Bedsit-land, my only home

Timeslip moment again.

For the last time this year, we've hitched a ride with the Time Bandits all the way back to 1981 - the year of New Romantics, Bucks Fizz, Charles and Diana, the Space Shuttle, Brideshead Revisited, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, Vienna, the "Yorkshire Ripper" trial, Danger Mouse, John McEnroe, Brixton riots, Ghost Town, The Humber Bridge, Kim Wilde, Bette Davis Eyes, London Marathon, Greenham Common, Toyah, Bob Champion, Gregory's Girl, Indiana Jones, Shakin' Stevens, Moira Stuart, Game For a Laugh, Ian Botham, Kenny Everett, Stars on 45, Chariots of Fire, the Sinclair ZX81, the Birdie Song, the NatWest Tower, Chi Mai, Bob Marley, IRA hunger strikes, Smokey Robinson, Aneka, Rupert Murdoch, Dynasty, the SDP, Hazel O'Connor, Coe vs Ovett, Anwar Sadat, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Adam and the Ants, Ken and Deirdre, me leaving school, and much, much more besides...

In the news headlines in December '81: the coldest temperatures and heaviest snow-falls since the 1870s across the whole country, the first cases of AIDS diagnosed in the UK, endless speculation about the death of Natalie Wood, the Penlee lifeboat disaster, the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador that left 800 dead, martial law imposed in Poland in resistance to the rise of Solidarity, and the election of Arthur Scargill as President of the National Union of Mineworkers. In our cinemas: Gallipoli; Lady Chatterley's Lover; The Fox and the Hound. On telly: A Fine Romance; The Borgias; Kessler.

And in our charts this week forty years ago? That old Latin smoothie Julio Iglesias was celebrating his first and only week at the pinnacle; also present and correct were Miss Diana Ross, Queen and David Bowie, Earth Wind and Fire, the naffest-of-the-naff Modern Romance, and (aargh!) Cliff Richard. But then, there were these classics:

A favourite wank fantasy shirt...

Haircut 100 - Favourite Shirt

...and an icon:

Soft Cell - Bedsitter

However... just crashed into the Top Ten was this one, destined to sweep all before it and grab the coveted Xmas #1 slot!

The Human League - Don't You Want Me

Ah, happy memories. I was eighteen.

Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone

Timeslip moment again...

...and back we swoosh once more to 1981, a landmark year pour moi. I had just started my first job (in the clerks' office at the Magistrates' Court) in October, and my new-found spending power happily coincided with a whole swathe of music for me to spend my pennies on!

New LP releases in October forty years ago included Depeche Mode Speak and Spell, Human League Dare and The Associates Fourth Drawer Down and what was to become the UK's best-selling record ever, Queen's Greatest Hits [and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's Architecture and Morality was on pre-order]...

In the news headlines? Norman Tebbit's famous "get on your bikes and look for work" speech at the Tory Party conference, an IRA nail-bomb at Chelsea Barracks killed two civilians and injured 40 people, the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by members of his own armed forces, The Unabomber, CND, the judgement in the European court that Northern Ireland's laws criminalising gay sex contravened the European Convention on Human Rights, and the death of the telegram after 139 years. In our cinemas: The Fox and the Hound; History of the World: Part I; Endless Love. On telly: Bergerac; Tenko; and my favourite-ever series Brideshead Revisited.

And what of our charts this week in '81? The mighty Adam and the Ants Prince Charming had just been dethroned after four weeks at the top, and also present and correct were The Human League, Toyah, Depeche Mode, The Police, Bad Manners, Godley & Creme and Ottawan - but, holding off the onslaught of the fuckin' Birdie Song [to the mass applause of a grateful nation; it never did hit #1] was this magnificent cover of one of Leslie Gore's campest moments:

Dave Stewart with Barbara Gaskin - Its My Party

Love it - but four decades ago?!

---

Footnote:

Stars of 1981 Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet, Neil Buchanan (of children's TV show Art Attack!) and mullet-wearing DJ Pat Sharp are all 60 years old in October 2021, joining a mass of '80s "names" who've already passed that milestone this year - including Alison Moyet, Suggs, Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, Gillian Gilbert of New Order, Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals, Duran-Durannie Andy Taylor, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz, Lloyd Cole, Keren Woodward of Bananarama [and bandmate Sara's 60 in December], Olympians Fatima Whitbread and Carl Lewis, Heather Locklear, Christopher Atkins, "Curly Watts" in Coronation Street Kevin Kennedy, Harry Enfield, Eddie Murphy, Maxi Priest, Boy George, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears, Woody Harrelson, Catherine Oxenberg, Enya and Michael J. Fox... Terrifying.

Take my tears and that's not nearly all

"What we're gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time."*

Yes, folks, another timeslip moment beckons - and off we hurtle yet again through the mists of time four decades to the year I turned eighteen...

In September 1981 - apart from the strange sensation that for the first time I did not have to go back to school - the news was full of frothing headlines about the arrival of the "Women's Peace Camp" at Greenham Common (proposed site of a US Cruise Missile base) and about the "decimalisation" of petrol and diesel (now to be sold by the litre, not the gallon). Also in the headlines: the continued rise of the Social Democratic Party (with the defection from Labour of the sitting Islington MP) and its alliance with the Liberals (which prompted the notorious speech by their leader David Steel: "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government"; it never happened, as Maggie Thatcher's Tory party remained in place for the whole decade), the salvage of gold ingots worth £40 million from the wreck of HMS Edinburgh off Norway, and the massive free concert in New York's Central Park given by Simon and Garfunkel; in the ascendant were Cecil Parkinson (who became chairman of the Conservative Party), and Belize (which gained independence from the UK); the first Boeing 767 aeroplane was "born", but we bade a sad farewell to "Young Mr Grace" from Are You Being Served? Harold Bennett. In our cinemas: An American Werewolf in London; The French Lieutenant's Woman; Escape to Victory. On telly: the debuts of Only Fools and Horses, Danger Mouse, Bullseye and Postman Pat.

And in our charts this week four decades ago? Adam and the Ant's Prince Charming had just crashed in at #2, destined to dominate our consciousness for months to come, mainly thanks to its magnificently camp video [which I realise to my surprise I have never featured on this blog before; and, even more surprisingly, there's only a lo-res version on YouTube]:

Adam & the Ants - Prince Charming

All present and correct was some fab stuff from The Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Gary Numan, UB40 and the Rolling Stones, and also - ahem - Cliff Richard, ELO and Aneka's bloody Japanese Boy.

But holding onto the top slot for a second (and final) week was one of my all-time favourite songs - and the stirring of my foray into the world of hair-dye, eyeliner, diamanté, pegged trousers and pointy shoes had begun...

Soft Cell - Tainted Love

40 years on, and this choon is still a mainstay of all our parties [although the dancing to it is nowadays much creakier], and every time I hear it I still do that "wrists together" action Marc did on Top of the Pops.

Time flies when you're having fun...

[* The "back, back into time" quote and clip above - as used by Johnny Walker in the intro to his Sounds of the Seventies show on BBC Radio 2 - is an extract from Troglodyte (Cave Man) by The Jimmy Castor Bunch.]

Transitions to another place

It's my birthday today - and, as is my wont, I'm taking another trip down memory lane to the year I turned eighteen [and a year I have been featuring at irregular intervals throughout 2021], 1981!

Forty years ago, the media were still rammed full of Royal stories and features and souvenir pull-outs in the wake of the wedding of Charles and Diana at the end of July. In the headlines: IRA hunger strikes, the second escape from Broadmoor maximum security hospital in a matter of weeks, escalating tensions between the West and Gadaffi's Libya, the trial and conviction of John Lennon's murderer Mark Chapman, Moira Stewart became the UK's first black newsreader; and a small local cable station called MTV was launched in the US, prompting the massive rise of the music video [we had to wait a further six years before the station arrived in Britain, however]. In our cinemas: Raiders of the Lost Ark; Herbie Goes Bananas; Time Bandits. On telly: That Beryl Marston!; Three of a Kind; Miss Morrison's Ghosts.

My eighteenth birthday chart was not the greatest line-up of that year of faboo music, however... Shakin'-bloody-Stevens was at #1 with Green Door, holding off the equally dreadful Happy Birthday by Stevie Wonder, and there were not one, not two, but three of the then-ubiquitous "dance-medley" records clogging up the charts, in the form of Stars on 45, Tight Fit and the Royal Philhamonic Orchestra's Hooked on Classics. There was some redemption in the presence of Spandau Ballet and the Specials in the Top Ten, with Bad Manners, The Jacksons and Sheena Easton making up the numbers.

However, just outside the Top Ten a group of fresh-faced youngsters from Basildon in Essex were [like me] just embarking on their eventual world-conquering journey...

Depeche Mode - New Life

I stand still stepping on the shady street
And I watched that man to a stranger
You think you only know me when you turn on the light
Now the room is lit, red danger

Complicating, circulating
New life, new life
Operating, generating
New life, new life

Transitions to another place
So the time will pass more slowly
Your features fuse and your shadow's red
Like a film I see, now show me

Complicating, circulating
New life, new life
Operating, generating
New life, new life

Your face is hidden and we're out of sight
And the road just leads to nowhere
The stranger in the door is the same as before
So the question answers nowhere

I stand still stepping on the shady street
And I watched that man to a stranger
You think you only know me when you turn on the light
Now the room is lit, red danger

Complicating, circulating
New life, new life
Operating, generating
New life, new life

It seems like yesterday.

Where did all those years go?

We danced and sang, and the music played in a de boomtown

Another mini-timeslip moment, dear reader and - as I am focussing on this milestone year throughout 2021 - we're hitching up our Viv Westwood kilts and hurtling back to the misty, distant world of 1981 again...

At this time of year forty years ago, I would have been in the midst of my final A-Level exams, counting down the weeks until I left school and entered the "adult" world. In the news headlines in June: a teenager was arrested after firing blanks at HM The Queen as she rode to the Trooping of the Colour parade, the first cases of AIDS were reported in America, John McEnroe's angry outbursts at Wimbledon caused outrage, the NatWest Tower was formally opened in the City of London, there were riots in Peckham and Coventry, the Israeli Air Force bombed a nuclear reactor in Iran, HMS Ark Royal was launched, the world was gripped at the attempted rescue of a six-year-old boy who had fallen down a well in Italy (he unfortunately died), and the Liberal Party and the SDP formed an alliance. In our cinemas: the premiere of the Bond film For Your Eyes Only; Circle of Two; The Postman Always Rings Twice. On telly: Razzamatazz; Private Schulz; Maybury.

And in our charts this week four decades ago? Smokey Robinson's Being With You was at the top, about to be deposed by Michael Jackson's One Day In Your Life. Also present and correct were a few corkers including Adam and the Ants, Hazel O'Connor, Odyssey and Ultravox, and quite a slew of dross from the likes of Shakin' Stevens, Champaign, Kate Robbins and the godawful Teddy Bear by one-hit-wonder Red Sovine.

However, just debuted outside the Top 20, and destined to sweep away all before it for the rest of the summer was this all-time classic...

The Specials - Ghost Town

This town, is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place, is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor

Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang, and the music played in a de boomtown

This town, is coming like a ghost town
Why must the youth fight against themselves?
Government leaving the youth on the shelf
This place, is coming like a ghost town
No job to be found in this country
Can't go on no more
The people getting angry

This town, is coming like a ghost town
This town, is coming like a ghost town
This town, is coming like a ghost town
This town, is coming like a ghost town

Where did those forty years go..? Sigh.

[Ghost Town was voted #2 in the Guardian's countdown of "the 100 greatest UK No 1 singles" last year (beaten only by Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls) - read more.]

You'll never be in doubt, that's what it's all about

French fashion model turned New Romantic chanteuse Ronny, acolyte of Steve Strange, was a striking figure even among the most stylish of the "Blitz Kids". Then, as quickly as she arrived, she disappeared from view. So who was this mysterious woman who captivated me so, and where did she go?

I have been doing some research...

According to Discogs:

Club entrepreneur Rusty Egan met Ronny in the Paris club Privelege and co-produced with Midge Ure her first releases. Vangelis, Georg Kajanus and Peter Godwin also produced for her.

Quoted in an article in Electronics & Music Maker magazine in July 1982 (as transcribed by Mu:Zines magazines archive), she said:

"I was in Paris dancing and modelling, but getting fed up with the whole thing and decided just to stop everything and go into something else - I wanted to explore my voice and link this with the use of electronic music. Apart from Jean-Michel Jarre in France, I could hear this music coming from England. I wasn't attracted to the current French disco sounds and later signed over here with Polydor as a solo artist...

...I like to think of a song as a little movie in itself. It's very hard to put across in three or four minutes what you want to express. Often people never hear the lyrics clearly or get the atmosphere behind it - they just hear something to dance to and move to. I would like to go further than that."

Warren Cann of Ultravox and Visage, in an interview for the now-demised Electrogarden site [retrieved via The Wayback Machine on Archive.org]:

"We were friends for years and I never did know her last name, it honestly never occurred to me to ask her. She was an unfathomably gorgeous French woman who'd once been a "Bluebell" dancer in Paris at Le Lido. She gave up modelling to come to London to make it as a singer.

I met her backstage at one of our gigs when Midge, who'd been producing some tracks for her, introduced us. Ronny wasn't a "pop" artist so much as a pop chanteuse, a torch singer. Her voice, while not virtuosic in the conventional sense, was utterly compelling and expressive. She could read a phone book and you'd swoon. She made Sade sound like Tweety.

Hans Zimmer and I did some gigs for her and she appears briefly on the Helden album "Spies." Chalk it up to bad luck, bad timing, or the vagaries of the music business, but it just never worked out for her and, after a number of years getting nowhere, she gave up music and moved back to France."

According to a thread post in an Ultravox discussion forum by Graeme Oxby, erstwhile manager of Howard Devoto's band Magazine and collaborator with Steve Strange on various attempts to revive Visage as an entity:

"Steve Strange bumped into Ronny years later and she was working behind the make-up counter of a department store in Paris. I think Steve bought some eye shadow but don't quote me lol!"

Unsurprisingly, the maestro Rusty Egan is still in touch with the lady, according to this comment he made on a post on The Wave of Things blog - and (unlike Mr Cann above) refers to her by her full name in his social media posts...

...Miss Ronny Vuniconnu - one of the true "Shapers of the 80s" - we salute you!

Ronny - Blue Cabaret

Ronny - To Have And Have Not

Both those numbers are indeed superb - as is her wildly camp duet with Steve Strange on Lady is a Tramp, as featured here in 2019 - but, way back around this time forty years ago, it was this (her debut) song that absolutely bowled me over! The moment I heard it [probably played by someone like John Peel or Annie Nightingale on Radio 1], I had to rush out to Woolworths to buy the single, and played it absolutely to death on my radiogram...

Ronny - If You Want Me to Stay

If you want me to stay
I'll be around someday
To be available for you to see
But I'm about to go
And baby then you'll know
For me to stay here
I've got to be me

You'll never be in doubt
That's what it's all about
You can't take me for granted and smile
I can't believe I'm gone
Forget pushing me back home
I promised I'll be gone for a while

And when you see me again
I bet that you have been
The kind of person
That you really are now

I got to get things straight
How could I ever be late
When you're my woman takin' up my time
How could I ever allow
I guess I wondered how
I get romantic with you just for fun

I'll be good
Although I wish I could
But you'll still gonna be my No.1

[French lyrics]

If you want me to stay
I'll be around someday
To be available for you to see
But I'm about to go
And baby then you'll know
For me to stay here
I've got to be me

You'll never be in doubt
That's what it's all about
You can't take me for granted and smile
I can't believe I'm gone
Forget pushing me back home
But I promise I'll be back in a while

Memories, memories... I was seventeen.

Sigh.

[click any photo to embiggen]

We feel the steam as it rises around us

My favourite poster when I was a teenager - I wonder why?

Another mini-timeslip moment is upon us, dear reader - and yes! It's back to the wild'n'wacky world of 1981 again...

In the news headlines at the end of April/early May forty years ago: The trial of the Yorkshire Ripper for 13 murders and seven attempted murders of women began (with the inevitable blanket coverage in the papers for weeks), there was rioting in Ealing and Finsbury Park in London and also at Southend-on-Sea, unemployment in the UK hit 2.5 million for the first time in fifty years, it was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing vs François Mitterrand in the French presidential elections, and Billie-Jean King was "outed" when her former partner sued for "palimoney". In our cinemas: Superman II; Gregory's Girl; Raging Bull. On telly: The Chinese Detective; Clapperboard; That's Life!

And in our charts this week in April '81? Eurovision-winners Bucks Fizz celebrated their third [and final] week at the top, managing to prevent Ennio Morricone's Chi Mai (Theme From The BBC TV Series "The Life And Times Of David Lloyd George") and the annoying Stars on 45 from ever gaining pole position. Also present and correct were Sugar Minott, Madness, The Jacksons, Shakin' Stevens, Stevie Wonder, Landscape and former Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnet. 

Hovering around the outskirts [its highest position was to be #10], however, was this slice of New Romantic pomposity at its most extreme!

Spandau Ballet - Musclebound

 

We're building fires that will burn until morning
The smell of books and hot stone surround us
Tough is the leather thats strapped to my skin
Strong are the bonds that we make

We feel the steam as it rises around us
Up from the soil that is cracking its back
Tough us the leather thats strapped to my skin
Strong are the bonds that sing

Work til you're musclebound all night long
Work til you're musclebound all night long
Gotta work til you're musclebound all night long
Gotta work til you're musclebound all night long

We're building fires that will burn until morning
The smell of books and hot stone surround us
Tough is the leather thats strapped to my skin
Strong are the bonds that we make

To hear a pulsing from chanter to mountain
Down through the vein and into the grain
Strong is the shoulder that moves to the time
Here is the land it can break

Work til you're musclebound all night long
Work til you're musclebound all night long
Gotta work til you're musclebound all night long
Gotta work til you're musclebound all night long

Subtle. I like it...

Spiteful girl, hateful boy

click to embiggen

Timeslip moment again...

...and yes, we've fallen through the void and landed in the heady (and distant), gender-bending, recession-hit world of my coming-of-age year again.

In the news in late March/early April 1981: an assassination attempt on U.S. President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley (who said he did it to impress his fantasy love Jody Foster); the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was launched by four notable defectors from the Labour Party, Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, Roy Jenkins and David Owen; the first London Marathon was held; and Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs was rescued after his kidnapping in Brazil. In our cinemas: Tess; Superman II; and Chariots of Fire had its premiere. On telly: Ronnie Corbett in Sorry!; the final episode of Robin's Nest; and Tom Baker left Doctor Who after seven years and was replaced by Peter Davison.

And in our charts this week forty years ago? Shaky (Shakin' Stevens) was celebrating week two of his first #1 hit This Ole House, unfortunately holding off Kim Wilde from her rightful place at the top. Also present and correct were Bucks Fizz (who were about to win the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 4th April), Stevie Wonder, Toyah, Roxy Music, Landscape (Einstein a Go-Go), Coast to Coast, Lynx and - erm - folk singer Tony Capstick with his novelty hit Capstick Comes Home, a nostalgic narrated tale over the brass band music from the Hovis bread advert (Sibelius New World Symphony). It was crap, and he was never heard of again.

Never mind all that, hovering just outside the Top Ten (and never destined to go any further, more's the pity), there was this slice of New Romantic genius!

Visage - Mind of a Toy

My painted face
Is chipped and cracked
My mind seems
To fade too fast
Clutching straws
Sinking slow
Nothing less, nothing less

A puppet's motions
Controlled by a string
By a stranger
I've never met
A nod of the head
And a pull of the thread
I can't say no, can't say no

When a child throws out a toy
When I was new you wanted me
Now I'm old you no longer see

When a child throws out a toy
Spiteful girl
Hateful boy
When a child throws out a toy

I'm all dressed up
And nowhere to go
On a music box
That never stops
I'll dance for you
If you want me to
Move in time, move in time

A wooden head
And a broken heart
Used, abused
And torn apart
I gave you my best
And you gave me the rest
It's time to die, time to die

When a child throws out a toy
When I was new you wanted me
Now I'm old you no longer see

When a child throws out a toy
Spiteful girl
Hateful boy
When a child throws out a toy

When a child throws out a toy
When I was new you wanted me
Now I'm old you no longer see

When a child throws out a toy
Spiteful girl
Hateful boy
When a child throws out a toy

I loved that song sooooo much!

I do hope Steve Strange is lording it up in his rightful place - on the door at Fabulon, keeping the hoi-polloi out...

A shot in the dark; the big question mark in history

It's another timeslip moment, dear reader...

As it is now forty years since my favourite musical year, the year I left school and discovered a whole like-minded scene of kids-who-love-dressing-up (known in the press as "New Romantics"), the year of Brideshead Revisited, the Royal Wedding, riots, Reagan and the Ripper, I shall no doubt be paying regular visits throughout 2021 to...

...1981!

In the news headlines in early March four decades ago? IRA hunger strikes at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland; the shady world of Freemasonry in Italy was exposed with the discovery of a covert right-wing lodge called "P2" with links to politicians, the military and the Vatican bank; the "M5 rapist" was convicted of twelve counts of rape; the first Homebase DIY store opened in Croydon; the Sinclair ZX81 home computer was launched; and we bade a sad farewell to the prolific songwriter Yip Harburg. In our cinemas: Neil Diamond in the remake of The Jazz Singer; Blood Beach; Inseminoid. On telly: The Life and Times of David Lloyd George, Open All Hours, and the ill-fated North-Sea-ferry-based soap Triangle.

And in our charts? For the fourth week in a row, the eternal Ultravox classic Vienna was robbed of its rightful place at the top by Joe-bloody-Dolce and Shaddup You Face. Meanwhile, Roxy Music's Jealous Guy was on the ascendant and about to leapfrog them both. Also present and correct were Rainbow, Motorhead and Girlschool, Adam and the Ants, Coast to Coast (Do The Hucklebuck), Freeez, Status Quo and Madness.

Biding her time further down the charts however, and about to crash into the Top 5, was the "Queen of Post-Punk" herself - Toyah!

Toyah - It's A Mystery

Like so much from that year, I went mad for this song - and it still resides in my collection today...

I believe, I believe what the old man said

Timeslip moment again, dear reader...

Tom Baker having handed over the keys, it's Peter Davidson (the Fifth Doctor) whose TARDIS has dropped us this time into a world of New Romantics, CB radio, unemployment, the National Front, trench-coats and Tukka boots, the year I left school and turned eighteen - it's 1981: the year of the Royal Wedding of Charles and Diana, the arrest and trial of Peter Sutcliffe aka the "Yorkshire Ripper", Greenham Common, Brideshead Revisited, race riots in Brixton and Toxteth (and across the country), Adam and the Ants, Only Fools and Horses, Madame Mao, Bobby Sands, Buck's Fizz winning the Eurovision Song Contest for the UK, Gregory's Girl, Arthur Scargill, The Day of the Triffids, François Mitterrand, Solidarity, the SDP, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, assassination attempts on the Pope and President Ronald Reagan, For Your Eyes Only, the Penlee lifeboat disaster, personal computers, Postman Pat, women priests, Rupert Murdoch, Cats, Norman Tebbit, Space Shuttle Columbia, the TGV high-speed rail service in France, the first diagnosis of AIDS, Chariots of Fire, crack cocaine, the assassination of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, the first London Marathon, Danger Mouse, Andreas Papandreou, Clash of the Titans, "Tiny" Rowland, Scanners, and Bob Champion winning the Grand National; the births of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Meghan Markle, Paloma Faith, Tom Hiddleston, Roger Federer, Beyoncé, Natalie Portman, Chris Evans, Donkey Kong, Paris Hilton, Zara Phillips, Belize, Elijah Wood, Antigua and Barbuda, Michelle Dockery, Post-It notes, Sheridan Smith, the DeLorean "gull-wing" car, Brandon Flowers, the NatWest Tower, Russell Tovey, Kelly Rowland, Craig David and the Sinclair ZX home computer; and the year Natalie Wood, William Holden, Bob Marley, Hoagy Carmichael, Lotte Lenya, Zarah Leander, Edith Head, Robert Montgomery, Princess Alice, Sam Costa, Vera-Ellen, Bill Shankly, Anita Loos, Bernard Lee ("M"), Yip Harburg, Harry Warren, Jack Warner, Patsy Kelly, Gloria Grahame, "Young Mr Grace" Harold Bennett and the Post Office telegram all died.

In the headlines in August thirty-nine years ago? "Sebastian Coe vs Steve Ovett" mania was in full flood as they took it in turns to break the world athletics record for running a mile, Maze Prison IRA hunger strikes continued, the IBM PC was launched in the US, South African troops invaded Angola, the second prisoner in three weeks escaped from Broadmoor maximum security hospital, MTV arrived and famously opened broadcasts with The Buggles Video Killed The Radio Star, the Prime Minister and President of Iran were killed in a bomb attack by the Mujahideen, and Mark Chapman was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of John Lennon; in the ascendant (literally) were the Voyager 2 space probe (which made its closest approach to Saturn), and Moira Stuart (who was appointed the BBC's first black newsreader), but we bade a sad farewell to "national treasure" Jessie Matthews. In our cinemas: Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Herbie Goes Bananas and The Watcher in the Woods. On telly: Three of a Kind, Knots Landing, the last ever series of It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and TSW replaced Westward Television in the South West of England.

Our charts in the UK were a confusing mis-match of the "uber-cool" and the not-so-fondly remembered this week in '81. At the top slot was the "King of Naff" Shakin' Stevens with Green Door, and also present and correct were such embarrassments as Hooked On Classics, Aneka's Japanese Boy and something called The Caribbean Disco Show by Lobo, as well as ELO, Stevie Wonder and Tight Fit. Elsewhere in the chart, on the other hand, were a clutch of artists we indelibly associate with this era such as Kim Wilde, Spandau Ballet, UB40, Depeche Mode, The Specials, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Kate Bush, Ultravox and Visage, and also jostling for space in the Top Ten were Duran Duran, Soft Cell...

...and this fantabulosa choon! A firm favourite of mine, then, now, and forever:

Human League - Love Action

I used to "pointy-dance" like a mad thing in the clubs to that song. I still would today, but for the creaky knees, the lack of energy and the unbalanced centre of gravity.

Oh, to be eighteen again...

I'm washing my clothes, but the stain still grows

This is how we used to dress. And, occasionally, still do.

Timeslip moment again... So, with not just my birthday, but also my dear sister's fiftieth looming, our trusty TARDIS has deposited us back thirty-five years (gulp!) to the middle of that glorious youthful summer when I had just left school, and everything was new - and mainly all about dressing up...

In the news this week in 1981: more than 700 million people watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral; Princess Anne's two-month-old daughter was christened Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips; the UK was reeling in the wake of a succession of riots across the country, notably the mayhem in Toxteth in Liverpool, Moss Side in Manchester and Brixton in London; IRA "hunger-strike" deaths were being used as a propaganda weapon in the continued stand-off between the government and terrorists in Northern Ireland; there was controversy over the apartheid-embargo-breaking South African rugby tour in New Zealand; in the ascendant were Microsoft (which purchased DOS for $50,000 - and the rest is history!), the Humber Bridge (recently opened by HM the Queen) and British Telecom (born out of an official split from the Royal Mail), but the unfortunate President of the Gambia Dawda Jawara was deposed in a coup while a guest at the Royal Wedding.

In our cinemas were For Your Eyes Only, Excalibur and Raiders of the Lost Ark. On telly: Ken Barlow married Deirdre Langton on Coronation Street (just two days before the Royal Wedding), kids' music show Razzmatazz launched the career of a young Lisa Stansfield, and You're Only Young Twice (starring "house faves" here at Dolores Delargo Towers Peggy Mount, Pat Coombs and Lally Bowers) was in its last series.

In our charts, heading the pack were The Specials with (a song that neatly summed up that riot-hit summer) Ghost Town, and following in their wake a rather eclectic mish-mash including Stars on 45, Bad Manners, Imagination, Motorhead, Abba, Stevie Wonder and Kate Bush. But, heading inexorably up the charts was one of those songs that really captured my mood - all flounce, pose and preening, here's Spandau Ballet and their barn-stormer, Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)!

Spandau Ballet - Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)

I checked the time, it was almost time
A curious smell, an intangible crime
I'm washing my clothes, but the stain still grows
Cover your eyes, the stain still shows

I feel the gaze against my skin
I feel the gaze against my skin
I know this feeling is a lie
I know this feeling is a lie

There's a guilt within my mind
There's a guilt within my mind
I know this feeling is a lie
I know this feeling is a lie

I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on

I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on

Oh I should question not ignore
Oh I should question not ignore
Songs are always buried deep
Songs are always buried deep

There's a lion in my arms
There is a motion in my arm
Oh I should question not ignore
I should believe and not ignore

I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on
I don't need this pressure on

Ah, happy memories of Hils and I "pointy dancing" to that one...

Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling

Timeslip moment again...

Our lovely DeLorean has dropped us off this week thirty-five years ago, to the heady days of proper dressing-up pop.

In the news in February 1981 were rumours that Prince Charles was to get engaged to Lady Diana Spencer (which he did later in the month), revelations about the crimes of the recently-arrested "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, the rise of the SDP (Social Democrats) with a wave of defections from the Labour Party, continued bombings and mayhem by the IRA, and the purchase of The Times and Sunday Times by Rupert Murdoch. On our tellies were The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Agony and the ill-fated Kate O'Mara "soap" Triangle (often referred to these days as the worst TV show ever). In cinemas: Flash Gordon, Nine to Five and Raging Bull.

In our charts: Adam and the Ants were at the height of their powers with no fewer than five singles in the Top 100; the country continued to mourn John Lennon, with Woman at No. 1 and Imagine still in the Top 10; and the notorious Shaddup You Face was about to replace Lennon at the top and thereby prevent the far more worthy Vienna by Ultravox from ever getting there. Elsewhere, Phil Collins, Blondie, Madness, Rainbow, Visage, Stray Cats, Yarborough & Peoples and Dire Straits held sway.

But waiting in the wings was this masterpiece by the very lovely Duran Duran - and I went absolutely mad for it!

Duran Duran - Girls on Film

See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight
Heads turning as the lights flashing out it's so bright
Then walk right out to the fourline track
There's a camera rolling on her back, on her back
And I sense the rhythm humming in a frenzy all the way down her spine

Girls on film, girls on film, girls on film, girls on film

Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling
In miles of sharp blue water coming in where she lies
The diving man's coming up for air cause the crowd all love pulling dolly by the hair, by the hair
And she wonders how she ever got here as she goes under again

Girls on film (two minutes later), girls on film
Girls on film (got your picture), girls on film

Wider baby smiling you just made a million
Fuses pumping live heat twisting out on a wire
Take one last glimpse into the night I'm touching close I'm holding bright, holding tight
Give me shudders in a whisper take me up till I'm shooting a star

Girls on film (she's more than a lady), girls on film
Girls on film (two minutes later), girls on film
Girls on film (see you together), girls on film
Girls on film (see you later), girls on film
Girls on film (what ya doing), girls on film

PS Happy 55th birthday today to the Durannies' original guitarist Mr Andy Taylor!

Whatever happened to Paul Burnett?

The Xmas chart has been announced for 2010, and once more I find a load of non-entities I have never heard of (or worse, never want to hear again in my life - bloody Rihanna or Black-Eyed Peas, for example) occupy the top slots. Even the Take That song is dull. And where is Kylie?



As you may already know, dear reader, 1981 was a cherished year in my developing adulthood. This was the year I left school, took up smoking and New Romanticism (in no particular order), and fell in love with Brideshead Revisited, Princess Diana and Adam Ant - and (in my memory at least) this was one of the best for music, ever!

Inevitably however, when you come to take a closer look (at the charts; the records that actually sold any kind of quantity) the picture is perhaps not quite so clear-cut. For every Special AKA, there was a Nolans. Kate Bush was big news, but so was Aneka's Japanese Boy. Spandau Ballet, Visage and Ultravox all arrived with a bang - but this was also Shakin' Stevens' best year. Soft Cell broke new ground with Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, yet Phil Collins and ELO out-sold them in the album charts by a huge margin. A truly eclectic mixture of styles flooded the market - from Ska to Heavy Metal to Rock-a-billy to Stars on 45!

Needless to say, the charts were our Gods. I listened avidly to Paul Burnett on Radio 1 every Tuesday lunchtime (when the Top 40 used to be announced), marking every hit into a notebook, and even grading them "good", "excellent" or "unbearable" - it was an obsession. I bought every single in the "excellent" category (and many of the "good" ones too). So I now have boxes of 7-inch vinyl, all mainly acquired in this era.

Of particular interest to the chart-o-phile was the Xmas chart. Because they were not compiled over the holidays (and whatever was in the higher echelons of the chart would rule the airwaves for the whole of that period) it was vital that at least some favourites just HAD to be in there!

So let us wallow in the nostalgia of this very week in 1981, as the Xmas countdown has been announced...

In a December chart that included Soft Cell's Bedsitter, Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses, My Own Way by Duran Duran, I Could Be Lucky by Altered Images, Get Down On It by Kool and the Gang and the magnificent Wild is the Wind by David Bowie, there had to be some winners and losers I suppose. Inevitably there is some shit by Cliff Richard, and a completely forgotten couple of numbers by Godley and Creme and Status Quo, but nevertheless quite a few enduring favourites do appear. Enjoy!

1 Don't You Want Me - HUMAN LEAGUE

The Human League - Don't You Want Me

2 Daddy's Home - CLIFF RICHARD [I simply cannot bring myself to post this one, sorry any Cliff fans out there.]

3 One of Us - ABBA

Abba - One Of Us

4 Ant Rap - ADAM AND THE ANTS

Adam and the Ants - Ant Rap

5 The Land of Make Believe - BUCKS FIZZ

Bucks Fizz - Land Of Make Believe

6 It Must Be Love - MADNESS

Madness - It Must Be Love

7 Wedding Bells - GODLEY AND CREME

Godley & Creme - Wedding Bells

8 Rock 'n' Roll - STATUS QUO

Status Quo - Rock 'n Roll

9 Mirror Mirror (Mon Amour) - DOLLAR

Dollar - Mirror Mirror

10 I'll Find My Way Home - JON AND VANGELIS

Jon & Vangelis - I'll Find My Way Home

Ah, memories...