s...
More online at:
http://www.80sempire.com/neon
25TH MAY: DOWN THE BLITZ WITH E AND N
Went down The Blitz last night. Big mistake. It was full of girls dressed up like
blokes trying to look like girls. I’d arranged to meet Emma in the cocktail bar . She
came dressed in a pink tutu that was so big it hardly fitted through the door. Whenever she turned around she cleared the tops of half a dozen tables - broken cocktails
glasses and cherries-on-sticks all over the bloody place! Personally I’d have preferred to have gone just about anywhere but the bloody Blitz. Never have seen the
attraction, myself - horrible, squalid little place, stinks of greasy food and sweat.
Like a transport caff for transvestites. E thinks it’s fabulous - ‚So decadent, my
dahling.‛ Mind you, E thinks that anywhere that doesn’t serve Watney’s Red Barrel
is decadent. She’s led a very sheltered life, in my opinion.
Emma’s boyfriend, Norm, came along later. The bouncer wouldn’t let him in.
Not surprised, really. Well, he was wearing corduroy trousers and a Marks and
Spencer’s cardigan. Not the sort of clientele they want to encourage. Brings down
the tone. I mean, he hadn’t even had the simple decency to slap on a bit of blusher
and nail varnish! In the end Emma had to go and plead with the bouncer. She can
twist a man round her fingers just by fluttering her eyelashes. Especially the eyelashes she had on last night. Two inches long at least. Looked like a couple of
squashed tarantulas. The muscles she must be building in her eyelids, fluttering
those things!
No sign of Steve or George. Too downmarket for them these days, I suppose.
-1-
28TH MAY: A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
I was approached by a policeman on Kentish Town High Street today. My first
thought was that he’d found out about that little incident with me and George Michael in the Camden Palace last week. But no, it turned out that he wanted me for an
identity parade. Said I looked just like the suspect so I’d be ideal.
Spent the afternoon waiting around in this dingy little room with a load of
other hunky young men who were also in the identity parade. None of them looked
anything like me. Apart from a general air of hunkiness, that is. They were all years
younger than me, though. And they all had blond hair. Then I realised it must have
been the streaks that done it – made the policeman choose me, I mean. I had them
put in last week by that hairdresser’s opposite the cinema in Camden Town. Must
make me look blonder than I’d realised. And younger...
Then, eventually they brought in this little weasely bloke. He was the suspect,
apparently. I wouldn’t like to think that anyone would mistake me for him! Not
hunky at all. And he had black hair. That struck me as funny, what with everyone
else being on the lighter side of the spectrum. Maybe he dyed hair his black so he
wouldn’t be spotted in the line-up?
Anyway, after a bit, this woman comes in. Turns out he’d snatched her handbag. The silly old bat walked right past the suspect (who anyone with two brain cells
to rub together could tell was the villain!) without batting an eyelid. Told the policeman she couldn’t recognise anyone.
When she went out, the weasel practically whooped with laughter. Then he
came round and shook all our hands and thanked us for doing such a great job. I felt
like an accessory after the fact. Especially when the policeman came and gave each
of us a fiver (except for the weasel who got nothing). Not a bribe, but normal procedure, it appears. I went right round to Woolworth’s after and blew my ill-gotten
gains on a packet of L’Oreal wash-in auburn.
I’ve decided the blond streaks aren’t really me after all<.
-2-
4TH JUNE: TOYAH’S FLOATING KNICKERS
That Toyah Wilcox is a girl and a half, isn’t she! I did an interview with her today for
my column in ‘London After Dark’ magazine. The one thing you can rely upon with
Toyah is that she’ll always give you just what you want - when it comes to a story, I
mean. I’d hardly had time to take the weight off my feet and get myself on the outside of a cup of Lapsang Souchong before she starts telling me all about these mystical powers she has. Claims she can make things float around the room with the
power of her mind alone.
‚Like that Uri Geller?‛ I say.
‚Yes,‛ she says, ‚Only without the forks.‛
According to Toyah, she’s always had these powers. She first noticed it when
she was a little girl. Her knickers used to float around her bedroom, apparently, like
as though they had a will of their own.
‚If you saw the powers I have,‛ she says, ‚It would make cold chills run up
and down your spine.‛
So I says, ‚Toyah, love, how about you making something of mine float
around the room now, then?‛
So she tells me to take off my jumper. So I did. But she couldn’t get it to float.
So she tells me to take off my tie. So I did. But she couldn’t get it to float. So she tells
me to take off a few other things. And, well, you know me, anything for a laugh! So I
took them off. But she couldn’t get them to float. I tell you what, though - I didn’t
half feel cold chills running up and down my spine - and a few other places too.
Oh, the stories I could tell if I was ever to write my autobiography! They’d
have a few pop stars reaching for their lawyers, I can tell you. But Toyah’s got nothing to worry about - her secrets are safe with me. For the time being. Not so sure
about later on in life though, when I’m old and vicious and desperate for the dosh.
I’ll probably spill a few beans then, I should imagine.
The beans I could spill on George Michael alone would make your hair stand
on end. Which reminds me - I once spilled some beans on Buster Bloodvessel as a
matter of fact: a whole bloody vat of beans - none of your rubbish neither, they were
properly kosher Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce. Buster stuck his head in a
saucepan and then I emptied the beans all over him.
Well, it wasn’t just me, to be ruthlessly honest. The photographer was doing
most of it, I was just standing around in the background making polite conversation
and trying to elevate the tone. Which, given the circumstances, was something of a
challenge. It was for a shot for the cover of Flexipop! which is another magazine for
which I write. Dreadful rag, really. I’m trying to work my way up the publishing biz
-3-
gradually. The Sunday Times Colour Supplement is what I have my eye on. I mean, ask
yourself - when was the last time the Sunday Times had a picture of Buster Bloodvessel covered in baked beans?
I think I’ll go the Camden Palace tonight. You know, that big new night club
Steve Strange opened recently? Well, I say ‘new’ - in fact, it’s really just an old bingo
hall with bouncers out the front. The Spandau lads seem to hang around a lot down
there these days. And David Jaymes from Modern Romance. Nice lad, that David.
I’ve always liked him, anyway. Not a natural blond though, if you want my opinion<.
Buster Bloodvessel - and beans...
-4-
13TH JUNE: PETER POWELL’S Y FRONTS
Emma and I went round Selfridges this afternoon, looking for makeup. She bought
hair gel with glitter dust in and I bought some black nail varnish. When we were
passing through the gent’s underwear section, who should we see but that that Peter
Powell! You know, the DJ. He’s much smaller in real life than he sounds on the wireless. I tried to get a look at what he was buying but he caught my eye and then
moved over to the socks department. Emma says she thinks he looks like a boxershorts sort of guy. But I reckon he goes for Y-Fronts. He looks as though he’d benefit
from the extra support, if you know what I mean.
This afternoon we went down to The Barbican - the arts centre they opened
down the East End somewhere. Proper dump if you ask me. Worse than that place
on the South Bank where they have that National Theatre, which was where they
did that play, The Romans In Britain - you know, the one that there was that court
case about after Mary Whitehouse moaned about it.
I wish I’d gone to see it! Mrs Whitehouse reckons one of the actors got his
wotsit out and wiggled it at the audience! But the actor claims it was just his thumb.
How can you mistake a thumb for a willy, that’s what I’d like to know? Emma says
she’s had some boyfriends that you could make that mistake with! I laughed. I’m not
really sure I understand what she means though<.
-5-
Here Peter Powell is seen sitting in a waste paper bin, pretending to be a dalek. „Exterminate!
Exterminate!‟ he cries, much to the confusion of passers by. “‟Ere, isn‟t that Bruno Brookes?‟
mutters a passing granny. “Nah,” replies her well-informed friend. Bruno wouldn‟t be seen
dead in lilac coloured slacks...
18TH JUNE: THE PURPLE PUSSYCAT AND A BUTCHER'S BOY FROM PLAISTOW
I’m feeling rough today. I knew I should never have gone down the Purple Pussycat
but Emma was insistent. She’s got a new boyfriend. But she hasn’t told her old boyfriend. Says she likes to live dangerously.
The waitresses in the Purple Pussycat are a scream. They all have to wear
tight purple bathing suits, purple fishnet tights, purple high-heel shoes and purple
cat-ears. Real classy place, if you know what I mean. The waitress serving our table
must have been sixty if she was a day. She looked like my Aunty Bertha. When she
smiled you could see her top set of dentures slipping down. Once, she smiled so
-6-
broadly at Emma’s boyfriend that it was touch and go as to whether her dentures
would fall into our cocktails.
I had a long slow screw up against the wall. That’s a cocktail. I don’t know
what’s in it but it tasted like petrol. I only chose of it because of the name. Emma’s
boyfriend handed me the drinks list and said ‚What would you like?‛ So naturally, I
said ‚A long slow<.‛ well, you get my drift. I couldn’t resist, really. As it turned
out, I needn’t have bothered. Emma’s boyfriend isn’t the sharpest knife in the
drawer. The double entendre flowed past him like custard off a duck’s back. He just
grunted and said, ‚OK.‛
I don’t know what Emma sees in him. No, that’s not true. I know exactly what
she sees in him. He has an exceptionally large todger. I know I shouldn’t say so but it
happens to be true. It’s a quality which is shared by all of Emma’s boyfriends. She
seems to live life in a constant quest for bigger and better.
His name, by the way is Jim. I call him James. I don’t think he likes to be
called James but see if I care! To be honest, I don’t think he likes me at all. The feeling is mutual. He’s got a nice stomach, though - like a bag of walnuts. I know this for
a fact as he insisted on showing it to the waitress. This was a dangerous ploy given
her advanced years. She staggered back visibly and nearly fell off her stilettos.
Later on, we went to some grimy little club down in Soho. I bought a half bottle of rum in a shop before we went in and spent the evening lacing a glass of Coca
Cola that cost me a couple of quid at the bar. Disgraceful! They even have the cheek
to have a sign over the bar saying patrons must not drink their own beverages. Some
hopes at those prices!
After a bit I lost sight of Emma and Jim. The barman said he’d seen them go
out the back way. There’s a little courtyard out there apparently. Well, I have a
pretty good idea why people go out there and it’s not to gaze at the stars! I thought
about following them but, on mature consideration, decided against it.
Anyway, it must have been about two o’clock or so when I left. I was sick in
the gutter and had to be taken home by a butcher’s boy from Plaistow. God knows
how I met him. His name’s Kevin. I vaguely remember telling him over coffee and
muesli that I’d see him tonight down the Black Cap in Camden Town. Some hopes!
An evening in the Black Cap with a butcher’s boy from Plaistow is not my idea of a
good night out, that’s for sure.
-7-
20TH JUNE: MORE NEWS FROM PLAISTOW!
He’s got this thing about Simon Le Bon. No, really! That’s all he ever goes on about.
Drives me up the wall. Good job it was the Black Cap we went to. The place was
crowded as usual and the music was so loud that I couldn’t hear him droning on
about bleedin’ Simon Le Bleedin’ Bon all the time.
Come closing time I asked him how he was getting back to Plaistow. he was a
bit vague on the subject. I said, you’ll have to rush if you want to get the tube. You’ll
miss your connections if you’re not careful. Then I realised I didn’t know if Plaistow
was North of the river or South. I asked him but he was a bit vague on that too. ‚I’ll
be all right,‛ he says, ‚I like long walks.‛
‚So what would you recommend,‛ says I, ‚Best End or Shank?‛
‚What?‛ says he.
‚Oh, nothing,‛ I says, ‚I was just wondering whether you knew my best
friend, Frank?‛ - and I’m thinking to myself, some butcher’s boy he’d make. I don’t think
he’d know his brisket from his chump chops.
Anyway, I came home and he heads off down Primrose Hill way. I’m not sure
if that goes to Plaistow myself. I must remember to have a look in the A to Z. Emma
called on the phone just now. Said she fancied meeting up in town somewhere. Apparently she’s fallen out with her new boyfriend. I may go just to get the dirt.
NEXT MORNING…
It’s late and I’ve just got back. Well, what a night that was! It turns out there’s more
to that butcher’s boy from Plaistow than you’d ever guess! Anyway, the room’s
starting to spin around so I’m turning in now. I’ll jot down all the sordid details
later<.
-8-
21ST JUNE: KEVIN’S DARK SECRET
It turns out that Kevin – you remember, the butcher’s boy from Plaistow – has a very
dark secret! Emma found out all about him from Jimbo – you remember, her boyfriend that I was telling you about who was well equipped in everything but intelligence. Jimbo, it turns out, happened to be down Hammersmith way a while back.
Oh, did I mention that Jimbo is a male stripper? That was what Emma’s big news
was but I practically forgot all about it after she told me about Kevin. So anyway, it
turns out that he, Jimbo I mean, knew him, Kevin I mean, as he, Jimbo, had seen him,
Kevin, one night when he, Jimbo, was giving of his best.
‚Well, why didn’t you say?‛ I said, ‚I mean, why didn’t you tell me he was a
stripper – by which I meant Kevin, not Jimbo – before I invited him back for coffee?‛
I was thinking that if I’d known that I could have got him to do a quick turn
in the privacy of my own flat but Emma, poor girl, assumed it was my Puritanical
streak coming out and that I disapproved of such things. As if!
Anyway, she hummed and she hawed and she wouldn’t say exactly what she
knew about Kevin, just to kid me along like. And then finally she comes out with it!
Well, I tell you, I knew he was no butcher’s boy right from the start, but when Emma
told me what he really does – well, you could have knocked me down with a
bloomin’ feather!
Oh bloomin’ heck. There’s someone on the phone. Got to go<.
22ND JUNE: GETTING READY FOR BUSTER
The woman in the flat upstairs kept me awake all last night with her tap-dancing.
Must have been half past five before she finally gave up. I didn’t get in until about
two o’clock myself and then I just lay in bed with the pillow wrapped around my
head trying to keep all her row out. She shouldn’t be dancing at her age, anyway.
Not with the varicose veins she’s got!
Went with Emma up to The Danzotek last night – a big, swanky nightclub up
in the middle of nowhere somewhere beyond Archway. Her and Norm’s back together again, it seems. Though he didn’t come up to The Danzotek, I noticed! Something funny going on there if you ask me.
Anyway, I’m shattered. I haven’t had the time to write half of what I’d
wanted to. I mean, all that business with Kevin, for a start. Oh, it’s just going to have
to wait. I’ve got to be up early tomorrow. Doing an interview with Buster Bloodves-
-9-
sel for Jackie. Don’t know what I’m going to talk about, really. I mean, what does
anyone want to know about Buster Bloodvessel anyway?
His sex life, I suppose.
Who, where, when, how long for and how much Golden Syrup was involved.
Don’t think I’ll get that past the editor of Jackie though, somehow. I’ll probably end
up asking him about his favourite school dinners. That’s always a good standby for
Jackie<
12TH JULY: BIG GAME IN PARIS
I’m flat on my back in a cheap hotel in Paris. Don’t ask! What a couple of weeks this
has been! I’ve fallen so far behind with writing this, it’s going to be a struggle even to
remember what I’ve been up to.
Now, let me explain about Emma and Norm first. I haven’t told you about
what happened with Jimbo, have I? You remember Jimbo - that male stripper that
Emma was seeing a lot of (if you know what I mean). Oh no, but before I get onto
that, I’d better explain about Kevin. But wait a minute, before I get onto that you’re
probably wondering what I’m doing in Paris.
Well, what happened was this. First of all Janet rang up. You know, the press
officer from RCA or MCA or Decca or somewhere? Or is it EMI? Oh, I don’t know,
one of those record companies. And anyway, it turns out she had these tickets for
some concert in Paris - one of them big-shot bands from America: Kiss or ZZ Top or
someone like that, I can’t really remember which and I never went to the concert
anyway because this bloke called Marcel, or Jean or Jacques or something took us
out for dinner. Oh, did I mention that Kevin came with me? To Paris, I mean. You
remember Kevin, I expect - the butcher’s boy from Plaistow? So anyway this Marcel
or Jean or François or whatever he’s called takes me and Kevin out to this swanky
restaurant where they serve all kinds of slimy things on crushed ice and the idea was
that we’d just get a bite to eat and then go on to the concert to see Kiss or Van Halen
or whoever, but then a stuffed elephant fell on us and so all our plans went right out
of the window.
Now you’re probably thinking, how did they manage to get a stuffed elephant into a restaurant in the first place? I should have explained that we’d left the
restaurant by that time. We were in the foyer of some big hotel. There were two
stuffed camels, one elephant and a couple of giraffes.
I can’t recall why we went to the hotel in the first place. I think it was to go to
the cocktail bar or something. At any rate it was Marcel’s idea and he was paying so
- 10 -
I didn’t argue. There were all these men in overalls in the foyer putting the stuffed
animals into aesthetically pleasing positions when one of the men, who was up on a
ladder, overbalanced and sent the elephant flying on top of us.
Well, I jumped out of the way just in time as my reactions have been sharpened like a razor by years of pop music journalism. Kevin, as you would expect (or
at least as you would expect if you knew about his peculiar talents, which, now I
come to think about it, I haven’t got around to explaining yet), was nowhere to be
seen. But poor Pierre was practically squashed.
Then all hell broke loose. The manager of the hotel arrived and started jabbering in French. Well, I mean, normally I’d jabber back at him with more of the same
as I can converse like a native in the lingo when I’m in the mood. But for some reason, I didn’t seem to be in the mood just at that moment. Well, if you’ve ever seen
someone squashed by a stuffed elephant in the foyer of a French hotel, you’ll know
just how I felt. It puts you off your stride somehow. And then the next thing I knew
the place was crawling with nurses and doctors and people carrying a stretcher
upon which was the prostrate, mumbling body of the semi-squashed Marcel. He
wasn’t half making a fuss and, due to the shock no doubt, he had reverted to his native French most of which I could have understood if I hadn’t been in shock myself
but which, given the circumstances, might just as well have been a foreign language
for all it meant to me. But in spite of all the fuss he was making, I don’t think he was
hurt much really. Leastways I didn’t see any blood or giblets sloshing about the
place so it can’t have been all that bad, can it!
The upshot of all this was that me and Kevin were left at a bit of a loose end.
Neither of us had any idea where the bloody concert was and we couldn’t ask anyone since Kevin doesn’t speak a word of French and we didn’t know who was doing
the concert anyway so it was no good asking. But, as luck would have it, I had
somehow managed to acquire a huge wad of French francs which I’m pretty sure I
hadn’t had a half hour earlier. Goodness knows where it came from; I can’t remember for the life of me. My theory is that Marcel must have handed it to me as they
carried him out on the stretcher so that we could carry on enjoying the hospitality of
the record company in his absence but Kevin reckons it was the hotel manager who
gave me the money, having come to the peculiar conclusion that I was a business associate of Pierre’s and that I would sue the ass off the hotel unless I was well and
truly placated. I don’t know, I suppose that’s possible. All I can say is that if this is
the way that French hotel managers placate people, bring on the stuffed elephants!
- 11 -
Mademoiselles flirt coquettishly with passers by on the Champs Elysées, Paris.
13TH JULY: KEVIN’S PECULIAR TALENT
Well, I’m up and about again, you’ll be glad to hear and the swelling has definitely
started to go down. I must admit that I’m still feeling a bit shaky after the events of
last night but at least the gendarme didn’t shoot us, which, I suppose, is some consolation. The thing is, we never would have been under the bridge in the first place if
hadn’t been for the German chap in the dodgy wig whose name was Helmut (the
chap, that is, not the wig).
But just a moment. I know what you are saying to yourself. You are saying, he
hasn’t even mentioned the swelling before. Well, no, not in so many words perhaps. But
then again, if it hadn’t been for the swelling I wouldn’t have been flat on my back in
the first place, would I? And I told you all about that yesterday so you surely can’t
have forgotten it already.
Helmut arrived on the scene just as Kevin and I were leaving the hotel following the unfortunate incident with the elephant. To be honest, he didn’t so much arrive on the scene as leapt into it with arms waving and wig flapping in the breeze.
‚You are English!‛ he cried, ‚I am a doctor!‛
‚Bugger off!‛ I wittily riposted. I was in no mood for German doctors with or
without wigs of dubious origin. I had suddenly found myself in possession of a large
- 12 -
sum of somebody else’s money and my entire thoughts were concentrated upon
ways of spending it.
But Helmut was not to be so easily shaken off.
‚No, no,‛ he blathered, ‚You are English. I am German. I speak English. We
must have a drink.‛
I have to be honest with you. I couldn’t entirely follow the flow of logic in his
reasoning. However, noticing that he was brandishing a cheque book and, deciding
it would be impolite to tell him that I was Welsh rather than English, I discreetly
tucked away my wad of ill-gotten francs into an inside pocket, smiled sweetly,
tugged Kevin briskly by the arm and determined to follow Helmut wheresoever he
might go - which, in the event, turned out to be a dimly lit hostelry called Le Jabberwocky.
Once inside, Helmut plied us freely with brandy while he regaled us with
amusing anecdotes about varicose veins and the debilitating conditions to which
they are prone. I thought of the woman who lives in the flat above mine in London.
She’s the only person I’ve ever met who’s half as fascinated by varicose veins as
Helmut. But Helmut’s interest, unlike hers, was of a professional rather than a personal nature. It was not his own varicose veins that fascinated him but varicose veins
in general. It turns out he is one of the world’s most eminent varicose vein specialists
and he had come to Paris to deliver a speech at a big varicose vein conference. I tried
to look fascinated but I suspect I didn’t fully succeed.
Anyway, we had progressed to our fifth brandies and about the two hundredth interesting complication of the veins of the upper thigh when a large man
with a small bushy moustache about the size of a Chihuahua staggered up to our table and said, ‚You blithering bounder!‛ in a sort of well-ripened English accent
spiced with a dash of French. I noticed that Helmut blenched at the sight of the man.
It is true that he didn’t blench very visibly on account of the low level of lighting in
that part of the bar but I was watching him closely and if I tell you he blenched, you
can take it from me that blench is what he did.
I am not entirely sure what happened next. All I know for certain is that
somewhere between Le Jabberwocky and the bridge, we lost Helmut and the man
with the Chihuahua moustache while, in their place, I had acquired a pounding
headache and a prominent swelling on the back of my head. Kevin is of the opinion
that the swelling was caused by a wine bottle and that the wine bottle was, at the
moment of impact, clutched in the meaty hand of the man with the Chihuahua
moustache. I can’t say for certain if that was the case as I was looking in the opposite
direction at the time.
A few seconds later the gendarme arrived. He had a nasty expression on his
face and was wagging his finger at us in a way that some people would say was distinctly less than brimming over with entente cordiale. Moreover, he was jabbering
- 13 -
away in French which, given the circumstances, seemed uncalled for. As you probably know, French is second nature to me. I speak the language so fluently that, at
times, it almost seems to make sense. But just at that moment I couldn’t quite make
out what the gendarme was saying on account of the loud ringing in my ears and the
stars swirling before my eyes. If you’ve ever been bumped on the back of the head
with a wine bottle, you will no doubt have a good idea of what I’m talking about.
However, while I couldn’t make out the words, I did get a firm impression that the
gendarme was not welcoming us to the beautiful town of Paris and hoping that we
would enjoy our stay. I replied, in French, with the perfectly reasonable comment:
‚Monsieur, nous sommes des sujets de sa gracieuse Majesté, la reine Elizabeth Deux,‛
which, roughly translated means, ‚For goodness sake, man, pull yourself together,
we’re British.‛ This did not have the desired calming effect, however, and I swear
that I saw the gendarme reaching for his gun when suddenly Kevin did that peculiar
thing that he does. I have mentioned Kevin’s peculiar talent before, haven’t I? I must
say that until that moment, I hadn’t thought much of it. But when he did it then, it
would not be overstating matters to say that I was flabbergasted. And so was the
gendarme. In fact he was so flabbergasted that<.
Oh, who’s that? Someone’s knocking on the door. I think it’s Kevin. You’ll
have to excuse me. The poor boy sounds in a bit of a panic. More later<.
Ah, the romance of Paris! Here is the scene from my hotel window. Note how the romantic
Eiffel Tower perches romantically on the banks of the romantic Seine.
We certainly haven‟t got anything in Britain to compare with that!
- 14 -
18TH JULY: THE MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE OF FLAPJACK THE DUCK
Kevin, of course, should never have been in Paris in the first place. But Janet, the
press officer (you remember - she’s the one who offered me the tickets) wanted me
to go with a photographer. To take pictures of whoever it was I was supposed to be
interviewing. Ha! As though you can just pluck a photographer out of thin air!
However, without a photographer there would be no tickets. The only person who
came readily to hand was Kevin so, thinking quickly (as is my wont), I told Janet
that he was a photographer. Well, how difficult can it be to take photos, anyway?
People do it all the time. I’ve even done it myself. You just point the camera in the
right direction, press the button and hope for the best.
Not that it mattered in the end on account of the fact that we never got to see
the concert and do the interviews and what-have-you thanks to the record company’s French representative inconsiderately positioning himself in the path of a teetering taxidermed pachyderm. So instead of being ensconced in a luxury suite eating
fish-paste sandwiches and interviewing Meat Loaf (or Alice Cooper or whoever it
was whose concert we’d missed) we found ourselves huddled beneath the dripping
arches of a French bridge while a none-too-friendly gendarme twitched his fingers
over the trigger of his gun.
The gendarme looked at us and said<.
Well, I’m not quite sure what he said, as a matter of fact; his enunciation left
much to be desired. I think the gist of is was that he wished us to accompany him to
the station. But then, at that very moment, an eerie wailing sound echoed across the
surface of the river:
‚Oscoo! Oscoo!‛, it wailed.
‚Mon Dieu! Sacré Bleu! Zut Alors!‛, exclaimed the gendarme.
Then he shouted something at us which I think meant, ‚Stay put till I come
back‛ and off he ran, obviously with the gallant intention of rescuing some poor forlorn Mademoiselle who was at that very moment drowning in the murky waters of
the Seine.
Now just in case your French is a bit rusty I probably ought to explain that
‚Oscoo! Oscoo!‛ is the French for ‚Help!‛ Kevin informed me of this just after the
gendarme had scarpered, though of course I knew it already. But Kevin was obviously proud of his little bit of French so I just nodded and said ‚Ah?‛ as though it
was all news to me. Then we scarpered in the opposite direction from that in which
the gendarme had scarpered a few moments before.
Later, back in the bar of our squalid little hotel, I began to see the funny side
of it all. Oh how we would chuckle over this as we sat in a pub back in dear old
Kentish Town, I thought! I wasn’t exactly in a chuckling mood at that very moment,
- 15 -
however, due to the throbbing in my head resulting from a wine bottle having been
battered over my skull just an hour or so before.
But you are probably wondering whatever became of the drowning Mademoiselle? Ah, now that’s the funny thing. There never was one. Which brings me on
to Flapjack The Duck. Do you know Flapjack The Duck? A cuddly yellow sort of
feathery thing with big blue eyes and an orange beak. See him on the telly a lot on
Saturday mornings, if you happen to be up at that time. Pops up from behind a sort
of a desk affair and has a chat with that blond chap with the peculiar accent and a
vacant expression. ‚Quack-quack! What a quacker!‛ That’s one of Flapjack’s catchphrases. Has them rolling in the aisles apparently.
Well, anyway, as I was saying, had it not been for Flapjack The Duck, I should
probably at this very moment be languishing in a dank cell deep within the bowels
of a Parisian police station. Instead of which I am sitting here in my bijou apartmentette in London’s fashionable Kentish Town.
You see what happened was this<.
Oh blooming heck! Is that the time? I’m supposed to be meeting Kevin down
the Black Cap in ten minutes. I’ll have to rush. So anyway, I’ll explain all about Flapjack tomorrow<
20TH JULY: EMMA’S KNOTTY SITUATION
Have you ever seen Spit The Dog? Well! A mankier looking mutt I’ve never clapped
eyes on! All he does is just sit there and spit. Where’s the entertainment value in that,
‘ey?
Then there’s that emu. He’s another one that gets right on my threepenny bits.
I mean, it’s not as though the bloody thing even says anything. He just attacks people. I don’t know if you saw him attacking Michael Parkinson on telly that time.
Well! The damn’ bird went straight for Parkinson’s you-know-what! I mean, everyone knows emu’s beak is really just Rod Hull’s hand. If he hadn’t had his arm
stuffed inside the damn’ emu it’d have been obscene.
Flapjack the Duck, on the other hand (when I say ‘on the other hand’ I don’t
mean on Rod Hull’s other hand, of course, since Rod Hull’s hands only ever go into
emus, not ducks)<. Flapjack the Duck, as I was saying, can be quite witty. You
might have seen him on children’s TV on a Saturday morning. There’s that man with
the greasy blond hair who sits behind a desk telling jokes and insulting the kids and
every so often this feathery yellow thing pops up next to him and says ‚Quack-
- 16 -
quack! What a quacker!‛ - I mean, he says lots of other stuff too, but ‚Quack-quack!
What a quacker!‛ is his pièce de résistance as you might say.
Well, it was as I was saying before I got interrupted by my working week
which, amongst other things, involved a very peculiar interview with a chap from
Basildon who’s the singer in a group called Depeshay Mode or something, but I’ll
have to tell you about that some other time< as I was saying, if it hadn’t been for
Flapjack The Duck, I’d probably be languishing in a French police dungeon instead
of sitting here in my bijou Kentish Town mews flat penning this memoir.
You will recall that Fate had conspired to fling me, reeling from a blow to the
head and pursued by armies of ferocious gendarmes, beneath the dank and dripping
arches of a bridge spanning the river Seine in gay Paree when, all of a sudden and
out of the blue, the still night air was rent asunder by the terrified cries of a young
and helpless Mademoiselle gasping her last from somewhere in the middle of the
river. This naturally gave the gendarmes the idea that maybe they should go off and
save the dusky beauty rather than menace me and Kevin (with whom I was stuck
beneath said dank and dismal bridge), a fact which gave us the opportunity of legging it speedily in the other direction while the gendarmes were otherwise engaged.
So where, you may wonder, does Flapjack The Duck enter into my tale?
Well, you may recall that I have alluded previously to Kevin’s terrible secret. I
shall now reveal it in all its awfulness. Sit down. Brace yourself. Here it is:
Kevin is Flapjack the Duck!
Quel horror!, you are no doubt thinking. This lissom and goodly featured youth
whom previously you had taken to be a virile young butcher’s boy from Plaistow, is,
in reality, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, instead of doing butch and manly
things such as wrapping up half pounds of tripe with a bit of brisket on the side, he
spends his Saturday mornings crouched beneath a table, snuggled up to the sweaty
legs of a man with greasy blond hair, with his arm thrust up a duck’s backside saying ‚Quack-quack! What a quacker!‛
I too once felt as you no doubt feel now - pale, sickened and wan at the very
thought of such a pitiful existence. However, having experienced the benefits of his
ventriloquial arts in a tight corner, I must confess that I now take a different view.
But anyway, that’s old news. I have far stranger matters to relate. Now, you
remember my friend Emma, I expect? Well, you’ll never believe this but what’ happened is that she’ gone and got herself into a very sticky situation. It all happened
after a contortionist called Senor Slinkini approached her down at the Purple Pussycat<.
- 17 -
21ST JULY: SATURDAY NIGHT WITH STEVE STRANGE
That Steve Strange doesn’t half sound Welsh when he gets going! Worse than Bonnie
Tyler, and that’s saying something.
There’s a lot of Welsh pop stars, when you think about it - Steve Strange,
Bonnie Tyler, Shaking Stevens, Tom Jones, Mary Hopkin, Elvis Preseli. I’ve been
thinking about branching out into a bit of pop singing myself, you know, on account
of the lush golden tones of my singing voice which, as anyone will tell you, really
has to be heard to be believed.
I did this interview with Steve Strange yesterday, see, for Kicks magazine. So
it turns out that I am now one of the first ‘in the know’ on the next big fashion craze.
Just when you thought that double-breasted suits were all the trend, it turns out that
all that Kid Creole stuff is last year’s thing. Hobbits! That’s the coming craze, apparently.
Steve was doing a photo shoot when I interviewed him, all kitted out in hobbit-style, which, as far as I can see is pretty much indistinguishable from a scarecrow
- except for the slap, that is, of which young Strange was wearing a goodly amount.
He’s a martyr to the makeup, if you ask me. As, incidentally, is Shirley Bassey, who
is yet another big Welsh singer star, though somehow I can’t see her sacrificing the
sequins for the pleasure of dressing up as a hobbit.
But I digress. I was about to tell you the strange story of how my friend
Emma met Senior Slinkini, the contortionist. She was on the floor at the time which,
if the truth be told, she all too frequently is, under a table in the Purple Pussycat,
which, as I believe I have mentioned previously in my journals, is a nocturnal drinking establishment of somewhat dubious repute - when all of a sudden a leg appeared, followed in quick succession by an arm, another arm, a head and another
leg. All the above appendages, it turned out, belonged to one Senor Slinkini ‘the
Spanish Contortionist’.
Emma tells me (and, given her breath of worldly experience, I confess to being surprised by the revelation) that she has never had a liaison with a contortionist,
Spanish or otherwise, so her interest was, quite naturally, piqued. Well, to cut a long
story short, she picked herself up off the floor, quaffed a couple of banana daiquiris,
fluttered her mascara-heavy lids and whisked him away in the general direction of
her flat.
But, as someone who’s name I forget once said, the best planned lays of mice
and men gang often gang awry (or some such nonsense) and thus it was to be for
Emma. For no sooner had she dragged the aforementioned Spanish contortionist
into the public highway and thrust out a shapely thigh by way of attracting the attention of a passing cabbie, when who should stagger out of a nearby doorway but
Emma’s boyfriend!
- 18 -
Ah, but now you are asking yourself to which boyfriend I refer, Emma being
well-known for getting through boyfriends at a brisk rate of knots.
Well, I’d like to tell you but it’ll have to wait. I’ve got this article to write up
for Kicks so, much to my chagrin (a French word, meaning ‘pissed-bloodyoffedness’), my Saturday night will be spend cloistered indoors here in my luxury
Kentish Town hovel, listening to a crackly cassette of Steve Strange wombling on
about bloody hobbits.
Grrrr.....
30TH JULY: KEVIN DRENCHED IN BABY OIL!
There are always at least two sides to every story and, where Emma’s concerned,
there are usually a good few more than two. Now take this incident with Spanish
contortionist, for instance! She had me hook, line and sinker on that one. I mean,
there was me believing every word of it. But then, luckily, I ran into Kevin. Well, not
so much ran into him as slipped over him on account of the fact that he was covered
in baby oil at the time.
Down the Old Duck and Knackers this was, which is this really seedy gay
pub down Clapham way. I don’t normally get that far out into the sticks, myself, but
I’d heard there was a talent night on and, as I’ve always had an interest in things of a
theatrical bent, I decided to go down and get and eyeful.
And what an eyeful I got! One of the talents on show belonged to none other
than ‘Snakeman Jim’ (to use his professional name) who, it turned out was none
other than Emma’s one-time boyfriend, Jim (aka Jimbo), of whom I have spoken in
previous entries in this journal. Well, now at last, I have seen exactly what she saw in
him. Suffice to say it isn’t his witty personality and amusing anecdotes!
However, Jim is but a sideline in the bizarre tale which I am about to relate.
You will recall, no doubt, the episode I mentioned a few days ago which began when
Emma was accosted by a Spanish contortionist under a table in the Purple Pussycat.
In the version of the story which Emma related to me and which I, in my innocence, was about to re-relate to you, she and this contortionist (whose name, she
informed me was Senor Slinkini - ha! as though I’d be taken in for one second by
such an obviously made-up nom de stage!) were tootling along the street when who
should pop up out of the shadows but Emma’s other boyfriend, Norm! There then
ensued a battle of words and fisticuffs in which Norm emerged triumphant and
Senor Slinkini slunk off to nurse his wounds and, no doubt, massage his battered
bonce with his fingers, knees, elbows and toes. Thus was Emma saved by the noble
- 19 -
Norm from a night of debauchery and set back on the straight and narrow path to
virtue, modesty and (in the fullness of time), a semi-detached in Esher and membership of the local Women’s Institute.
Pah! is what I say... nay, not merely Pah! I think this calls for a full-throated
Damn’ it all!
The blasted woman led me up the garden path with her tale of derring-do between double-jointed Spaniards and the hellish fury of scorned Norms. Further investigation reveals that the truth is very far from the tale which I was spun.
Which brings me back to Kevin.
This, I should perhaps remind you, is the same Kevin who, having once masqueraded as a butcher’s boy from Plaistow, has now been revealed to be none other
than the voice of TV’s favourite glove-puppet, Flapjack the Duck. So what, you may
quite legitimately be asking yourself, was the alter-ego of Flapjack the Duck, doing
dripping with baby oil in a seedy gay pub on the outskirts of Clapham? And, moreover, how was this related to the fictitious tale of Spanish bone-benders with which
the perfidious Emma had so recently bamboozled me?
I’d love to tell you. Believe me, I would. Unfortunately, I am already well behind schedule with an article I’m writing for Flexipop! (Kevin Rowland’s ‘Testament
of Youth’ - which tells the truly bizarre story of the Dexy’s Midnight Runners frontman’s adolescent exploits with the vicar’s daughter and his unfulfilled interests in
women’s clothing), so the full, unexpurgated truth of Emma’s latest liaison will have
to wait until another day.
More soon...
- 20 -
The virtues of baby oil...
- 21 -
1ST AUGUST: DEBAUCHERY WITH DEXY’S
‚My earliest memories are of running about with no clothes on and drinking my
own urine...‛
I had a feeling Barry’d love that line. And, sure enough, he did. Gaffawed is
what he did when he read it. Positively guffawed! Tim wasn’t so enthusiastic,
though. I have a feeling he thinks this kind of thing brings down the tone of the
magazine.
‚I was about thirteen when I first began having sexual urges.‛
I should, perhaps, point out at this juncture that this is not me I’m talking
about. I can honestly say that I don’t recall ever having even the teeniest desire to
drink my own (or anyone else’s urine). Moreover, my sexual urges had certainly
made themselves known at a somewhat earlier phase of my life...
‚All of a sudden I started getting very interested in girls.‛
...and in somewhat different directions. The quotes above are (as any regular
reader of this journal will surely by now have deduced) taken from my recent interview with Kevin Rowland of Dexy’s Midnight Runners. I went and interviewed him
in his record company’s offices for a Flexipop! article all about his childhood memories. It’s a sort of ‘ghost writing’ I suppose because when it’s printed in the magazine, I won’t even get a mention. Readers are supposed to think that Mr Rowland
felt a sudden urge to unburden his soul by divulging the sordid details of his urinedrinking youth to the favoured readers of Flexipop! whereas, in reality, it was I who
had to draw out each squalid little morsel when all he wanted to talk about was his
blasted new album...
‚It happened one day as I was lying in bed,‛ Kevin continues, ‚It was one of
the many days on which I was pretending to be ill in order to get off school, and I’d
got my sister’s comics out and I noticed these photographs of teenage girls. From
then on I was determined to have sex.
‚My first sexual experience was with the vicar’s daughter. She was about fifteen and one day we just went back to her house and she seduced me...‛
But you don’t want to read any more about that - or of his strange desire to
become a hairdresser and design women’s clothes. Anyhow, if you do, you’ll just
have to wait a couple of weeks until the next issue of Flexipop! comes out. As usual,
it’ll be packed with fab stuff - most of it written by yours truly...
Tim (he’s one of the editors of Flexipop!) has booked me an interview with
Annabella from BowWowWow! tomorrow. He says he thinks it would be interesting
if I asked her for her views on the pressures which our patriarchal society exerts
upon the post-feminist, post-modern, post-apocalyptic female psyche. Barry (the
- 22 -
other editor) wants me to ask her if she farts in the bath. I think I may try to steer a
course somewhere between those two extremes.
I can’t help wondering if my literary talents might not be wasted on Flexipop!
12TH AUGUST: EMMA HITS ROCK BOTTOM
It’s been hectic this past couple of weeks. I did the interview with Annabella, then I
met Martin Fry from ABC (in a cheap caff in Notting Hill Gate – and I had to pay for
the teas – bloody cheek!), then there was an interview with The Stranglers. They
turned up two hours late and their press person warned me not to annoy Jean
Jacques Burnel because he doesn’t like journalists, apparently, and Barry (the Flexipop! editor) said Jean Jacques would probably throw me out of the window and then
he laughed and added, ‚...and I’d give him a helping hand myself!‛
Very dry sense of humour, that Barry. He wasn’t in a good mood though,
really, as he’d bought 200 red carnations from the local florist. He wanted a picture
of The Stranglers lying on the floor covered in flowers for some reason and he’d
asked the florist if he could rent a few bunches and take them back when we’d finished, but she was having none of it. ‚The only flower that leaves this shop is a
flower that’s bought,‛ she said, ‚We don’t do sale or return, you know.‛ In the end
Barry negotiated a 20 per cent discount and she chucked in a free cactus.
Anyway, back to the big news (which I was about to tell you before all this
work got in the way), about Emma and her new boyfriend. He is, it now transpires,
not a Spanish contortionist at all but, au contraire, a novelty act by the name of Elvis
Aris (‘the amazing bottom impersonator’) who has made it big (according to Emma,
who didn’t actually specify what ‘it’ might be but, given her well-known predilections, I think I can hazard a guess) on the club circuit up North.
The gist of his act, as far as I can gather, is that his talented buttocks do impressions of famous people. He exposes his bum to the awe-struck audience and,
thanks to extraordinary muscle coordination, a bit of miming and a few well-placed
props, he entertains them with hour after hour of life-like impersonations of celebrities past and present. Sir Winston Churchill is one of his specialities – he does the
‘This was their finest hour’ speech, complete with cigar! He also mimes to the hits of
the late and great Elvis Presley – Love Me Tender, Jail House Rock and (the climax of
his show) All Shook Up.
- 23 -
Elvis Aris‟s astoundingly lifelike impersonation of the late and great Elvis Presley
Emma really does have some very strange tastes in men. Norm is the only
boyfriend she’s had who would merge into a crowd. Unfortunately for Norm, he is
so mergeable that, once merged, you’d never be able to find him again. Personally, I
reckon Elvis Aris is just one of her passing infatuations. I have no doubt that he
could entertain her of an evening in ways that are unknown to Norm. All the same,
if you want my view, her heart belongs to Norm when all is said and done...
Oh, I’ve just remembered. I haven’t brought you up to date with Kevin’s latest exploits, have I? He’s mixing in with a bad crowd, if you want my opinion. I
mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude but, I mean to say, the baby oil was bad
enough, but the snake is taking it all one step too far! More on that later...
- 24 -
Here‟s a photo showing Elvis Aris‟s impression of Sir Winston Churchill. Emma has warned
me not to accept any cigars from Elvis (as you do know where they‟ve been)...
1ST SEPTEMBER: BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN
I been thinking of going blonde. What d’you reckon? I mean, it’s the in thing now,
isn’t it – there’s that David van Day from Dollar, then there’s he chap in Duran
Duran and the two blokes from Bucks Fizz. Not to mention Kim Wilde, Debbie
Harry and Dolly Parton!
Now, I don’t want you to think I’m name dropping but that was who I interviewed last week, as a matter of fact! Which is what got me to thinking about going
blonde in the first place. No, no, I don’t mean Dolly Parton. I’d love to have interviewed her but that opportunity has not yet arisen. It was other one who I interviewed, the chap I mentioned before - you know, that David van Day, the bloke in
Dollar. The one who looks a bit like a gerbil in a dinner jacket.
Nice bloke, as a matter of fact. Lives in a mews house in a little cobbled street
in one of the more fashionable slum areas of London. I’d tell you where it is but I
dare not on account of the ravening hordes of underwear-obsessed fans who would
- 25 -
no doubt descend upon the poor chap in a lustful frenzy fuelled by cheap beer and
barley wine and whisk off his boxer shorts at some unearthly hour of the morning.
Ah no, it is a heavy burden of secrecy which we gentlemen of the pop music press
must bear and wild horses would not drag David’s address out of me - though it is
quite possible that a few banana daiquiris and packet of pork scratching might
loosen my tongue...
David van Day posing at his blondest...
But I digress.
The burning question is: ash or platinum?
I have to say that I’m a bit of a traditionalist in these matters. ‘Honey dawn’,
‘Silver shimmer’ and ‘Arctic moon’ hold no attractions for me. As far as I am concerned, if you are going blonde there are only two shades worth the time of day: ash
(à la Kim Wilde) or platinum (à la Dolly). David van Day veers more towards the ash
end of the spectrum, I’d say. Another possibility is that he just hadn’t washed his
hair when I met him. I always think ‘ash’ is just a polite way of saying ‘dirty platinum’, really.
Oh, what the heck! Platinum it is! By Jove! If it’s good enough for Dolly, it’s
good enough for me. I don’t mean just streaks, neither. I’ve already got a few streaks
in, anyway. It’s a nightmare having them done. They put this rubber cap over your
head and stick crochet hooks through little holes to pull clumps of hair through.
- 26 -
Usually they also stick a few hooks gratuitously in your scalp while they at it! Then
they plaster all the bleach over the whole lot and the theory is that you end up with
only the clumps sticking through the holes going blonde. Which, in theory, is supposed to look attractive. Though, in practice... well, suffice to say, my streaked days
are now a thing of the past.
Marilyn reckons I should get myself some ‘extensions’ which, in case you
don’t know, are bits of other people’s hair that you tie on to your own. Yuck! Why
would I want other people’s old hair dangling round my head...?
I suppose I could do the Limahl thing. Black on the sides, blonde on top. The
Old English Sheepdog-look, I call it. Makes me think of non-drip paint whenever I
set eyes on him. Oh, and speaking of paint, did you ever clap your eyes on those
Spandau chaps in that video – Paint Me Down? Rolling about starkers they were, on
Hampstead Heath. An activity which, if you are not very careful indeed, can easily
be misconstrued.
Which reminds me, I was about to tell you all about Kevin’s latest exploits. As
if the baby oil and the snake wasn’t bad enough, he’s now started taking an unhealthy interest in ostrich feathers.
Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. My phone’s ringing. I’ll give you the lowdown
on all that later...
Ever wondered what David van Day looks like when he‟s not posing for a photographer?
Here is a snap which I secretly took of him in an off-guard moment as he mixes me a cocktail (actually, I think he‟d had one or two cocktails too many himself by this stage!).
But the really bizarre thing is, his hair is no longer blond - more a sort of dirty beige!
- 27 -
13TH SEPTEMBER: SHOCK! SCANDAL! AND GLOVE PUPPETS!
Funny bloke, that Pete Burns. You know, that chap from Dead Or Alive. I did a
phone interview with him yesterday. For Jackie magazine. They wanted something
‘light and frothy’, they said. But all he talked about was being whistled at by builders, wearing fishnet stockings and high-heeled shoes.
Him, that is - wearing the fishnets and high heels, I mean - not the builders.
The builders, as far as I can recall from our conversation, were too busy whistling to
bother about the finer details of their evening wear. Well, to be accurate, Pete Burns
wasn’t wearing fishnets either as (curiously, I thought) he says he doesn’t care for
them. He is, I gather, open to the possibility of high heels, but when it comes to a
choice between thermal long johns and fishnet tights, the long johns win hands
down.
Or should that be legs up?
But I digress...
To say that to say that this past week has been traumatic would be an understatement would be an understatement. (I hope you are following this. If not, pull
yourself together, read slowly and concentrate!)
As you know, my life in recent times has been plagued by the increasingly
unpredictable behaviour of a certain Kevin who, far from being the simple butcher’s
boy from Plaistow for whom once I took him, is, au contraire, none other than the
hand behind the duck - the duck being Flapjack, the lovable glove-puppet of children’s TV fame and Kevin’s being the hand which, stuffed up Flapjack’s rear end
(the parson’s nose, as you might say) is responsible for said duck’s hilarious antics.
Kevin has fallen in with a bad lot of late. It all began after he met my friend
Emma’s boyfriend (one of many, I must disapprovingly confess), a large man (in all
respects) by the name of Jimbo.
Kevin is one of those poor, weak-willed souls for whom the smell of the
crowd and the roar of the greasepaint is temptation beyond endurance. I suspect the
smell of crisp five pound notes stuffed down his jockstrap by inebriated audience
members may further add to that temptation. But more on that subject I am not at
liberty to say. I have vowed that not a word on the subject of baby oil, athletic supporters or ostrich feather boas will pass my lips. So the details of Kevin’s recent activities are my closely guarded secret.
The trouble being that not everyone is as tight-lipped as I am. Word, it seems,
has got out. Along, worse still, with photographs of a smudgy and unflattering nature with the a ‘censored’ banner emblazoned right across Kevin’s bulging five
pound notes. I speak, dear reader, of the tabloid press. For that is the medium
- 28 -
wherein this unseemly spectacle has been flaunted for the sordid gratification of the
common throng.
As well you may imagine, this has caused ructions! I mean, this, after all, is
the man whose hand has been stuffed up the country’s favourite duck, the man
whose mouth has uttered that well-known and much-loved catchphrase, ‘Quackquack! What a quacker!‛ - and this is now the same man who has been discovered
doing things the nature of which the good burghers of East Grinstead, Hove, Neasden and Esher have hitherto little dreamed.
Well, I tell you this - the scandal could hardly have been worse if Harry Corbett had been discovered having an unnatural relationship with Sooty!
What consequences it may all have, I really cannot guess.
My only hope is that the scandal does not rebound upon yours truly. If the
readers of Jackie magazine were ever to discover that this cub reporter had been on
intimate terms with the man who dragged Flapjack The Duck’s reputation in the
mud, my career, I fear, would be at an end.
Which, indeed, it also would be if I were to send in the uncensored version of
my Pete Burns interview. On the whole, you see, Jackie prefers nice, family-friendly
interviews with as little as conveniently possible on the subject of men in high heels
being whistled at by builders. Thank Heaven that, in the closing moments of the interview, I had the presence of mind to guide topic of discussion around to school
dinners. With a little creative editing, I think I might be able to turn out a reasonably
passable account of Pete’s find memories of lumpy mashed potatoes and pink custard. Dull, I know, but safe...
21ST SEPTEMBER: SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED
Busy week. Interviews with Haircut 100 (nice boys - tell lies like they’re going out of
fashion), David Sylvian (we compared skin care tips, I picked up a few handy hints
using easily available household products), Modern Romance (they’re going
through a pink suit phase - either they haven’t yet tried wearing pink suits in the
streets of Streatham or else they are a lot tougher than they look) and Sal Sol - a man
who looks like Uncle Fester on a diet and sings with a group called Classix Nouveaux whose music, I must say, is really pretty decent which is more, alas, than can
be said for their hairdresser.
But enough of work. The big news of the week is my acquisition of a new cassette recorder - a Sony WM-R2. This is so small you wouldn’t believe it! It actually
fits in my jacket pocket. No, honest, it does. Only just fits, I would have to admit, and
- 29 -
it’s true it does stretch the seams a bit, but even so... I mean, my last cassette recorder
was about the size of a box of Kleenex and I had to carry it on a strap around my
neck, whereas this little beauty can be held in the palm of my hand and weighs less
than a pound (I know that for a fact as I just shoved it on the scales). You got to give
it to them Japanese, they may not be hot shakes when it comes to pop music, but
when it comes to small, there’s no beating them.
So small it fits in the hand! Whatever will they think of next...?
Anyway, I went down a shop on Tottenham Court Road to buy it. By a stroke
of bad luck, who should I meet on the way in but Welsh Willy. Now, I don’t think
I’ve mentioned him before so I’d better explain. Welsh Willy is, as his nom de guerre
suggests, of Welsh origin.
There are, as I have often had occasion to point out, many fine and noble talents from the Land Of Song, such as Bonnie Tyler, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones,
Shakin’ Stevens and that bloke who sings ‘Nessun Dorma’ while cleaning the gentlemen’s urinals in Camden Town. But Welsh Willy is not among their number. By
which I don’t mean that he’s not every bit as Welsh as they are but that he is, rather,
notably lacking in the fine and noble talents with which those aforementioned luminaries are so plentifully graced.
- 30 -
I am, as it happens, myself of Welsh origin, so you may draw from that fact
your own conclusions.
Contrary to what you may suppose, not all people of Welsh origin are characterised by the finer qualities of which I speak. You only have to take one look at
Welsh Willy to see what I mean. He has one pierced ear from which dangles a
golden ring. I think that says it all. He comes from Abergavenny, I believe, or possibly Abernant - anyway, one of those Aber-places, which, in my book, is another
thing to hold against him.
He was all jaw as usual. He is one of those chopsy Welsh boys who give the
rest of us a bad name. Once he gets jabbering, there’s no stopping him. Some swanky
party or something he’s off to and did I want to come, he was sure he could get me
an invitation if only he was to have a word in the right ear. I told him I had better
things to do than to go to ‘swanky’ parties (his word, not mine) and fortunately who
should swan into the shop just at that moment but Bruno Brookes, the Radio One DJ
with whom I am the very closest of chums, having once interviewed him in Battersea Dog’s Home for Jackie magazine (a story for which the world is not yet prepared).
Bruno was browsing for a cassette recorder as it happened so, making my excuses and leaving Welsh Willy over in the batteries and accessories department, I
shimmered over to Bruno and showed him mine. You could tell by the look in his
eyes that he’d never seen anything like it before. ‚Japanese,‛ I said, ‚Rubbish they
may be, when it comes to music. But when it comes to small, you can’t beat them.‛
I don’t think it was the right thing to say in retrospect. Well, Bruno, you see, is
what you might call somewhat dainty in stature and his manner towards me suddenly became quite frosty. ‚I think I’d prefer a British make,‛ he said.
‚Suit yourself ,‛ I thought, ‚See if I care if you end up walking with a limp!‛
Funny that, now I come to think about it. How all the Radio One DJs are so
small, I mean. There’s Peter Powell, Bruno Brookes, Mike Read. None of them are
giants.
I wonder what underwear Bruno favours? I suspect he’s a Y-Fronts man. I
have a theory that all the Radio One DJs wear Y-Fronts. Apart from Tony Blackburn,
that is. I’d imagine Tony in boxer shorts. For the freedom of movement, if you get
my drift...
- 31 -
25TH SEPTEMBER: SIMON LE BON’S LIPS
And speaking of Limahl (which, if you’ve been paying attention, I was doing only
recently), I can’t help wondering if the pout is natural or if, on the contrary, his lips
have been surgically enhanced.
Mind you, I always used to be suspicious of the Duran chaps too. But I am
now in a position to state categorically and without any to-ing and fro-ing, that the
Le Bon lips (not to mention the Rhodes and Taylor ones) have not benefited from the
surgeon’s scalpel. In fact, in spite of what you may think if you’ve only seen Duran
Duran in photographs, their lips are not as eerily juicy as they appear. It’s the camera
that produces that effect. No, really, not a word of a lie - it’s an amazing sight to see.
There they are one moment - Le Bon, Rhodes and the various Taylors - all
lounging around with lips that you’d pass in the street without a second glance and
then, out of the corner of their eyes, they catch sight of a camera being raised and,
snap! their lips visibly inflate before your very eyes. The speed with which they can
go from mouths at ease to the full cheeks-sucked-in and lips-thrust-out pucker is a
sight to be seen. I don’t know if you watch those Jacques Cousteau programmes or,
depending on your age, maybe you can remember the undersea adventures of Hans
and Lotte Hass? If you do, you will no doubt be acquainted with the sight of the
puffer fish swelling up and bristling with spines at the merest prod of a flipper,
snorkel or harpoon gun. Well, thus it is with Duran Duran. Only the required stimulus is not a harpoon gun, it is a camera. And their lips aren’t, of course, covered with
spines as is the skin of the puffer fish. But, apart from those trivial differences, the
similarity between the lips and the fish is remarkable.
Which lips are Simon Le Bon‟s? It‟s eerily difficult to decide...
- 32 -
But I digress. It was of the luscious Limahl that I had intended to talk. He of
the two-tone hairdo. As I was saying only a while ago, I have been thinking of going
a bit on the blonder side myself. Well, now I have. Not the full Dulux Dog, I have to
say. But a good deal more than just a few streaks. It’s a sort of golden ash at the sides
with a blonde dangly piece flopping down in the front.
And speaking of blonde pieces... did you see that photo in the paper this
morning: Freddie Fischer! Well, it wasn’t the most flattering picture I’ve ever seen.
To say he looked rat-arsed would be to do rats an injustice! He had his arm around
that mouthy blonde piece from the telly. Shirley something. You know, the one
who’s meant to be his glamorous assistant. They do quizzes and stuff. On a Saturday, I think. Well, according to the paper, there was some party over the weekend
and she was caught assisting him with more than his quizzes!
I have to say I find that very difficult to believe. I mean, talk about camp! Stick
Frankie Fischer in a field and you’d have boy scouts singing songs around him in
under five minutes: gingling their goolies or whatever it is that they do. That’s how
camp Frankie Fischer is.
‘Ey, I wonder if that was the party that Welsh Willy was trying to get me to go
to? That’d have been a laugh! Wish I’d gone now. Not that Frankie Fischer is my favourite TV personality. Not by a long way. Now, if it’d have been Larry Grayson
giving a party, I might have gone. Or Bruce Forsyth. If it’d have been Les Dawson,
I’d have been in there like a shot. Or Rolf Harris. But Frankie Fischer...? Oh, I don’t
know. Somehow I have a feeling one of his parties would be all Mantovani and vol
au vents...
6TH OCTOBER: GOGGLE-EYED AND SLAVERING
Exciting news! I have become Svengali to Emma’s Trilby!
For the benefit of those who you whose bent may not be of the literary sort, I
should probably explain that when I say Trilby it is not to the headgear favoured by
middle-aged gentlemen from East Grinstead that I allude.
Let me clarify. Cast your thoughts back to Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis,
Brian Epstein and The Beatles, Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols; not to mention
Mad Bill Evans The Blood-crazed Butcher of Tonypandy and his protégé, Jack
‘Swivelhips’ Thomas, the crooning surgical support salesman from Ebbw Vale.
Yes, the Trilby to which I refer is a dark-eyed, blushing waif who fell under
the magnetic and evil influence of Svengali - a story with which I am familiar thanks
to University Challenge. Have you ever noticed how books that nobody reads are
- 33 -
always coming up on University Challenge? No matter what the question, ten to one
the answer’s going to be Trilby, The Diary of a Nobody, Beowulf or the collected
works of The Venerable Bede. Who the bloody hell was The Venerable Bede anyway
and what did he do to be so bloody venerable? Does anyone apart from Bamber
Gascoigne either know or care, that’s what I’d like to know... Well, no, on second
thoughts, I don’t think I would like to know. In fact, I don’t give a tinker’s bloody
toss about The Venerable Bede.
Anyway, the thing is that Emma has got emotionally entangled with an A & R
man - ‘A & R’ being short for... well, never mind what it’s short for, the point is, he’s
a talent scout and somehow or other he’s scouted out Emma; though as to which of
her particular talents attracted his attention, I can only guess. Not her voice, that’s
for sure. I mean, I’ve heard her singing, usually when she’s well under the influence
which, to be honest (if a shade ungallant), is most of the time. If I said she has a voice
like a constipated cow, I’d be doing the cow an injustice.
She has, however, got a passable figure. Unless you try to pass her in a narrow corridor in which case, the opposite would be true. What I am trying to say in
my roundabout way is: knockers. I have to be honest, I am not a knocker man. I mean,
I know a fine pair when I see them and the finest three pairs I’ve seen to date would
be (in ascending order) Dolly Parton’s, Honor Blackman’s and Emma’s. But while
they leave me as cold as a kipper, the same is not true for a goodly proportion of the
male population. Goggle-eyed, slavering and twitching at the extremities would be a
better description of the typical reaction.
Honor Blackman
Oh, incidentally, I have further news of Emma. She and Norm are back together again. Emma assures me that her wayward exploits with strange and exotic
men of the performing persuasion is all a thing of the past and, from here on in, a
rose covered semi-detached and regular doses of Women’s Hour and The Archers
while snuggled up to Norm wearing slippers with bobbles on and a tartan nightgown is all she craves.
Though I, as the Svengali in this operation, might have a thing or two to say
on that subject< I mean, if Emma is to become the next singing sensation, the sultry
sex symbol of her day, this generation’s Suzi Quatro, Olivia Newton-John and Diana
Dors all rolled into one, I have to ask myself, is Norm really going to be good for her
image? Should she not, instead, be dating pop stars, rubbing shoulders (or whatever)
- 34 -
with film stars and being found by Fleet Street photographers cavorting indiscreetly
in dodgy Soho nightclubs with minor members of the Royal Family?
For, dear reader, to summarise briefly, cut a long story short and put it in a
nutshell: Emma has been signed up to a major record label and I have become her
manager!
My first job will, naturally, be to groom her for stardom. The next will be to
get someone to do the actual singing, teach Emma to move her lips in time to the
words and find her a backing group. I haven’t decided yet on the appropriate sex for
the group. Boys or girls, that is the question? My first thought was to get some
hunky young men as backing dancers - you know, a bit like that Boys Town Gang.
But the A & R man, whose name, by the way, is Geoffrey and who is a camp as a
pair of knickers, says that people might think that was a bit gay. I said people might
think Boy George is a bit gay but that doesn’t stop him selling records by the lorry
load. But anyway, I can see what he means. Hunky backing singers might be a bit
passé. Maybe we should go lock, stock and barrel for the spotty teenage boy market?
Get a group of leggy girls wearing as little as Top Of The Pops will let us get away
with and get the aforementioned spotty teenage boys spending their pocket money
as fast as their hormones will let them.
And on top of all that, I also have to think of a name for the group. I’m thinking of going for an ice-cream theme - you know, get across an image of coolness,
smoothness and, well, ice-creaminess. Emma could be called Dolly Pop. And her
backing would be the Raspberry Nipples. Yes, I like that. It’s got class: Dolly Pop
and The Raspberry Nipples.
I tell you what, there’s more to this Svengali-ing than meets the eye...
- 35 -
10TH OCTOBER: BIG BAZOOMERS!
Have you ever seen Boy George without his makeup? It came as a shock to me, I can
tell you. He looks like a pickled onion in dreadlocks.
Boy George 'Before and After' - now you know why he wears make-up!
However, it is not Boy George of whom I wish to speak but of Kevin. I am pleased to
say that the lad has finally seen the light, renounced his wayward ways and got
himself back on the narrow if not exactly straight. Kevin, you will recall, having decided that the life of a butcher’s boy in Plaistow was not for him, had moved into the
strange and shadowy world of show business, first as the voice and hand of everyone’s favourite avian glove-puppet (not counting Rod Hull’s emu), Flapjack The
Duck, and, more latterly, into the bizarre world of what, in order to spare your
blushes, I shall refer to as ‘exotic dancing’.
Now, heaven knows, I’m not a prude but, in my view, if you happen to be the
owner of the hand that is stuck up the rear end of everyone’s favourite duck, the last
thing you want to do is to get yourself photographed with that very same hand
shoved somewhere where you wouldn’t want it wrapping your fish and chips, if
you get my drift. Kevin, unfortunately, is a boy of high spirits and low intellect. And
so, when his picture (with discreet blobs placed over two significant areas of activity) appeared all over the front pages of some of our more lurid daily newspapers,
the silly boy didn’t just go into hiding, keep a low profile and deny all knowledge he actually phoned up the feature editors and offered to do interviews!
- 36 -
Lucky for him, then, that just as his scandal was about to take off an even bigger scandal came along in the form of TV starlet Frankie Fischer (the grannies’ favourite) who was snapped in a compromising position with his plumptious sidekick, the lovely Shirl.
The next thing you know, Kevin’s story vanishes from the newspapers while
Frankie Fischer’s story is all over them. ‚Frankie Says It’s Wedding Bells!‛ says one
headline; ‚In A Whirl For Shirl!‛ says another - and, before you know it, what
started out as a minor scandal has turned into a heart-warming romantic tale which,
alas, stretches credulity to breaking point. I mean, not only are we asked to believe
that the wrinkled old queen, Frankie Fischer, is a red-blooded heterosexual but also
that his luscious young assistant, Shirl, has fallen madly in love with him!
Anyway, the upshot is that Kevin has got off with his reputation only slightly
tarnished and, moreover, he and Flapjack the Duck have now been snapped up to
appear in a late-night TV show called ‘Big Bazoomers!’ which will, I am told, be a
no-holds barred ‘adult’ version of the Saturday morning kiddywinks show in which
Flapjack has hitherto featured.
Meanwhile you are no doubt asking yourself: but what of Dolly Pop and the
Raspberry Nipples?
Well, I am at this very moment seeking the Raspberry Nipples. I’ve put some
adverts for talented and good-looking singers in the musical press and I am now sitting here awaiting applications which (I have no doubt) will soon start rolling in. I
shall have to conduct the auditions myself, of course. Not sure how to do that exactly. Just play it by ear, I suppose. I said to Emma, maybe I should buy myself a
casting couch. I won’t tell you what she replied other than to say that I doubt
whether it would be physically possible even if I didn’t have a bad back. Ah well,
such as the demands of being a top-flight impresario. Stardom here we come...
13TH OCTOBER: A PROSPECTIVE NIPPLE
So anyway, there I was waxing my hair when who should come knocking on the
door but Kevin. That boy does give me the gip sometimes! I tell him, ‚You can come
in for five minutes and have a cup of tea but then you got to go again, I’m busy.‛
He says, ‚Right-o,‛ plonks himself down himself down on the settee, pours
himself a stiff Glenfiddich, pops on a Gina X Performance record and says, ‚I decided I want to be in the group.‛
‚Oh yes,‛ I say, taking another fingerful of wax and rubbing it into my fringe
which I’m trying to get into a spike like that Flock Of Seagulls fellah, ‚And what
group might that be?‛
- 37 -
‚Your group,‛ he says, ‚You know, Dollybird and the Tits.‛
‚The name,‛ I say, sternly, ‚Is Dolly Pop and the Raspberry Nipples.‛
To tell you the truth, I don’t think that Kevin has grasped the subtle play on
words involved in that name and, as I am not sure he has the mental capacities to
understand even if I explained, I decided against attempting to illuminate him.
‚And what is more,‛ I tell him, ‚They’re all girls. Which means that there is
no suitable vacancy.‛
‚Yeah, yeah,‛ he says, ‚I know they’re all girls. That’s why I want to be in it.‛
By now he has put me off my stroke with the waxing so I wipe my hands on a
nearby copy of Smash Hits, screw the lid back onto the wax pot, turn to look at
Kevin and fix him with my most baleful basilisk glare.
‚Let me try to make this simple,‛ I tell him, ‚The group is all girls. Female.
Not a single solitary male involved. You, on the other hand, are of the masculine
gender. QED.‛
From the way his mouth is hanging open with no words issuing therefrom, I
deduce that the light of understanding has yet to burst upon his few and widelyscattered braincells. So I make it simpler for him: ‚They are girls,‛ I say, ‚Whereas
you. Are not.‛
A smile spreads slowly across his otherwise vacant face. Finally, with a pause
sufficient only to refill his glass, he says, ‚Yeah, you got it! That’s just what I
thought. They are girls. And I’m not. Great combination!‛
I often wonder how on earth I ever got involved with an idiot like Kevin.
Then I remember that fateful night in Camden Town when I got pissed as a parrot
and somehow found myself being taken back home by him. My memories of what
happened thereafter are, happily, non-existent. All I know for sure is that if ever
anyone sees me puking in the gutter and offers to take me home in future, I shall run
in the other direction. Or at least, I shall if I am capable of so doing. Which, if I am
puking into the gutter at the time, I probably won’t be. Ah, such are the terrible ways
of Fate!
Anyway, by this time I am starting to wonder why Kevin wants to be in a
group at all. I mean, there was me thinking that he was set up nicely with his new
job as the hand and voice of Flapjack the Duck on the soon-to-be-aired late night
adult humour show, ‘Big Bazoomers!’
But it seems I was wrong! Apparently in a moment of blinding sanity, whoever offered Kevin the job in the first place suddenly realised that a man with his
hand up a duck’s arse going ‚Quack! Quack! What a quacker!‛ might not be the
height of late-night hilarity for the more sophisticated audience which they are hoping to attract. So they cancelled Kevin and hired a woman who shoots ping-pong
balls from her fanny.
- 38 -
Anyway, when he’d drained the last drop of my Glenffidich, I finally managed to push Kevin out of the door with a vague promise that we’d audition him for
the Raspberry Nipples only if we don’t get enough actual girls for the job. In his inebriated state, he seemed to find that satisfactory, little knowing that I wouldn’t audition him for the job of toilet cleaner, let alone for a Raspberry Nipple.
I’m still not really sure about my hair, you know. I mean, I’ve got the ‘beak’
effect sorted out ok, with a pointy bit plastered down between my eyebrows. But I’m
none too happy about the wings out the sides. The effect is a bit too much on the Ken
Dodd side for my liking.
This is the image I am striving for...
...but this is the image I am achieving:
Oh well, it’ll just have to do. I’m off down The Camden Palace tonight.
Probably have a word with Steve Strange while I’m there. Give him a nod and a
wink about The Raspberry Nipples. He might be interested in featuring them at the
Palace one night, I reckon. Mind you, I suppose he’ll want to know what sort of music they do. To be honest, that’s a problem that hadn’t really occurred to me. The
group will need some songs, I suppose. Well, I could probably knock out a few, I
- 39 -
reckon. How hard can it be? I see that Neil Tennant who writes for Smash Hits is trying to put together a band. Load of rubbish they are, that’s what I’ve heard. But
anyway, if he can do it, I’m damn’ sure I can!
15TH OCTOBER: MY QUEST FOR RASPBERRY NIPPLES
Auditions start today!
I managed to get a corner of Bert Sneed’s lockup for the day. Bert runs a sort
of wholesale business north of Camden - washing machines, microwave ovens, hundredweight sacks of dried mango; you name it, Bert can get it.
There was a huge roll of rubbery grey stuff lying in one corner, I noticed. ‚Industrial-strength bra elastic,‛ Bert says. He reckons it would stretch ten miles once
it’s unravelled. I said, ‚Who’s going to buy ten miles of industrial-strength bra elastic?‛ He said, ‚You never heard of trampolines?‛
I’m not sure about Bert’s sanity, to tell you the honest truth.
I first got to know Bert while doing a photo-story with Tight Fit and bullwhips (the whips being supplied by Bert). It seems he has a keen interest in pop music, especially when it involves semi-clad young women, and even more so if the
odd bullwhip can be fitted into the picture. When I told him about the auditions for
the Raspberry Nipples, he was immediately enthused.
Anyway, I set up a table in one corner of the lockup, all nice and private, just
behind a rack of Australian sheep and kangaroo dip (‚Kills scab mite, blow-fly, ticks,
keds and lice - dead!!!‛), and waited for the applicants to arrive. Emma (or ‘Dolly Pop’
as I suppose I must now call her) was supposed to be there too but she didn’t turn
up, which, I have to confess, did not surprise me. The A&R man, Geoffrey, did turn
up - two hours late which, for an A&R man is probably as near as makes no difference to being on time.
We had six auditions to get through - the first was booked for 10.30, the last
for 4 o’clock. The 10.30 one arrived at 11.30, and the 11.30 one arrived at 12.00. I took
Geoffrey down the pub for lunch (he had two pints of Best and a Beef Stroganoff for
which I paid as he’d forgotten to bring the company cheque book). After lunch, he
scooted off for an urgent appointment with Mick Jagger (so he claims). When I got
back to the lockup, there were two semi-naked girls wresting on a moth-eaten chaise
longue nestling between a pile of rat traps and toilet plungers.
‚Perfect, darling, perfect! Now, if you could just loosen that bra strap a little
more...‛ - these and other, even less savoury, words of encouragement were being
sputtered from between Bert’s wetly drooling lips.
- 40 -
‚What the bloody hell!‛ says I, dragging Bert into a discreet alcove just behind a pile of ‘Big Boy’ gentlemen’s athletic supporters (‚For the man who wants to
stand out in a crowd‛), ‚What the hell’s going on here then, Bert?‛ says I.
‚They turned up while you was away,‛ says he, ‚So I auditioned them.‛
‚We’re supposed to be auditioning for a pop group,‛ I tell him, ‚Not for a
Roman Orgy.‛
‚These girls,‛ he says, wiping a line of drool from his chin, ‚They’s got what
it takes. You mark my words.‛
I had a quick peep at them through a crack in the serried ranks of jockstraps.
The girls were still at it on the chaise longue. It looked to me as though they’d given
up auditioning and had started enjoying themselves.
‚They’re too young,‛ I said.
‚You’re never too young,‛ said Bert, ‚To be in a pop group, I mean.‛
‚And the blonde one’s too fat.‛
‚Well-built,‛ Bert insisted.
‚But can they sing?‛ I said.
‚I never thought to ask,‛ says Bert.
Anyway, the upshot is that they couldn’t sing a single solitary note between
the two of them. So I sent them away, telling them I’d call them if we needed them which is, however, extremely unlikely bearing in mind the fact that I forgot to ask
for their phone numbers.
The 3 o’clock appointment didn’t turn up, which only left the 4 o’clock appointment<
She turned up bang on the dot and sang ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Kids In America’ and the Queen Of Night’s aria from The Magic Flute. She was a real professional
with a wonderful voice. In fact, she would have been absolutely ideal if she’d turned
up about thirty years earlier. As it is, though, fat middle-aged women who look like
my Aunty Beryl on a bad day are not quite the style we are after for The Raspberry
Nipples. To be honest, the five ‘girls’ I’ve seen today have all been uniformly dreadful.
- 41 -
Is she a potential Raspberry Nipple? The way things have been going so far, quite possibly...
I returned home depressed to find a message on my answer machine. It was
Emma saying she couldn’t make it to the auditions because she had a cold (which is
her way of saying ‘hangover’).
I am starting to wonder if entrepreneurialship is the life for me after all.
Maybe I’d be happier just writing articles for Jackie, My Guy and Blue Jeans until I finally kick the bucket. I just don’t know how many more times I can ask pop stars
about their first kiss or whether they used to have lumpy custard at school. Is this an
entrée into serious journalism, I ask myself? Would Bernard Levin ask Harold Pinter
for his thoughts on the lumpy custard of his younger days? Who knows - maybe the
Jackie journalist of today is the Marcel Proust of tomorrow...?
I can but hope.
- 42 -
How French literature might have been so different if Proust had written for Jackie!
26TH OCTOBER: REGGIE BURGER AND THE CRUSTY BUNS
Furious doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel! All this time I have been surrounded by a nest of vipers, clasping the asp to my bosom and well and truly led up
the garden path by a snake in the bloody grass!
‚Fish and chips!‛ I yelled, ‚Fish and bloody chips! Thirty pieces of bloody silver, it should be!‛
I was sitting in the lockup at the time, having had one filthy rotten day of it.
So when Kevin turned up with cod and chips for me and hake and chips for Bert
Snide whose lockup it is, I was in no bloody mood for polite bloody banter, I can tell
you.
- 43 -
Fish and chips.
The day started bad enough when Zanya and the gorilla turned up at half
past eleven. She’d seen my advert in the Melody Maker and so she phoned up yesterday to make an appointment.
‚I feel I have all the talents for which you seek,‛ she burbled.
‚I’m glad to hear it,‛ I wittily riposted, ‚All you have to do is wear a seethrough bra and go ‘Shoo-bop-be-do’ every once in a while.‛
She paused. I got the impression that a thought was struggling into life. Then
she said, ‚Yeah, I can do that. Maybe not straight away. But once I’ve had a chance
to rehearse...‛
However, when she turned up for the interview, I knew right away that she
was not my idea of a Raspberry Nipple. The girls I had in mind were young, creamy
of complexion, rosy of cheek, innocent as the day is long... and if they also happened
to have a pair of bazoomers that could poke your eyes out, that would be a distinct
advantage.
Zanya, to her credit, had the bazoomers but in all other respects she was lacking. How can I put this gallantly? She looked like a trollop. (OK, so maybe there are
some things you just can’t say gallantly). She’s the sort of girl you expect to see leaning in doorways in certain parts of Soho (which, I should hastily add, I do not myself
frequent). She must have been thirty-five if she was a day and she had thighs that
went up to her waist. Of this I was certain due to the fact that the mini-skirt she was
wearing came to an abrupt end about two inches below her hips.
Nevertheless, being a gentleman, I might have been prepared to overlook her
age and her gynaecological mode of dress. What I could not overlook was her
- 44 -
minder, a man whose nose had been broken so many times it no longer seemed attached to any one part of his face but moved around it, slug-like, whenever he
growled in my general direction - which, I have to say, was something he did with
alarming frequency.
‚Hi,‛ trilled Zanya, ‚I’ve come for the job.‛
‚The lady,‛ grunted the minder, ‚Has come for the job.‛
‚Well, I said, it’s not exactly a job, you know, not a hard and fast guaranteed
job, I mean. It’s more by way of an audition.‛
The complexity of the sentence seemed to defeat the minder. He glowered at
me, wobbled his nose menacingly and repeated, ‚The lady has come for the job.‛
Behind me, I heard something move and, turning, was just in time to see a
monumental heap of elasticated corsets tumbling gently to the floor as Bert made an
adroit exit.
But let me not depress you with the remaining dismal events of my miserable
morning. Suffice to say that, somewhat against my natural inclination but with the
firm encouragement of her large and hairy friend, I finally agreed to employ Zanya
as the leading Raspberry Nipple (‘Posh Nipple’ we’ve decided to call her) at a fixed
income of £200 a week with extras due to personal appearances and recording royalties to be negotiated at a later date. It barely needs to be said that I haven’t got £200 a
week to spare and, even if I did, Zanya would not be my preferred way of spending
it. Fortunately, I was careful to avoid giving her my name. The only phone number
and address they have at their disposal is Bert Sneed’s lockup, so that’ll be something for Bert to deal with. He’s got a natural talent with gorillas and women of low
morals so it should be a pushover for him.
Not that there is going to be anything to deal with, it now turns out - not in
terms of Dolly Pop and The Raspberry Nipples, at any rate. That whole glorious vision of my future career in the glittering world of pop impresarioship has come
crumbling down about my knees like an underbaked lemon meringue pie! And all
thanks to Kevin!
‚Take your bloody fish and chips and shove them where the sun don’t shine!‛
I hissed magisterially.
‚I’ll ‘ave ‘em,‛ said Bert who, having already devoured a large portion of
hake and chips, promptly snatched away the cod and chips intended for me which (I
now discovered) came complete with a pot of curry sauce on the side. This, I
couldn’t help but feeling, considerably spoilt the dramatic effect for which I was
striving.
Now you may be wondering why it was that I was venting my spleen in this
manner upon the despicable Kevin. I’ll tell you. It turns out that all this time while
I’ve been labouring night and day to recruit an all-girl pop group, Dolly Pop and
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The Raspberry Nipples, Kevin has been going behind my back and whipping the rug
from under my feet. Or to put it another way, he’s been smooth talking (and not just
‘talking’, if you want my opinion!) Geoffrey - who you may recall is the A&R man
whose record company is, or was, so damn’ keen on Dolly P and the Raspberry Ns and this same slippery Kevin has now persuaded the slimy Geoffrey that it’s not an
all-girl group but an all-boy group that the record buying public craves. And need I
tell you which boy Kevin has in mind as the lead singer?
So the upshot is that Geoffrey has now decided that Dolly Pop and the Raspberry Nipples is a non-starter, dead in the mud and last year’s thing; and what the
screaming hordes of spotty teenagers really want is Reggie Burger and The Crusty
Buns. That, incidentally, is to be the name of the group. Pure plagiarism. I mean, just
because I came up with the ice-cream angle - the Raspberry Nipples - they have to
come up with a hamburger theme - The Crusty Buns. Well, I tell you this: if Geoffrey
knew as much about Kevin as I do, he’d know just how crusty those buns really are!
And I don’t mean that in a nice way...
Ah well, let’s look on the bright side. I’m, well off out of it, I reckon. Show
business, I mean. Pshaw! I shall return now, refreshed, to my true calling - investigative journalism.
So, let’s see what I’ve got lined up for the coming week...
Oh yes, an interview with Jay from Bucks Fizz about her first childhood romance. And one with Limahl about his favourite school meals.
All kissing, cuddling and spotty dicks then.
It’s at moments like these that I feel privileged to have been called to the great
and noble art of Journalism. By Heaven, if journalism was good enough for Jonathan
Swift and George Orwell, it shall be good enough for me!
Continues at: http://www.80sempire.com/neon
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Copyright © 2007 by Huw Collingbourne
The right of Huw Collingbourne to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
You may distribute this PDF file freely as long as you do not alter it, copy from it or modify it in any way.
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