Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #55 (Part 1): 23.12.1982 – Hygge Pop

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Al Needham, Neil Kulkarni and Rock Expert David Stubbs come together to reveal the Christmas Chart Music Top Ten, leaf through a Melody Maker with balloons and a Jam flexidisc on the cover, talk about keeping the electricity on at their house by flogging off armfuls of review copies at the Record and Tape Exchange, and prepare for a grim death-march into a Top Of The Pops from the arse-end of 1982… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi Roger, it's Brian. Look mate, an unbelievable opportunity has presented itself for us. We've been asked to speak to a lot of people at the Podcast Stop Festival at the Kentish Town Forum on February the 13th, 2021 at 2pm. I'll be there. I think you should, too. OK, cheers, Rog. Bye. there. I think you should too. Okay, cheers, Rog. Bye. Hello, Brian. It's Roger here. So that's the podcast Stop Festival at Kentish Town Forum at 2pm on Saturday, February the 13th, 2021, to speak to a lot of people. Okay, mate, well, that sounds like it'll be loads of fun. And I

really can't see anything going wrong at all. Okay, mate, see you there. Bye-bye. Brian and Roger, live at the O2 Forum Kentish Town for the podcast Stop Festival on Saturday the 13th of February. Tickets are available at livenation.co.uk and ticketmaster.co.uk. The following podcast is a member of the great big owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to?

Um, chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop-crazed youngsters and welcome to the latest episode of Charts Music, the podcast that gets its hand right down the back of the sofa on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host Al Needham and by my side today are my colleagues Neil Kulkarni and rock expert David Stubbs. How do you do? David, before we start, just tell the world why you are known as rock expert David Stubbs. The rock expert, yeah.

It goes back to November the 22nd, or 23rd, as to say, of 1997. Early on Sunday morning, this would have been. I just got this call from a geezer called Barry who worked at the Observer. Oh, fuck, what's this about? And I was pretty woozy. I'd had a skinful, as per, and my head was a bit fuzzy. And he just said, Michael Hutchins

in excess. He's died. I was like, ooh. We need some sort of background, some context. We're putting the items to bed. We're putting the piece to bed now, obviously, for the Sunday edition. What do you know about Michael Hutchins? What do you know? What kind of animal was he? What kind of rock and roll animal?

Did he drink a lot? Did he do a lot of drugs? Drugs? I don't know. Not as far as I know. Fuck all about In Excess. So the next morning, and I forget the call has even existed,

the next morning I go out and get the observer, and there it is on the fucking front page. Rock expert David Stubbs says Michael Hutchence never took drugs. Oh, my fucking God. Don't worry, nobody will notice. Everybody notice. Everybody reads the fucking observer, it turns out. It's like Kramer's lawyer in Seinfeld.

This is the worst year of my many humiliations. It's stuck ever since, but what can you do? I really enjoyed that little excerpt. I think that what's nice about it is, as Neil will testify, getting a good copy out of Ozzy Osbourne is like getting the blood out of a stone.

I really got him to talk a bit there. I think that's my brilliant interview, laid-back interviewing technique i think i'll have to tell you my interview with ginger baker actually for the next rocket David Stubbs yeah that's a little bit less loquacious put it that way it's because i love i listened to that all the way through when i was researching the uh for black sabba for the last episode. I'm just sitting there listening to it, going, oh, I know him, he's my

mate. But it just reminded me of the absolute fucking mundane shit you come out with when you interview people. It obviously just immediately gets cut, but that's the goal. Who knew that Ozzy Osbourne sat down with his family with some Linda McCartney sausages?

That's what people really want to know. Yeah. Yes, anyway, that's why I am rock expert David Stubbs. And you, forevermore, you shall be David. Good, good. Anyway, the pop and the interesting things that have occurred of late. There must have been loads of them. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's been really dramatic of late, hasn't it? Yes. Well, I mean, can I just use this as usual, not to say anything pop and interesting, and just use it as a kind of confessional booth, really? Oh, come on. No, not confessional booth. You know, I don't speak to adults anymore,

so chart music is my sole chance to speak to adults instead of my bloody kids. So let me just have a moan. I've got a wasp's nest, right? Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, man right and it's been here since summer I looked at a pest controller but then I had that usual paroxysm of how much because it was going to be awkward bought some powder which kind of worked

but I think they're starting to develop a taste for it now and cold frosts can't kill them what's going on it's this wasp's nest that just won't die I'm almost proud of them but I'm also cognizant that if a new weather resistant kind of winter wasp

is possible then is the future worth proceeding with? and they crawl into the house to die it's like that Civil War scene in Gone With The Wind but with fucking Jasper bastards at the moment, so there's that going on i'm also among the non-furloughed looking at the furloughed with envy and wonder um no and i'd feel remiss if i didn't express solidarity

with my teaching brethren if i didn't say fucking hell what happened to all those long holidays i used to read about in the daily mail about teachers. That's just not happened this year. And things have got so desperate that this... The other week I downloaded a meditation app. So... Oh, God. I know, it's a rocky road. If the next time I come on Sharp Music,

I just say stuff like, hey, guys, it's time you took a long soak in Lake You, then it's... You know, it's time for an intervention at that point and you're going to need to drag me to a cabin or something but I am teaching about interesting stuff I'm teaching like music

history basically so my weekends are spent listening to things like Duke Ellington and Olivia Armstrong and you know I cannot moan about that you know and I was teaching about Alan Freed this week and you know just fantasise that time travel week. And, you know, just fantasize. That time travel thing. You know, when you look at, I don't know,

a picture of Duke Ellington at the Savoy in the 30s, or you look at the bill for an Alan Freed rock and roll road show, you do just start dreaming about time travel and what you'd go back to. I think musically, if I could just choose one, I would go see an Alan alan freed rock and roll road show from the mid 50s because the bills are just nuts it's like chuck berry little richard just you know and you can tell it's not they're not going to hang around doing fucking solos it's going to be like 10 minutes on and then they're off um yeah that would be my dream absolute dream

uh time travel uh in in musical terms We'll be back to the 50s to see an Alan Freed rock and roll roadshow. But who knows how segregation would work with an Asian? Where do we fit in all of that? Yeah, anyway, that's what I've been doing mainly.

And what's this thing about Goodness Gracious Me that popped up on your feed? You've got to tell all the Pulp Craze youngsters about this. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's bizarre that.

Yeah, sorry, that completely slipped my mind out yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's bizarre that. Yeah, sorry, that completely slipped my mind out. But yeah, years and years and years ago. Wait till you hear this, Pop Craig's youngsters. Years and years and years ago. I mean, I loved Goodness Gracious Me,

of course, like, you know, virtually the entire Asian community in this country loved seeing ourselves on the screen. Come on, man, you had to take it off, I thought, Mum.

What more do you want? And mind your language. No, you're right. you're absolutely right but goodness gracious me i just remember there was a sketch in about 97 i think um and it was this song called hindi people it was obviously a takeoff of pubs common people and it was about kind of cultural tourism really it was about uh white people who want to pretend to be asian and have a bindi on and wear a sari and all that sort of stuff a couple of lines really jumped out at me for starters there's a line about studying at the university of york now i studied at the university of york there's a there's a moment where he throws away a cooler shaker record and i'm not saying i'm famous for dissing cooler shaker but certainly you know people knew

i hated that band and then the whole song ends with the line you'll never get with me because i was born in coventry and i was i remember watching this in 97 and thinking that that's uncanny and then thinking hmm do they know me do they you know but you know you don't know i was a kid in coffee occasionally muted commuted out of london and this is pre-internet there's no way of checking this stuff so for 23 you know well actually no yeah for 20 odd years i've wondered was that about me your ears were burning yeah it's too uncanny do you know what i mean especially the throwing away of the kudasheika record and the thing from coventry studying at the university of york it was just too much of a coincidence so i mean the sole benefit i guess i've discovered of the open sewer that is twitter

is that you're able to kind of get in touch with people so i've got in touch with sanjeev baskar rather i posted the video hindi people, and just suggested, I've always wondered whether this is about me. And yeah, he got back. We always knew it was about you. I mean, that's mad, isn't it? Fucking hell. I mean, it's really strange. I mean, it's lovely as well.

But it's a kind of ambiguous statement, the thing he said back, we always knew it was about you. Does that mean it was about me? I can't tell. But I mean, that's too many about me i can't tell but i mean that's too many coincidences isn't it now claim it now i am gonna claim it um which amazes me because you know when you write for the music press especially in the 90s the only feedback

you got was in backlash you know occasionally and on the letters page you get somebody um you know writing it usually to slack him off so this notion that somebody outside of that tidy music press readership was cognizant of me in the 90s to the point where they got a sketch on national television, not based on my life as such, but certainly, you know, that's me. It's mad. I still can't wrap my head around that.

There's one possible connection here. I suspect, to be honest, they just directly knew about you just reading Melody Baker, but I did... Perhaps, yeah. I was vaguely friends and went out for a drink a few times with a guy called Sharath Sadana, who was one of the writers and occasionally appeared on the show, on Goodness Gracious Me. In fact, he was the guy who co-wrote the Going For An English sketch.

Oh, right, yeah. If you remember that one. Yeah, I went out and tried know, if you remember that one. Yeah, you know, he even tried to sort of get, you know, he worked for the BBC at the time and he even tried and failed, mainly because I didn't come up with any good ideas, to try and get some sort of, you know, sitcom type thing that I might sort of do.

But it didn't really come to anything. Garmin and Spinach is still going, David. Sadly, he died when he was about 40. He died quite a few years ago. But, so it might, that might have, like, facilitated the connection. But I suspect they just, I suspect like facilitated the connection but i suspect they just i just bet they just read the maker i suspect they were aware of you that's the bizarre

thing because like you know the the stars of a new asian call who i always had a tangential relationship to anyway uh like bobby friction is my friend now and he said to me the other day yeah i used to read your stuff all the time we knew about you, everyone knew about you that staggers me but it's lovely to hear, it is lovely to hear and I guess, what I've repeatedly said on Shark Music is there's not been any Asian people on Top of the Pots and Freddie Mercury didn't admit to being Asian

we just wanted to see something, I guess for some Asian people at least in the 90s having an Asian writer in the music press did mean something and did matter and they did kind of pay attention, which I mean it blows my mind it really does yeah David your book where is it I want oh yeah yes well I mean there's more work to be done on it but I did have this kind of like Stephen King sort of like write the last paragraph type moment and like have you even told people what it's about yet David yeah well it's a history british comedy um now i did

on facebook um suggest that well i suggest i did write up you know as a kind of sneak preview the last two or three paragraphs which um you know perhaps i can read for you now here as a you know as a heads up for for the pop craze youngsters yeah so it's as far as i set it to some music yes do do yeah something do, yeah. Something stirring. Oh, OK. I thought something a bit jaunty and, you know, comical. No, no, no, I mean, well, put it this way, the working title is We Laughed Away Mr Hitler, We Laughed Away Mr Scargill, A History of British Comedy.

So, you know, take it from there. Anyway, as follows. Well, I hope you've enjoyed the story of British comedy. If we've learned one thing, it's that we Brits love to laugh. If you've not had a laugh before, why not try out some of the comedians and shows mentioned

in this book? You'll find examples of their work on channels like UK Gold, YouTube, or special digital versatile disc editions. Warning, be sure to be sitting near an aisle when you watch them because pretty soon you'll be rolling. Of course, there were all kinds of things you used to be able to laugh at, you know, get fun from, before Mr Ben Elton came along.

I hope you'll find some good examples here of the way things were when you were used to be allowed to smile. See, it was like, goodness gracious, I'm a foreigner, George the stammering half-wit, Nancy boy about the house, and my wife the Nazi. If there's one thing I'd like you to take away, no, not a curry, you can't mention them anymore, is that we British have the unique ability to poke fun at yourselves.

You know, women, whoopsies, northerners and the like. Let's hope that now that we have a true comedian in charge of the country and don't have to send our strips to Belgian bureaucrats for approval anymore, we can get back to those gay days when gay meant what Larry Grayson meant it to mean, not its current meaning.

There you go. Starry star. Now, all I can say is that, you know, it's a process, and it could be that that working title is, you know, dispensed with politically correct reasons, and those paragraphs don't even appear in the book. But anyway, yeah, it's all done. Well, not all done, but it's kind of first draft's finished, put it that way.

Oh, bravo, David. Thank you. Well done. When's it due out? Oh, I don't know. Probably not for about many months, to be honest. Yeah, there's a bit of a backlog at favour. Can I just ask, David?

Obviously, our list doesn't have to be included because I'm curious, basically. Have you got a cut-off date for this story, in a sense, that you stopped writing about comedy from perhaps a couple of years ago? Do you stop in the 90s or 90s? I a couple of years ago. Is that, is that like, do you stop in the nineties or noughties? I do kind of cut off because I mean, you know,

seriously, you know, the idea is, is in fact, political correctness is kind of a hero of the book. I'm saying that like that, the kind of inclusivity and diversity of contemporary comedy, whether it's man,

like the beans and stuff like that, or Debbie Hills, all this kind of stuff, you know, where there's just much broader representation and much more of a naturalistic sense of people's lives has actually lived kind of stuff, you know, where there's just much broader representation, a much more naturalistic sense of people's lives as actually lived, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's more realistic than the kind of speculative ideas

of, like, white sitcom scriptwriters in the 60s and 70s, you know. Yeah, yeah. Pakistanis doing black people, et cetera, et cetera. That's the main thing. But what I've kind of said is rather than go in depth into those series, I don't want to be the kind of the mansplaining guy and then saying that, like, it's probably for somebody else to take up that particular thing. And also, that, like, it's probably for somebody else to take up

that particular thing. And also, that's a history that's still being written, you know, with a lot of these series. They're midway through. So I suppose I kind of cut off, yeah, about a few years ago and then just allude to the way that things are in the present day.

Nothing to report from me. Just doing chart music. That's my life now. And the reason for that is because of the following people. You know who they are. They're the people who we stop, we drop, and we bow the knee to. Yes, they're the latest batch of pop-crazed youngsters

who have put a jingle in our G-string this month. And those people are, in the $5 section, Ted Rogers, Clive Gash, Mark Meadowcroft, Tom Bradley, Douglas Hartley, Tommy D, Joseph Nawaz, Scott Brooks, Fred Loosley, Justin Thomas, Peeps Nibbles, Jake Anthony Eder, Dominic Ellison, Mallon Stuart Dade Joseph Goss Dave Caffrey Sam Varol Victoria Clester Cormac Ward

Anthony Chapman and Thunder Slave Parcel Force Fine people all In the $3 section we have The Castillo Kid and Paul Condon Oh, former leader of the Metropolitan Police has given us $3 section, we have the Castillo Kid and Paul Condon. Oh, former leader of the Metropolitan Police has given us $3. Thank you, Paul.

Oh, and Vic Summers, thank you so much for jacking your donation up. And a special massive tar to Doug Grant, who's kicked in some dollar for a serious drink for everyone at Chart Music this Christmas time. Yes, boys, there is a Santa and his name is Doug. Thanks to all of you. You are a gentleman, Doug. Yes, you're all gentlemen apart from the ladies. We shall glug

at the expense of Doug. Let's not forget, Pulp Crazy Youngsters, that if you are donating to Patreon, if you are donating to patron if you're in the $5 section you've got the full episode right now without any advert

rubbish and if you're in the $3 section you get the full episode without any adverts a couple of days later you get to cram the whole lot into any orifice you choose

which face is what you want yeah yeah yeah oh yeah fuck it no no sitting about waiting for the next bit. Get it down you now, mate. And of course the other thing those people get to do is they get to tinker and a tanker and a

fiddle and indeed they get to have a faddle as well with the sharp music top ten. Here it is, boys. This is the Christmas top ten. Fucking hell. Shall we have it? Yes, we shall. Yes. Hit the fucking music.

We've said goodbye to Fine Time Fontaine, The Treacherous Steph, Suicide Featuring Donna, and Spiteful Armoured Bollock, which means none up, five down, one no change, and four new entries. Down one place from number 9 to number 10.

It's Dave D, Creeper, Twat and Cunt. Last week's number 6, this week's number 9. It's a 6 to 9 for Jeff Settles. to nine for Jeff Sett. It's a six place drop from number two to number eight for Simon Price's arsehole material.

Stuck fast in the number seven slot, here goes Jizzle. It's becoming the dark side of the moon, really. New entry this week at number six, 15 Hitlers. Ooh.

Ooh. Into the top five and down two places from number three to number five, it's Bomberdog. Oh. Last week's number one drops all the way down to number four, CFAX Data Blast. Into the top three, and it's a new entry for rock expert David Stubbs. David Stubbs, excellent. Straight into the chart at number two for Panties, which means...

The highest new entry crashing into the chart at the top, and this year's chart music Christmas number one, James Galway's flute of VD. Wow! Oh, man, what a chart! What a fucking chart that is! What a chart. What a fucking chart that is. What a chart. I mean, Al, you know, disputing your previous comments about panties straight in at number two.

Yeah. I mean. Panties go up. Perhaps this could be used to. Well, use panties. No, fellas. No, no, no. Not at Christmas, Neil. Let me finish.

Let me finish. Perhaps this could be used to actually, you know, get the original panties back together. Oh, you know what? I've spent so much time trying to find out who panties were and what they sounded like. There's a lot of things I need to delete from my Google search to put it that way. Where can I get panties from, 1978?

I think a wave of optimism has taken over the chart music top ten. Spiteful Armabolic dropping out of the chart, man. That's a bit previous, isn't it? Got a feeling they're going to resurface in the new year. Also, sorry, what happened to CFAX Data Blast? Dropped down, mate. Number four. That's a shock.

That's a shock. As much as 15 hitlers in with a bullet. Yeah, what do 15 Hitlers sound like? It's when all I'm seeing is a lie back. Yes. Well, rock expert David Stubbs. I mean, obviously, they're lectures on vinyl, aren't they? I can imagine rock expert David Stubbs issuing an EP

containing a lecture on the origination and progression of the hard-loving woman who goes all night long. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Definitely a chin-stroker, that one. James Galway's flute of VD. Obviously the non-nols have had their say there,

haven't they? Yeah, definitely. James Galway's flute of VD, let's be honest, it's James Galway. So, Pop Crazy Youngsters, if you are not giving us money at the moment and you really want to, and let's face it, you really, really want to, you get them little fingers right now,

you set them down upon your keyboard, you mash, mash, mash patreon.com slash chartmusic and you pledge if you feel like it. There's no obligation, but it'd be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah, definitely. Your soul will feel better. Yes. So, this episode

Pop Craze Youngsters takes us all the way back to December the 23rd 1982 and well, if last episode was a banquet this one's a bit more of a selection box isn't it yeah

not necessarily a cabaret selection box either it's one of them your mum gets from the pan shop and she thinks you're too young to notice but you do notice frankly it's barely even that it's more like a dog shit with a lolly stick in it it's not a great episode.

Yeah, yeah. We were spoilt last episode, weren't we? Very much so, very much so. If it's a chocolate box, there's a lot of coffee flow. This is more like my memories of Top of the Pops, really. It occasioned more thumbs down and kind of scowling than anything else. Yeah, I mean, it's the end of the first year of the yellow hurdle era. And, you know, as we know, 1982, it's been a year of change and progression

in both the charts and in top of the pubs for good and bad. And I feel this episode encapsulates the spirit of 1982 in oh so many ways. Yeah. this episode encapsulates the spirit of 1982 in oh so many ways yeah yeah i it's it's the 1982 that people like me never tell you about yes yeah rhapsodizing about it you know i think actually yes yes there was all of this going on i mean i remember i mean i would have been sort of like putting like together mixtapes and like djing whatever and like you know in many ways to ways to me, 1982 represents an absolute crest for pop. We're going to leap from 82 into 1983. And that was just going to be this glorious, glorious year.

Africa was going to be free. A merman I should turn to be and all that. We're on this cusp of transformation. I think like Simple Minds, Promise You a Miracle and all that kind of stuff. It was teetering on all of that. And it was a tremendous promise. Michael Foote would be prime minister as well, you know, and finally be rid of factorism. You know, just be a kind of just social transformation in going hand in glove with, you know, the kind of great pop aesthetic movements of the day.

And then, I mean, it was a statistic that I read the other day. Ugh. And then, I mean, it was a statistic that I read the other day. I was just looking through, looking at like, percentage of youth vote for conservatives. Now, in the 2019 election,

it was 21% of 18 to 24 year olds voted conservative. Back in 1983, it's 1783, that number was around 42%. Fuck. 42% of young people, of 18 to-year-olds voted for Margaret Thatcher.

And it's just like, God knows where all these people were. They weren't in my bubble. And I suppose I was in a bit of a bubble, you know, because I tried to associate with like minds. Although actually, when I come to think about it, they were hard to find. I was Oxford at the time. I was just in the beginning of my second year.

And now that I do think about it, you know, even something like Simple Minds was considered sort of ridiculously radical. You know, it was like putting Cabri Voltaire or This Heat on, you know, was Simple Minds as far as a lot of contemporaries were concerned. There probably was a lot more sort of conservatism

around at the time. And in a sense, I'm not saying that like, you know, all the kind of, some of the duffers that are on this you know episode tonight very tory but well certainly not one of them in particular um but um but yeah yeah there was a distinct underside to 1982 and i think as al says yes this does speak a truth about the year which i probably wish it hadn't yeah if you want that truth about a year the christmas episodes are always good for that because they're you know they're purely in a sense about figures they're sales figures i mean um so although during the year you're you're able to negotiate the year and avoid things that are rubbish. Any radio choices and you're listening.

At Christmas, you get the big hits, and they're quite often pretty fucking awful, as we'll see. I mean, we've got to make this clear now that this is not the Top of the Pops Christmas episode of 1983. No. It's the last proper Top of the Pops of 1982. And the great thing about 1982 and this period is that by this time in late 1982 the kids have finally wrested control of the charts and top of the pops and michael

hurl have been struggling to keep it a family show but as we all know december's always that month where the non-ons of britain fumbled in their purses at the counter of HMV. Yeah. To the detriment of our weekly dose of pop excitement. And we're going to see a lot of that in this one, aren't we? Yeah. I think, yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. We're going to see the damage that Grandma We Love You wrought.

You know, at this time, I wouldn't really watch much TV, but one thing we've done is congregate the Top of the Pops in the old Union Common Room. And, yeah, it would have been the thing where you would have kind of like, sort of like, give a cheer and a boo, you know, to things that were kind of of our world and things that weren't really, and I just remember in 1982 in general, yielding a very high

hit rate, you know, there might be, you know, if you were feeling generous, you might let Haircut 100 in or whatever, yeah, because anybody wrote about them once, you know, things like that, but it was generally, you know, you might get 13 or 14 cheers out of an episode, you know. I whatever, yeah, because the enemy wrote about them once, you know, things like that. But it was generally, you know, you might get 13 or 14 cheers out of an episode. I think you're absolutely right, Al. It's the grannies, isn't it?

It's them going to the record shops. Yeah. And possibly picking out what they think might be good gifts for their grandchildren. Yes, there's a prime example of that, isn't there? Yeah. Oh, gotcha. Come on, let's a prime example of that, isn't there? Yeah. Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Come on, let's get stuck in. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, I'm Justin. And I'm Lucy.

And together we are the hosts of Plenty Questions. It's a very straightforward general knowledge quiz. We ask you 20 questions, one after the other, five second gap in between, and you shout the answers out. And then you tweet us to let us know how you got on. See if you can get 20 out of 20. No one has so far. But that's because we haven't started doing it yet. But we will. And there's also going to be some fiendish brain teasers.

So join us for Plenty of Questions. Radio 1 News. In the news this week. Well, the USA announced that their first batch of cruise missiles are fully operational and have started leaning hard on the Thatcher government to get them installed at Greenham Common before the CND movement gains momentum in the UK. Meanwhile, women from the Greenham Common Peace Camp have infiltrated the base of Saturday Night Disco, have danced with assorted GIs,

and reminded them that they're living on a prime target for Soviet nuclear missiles. According to The Guardian, one of the disco raiders said, when they found out we were from the peace camp, one of them buried his head in his hands and said, Jesus Christ. the peace camp one of them buried his head in his hands and said jesus christ they seem friendly but seem scared the officers would discover who we were fucking hell that's a that's a play for today right there isn't it freedom common people if you will turkeys have been withdrawn from sale in harrods and a walrus in Liverpool after an anonymous phone call from

someone posing as a member of the animal rights activist group claimed that they'd been laced with paraquat. Police later announced it's a hoax. Margaret Thatcher has invited a special guest to stay with her at Chequers for the entire duration of the Christmas holiday, Jimmy Savile. In an interview with Gloria Hunniford, Savile says he can't wait to have a break from being Britain's most prolific sex offender for a while, but will be nipping out to the nearby Stoke Mandeville Hospital to give out sweets to poorly kids at some point in the week. Keith Richards has got married to Patti Hanson in Barbados. Keith Richards has got married to Patty Hanson in Barbados Sweaty paedophile minor royal Prince Andrew

Has been discovered building a love nest Around the corner of Buckingham Palace With the actress Koo Stock The BBC have announced the presenters For their forthcoming breakfast TV slot Which starts next month Frank Boff and shaking Diana herself Selina Scott

Tottenham Hotspur have announced the imminent return of Osvaldo Ardiles from his spell at Paris Saint-Germain who he moved to in the wake of the Falklands War but the big news this week is that smash hits have just announced the results of

the 1982 readers poll, shall we play a game champs? Yes please I'm always rubbish at these but go on yeah have just announced the results of the 1982 Reader's Poll. Shall we play a game, Chas? Oh, yes, please. Oh, God, I'm always rubbish at these, but go on, yeah. Best band? 82. For 82.

It's got to be Duran. Yeah, I'm going to say Duran. Duran, Duran. Yeah. Best male singer? Well, Simon Le Bon. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go Simon Le Bon too. Simon Le Bon. Hmm. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go Simon Le Bon too.

Simon Le Bon. Yeah, I mean, how would it not be? Best female singer. Oh. It's going to be something like Tracy Ullman or something, isn't it? I think it's either Claire Grogan or it might be Annie Lennox. I'm going to go Claire Grogan. It's too early for Annie Lennox. Oh, God, yeah, it is too early. Toya.

Toya,a yeah of course fucking hell side out best single oh well what was 1982 was it

there was a reflex that year no that was 83 wasn't it it wouldn't have been anything good it's not going to be Scrooge Litty

or whatever like it should have been something by Duran Duran yeah because I mean Rio comes out in 82, doesn't it? So I'm going to go for the title track. Fuck it, Rio. Save a prayer.

Okay. Best LP. Okay, I'm going to go Rio, Duran Duran. Me too. Rio, Duran Duran. Most promising new act. Oh, 82. Oh. 82.

Hmm. It wouldn't possibly be Bow Wow Wow, would it? It's a duo. Oh. Oh, wham. 82. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Yeah. They were just beginning to break at that point. I'm pretty sure. Tears for Fears. Oh, right. Most annoying record. I'll give you a clue on this one. It wasn't a number one, but it was the follow-up to a number one.

It's a good clue, Albert. I'm still not the wiser, to be honest with you. Was it the follow-up? Winifred's, whatever, followed that up. They did a follow-up to that, didn't they? No. Yeah, I give up. They did a follow-up to that, didn't they? No. Yeah, I give up. What by Captain Sensible.

Happy Talk was number two. Best radio DJ. 82. David Kijensen. Steve Wright. Mike Reed. Mike Reed. Who Wright. Mike Reeves. Mike Reeves. Who fucking made it? Jesus.

And the best TV show? Who? Tis was. I reckon Top of the Pops. Top of the Pops. Of course it's Top of the Pops. How obtuse of me. On the cover of The Enemy this week,

Paul Weller in a nice John Steed outfit with the hook of an umbrella around his neck. On the cover of Smash Hits, Tears for Fears. The number one LP at the moment is the John Lennon Collection. The singles, The First Ten Years by ABBA, is number two. Dig the New Breed, the live compilation by The Jammers, is at number three. And the highest placed proper LP is Rio by Duran Duran at number four. Over in America, the number one single at the moment is Manny to by Hall & Oates. And the number one LP in America is Business As Usual by Men At Work for its sixth week.

It would spend 15 weeks at number one in america that album so me dear boys what were we doing in december of 1982 well i would have been about 10 um so really my memories of course of this time december are very very christmas related and to do with the presents that i wanted and the presents i was hoping to get i remember that december being quite a snowy one yes although that yeah it was wasn't it i'm not just imagining that i remember it being a really snowy one um and i seem to recall it being the year of just yearning yearning yearning for an astro wars um it was the year that came out and i so wanted it for christmas

and um no the happy ending to this story i did get it um it was the following year with the power pack this time with the power pack the following year i was getting confused with the zx spectrum because i think i got that the following year yeah but yeah no it's all about the astro wars that year it was a year in which i think i was already in a sense i mean i was being tutored in music by my sister as usual she was a big duran fan and i wasn't that into duran so i started exploring the older music that she was bringing up it was very much an era pre me playing an instrument of me having a tennis racket and pretending to play guitar and having that pop fantasy of being in all of these bands so in my head i ran a kind of reel where in the 60s i was in the rolling stones and in the 70s i was you know this strange kind of idea that i

could be in all these bands that was then only followed of course by the white there's no more incandescent fury than when you realize that when you've been dancing around with a tennis racket playing to you know playing a guitar that your mum has been watching you for five minutes, grinning. So, yeah, I think it's the start of that thing that, you know, being 10 is a great age, actually, because you're not a kid no more, really. And you're kind of, you're not a moody teenager yet, but I do recall a lot of door slamming and kind of, you know, sticking the Vs up at the door afterming and kind of you know sticking the visa

but the door actually it slams you know what i mean so um yeah i mean a very it was a blissful time actually uh 1982 and it's like i've just moved to the very house that i'm sitting in now um i'm just settling in it was nice it was quiet nice snowy winter i've got really good memories of 82 i never used a tennis racket when i was um playing guitar because i didn't have one did i have a cricket i think i had a cricket bat so cricket bat yeah uh but what i had was um me dad who was um working as a removal man so he'd bring any crap that was being chucked out. My mum vetted it to decide whether it was good for the house or not. We have those old school warming pans. Oh, right.

Yeah. The ones that warm up your bed. I saw it more as a bass than a guitar. Yeah. And my mate once came calling for me around about 1980 and caught me directly in front of the mirror, giving it proper musician comforts to the baseline of fashion by david bowie and so for the next four years until we left school every now and again if he wanted to wind me up he'd just look at me and just go beep beep and piss himself laughing and see my

face go red and it was just a thing between me and him it was never revealed why that would set me off he never said anything i certainly never said anything so so there you go yeah if you are using a warming pan as a base pop crazy youngsters make sure all the curtains are drawn what about you david i was going to say i would i bet you use the edge of your bed as a keyboard didn't you when you were listening to faust and all that i was going to to say, I would never have used anything, a bedpan or a tennis, as a guitar, because guitars were raucous, they were phallic, and if you're going to listen to guitar

or pretend to play guitar, you might as well have been voting Conservative, as far as I'm concerned. None of that for me, no. I was a bit of a soul boy at this point, but also into, like, kind of all kind of avant-garde stuff. Avid reader of NME, the sort of avant-garde ending, and Morley's, and Penman's, and forming it.

And also into that kind of new pop thing, ABC's, Scritti, and stuff like that. And he genuinely was a golden time. I mean, obviously it helps when he's at a certain age, you know. Yes. One thing at that point is I would have worn his shirt and tie every single day. Wow. At that point. I've never done it since.

Now I try and dress like some sort of sports direct kid. People might think I'm 38 as opposed to 58. Pathetic, really. But then it was a matter of pride. I remember going to a fall gig in 82 around that time, dressed like that, tie, very neat and clitten. Marky Smith, I can't remember what the song is or what the lyric was but it's very sardonic of some sort of like type you know that he despises that's sort of festering and like you know marinating one of his lyrics

and he said and then he looks directly at me in the audience said he's here tonight he's gonna wear a tie you know that's brilliant i remind him that because i interviewed him a few times and he didn't remember but um yeah the strange thing was a tie, you know. That's brilliant. I remind him of that because I interviewed him a few times and he didn't remember, but, yeah. The strange thing was I probably felt, you know, highly attuned to the world because it was the kind of, you know, felt like the avant-garde end of things. But I was probably, I think that you and the age that you guys were were probably much more connected with stuff as it actually was

because, for instance, I didn't watch television at all at that point or barely watch television. You know, I didn't know what, all yeah or barely watch television you know i didn't know what like kids shows and stuff like that there's all kinds of signifiers and things from the early 80s i just don't get because i was in this slightly kind of rarefied atmosphere um so yeah but that was that yeah that wasn't that was me in 82 and um yeah and you know i did have a good time i have to say december 1982 is my period of mourning over the jam. Done, mate.

Who have just played their final gig. So I'm sitting at home in my bedroom, rinsing Dig the New Breed, the posthumous live LP, which was only the second jam LP that I could, you know, actually buy and consume at the same time as everybody else just lying on my bed listening to it thinking i'll never see them ever oh mate i know halfway through the third year at comprehensive school and on the last day of term a week before i got done yeah this was the time of the milk advert yeah a lot of bottle and uh i started singing sir has worked in a lot of brothels

just dragged on to the staff room and made to sit outside and he said i'll come and talk to you later and i'm sitting there outside the staff room just wondering what's going to happen to me all the teachers are filing in laughing and pointing at me going oh you're here again are you merry christmas and all this and every time the door opens i notice that the tables that they've set up are being absolutely weighed down with beer and wine because they're having their end of term piss up and every time the door swings open there's more and more booze and and the pool of fag smoke gets bigger and bigger and i i end up sitting there for two hours i'd just been forgotten about and then all of a sudden the teacher that done there he comes

out absolutely pissed out of his face to get in his car and go home and he he just turns around he stares at me and then he says, Merry Christmas. Now piss off. And that was it. That was the first time it actually occurred to me that teachers didn't really give a toss about you. I always used to think that my teachers would be lying in bed thinking, oh, I'll need him. Oh, he infuriates me so. Why doesn't he knuckle down and get a better grade and all this kind of stuff? Because you just think that your teachers teach us do nothing but but think about you and get angry about you and think of ways of fucking your life up no they don't give a shit actually yeah just want to get pissed up and

cop off with each other and smoke loads of fags yeah yeah i mean i used to have this misapprehension that you know for quite a long time i was probably about 15 or 16 before I was disabused of it, that teachers hated holidays because teaching was essentially their life. And like, you know, when you weren't a teacher, they were just like, we'll be hanging in a cupboard or something like that. Yeah. And, you know, I always felt slightly like my joy at the holidays is always tempered by the fact that it's going to be rubbish for you teachers, isn't it? You know, you're not doing the thing that you're supposed to do. But I think Neil possibly, you know, spare't it? You're not doing the thing that you're functionally doing. But I think Neil possibly, to bear me out of it, that's perhaps not the case. Well, absolutely not

the case. But I mean, it's so changed. I mean, you know, the staff room, when I was a kid at my school, the staff room, I'm not saying it's some sacred place, but we didn't exactly get to see it, do you know what I mean? It was a place that you sat outside waiting to get bollocked, and it was down a the corridor you didn't really know what went on in that room whereas now you

know if i need a chat with a student i do have to take him to the freaking staff room and and it i know no privacy no more god no no i used to think that the school staff room would be like full of globes and and scrubs and dictionaries and stuff like that you know be an extra place of learning no it was just full of fucking cans of long life and wine boxes yeah yeah ashtrays endless amounts of ashtrays the the ability to smoke inside an educational institution i only tasted that for two years when i started teaching in 2005 but so much shit gets sorted in the smoking room always does but that hallowed ground of the staff room

that slight sense of mystery with teachers we're not allowed to have it in a sense we've got a glad hand we can't rise above we have to kind of be friendly it's part of the movement towards customer service notions of education but I remember the staff room just being this hallowed slightly scary place um it's part of the movement towards customer service notions of education i think yes um but

it's yeah i remember the staff room just being this hallowed slightly scary place that you certainly didn't want to go into or look into but was intriguingly mysterious yeah i mean there were some pretty fearless types at my school like this kid called kevin burke you know we had a french teacher who's quite tall he had a big bill and like is at the height of like you know it's 1977 i remember he put a safety pin right through his nose, he was called Big Bill, and like, he was at the height of like, you know, 1977, and remember he put a safety pin right through his nose, and it was all kind of scratching and bleeding, and he came out of the staff room, and he shouted at Big Bill,

punk rock, you know, and we thought, God, you know, and that's how, but he would never have thought, or even dared actually sort of like, gone into that staff room and like, you know, even then, I mean, even someone like Kevin Burt knew that the staff room was absolutely sacred and out of bounds you know that you know you'd probably get flogged or something like that they probably sort of wheel out some sort of like you know

sort of punishment equipment from billy bunter's ear or something like that if you were to dare you know unprecedented yeah no currently currently when you're sat in a staff room and the door knocks you have to answer it and it's usually a. And they can see you through the glass of the door, so much so that I actually blocked it up with the newspaper. Just so it retains some sense of privacy. That's like going to a restaurant and thinking you can just walk into the fucking kitchen. Well, the reason being, I didn't want them seeing what was on the whiteboard, which was just a list of students that we all fucking hated.

So, yeah, we can retain a bit of it, but, yeah, increasingly, no, we're kind of out and visible. I think teachers benefit from that special place where they can just talk honestly, have a fag as well. That used to make a big, big difference. Passing round the ready roll. This is it, this is it. But, no, that's all gone now.

But if you watch any of those educating series Essex, Yorkshire, I'm just absolutely Astonished by them as they're in Christ alive Things have really really moved on over the last Three or four decades When I think about really what went on in my school In particular in the 70s all of my moaning About Ofsted that invariably as a teacher I always do, thank fuck for Ofsted

Because when schools weren't inspected and they were just allowed to fucking get on with it well it covered up a lot of horrible shit so it's probably a good thing about the more openness but I think the staff room should still be a place where when you open the door all that comes out is

the smell of sour defeat rage bitterness and you know and fag smoke basically incidentally out just a little side you mentioned getting done got done and we got done in leeds in the 70s i just wonder if it's something that's spread down to carpentry did you used to get done yeah no absolutely yeah just usually i got done you know full stop yeah stop. Okay, yeah. I mean, truth be told, I stand outside my daughter's school every day and listen to all these year sevens coming out and year eights, and don't ask what that means, but basically little kids and big kids.

But basically, you'd be glad to know, kids are still swearing. Kids are still being horrible to each other. Kids are still hitting each other. Same old shit's still happening. Don't think that kids are coming out joyfully talking about education they're coming out calling each other

cunts and whores and bastards and shits and all of that it's all the same stuff do they still stand around in circles spitting into a kind of communal pool of

phlegm oh yeah boys still gather in circles absolutely yeah that still happens yeah the other big event of this month of course is that I'd gone the week before to the Please still gather in circles. Absolutely. Yeah, that still happens. Oof. Yeah. The other big event of this month, of course, is that I'd gone the week before to see E.T. with my mates. Did you cry?

Because it finally came out in the UK. American pop craze youngsters, they won't get this at all. But, you know, back then, the release dates in Britain and America were just fucking months and months and months apart. Because E.T.'s a summer film in America and to us it's a Christmas one. More of a Halloween

one actually. As we've pointed out in a previous episode E.T. ruined Halloween. It's where Halloween is birthed in this country. E.T. ruined Bonfire Night for everyone. Yeah, totally. Actually, I say we went to see E.T. We actually went to the ABC to point and laugh I say we went to see E.T. We actually went to the ABC

to point and laugh at people who were crying at E.T. You bastard! I don't remember much of the film, but I do remember my mates pointing and doing that snappy finger thing whenever we saw someone roaring and going, Ah! Shame! And people telling us to fuck off.

Shame was the not-so-good version of Bad Skip. Oh my God. I mean, I didn't see many films at that point, but I did see E.T., yeah, with a girl who cried.

You'd have probably been very cruel to her, Al. Shame, guys. And I'd have to sort of say something as well. I'd have to stand up to you. It's always funny that when aliens

come down to Earth, they always end up in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's never Bangladesh or... Or Basingstoke. Hungary or anywhere like that, is it? Or here, or Britain. Yeah, no, of course not, no.

Because if you're an alien, you're obviously an intelligent being. You just go, I'm not going near America, they've all got fucking guns. Let's go to Britain, we'll batter them cunts. What have they got? Death stars. The best thing i got out bt and this is a genuinely sublime artifact is um an electro funk classic by the extra t's called um et boogie great stuff if you know that yeah yeah all that reminds me because it ran about this time i was going to rock city on a saturday afternoon because they had a uh kids disco sometimes hosted

by dale winton wow and i remember him playing that song and saying have you seen the film yet and me sort of half putting my hand up because i hadn't really i'd seen people crying at it the other thing i really hate about et is it's his fault for fucking m&ms being so popular in this country and they're shit give him some revels you know because sometimes you get an orange, and they're shit. Give them some Revels. You know, because sometimes you get an orange one and they're nice, and sometimes you get a coffee one and they're not so nice.

That would have taught E.T. more about humanity, I think. Having a daughter, I've had to go to Eminem World in Leicester Square. Why? I don't know. I mean, we never had Revels World, did we, in the 70s? No, we didn't, no. But Eminem, I mean, it's a shame. We never had Revel's World, did we, in the 70s? No, we didn't. No.

But Eminem, oh, God, it's just... Well, yeah, I mean, normal M&M's not as nice as Smarties and peanut M&M's not as nice as Treats. No, exactly. Treats were fucking gorgeous. I loved them. Yeah. And they were three times the size as well.

Quite right. God, we're a bunch of old bastards, aren't we? Yes, we are. But we're right. Revel's World World I would have gone there I must have yeah different

zones an orange zone a coffee zone yeah yeah Revel's World would be you go there and it changes every day

so you don't know what you're going to get yeah you might get that really weird minstrel without the candy shell that always used to pop up in a revel as well.

Alright, and Pulp Crazy youngsters, you know how we go about at this point of the proceedings. We're going to rummage through a box or two and pull out an issue of the music press from this very week. And this week, I have gone for Melody Maker of December the 18th, 1982.

Boys, shall we leaf through it? Oh, yes. On the cover, Shalimar with Jeffrey Daniel in full kilted regalia, underneath some painted-on balloons because it's the Christmas edition, plus a cover-mounted flexidist of the jam playing Move On Up live in Japan. Oh, yes, i bought this at the beginning of there's some english voice going yuko say say issue bin oti toti the jam it's only japanese i know that cover is pretty damn garish melody maker went through a strange phase at this stage um

just about two a couple of years earlier it it had people like John Savage and Chris Bourne writing for it, and it had that kind of sort of gravitas and big page features about this heat and Cabri Voltaire and all that kind of stuff. And then I think a conscious decision was made to steer it in the direction of being an inky smash hits, which, as we saw in its very last incarnation, is not something anybody in the world really wants.

And I think sales may have started to tumble at this point. And it's definitely a world away. I'd definitely abandon Melodomaker at this point for NME. There was a world between them at this point. Was that change signified by the change in the masthead? Because that MM masthead that I'm seeing there... This has always been a problem, right? MM.

Now, the trouble is, I think there's always... It's hugely fateful, actually, in terms of the acronym. N-M-E comes out really nicely as an acronym. N-M-E. And so they were able to ditch this whole ridiculous stage, New Musical Express, you know, with that six-five special type connotation. M-M.

It just doesn't slip out in the same way. And so it tends to get saddled with Melody Maker, you know, and all the connotations of 1926 and edgar shepard and all that kind of stuff in the news the rainbow in finsbury park has been taken over by squatters it's crass and some of their mates who are planning to stay there for a bit as a protest against their latest tour being cancelled, over the release of How Does It Feel, to be the mother of a thousand dead. There were 30 of us. We went in through the emergency exit. We did no criminal damage,

and we can't be evicted because the courts have closed for Christmas, says band guitarist Andy Palmer. Anyone who hasn't got anywhere to stay can stay with us. There's plenty of room the heating electric and hot water are all on and we're quite comfortable they plan to play a free gig at some point but after being forcibly evicted after melody maker has gone to press they end up squatting in the abandoned zigzag club in westbourne park and have a lovely time. Good old... Merry Crasmas.

There's just a couple of little things leap out from me at that. There's almost like something quaint, for instance, about how does it feel to be the mother of a thousand dead? It's a bit like that moment in the Austin Powers film where Dr. Evil, he's been defrozen and he says, and I will blow up the world unless I receive one million dollars.

You know, a thousand dead. It's just like, come on, man, that's not very much. You know, these days, you know, war crimes, you're talking, it'll be 100,000 dead. You know, it's almost like simpler, quainter, small scale times, I guess. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And the squatting and all that is really cool. I mean, you know, it was such a moral panic about squatting, I suppose, well, especially in the eight, in the seventies. I remember, you know, it was such a moral panic about squatting, I suppose. Well, especially in the 70s. I remember there was an episode of Bless This House where Sid leaves, you know, he leaves after a while and then somebody just strolls in because he's left the door open

and he squatters right, you know. That's what we went through in the 70s. It was a reality of suburban life, you know. Heavy Metal Records announced that they have no plans to withdraw the lp cover and accompanying advertising for their latest release death penalty by style bridge band witch finder general the lp which features page three lovely joanne latham sat on a grave with her jubblies out surrounded by the band in civil war costumes on the front and joanne all stabbed up and dead on the back caused a string of complaints to the advertising standards authority

after it featured in a free magazine given away by hmv the labels say that the cover is quote merely a reenactment of a factual event which took place during the 18th century when the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins led a reign of terror against women of the day and is in the best possible taste. Unbelievable. I'll tell you what, Neil. Carol Clarke would have been working on the news desk at this point, assistant news editor.

I can just imagine her sort of raucously chuckling away at this story. It's got all kinds of fingerprints all over it, the whole thing. Definitely. But I mean, it's a time, I think, the early 80s in particular, where metal is on a mission to outrage people. Because I think Venom have basically up the stakes here. Because Venom are coming out with songs called Fuck Off and Die

and things like that. So it was definitely becoming that music that was unsafe at this period by the way death penalty by witch fighter generals are fucking terrible that album but is it well they're from stourbridge for fuck's sake you know i mean enough said but i mean you know it's a pretty awful record but metal i was i was picking up a few metal mates by now even though i was only 10 um of course, for a 10-year-old, all of this stuff is just delightful and stuff that you're interested in, but it's also slightly forbidden. It's kind of percolated down from older brothers

who were into this shit. But yeah, that's definitely happened in this period. And it's a period of maximum outrage, especially for British provincial metal bands like Witchfighter General and Venom. They're at peak ridiculousness at this era. Yeah, it's a bit smell the glow, isn't it? So what you're saying is that if you're going to own six Witchfinder General albums, this wouldn't be one of them.

No, bypass this one. Five bouncers at Elton's Disco in Tottenham are in court accused of attacking members of Modern Romance. According to the prosecution, the group, who were there to celebrate lead singer David James' birthday, were told to stop singing along to the songs being played at the disco. And after former frontman Jeff Dean

was escorted from the premises, an argument ensued, and one of the defendants is alleged to have said, get the tools. Quote, total mayhem ensued. Former drummer Kevin Steptoe was struck in the face with an ashtray, James was biffed and Dean was

told, shut up or I'll cut you by the helpful staff. The trial concludes in the new year. Fuck me. God, man. Who'd want to beat up modern romance? Yeah, but this is the weird thing, though. I mean, probably, they were probably a fairly

sort of predictably soft target, but you didn't necessarily mess with the old new romantics. You know, people like Chris Sullivan out of Blue Rondo of the Turk. You know, he was quite a hard case. Boy George came from a boxing family. And I tell you, like, 1982, I would have gone to, like, the warehouse in Leeds, and everyone's in top hat and tails. They're all fucking hard northern bastards, you know,

sort of steal-my-pint types. Yeah, so, yeah, could have all worked out differently, this one. That story's just a great advert, isn't it, for Elton's disco in Tottenham? Yes. Must go there. But, I mean, of course, this is the day, these are the days, when ashtrays could do some proper damage. Oh, yes.

Big, weighty glass things or, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the idea of, like, drummer Kevin Steptoe being the kind of Steptoe grandson, you know. Yes. Oh, it could have carried on, couldn't it? Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, at Snaresbrook Crown Court,

a judge dismisses a case of handling stolen goods brought by cbs emi and polygram against cheapo cheapo records in soho and the woodford green vinyl scrapyard the labels are claiming that the free records given away by them to disc jockeys and music journos still belonged to them and could not be sold on but the judge ruled that they were talking bollocks polygram have responded by saying they'll be reviewing their system of sending out promo copies in the new year that would have affected your lot big star wouldn't it oh i was just going to say this is a landmark ruling for people in my world people will literally have died if it hadn't been, you know. How much extra money on the side were you making a week from your review copies?

I think it depended on your scruples, basically. I mean, some people made an awful lot. I probably might have made about 150 extra, which is pretty modest. There are a lot of people who are doing a lot better. And I think in the 90s, I think there were certain people who just did the rounds of, you know, all these old companies like Phonogram, EMI and Warners and just came away with loads and loads of promo stuff

and they went directly around to, you know, just to flog it in Burroughs Street. Record and tape exchange. Record and tape exchange, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or wherever's doing the best rates, yeah. I mean, some people were very, very unscrupulous about it. I was moderately unscrupulous, but people would have died if it went with this yeah they starved to death god bless the qc in this case because i mean you know

that stuff it kept my lights on on several occasions you know in the night it kept my kids fed no genuinely i mean it i wasn't one that that sort of used to deliberately ask for promos just for this purpose but i kind of build up a backlog, you know, like about three, four months worth, and then I'd get rid. And it will always be at that moment that invariably happens with any freelancer's career, when, you know, you've got, like, two weeks to go until you might get paid, and you're completely brassically skinned. It was a godsend.

For me, it was a place called Entertainment Exchange in Nuneaton. It did necessitate going to Nuneaton, it did necessitate going to Nuneaton but I was in out quick before I caught nits but it was you know without that my god without that judgement in fact I mean I would have really struggled a lot

I think throughout the night What's the naughtiest thing you've done then with promo records? What do you mean? What do you mean naughty? you mean naughty what do you mean well in the sense that you know you you sold something on before it actually officially came out oh that could have happened yeah yeah i've sold a few things that when um the industry got wise to all this that things were getting flogged on um especially in the late nights i noticed a

lot of cds turning up and tapes turning up that were watermarked. And what I mean by that is, yeah, I mean, some of them actually had the insertion of kind of messages. This is a promo copy from, you know, and all of that. Penthouse used to get loads of tapes sent, but I think Penthouse was pretty low

on the record company's list. So we just got tapes with just white noise every 30 seconds. Because honestly, they go, well, it's a wank mag, isn't it? They're not going to fucking... Who cares? Who cares what they think? But in terms of the actual bootlegging, I mean, it was never journalists.

Journalists would have known how to sort of, like, you know, do all that kind of stuff. It was... I remember one time, I got a weird one like that. It was a Tory Amos album, and they sent it over. It was just welded into a dissonant type thing you couldn't get it out of there so they basically

sacrificed a dissonant just for the sake of a promo copy it was extraordinary that's crazy much of being on a desert island is that washers all about they did try everything because I remember interviewing bands and towards the late 90s a a thing started happening, especially with big major labels.

They'd invite you to interview a band and they wouldn't send you a promo. What they'd do is they'd put you in a room beforehand with something on a mini disc or something like that. And that was your sole access to it. And you had like an hour to listen to it and write down the questions. And that was it. They tried everything. I mean, for for me the golden age of getting this shit was not actually cds it was that beautiful little window in a sense for me it's very evocative um sort of early 90s to mid 90s of course that's resonant for me but it was those tapes those

black tapes that you only got from record companies. It's tape promos that I really miss in this era of download codes and streaming and all of that. I really miss those tapes. It was thrilling getting those, and brilliant for having a Walkman and stuff like that. Yeah, because, I mean, in the early 90s, I worked at the Record and Tape Exchange for a while, like half of London did.

And I became on nodding terms with one or two music journalists who were just bringing in armfuls of this shit and the minute they came in the staff would descend upon them because they were you know to them there were minor celebrities but also more importantly they had good shit that you actually wanted i didn't get descended on by anybody in the record and tape exchange 15 quid is generally what i got offered for my box full of things what was the most you ever got then for one item oh god i just sent used to send them off as a job lot i did actually once get um i did get a promo cassette of what's the story morning glory which had the track that they

had to take off because it was so obviously a rip-off of um stevie wonders uptight as it kind of stepped right and i think i might i think i managed to sort of get about 25 quid for that at some point but that's that's you know pretty pitiful really yeah it was a job like it was always for me it was kind of like here's a box you deal with it i'll come back in half an hour and tell me how much you know you're offering and then. And then a bit of borrowing. But I wasn't in a position to, you know, argue the tarsal sense. I needed to get my electricity back in my house. Do you know what I mean?

It was always that kind of thing or feed my children. Also, in the mid-90s, drug habits serviced as well. Yeah, I mean, there was some, you know, mentioning no names, but there was some pretty desperate. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. It's it's instant yeah it's an instant little baggie if you can take 200 promos down there record and tape exchange yeah you're sorted for quite a couple of days i guess and the british invasion of 1982 culminates with the weekly world News reporting on Boy George, who they call a slinky songbird who drives British teen boys wild. Is it a her, a him, or is it neither?

reports the supermarket tabloid. This kind of sexual mix-up could create an entire generation of homosexuals, said a concerned parent that they made up in the office on deadline. In the interview section, well, two pages are given over to photos of the last ever jam gig at the Brighton Centre, which mainly consists of the band members sitting on their own smoking fags and an untouched cake.

Paolo Hewitt reports that it wasn't the show many expected or wanted. The band played up too much to the audience, and ultimately it was the audience who let them down by throwing bottles and rubbish, prompting an angry Bruce Foxton to shout, I want to remember this last gig for the good moments, not the bottles. That's as heart-rending a live moment as Robert Plant's Does Anyone Remember Laughter?

That's really poignant. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are in town to play some gigs at the venue, and Ian Pye gets to knock about with them. They get massively confused by the bidets in their hotel bathrooms, assuming they're for washing babies in, but are dead impressed at the changing of the guard.

They tell him that it makes a nice change to play in countries that have gun laws, because in New York, if an ashtray drops on the floor, everyone thinks it's a gunshot and they all leg it out the building. I would have seen them play on this tour, actually. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

I remember they do a kind of mock stage fight at one point with baseball bats and it was actually pretty scary. And I was actually for about a good minute or so convinced that there was genuinely kicking off on stage. That record, though. Grandmaster Flash that year, the message. I often trace back my love of hip-hop to that moment when i'm in a back of a hillman in um on an upward slope in the snowy december of 1982 and the message comes on and i'm not going

to say my whole life started there but in a way it did um you know in a sense that was my first my first signifier that rap music was not just going to be this fad of pop, but was just going to be this thing that was amazing by itself. Yeah, I'll never forget that moment. Steve Sutherland draws the short straw and ends up in a hotel bar with Bow Wow Wow, who have just finished an acrimonious divorce with Malcolm McLaren and have got a cob on with the music press.

What you saw, air quotes, pop stars, asks Sutherland. Well, they provide you with a living for a start, hippie, snaps Matthew Ashman, and the conversation goes downhill from there. Annabella Lewin asks which paper this interview is for. Hippie Weekly, says Ashman. Witty stuff. The male members of the band take turns to

call malcolm mclaren a cunt brag on about how many women they've knobbed in 1982 and say that annabella is as dumb as she looks which causes her to storm out in tears ashman goes after her then comes back claiming he's just shagged her in the toilets and locked her in as Sutherland sees her putting her coat on and storming out onto the street. It's in between us stuff, isn't it? Yeah. That's fucking horrible, isn't it, that? That's really, yeah.

It's really horrible. It's funny, the only remotely thing, it's strange, I mean, Steve Sutherland calling Steve Sutherland a hippie. I mean, in terms of, like, look and demeanour, no one was less hippie than Steve Sutherland on this planet. And in terms of like look and demeanour no one was less hippie than Steve Sutherland on this planet and yet at the same time he was a huge deadhead yeah it's odd

Steve always looked like he should have had like 72 whole ducks on yeah you ever had a chippy interview like that where someone just wants to have a go at the music press yeah I mean nothing so bad as this to be honest actually I don't know I seem to have a very disar music press. Yeah, I mean, nothing's as bad as this, to be honest, actually. I don't know, I seem to have a very disarming interview style and I don't seem to sort of wind people up somehow, you know.

I did a little bit with the bloke out of Gay Dad. Right. But that interview was a disaster. Who was a music journalist. Yeah, this is it. But he took that kind of confrontational... I mean, some bands do make that decision, but what they normally can't cope with

is when you just answer back, you know, and you tell them to fuck off, et cetera, call them a cunt. They can't deal with that, really. So that normally gets you out of that situation. I think one of the most disillusioning things for me when I first went into music journalism, I thought that you could have really good sort of spirited,

you know, not necessarily sort of nasty confrontation, but spirited argument, debates with bands, you know, really get sort of nasty confrontation, but spirited argument debates from bands, you know, really get to define their terms, put them on the spot, whatever, give as good as you got, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But you just realise that the bands generally just weren't up to it. And in the end, you just end up sort of, you know, these sort of limp wretches, you know, helping them kind of limp through the whole process.

And sometimes, actually, if they couldn't come up with anything better than yeah or no, you'd actually say something quite detailed that they might want to say about themselves that's kind of quite eloquent and descriptive of them. You'd put that in it. And if at the end of it they went, yeah, then you'd actually resort to pretending they actually said it.

And there's all this stuff about, you know, they took us out of context. No, we took you out of context and made you look intelligent is what we did 95 yeah no absolutely the only complaints i've had post interviews from bands when they've seen the stuff in print is when i've made them sound good you know because they were so fucking boring whereas if you went if you i don't know usually it's it's the ones who fancy themselves as articulate actually who often aren't and it's your sean riders who give as Articchio, actually, who often aren't. And it's your Sean Ryders who gives you just gold, you know, just naturally. And the heavy metal people, always.

Oh, yeah, they're always a hoot. Paulo Hewitt stays in Brighton to greet the breakout band of 1982, Shalimar. Geoffrey Daniels tells him about how his look has been influenced by British bands like Hazy Fantasia, Culture Club and Fashion and he's only nicking back the black hairstyles that they originally copped off the Americans. He also expresses bemusement about how British bands love slagging each other off while American groups like them are all nice religious boys and girls. Seven months later Daniel will break the news that Shalamar had split up

in his next Melody Maker interview. Oh, Shalamar, here too briefly. I know. I did spend many months of 1982 failing to moonwalk, I have to say. David Frick examines the cultural phenomenon of the year in music, the British Invasion. He deduces that while punk kicked over the apple cart over here, causing labels to sign up anyone and anything in fear of missing out, it did next to fuck all in America, a country still in its 70s hangover, and only the black radio stations are picking up on British electropop. He concludes with the prediction that the taste for British bands

will either die on its arse in America very soon, or those bands will be forced to compromise and become the new dinosaurs. I think what's interesting for me, actually, is that he's kind of right in the sense that punk wasn't this kind of seismic BCAD event it was in the UK for various kind of cultural reasons. I always think that, like, you know that retrospectively, I think the pistols were respected, but possibly for Steve Jones' guitar, they were almost like this

hard rock continuum that was Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, Nirvana, as if it was all part of the same thing. The idea that it represented this cultural rupture doesn't seem to have quite occurred. But he's right, isn't he, in predicting predicting that there come the new dinosaurs

and it's America in a sense that does that to some of those bands you know you go from I don't know say Depeche Mode 8182 on top of the Pops and then you see them what 3-4 years later in those documentaries you know counting out the thousands of dollars backstage that they're

making at these huge huge stadium shows that they weren't playing in Britain before. So he's spot on there. He's spot on, especially with Depeche Mode, who I, I mean, I've just, it's astonishing. I've never been able to kind of quite figure out how that happened to them, you know, and what the kind of little shifts and things were

that they made, you know, from the very earliest sort of incarnation. And then to become that, it's, you know, much as I've read about it and it continues to mystify me, actually. I'm not anti-Depest mode, I'm not a huge fan, but it's extraordinary. Talking of which, Paul Simper meets a flock of seagulls at a pizza land in Liverpool who are back in town for Christmas. And he sits back as they give it the large one at the local bands who used to look down their noses at them

and make cawing seagull noises at them in the street. When asked about their ridiculous amount of success in America, frontman Mike Score puts it down to the fact that, unlike other bands, they put the graft in over there, they're not arty and they actually love gigging and being in america when asked about his ambitions for 1983 score says a new hairdo yeah colin irwin wins the raffle and bags a trip to barbados to meet its newest and most famous resident eddie grant he spends his first day looking on in terror as fellow junket member

mike of roots magazine batters the locals at paul keeps his distance from mike malloy of the daily mirror who has put a dog lead on a massive turtle and fails to get locals to pretend that they're taking it out for a walk for a photo and then watches him get pissed up in a nearby hotel bum rushing a local covers band and forcing them to do proud mary while he whirls the mic around like roger daltrey in the actual interview grant tells him that he thought two-tone was musical masturbation believes that while the clash and rockers revenge have covered his songs with respect other bands have given his songs the musical equivalent of Rockers Revenge have covered his songs with respect, other bands have given his songs the musical equivalent of herpes,

co-stamp Bob Marley for allowing himself to be publicised as a spliffhead, and calls the rock and roll ethos a pile of crap. I'll tell you what, there was no bloody raffle. Every few years, the Eddie Grant trip, you know, the Barbados, was something that senior

editors availed of. A few years later it was trip the Barbados was something that senior editors availed of a few years later it was Alan Jones suddenly declaring a love for mainstream reggae that had never been particularly specific in his writings skanking around the office yeah I think I'll have this one

absolutely shocking stuff I'm surprised by Grant saying I mean if two tone is musical masturbation, that's not a wank I want to have. That's not a leisurely wank, is it? No, it's frantic. It's frantic and, yeah, you end up shooting your butt into a pork pie hat. No, thank you. I don't get that at all.

Singles reviews. Well, there aren't any this week but the melody maker single of the year is the message by grandmaster flash in the furious five and the lp of the year is sulk by the associates excellent choices both yeah yeah that's again you know yeah impressed again yeah yeah i was i was so snobbish though at this point that the message was almost becoming a cliche you know because it's been so sort of revered you know and um i also have to think about fascist groove thing they're muslinian records like that you know and i had to be kind of sort of find it more obscure than now you know you and the df i went to 23 skidoo you know if i

the message by grandmaster flash you know i went with how are we going to make the Black Nation rise and all that kind of stuff. Painful boy, but excellent suggestions. In the LP review section, well, as you'd expect, there's not much out this week. So the main review is given over to Carol Clark raving about Pissed and Proud, the debut live LP by, quote, the thick-skinned, cider-soaked Walt Disney's of punk,

Peter and the Test Tube Babies. The babies are brash and blatant and barbaric, larger than life in a curiously down-to-earth manner. They are, in my humble opinion, one of the most entertaining punk bands in the country, and this album merely confirms it i've spoken before about what a hero carol clark was to me but but i just want to say it was the anniversary of her passing recently and i had i had never ever read the initial piece that got her in at mm that you

know the diary of a of a northern irish music fan right um that. And it's just, it's a wonderful piece. I could, you know, I read it the other day and I could just really see why she got hired. I think she was great. I think it was quite early though. Wasn't it something like 1972?

She was only a teenager. It was very early, yeah. I mean, and she just, she just sent it in on, you know, she just sent it in almost like a letter. And it's just a brilliant,

vivid piece. A wonderful piece, yeah. Paul Simper takes one look at the track list She just sent it in almost like a letter. And it's just a brilliant, vivid piece. A wonderful piece, yeah. Paul Simper takes one look at the track list of the new Al Green LP, Precious Lord, and is horrified to discover that it's tainted with the musk of stars on Sunday. But once he tucks in, he's delighted to find, quote, a lovely collection of songs which will undoubtedly move some people while simply being enjoyed by others. Wonderful turn of phrase.

Yes. However, it's a coat down for main attraction, the eighth album by Suzy Quatro. According to Brian Harrigan, she was never convincing as a rock and roller in her heyday, and now that her tough lady in a tough world approach has been completely superseded by the likes of Girl School, who really know how to rock hard, this LP doesn't help matters. The songs are, without exception, weak and badly pieced together,

pallid pop masquerading as something more muscular. Harrigan suggests that her and Len Tucky should check out the new sounds of metal to put some fire back in their veins. She should do a cover with a bloke on a grave with his knob out and her hammering stakes into his chest.

And Brian Case froths at the mouth with Glee live at the Albany Empire by the Flying Pickets. There isn't a dud here or any number that isn't performed without wit and great musical skill. Buy this album to help you through Christmas and make it a New Year's resolution to see them as soon as possible. The best around. Brian Case, they're predicting next year's Christmas number one.

Yeah, not bad. It's funny with Brian Case because he was a staff writer at Melody Maker, but he'd really been sort of hired in its jazz era, you know, when it was still covering a lot of jazz, which it still was in the late 70s. And I think by 1982, really, he was peripheral really, but he still had this, he was still sitting on this staff job and he was still there in 1987 Like you in the 90s then

Yeah, exactly, pretty much I'm a bed blocker But I eventually got his job, yeah Finally, he went over to Time Out in 1987 and when Napster became vacant I joined the staff of Modemaker, staff writer, and as you point out yeah, squatted on that to the utter disgust I'm sure of the likes of Melody Maker, a staff writer, and as you point out, yeah, squatted on that

to the utter disgust, I'm sure, of the likes of Pricey and Taylor for another decade. It's startling how pop all of this is, considering that Melody Maker, I don't know, a matter of four years before would have had, I don't know,

fucking Uriah Heep on the cover or something. It's a real change around. In the gig guide, well, David could have seen the Damned at the Marquee, Iggy Pop at the venue, Elton John at Hammersmith Odeon, Kajagoogoo at the Brixton Ace, Shack Attack at Wembley Conference Centre, Twisted Sister at the Marquee, or Jabba at the Stockwell Plough, but probably didn't.

Is he not? Taylor could have seen Southern Death Cult at the Birmingham Gold Eagle, Dire Straits at the NEC, the Meteors at the Powerhouse or Slade at Birmingham Odeon. Neil could have seen Poison Girls at the Coventry General Wolf

and fuck all else. Sarah could have seen Ozzy Osbourne at Leeds Queen Hall, Killing Joke at the Leeds Warehouse, Robert Plant at the Warehouse, Blamonge at the Sheffield Lyceum or Show Waddy Waddy at the Scarborough Futurist.

Al could have seen Thomas Dolby at the Asylum, Echo and the Bunnymen at Rock City or gone to Derby to see Simple Minds at the Assembly Rooms or De Montfort Hall in Leicester for White Snake. In the letters page, woman in the letters page miss mj beason headmistress of copleston high school ipswich writes to carol clark regarding her recent interview with the addicts pointing out that the zimbabwe chant on their new lp sound of music was not written by original frontman nile core as he claimed whilst waiting outside the huts to go into lessons, a large

group of 13-year-olds developed the chant under the leadership of another lad. Nile was just one of the crowd of bystanders. Sorry, Nile, you borrowed it, and we don't mind the least bit. As the Romans said, let justice reign

though the skies fall. Oh, imagine being shown up by one of your old teachers. Your paper has been reported as suffering a severe drop in sales recently, says Terence R. Ball of Accrington, and a likely contributory factor springs to mind. You hardly, if at all, cater for those of us out there who are over 16 a very large number of artists from the 60s and 70s are still working live and on record are very successfully too ever seen an empty seat at a shadows gig for instance not your scene

yeah not not catering for artists from the 60s and 70s. I don't suppose Mojo and Uncut get many letters like that these days. And all the other letters are too boring to read out, so I won't bother. So there we go. 80 pages, 70p. I never knew there was so much in it. So what else was on telly this day? Well, BBC One kicks off at 20 past nine

with Bugs Bunny's Loony Christmas Tales, where Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig and Tweety Pie re-enact a Christmas carol. Then after a quick blast of The Wombles, Cheryl Campbell, Roger Daltrey's Mrs and McVicar, reads Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen in Jackanore. After Why Don't You, it's Battle of the Planets, Play Chess,

and then the 1945 Johnny Weissmuller film Tarzan and the Amazons. Isn't that a completely different continent? It is, actually. You might as well have a go at the fucking Eskimos while he's at it. How does Tarzan get there? A very long rope.

And a very tall tree. After the shortly unheralded film Beware of Redheads, it's News Afternoon with Richard Whitmore, Regional News in Your Area, Pebble Mill at One, and Chigley. At five past two, it's the 1948

adaptation of Anna Karina starring Vivian Leigh. Then it's regional news in your area, Play School, Mighty Mouse, Jeremy Irons reading The Small Miracle by Paul Gallico in Giaconore, the final part of Huckleberry Finn and his friends, Blue Peter, then Paddington, the evening news with Richard Baker, regional news in your area again, nationwide, including the final of the nationwide

carol competition live from Norwich Cathedral, and they've just finished Tomorrow's World, where Maggie Philbin, Peter McCann, Kieran Prendergill and Judith Hand find out how dangerous the seasonings are in your Christmas dinner. I know. I love that.

I mean, it's 1982. Not fucking very, I would imagine. An excess of parsley in the sauce, perhaps. Sauce of cancer. It's thrillingly 1982, though. I noticed Battle of the Planets there, my God. Of course. I mean, my daughter curses me at the moment

because last week I introduced her to the theme to Battle of the Planets, the theme to Jason and the Wheel Warriors, but most earwormy of all, the theme to Ulysses 31. One of the greats. BBC Two commences at 11 with Play School and then closes down for two and a half hours. At 2pm, it's international cycling from Goodwood, followed by Robert Birchfield,

editor-in-chief of the Oxford English Dictionary, in conversation with Bernard Levin in the Levin interviews. This is Christmas, for God's sake. We're all sitting at home, needing to be entertained, and they give us this. I disagree. It was great sometimes when you used to get things like Ken Burns is the Civil War and stuff like that,

doing that Christian crude at about 11. Yeah, but get things like Ken Burns is the Civil War and stuff like that. Doing that Christian Prude at about 11. Yeah, but this ain't Ken Burns the Civil War, is it? No, no, it's Bernard Levin. It's someone who runs a dictionary having a chat. Yeah. You know, kids and parents to inherently mistrust those kids who actually look forward to the Royal Society Christmas lectures.

Oh, man. But they were no help with the vaccine, were they? After that, it's Arthur Negus in Joys, which features him looking at some ceramics in Temple Newsome. That's followed by part three of the Michael Bryant adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and at five to four, it's the 1959 Peter Sellers film Carlton Brown of the FO. Then the short film Wings and Things about model aircraft. Then the natural history quiz show What on Earth?

The Jeremy Beagle and Clive Doig invention show Eureka! The News. And they're about 25 minutes into the Charles Lawton version of Mutant Air on the banter. ITV. Start the day at half nine with sesame street then truman capote's reminiscences of growing up in small town america in a christmas memory then mick robinson makes up some exotic cocktails and party favors in the free time christmas show

after arc stories it's get up and go. Sefton, A House Old Name, a documentary about the horse that survived the Hyde Park bombing. The News at One, regional news in your area. House Calls, a documentary about three youths studying at the Royal Ballet Lower School called I Really Want to Dance. Johnny Mathis Sings Christmas. Take the High Road. The Harlem Globetrotters meet snow white a christmas

carol concert from the free trade hall in manchester then the news at 5 45 and regional news in your area kevin and glenda have misgivings about their new lodger in crossroads not much happens in emmerdale farm and they're 10 minutes into the remake of The Lady Vanishes, starring Elliot Gould, Sybil Shepard and Arthur Lowe. Channel 4 is still not bothering to run anything in the day, waiting until a quarter to five to get going with the 1922 Buster Keaton film My Wife's Relations. After Cartoon World, David Wilkie shows us how to do the backstroke without smashing your head into the side of the pool in Splash.

Then Judge Wapner returns for another episode of People's Court. At half past six, it's How to Succeed with Sand, which looks at new technologies in the world of granular material and the issues raised by it. And they're currently midway through Channel 4 news. Oh, how to succeed with sand. Good old Channel 4.

It's not exactly festive fare, is it? But, you know, overall, you could plot a pretty decent, you know, if you skip from Channel to Channel, give Burned Eleven a swerve and perhaps the Harlem Globetrotters meeting Snow White. And you've got a pretty decent... Don't you want that? That's the fucking highlight of the day, as far as I can see. Yeah, you would lap it up, but you know, not too bad, you've got your Bugs Bunny, you've got Laurel and Hardy,

you've got the very last ever silent film which is an odd thing, you know, they have it on ITV. You've got Buster Keaton, Carlton Brown of the FO, and that remake of Lady Vanishes isn't too bad, it's got Arthur Lowe in it I've seen that before and this is one of the things when I wrote the book

is that of course, even back in 1982 you're sort of sitting scrolling around the four channels of a day and you'll collide with stuff like Buster Keaton Laurel and Hardy but that was then and that was what my generation people younger than me grew up with

but Alicia, my daughter, whatever, today, I mean, she'll never collide with those things. And there's this whole vast tranche of, like, history of comedy that is just going on watch. Laurel and Hardy haven't been on telly since 2004, not mainstream telly. So, yeah, it's a real pang of nostalgia, actually, a genuine wistfulness on this occasion, yeah.

You need that kind of mix of boredom and a dearth of channels to stumble across stuff like that. Totally. Which just doesn't exist anymore. But I have to admit, it's not exactly festive fare across those four channels, is it?

I mean, it's the day before the day before Christmas. Yes. You know, I'd be getting tremendously excited, but I wouldn't be finding that mirrored on the telly at all. I need to know what happens in Snow White meets the Harlem Globetrotters. Fair enough, fair enough. How does it get resolved?

I mean, I presume the Globetrotters are the dwarves kind of characters, perhaps. I've no idea. And if they're the dwarves, Snow White must be fucking enormous. Yes, exactly, yeah. And what happens at the end? Do the Harlem Globetrotters climb up a ladder and slam Duncan Apple into the witch's mouth or whatever happens in that?

Yeah, yeah. I like the sound of the people's court. I don't remember it, but it's obviously precursor to Judge Judy. I think that could have been... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, yeah. That was one of the things that I was really excited about when Channel 4 started up. Let's bear in mind, Channel 4's only been going

for about seven weeks or so. If that. So yeah, People's Court was one of the things that was like, oh, look at those crazy Americans. This is what they do. And we could watch it on our telly.

And then Channel 4, they started doing the Gong Show as well, which was fucking brilliant. Yeah. Hated the British version of it. Yeah. Not even Frankie Alwood could make a go of it. But it did give us that amazing bit of footage of Tony Blackburn dressed as Superman singing Land of Hope and Glory while roller skating and falling on his arse and disappointing Barbara Windsor again.

All right, then, Pulp Crazy Youngsters. I do believe that we peeled off the flimsy plastic covering of the selection box we're about to tuck into. So we're going to leave it there, and we're going to come back tomorrow and get stuck into this episode of Top of the Pops. So my name's Al Needham. That's Neil Kulkarni.

Cheers, Al. And there's David Stubbs. Here we go. And we'll be right back here this time tomorrow. So sit tight, listen keenly stay pop crazed sharp music my mate bought a toaster we go through' Amazon purchase histories so you don't have to. Keep calm and love Dom Jolly novelty key ring.

Yeah, I love that. And fridge magnets. Yeah, I love that. The G-spot. The good vibrations guide. Green dot laser sight rifle gun scope. I've bought that quite a lot of times. Right, okay.

The sex doctor's guide to keeping it hot. Oh, interesting. Did another child come along nine months later? Yeah. Loads of great eps up now, and new ones dropping every Monday. That's My Mate Bought a Toaster from Great Big Al. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's.

It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.