Sam's football training has changed nights, from Tuesday to Thursday. They've also got a new venue since last year... my old high school.
Last night then, I set foot in my old school gym for the first time in 34 years. (I left in 1990, but I never went near the gym after the end of the 5th form... why would I? There had to be some perks to being a Sixth Former.)
But now, here I was again, staring up at that same wood-paneled ceiling, breathing in the same stench of stale sweat and plimsolls, hearing the squeaky echo of gym shoes on barely-polished tiles... a shudder went down my spine as a juggernaut of memories came rushing back.
Two nights ago, I had an anxiety dream about returning there and being met by my old P.E. Teacher, Mr Sh***ocks, who always called me "Roly". Which. I. Fucking. Hated. But was powerless to do anything about. Only in the dream, he didn't remember me at all, and he was struggling to give directions, and I realised what a sad little man he actually was, not the terrifying ogre of memory.
The weirdest thing of all was how nothing had changed. From the outside, the school looks quite different. They've built a whole new wing and turned one of the playgrounds into another car park (more teachers driving to work than in the 80s?)... and there are huge green security fences surrounding everything. There were no fences when I went there. You could have walked up to the entrance at any hour of the day or night and peered in through the classroom windows. It's more prison that high school now.
Inside though... time had stood still. The gloomy stairs up to the staff room, the grubby corridor leading to the Sport's Hall... the horror of the changing rooms... they were all exactly as they had been 34 years ago. Admittedly, I only walked that one corridor; the rest of the school was closed off. Still... I might as well have driven there in a Delorean, at 88 miles per hour.
I think they've painted the metalwork blue... but the woodwork, the walls, the floor tiles, the showers (not pictured - I'll spare you the horror)... for a second, I almost went and hung up my bag and started getting changed. With that ugly lump in my throat I felt every Tuesday afternoon when it was time for games...
Yes, I'm heartbroken. Mrs. McCluskey, actress Gwyneth Powell, died earlier this week. Another icon of my childhood gone. Who's going to stop Gripper Stebson now?
Oh, very well then...
I have been consciously avoiding writing about the death of
Queen Elizabeth II due to the lynch mobs who are out there, listening to our
every word, waiting to hang, draw and quarter anyone who responds with anything
other than reverential grief. But since Alyson threw down the gauntlet... let’s see if I can dip my toe in
that puddle without the piranhas biting it off.
I was saddened to hear that the Queen was dead. It’s sad when
any old lady dies, and given that she was just a couple of years older than my
own parents, it obviously made me worry more than ever for them. Is it more of
a big deal when a famous person dies? I can’t claim to believe otherwise, since
I’m regular wailing and gnashing my teeth as I eulogise departed icons here –
musicians, actors, TV personalities, writers, comic book creators… Mrs. McCluskey! I still find
it hard to accept that Prince is no longer with us. And Stan Lee. And Olivia
Newton John. The list goes on and on. And the Queen was, we are told, the most
famous person in the world, so clearly her death is a huge deal for many, many
people, and who am I to question that?
What I don’t like is this idea that everyone is expected to grieve
in the same way and at the same level. A level of grief prescribed and dictated
by the TV stations that have cancelled all their programming in favour of
wall-to-wall mourn-porn, and a Bank Holiday in which everything is shutting
down (hope you weren't planning on visiting Center Parcs) to force us all to watch a state funeral, whether we want to or not.
Attention, populace: YOU WILL BE DEVASTATED. None of this is about paying our
respects; it’s just about putting on a show.
Andrew O’Hagan, a far better writer than me, wrote what I
consider to be the
definitive response to the media… I want to say circus, but it’s much
bigger than a circus, isn’t it? Media Apocalypse? Royale-with-cheese-mageddon? Yet at no point is he disrespectful to the memory of QE2. Indeed, he makes some excellent
points about how the Queen herself was a woman of quiet dignity, and how the
very newspapers that are flagellating themselves the most are the ones who have
tried their best to make her life miserable for the last half century. It’s one
of the best pieces of social commentary I’ve ever read (hey, if everyone else
is allowed to drown us in hyperbole this week, at least let me get in on the
act), culminating in a final paragraph that lifts the roof off.
The Express reports on huge
crowds weeping in the street. Modern journalism loves the idea that a nation
has a heart and that a heart can break, as if there were a requirement to
confect a sort of togetherness out of national torpor, the quivering lip having
long since replaced the stiff upper one as a symbol of our essential nature. It
won’t matter for very long, but today it all seems part of the workaday
hysteria of British life, yet perfectly at odds with the quiet, persevering
woman on the postage stamp.
Beyond all that, I firmly believe that the death of the
Queen is another nail in the coffin of “Great” Britain. First Brexit, then a
government that takes ineptitude beyond satire (The Thick Of It looks tame in
comparison), now the death of the monarchy as an institution. Don’t try to
convince me that Charles or William or anyone else will be able to save it,
because without Elizabeth’s dignified resolve, the gradual slide into Reality
TV Royals will become a landslide. Republicans might cheer at this, but they’d
be wrong to do so. The Royal Family won’t go away. They’ll just become an embarrassment, and so will the “United” Kingdom. “And it’s so lonely on a limb,” sang that bloke I’m not supposed to be mentioning, but I’ve now mentioned
two days running.
I didn’t post The Queen Is Dead here on Friday, partly
because it would have been crass and disrespectful, but mostly because it was
Sam’s ninth birthday and that meant a thousand times more to me than any of this. Choose Life, as Renton said.
TQID is my
favourite album of the 80s, and the title track is one of the best things The
Smiths ever recorded. But it’s also a rather misunderstood song. Despite the savage title, it’s not really about the
Queen herself at all, but about the Queen as a figurehead for the monarchy.
I’ve stolen this from Genius, because
talent borrows but genius steals…
“This does not refer to a literal regicide. It is about how
British society is still, culturally, rooted in the monarchy and aristocracy,
and how the sudden decline in the relevance of those institutions means that
British society is wayward and lost – it’s on a limb. To go “out on a limb”
means to put yourself in a risky/vulnerable position. 30 years on, with
devolution in full swing, a London-centric Parliament that can run wild, and
peerages for sale, one might be inclined to think he’s got a point.”
And even despite Morrissey dreaming of “her very lowness
with her head in a sling”, the Queen comes out of her encounter with this
Rusholme Ruffian pretty well, firstly by playing Ernie to his Eric…
“She said, “eh, I know you and you cannot sing,”
I said, “that’s nothing. You should hear me play piano.”
And secondly, because it all ends thus...
Life is very long when you're lonely.
Thinking about that repeated coda now, in light of all
that’s happened in the past week, I can’t help but wonder if the Queen herself
lived a lonely life. If she did, then she does truly have my deepest sympathy.
Because, as Mother Teresa once said, “loneliness and the feeling of being
unwanted is the most terrible poverty”. Even if you’re the richest woman in the
world. I know loneliness, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone… especially not a
lady who meant so much to so many.
We watched the Edgar Wright movie Last Night In Soho recently, and I very much enjoyed the recreation of 1960s London, the retro soundtrack, and the performances of Thomasin Mackenzie and Anna Taylor-Joy. The film took a swerve into unnecessary melodrama towards the end, which I found a bit of a disappointment. I like melodrama, but this felt a bit rushed and didn't really match the tone of the rest of the movie. Still worth a watch though.
Among the cast was a cameo by 60s star Rita Tushingham, now in her 80s but still going strong... and those piercing blue eyes were still very much in evidence. (She won awards for her role in the movie The Girl With Green Eyes, but according to iffypedia, "as the film is in black and white the green eyes are never seen".)
Rita Tushingham made her screen debut in the 1961 adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste Of Honey, a movie which was hugely influential on a certain Stephen Patrick Morrissey. There are at least six Smiths songs on which Morrissey pilfers lyrics from Shelagh Delaney's script, including one of their best known tunes, This Charming Man. Morrissey's favourite movie was controversial at the time for a number of reasons, including one of the first interracial kisses seen on screen. How ironic. I've long stopped trying to convince anyone (including myself) that Morrissey isn't a tad racist. The truth is rarely black and white, but there are some ugly shades of grey. Unlike many former fans, I'm still able to disconnect and enjoy his old music on its original merits. If you choose not to anymore, I respect your opinion. Respect mine and we can send a message of tolerance and harmony to the man with the quiff that might one day change his ways.
A Taste Of Honey isn't the only movie to connect Rita to The Smiths. The video to Girlfriend In A Coma also features clips from her 1964 film The Leather Boys.
While no Morrissey lyrics mention Rita Tushingham directly, she can be found in songs from another pair of John Peel's favourite acts. Firstly, Martin Newell's Cleaners From Venus, who cast her alongside a number of other 60s icons...
Rita Tushingham isn't smiling
Waiting for the green electric
Train to take her
Down to London
Where she will see Mr. Wilson
Standing by the iron railings
Opposite the chestnut palings
David Hemmings will be waiting
With a job for David Bailey
And secondly, here's Rita in one of Franz Ferdinand's very best tunes...
Great Western Wind catches in your Celtic hair
Flicks it round your face like flames around the sun
In the bright cold air you seem as innocent and fair
There were three Cortinas (or variations) to choose from last week, but the vote went to the bunch from the 70s. They will feature again on this blog soon - watch this space.
This week, we have not one, not two, not three... but FOUR bands with the same name.
Four Octopuses, or Octopi, if you want to be picky. Four bands, eight tentacles... hours of molluscan fun!
OCTOPUS #1
Last week's Namesakes featured multiple bands called The Cortinas (including variant spellings). The first of those bands only released one single in the late 1960s before changing their name... to Octopus. As Octopus, they released a bunch of singles and one LP, Restless Night, on the Penny Farthing record label. We discussed what happened to their lead singer, Paul Griggs, last week, but other members of Octopus went on to join Split Enz (The internet does not record how they ended up getting from Hertfordshire to New Zealand. Presumably flights were a lot cheaper in those days.)
Ready for some biting social commentary? Prepare yourself to Laugh At The Poor Man...
OCTOPUS #2
Our second Octopus were a Belgian group with an English leader singer called Steve Davies. Not to be confused with World Snooker Champion Steve "Interesting" Davis. They were around in the mid-70s, and this is their biggest hit, an English language version of the Flemish hit "Ik ben verliefd op jou", originally recorded by Paul Severs.
OCTOPUS #3
This was the Octopus I was most familiar with when I planned this feature, as they come from the Britpop era when I worked in the record library and got to take home anything the radio station wouldn't play.
Not that this should influence your voting in any way, but our third Octopus came from Shotts in Lanarkshire. They released one album in 1996, from which four singles were jettisoned, one of which just scraped into the Top 40, for one week, at number 40. The most interesting thing I can find out about this Octopus (other than that they came from Shotts in Lanarkshire, of course) is that their harmonica player was the son of a Great Train Robber. Oh, and they somehow managed to get the actor Ewen Bremner (Spud from Trainspotting) to appear in one of their videos...
OCTOPUS #4
I really thought this post would end there. But then the internet threw up one final Octopus. I can't find out much about this "doomy psych" 5-piece other than that their lead singer is called Masha Marjieh and their guitarist used to play with Electric Six. So I guess they're American. Unlike the other Octopi, they don't yet have their own iffypedia page, but this is the title track of their 2018 debut album...
Special mention should go to Harvey Rushmore & the Octopus, who almost got in here until I lost the will to live. I mean, if I never hear another singing Octopus, it'll be too soon. But please vote for your favourite below. It'll make my week.
We finished watching the second series of Stephen Merchant’s The
Outlaws last week. I didn’t really like the direction the plot took this
season, but the cast was still strong, Merchant’s writing is still funny (if a
little BBC-preachy at times) and Christopher Walken is in it. Playing
Christopher Walken. Except he’s in the last place you’d expect to find
Christopher Walken.
Although he made his name in a diverse set of roles, from
The Deer Hunter to The Dead Zone, in recent years Christopher Walken has pretty
much played it safe and been Christopher Walken in just about everything.
Charming, witty, twinkly-eyed… but with a layer of sinister malevolence that
says if you cross him… boom! And often, though he doesn’t play the starring
role, he has the most memorable scene in the movie. Take his face-off with
Dennis Hopper in True
Romance or the Gold Watch monologue from Pulp Fiction. They never grow old.
When it comes to popping up in pop songs though… Walken is all over the place. Most memorably in a certain Norman Cook video.
Back in the 80s, there was a Ryan O’Neal film written by Norman Mailer called
Tough Guys Don’t Dance. Mailer obviously never met Walken.
Beyond dancing - what about lyrical cameos?
Well, Wilco have a song called Walken… though from the
lyrics, it does seem to be more about walking.
I'm walkin' all by myself Well, I was talkin' to myself About you; what am I gonna do?
If I seriously believed that was about Christopher Walken, I
might also suggest that Chaucer was predicting the rise of the great actor back in The
Canterbury Tales…
A mayde, and love huntynge and venerye, And for to walken in the wodes wilde, And noght to ben a wyf, and be with childe.
More specific references can be found in the following…
And a gold cap tooth is always misunderstood Christopher Walken's in a terrible mood And I broke some hearts I met along the way But my heart's broken every brand new day
From their 2017 comeback album, Damage & Joy, which I clearly need to spend more time with.
Stayed up late that night, texting away and talking Steaming my suit in the bathroom I'm gonna look sharp tomorrow, Like Christopher Walken in True Romance
Mark Kozelek will probably turn up in this feature a lot, because his rambling talky monologue "songs" drop references like this all the time. But I'm a Mark Kozelek fan, so I'm always happy to feature him here.
I see you're living in the basement in the summertime Your hat's on way too tight I see your middle name is Jason And I know it isn't Christopher Walken So why didn't you get a haircut?
Being an English teacher, I never really know what to make of Math Rock. Other than it clearly needs an 's'.
Ah, where, where was my mind when Mother said? Avoid navel-contemplating Floppy-haired actors originally from Baltimore Who excel at mime, still play Stratego And have issues with their mom Sure at first they're very charming, their attention is disarming But give attention in return and, dear, they'll drop you like a bomb Yes, do avoid REO Speedwagon-loving Christopher Walken-imitating thespians originally from Baltimore Who can't piss unless their shrink says it's okay Why let them break your heart, dear? Put your head on and be smart, dear Put some bug spray on and make them go away
I can't tell you anything about this other than I love it.
Velvet Presley lives in a hole No one can stop those neighbours talking Velvet Presley, rock and roll Thinking he looks like Christopher Walken Listen and he'll tell you of the time when he was leaving ‘Cos you never really had it that tough
I imagine Governor's Island is Shutter Island I imagine Christopher Walken as a dancer named Ryan It just don't seem right!
I think the reason I like this feature is that it throws up a lot of songs that are lyrically intriguing, tell stories, and are full of tiny novelistic details... which are my favourite types of songs, regardless of genre.
Ponies and clowns will be walking around Naked people having sex all over the ground Britney Spears is making out with Christopher Walken In the back yard Iron Maiden is rocking!
Regardless of genre!!! (Also, I think these guys are taking the piss. At least, I hope they are.)
And we talk about girls, what brothers don't talk about
girls And in his best Christopher Walken, He says "Go out and get 'em", guess who's the
protagonist?
I'm pretty sure I went to school with a kid called Jason Falkner. He wasn't the lead singer of Jellyfish though.
However, by far the best Christopher Walken songs I came
across during my research are the ones below. Both are deserving of a Gold Watch.
Firstly, Aussie wunderkind Courtney Barnett…
You say "Christopher", I say "Walken" You love, I love Christopher Walken I guess at least we have got one thing in common
And secondly, old favourites of this blog, with one of their
very best (much-covered) tunes…
I used to know you when we were young You were in all my dreams We sat together in Period One Fridays at 8:15
Now I see your face in the strangest places Movies and magazines I saw you talking to Christopher Walken On my TV screen
But I will wait for you As long as I need to And if you ever get back to Hackensack I'll be here for you
