Timeslip moment again - and
The Liberator's teleportation device has landed us once more into the spookily familiar-yet-somewhat-alien world of the UK in 1978; a year of strikes, including firefighters, bakers (which led to bread rationing) and at the BBC, culminating in the "Winter of Discontent"; a year of civil wars including in Zaire, Comoros, Angola and Afghanistan; the year of
Space Invaders, the Amoco Cadiz disaster, Ian Botham, Disco, The Camp David Accords,
Watership Down, skateboards, P.W. Botha, the murder of Aldo Moro, Saatchi & Saatchi, Anna Ford,
Dallas, the theft of Charlie Chaplin's coffin, curly perms for men,
Strawberry Shortcake, the murder of Nancy Spungen by Sid Vicious, Freddie Laker, and Bob Marley's
One Love Peace Concert; the year that Nicole Scherzinger, James Franco, James Corden,
Smash Hits, Vanessa-Mae,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the first computer bulletin board system were born; and Robert Shaw, Michael Bates, two Popes (Pope Paul VI and John Paul I), Hollywood studio mogul Jack Warner, the Ellice Islands (which became Tuvalu), Harvey Milk and Golda Meir died.
In the news in August
forty years ago: gunmen opened fire on an Israeli
El Al airline bus in London, the world's first test tube baby Louise Brown's birth still obsessed the tabloids, the first balloon successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and there was mass speculation over whether the incumbent PM Jim Callaghan was going to call a snap election in the autumn (he didn't, and lost spectacularly to Maggie Thatcher the following year). In UK cinemas:
Revenge of the Pink Panther,
Thank God It's Friday. On telly:
Seaside Special,
Petrocelli,
Captain Pugwash, and the 3,000th episode of
Crossroads.
And in our charts this week in August 1978?
Grease fever was upon us, despite the fact the film was yet to be released in cinemas (it arrived in September), as John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
You're The One That I Want had only just been toppled from the Number 1 slot after
nine weeks by The Commodores'
Three Times A Lady. Pushing hard for pole position were Darts, Boney M, Justin Hayward, 10CC, David Essex and Cerrone, and also present and correct were Clout, A Taste of Honey and City Boy. But one song that still stands out from the rest was this little novelty number...
Surely a stylistic influence on BritPop (if not
yesterday's boys Oasis, certainly upon Blur and Pulp) - here's the lovely Graham Fellows... aka Jilted John!
I've been going out with a girl
Her name is Julie
But last night she said to me
When we were watching telly
(This is what she said)
She said listen John, I love you
But there's this bloke I fancy
I don't want to two time you
So it's the end for you and me
Who's this bloke I asked her
Goooooordon, she replied
Not THAT puff? I said dismayed
Yes but he's no puff she cried
(He's more of a man than you'll ever be)
Here we go, two three four
I was so upset that I cried
All the way to the chip shop
When I came out there was Gordon
Standing at the bus stop
(And guess who was with him? Yeah, Julie, and they were both laughing at me)
Oh, she is cruel and heartless
To pack me for Gordon
Just cos he's better looking than me
Just cos he's cool and trendy
But I know he's a moron, Gordon is a moron
Gordon is a moron, Gordon is a moron
Here we go, two three four
Oh she's a slag and he's a creep
She's a tart, he's very cheap
She is a slut, he thinks he's tough
She is a bitch, he is a puff
Yeah yeah, it's not fair
Yeah yeah, it's not fair
(I'm so upset)
I'm so upset, I'm so upset, yeah yeah
(I ought to smash his face in.)
(Yeah, but he's bigger than me. In't he?)
(I know, I'll get my mate Barry to hit him. He'd flatten him)
(Yeah but Barry's a mate of Gordon's in'e?)
(Oh well, I don't care)
I don't care
I don't care
Cause she's a slag and he's a creep
She's a tart, he's very cheap
She is a slut, he thinks he's tough...
FORTY YEARS ago? Sigh.