Neverending Top Ten #7.4: Wrestlemania

Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

Reverend & The Makers - The Wrestler

On Saturday afternoon, Sam and a couple of his mates went to Wrestlemania. It was a birthday party treat for one of his friends. They all loved it.

Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

Carter USM - Is Wrestling Fixed?

Of course, this got me thinking of my own childhood, of Saturday afternoons watching Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Mick McManus, Mark “Rollerball” Rocco and Kendo Nagasaki on TV... easy! Easy! Easy! EASY!!!

MJ Hibbert - The Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers

The Superman Revenge Squad - Kendo Nagasaki

Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocco

Luke Haines - Big Daddy Got A Casio VL–Tone

Luke Haines - Haystack's In Heaven (Parts 1-3)

I mentioned these to my Mum, who added one perfect detail I'd never heard before. "Me and your dad went to watch the wrestling when we were on our honeymoon in Skegness." So a love of wrestling has been in our family from the early 1950s... through the 80s... and into the present day. A glorious tag team through time. 

She’s the main man in the office in the city

And she treats me like I’m just another lackey

But I can put a tennis racket up against my face

And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki

Product Placement #25: Weetabix

Hands up if you had your mum buy Weetabix just so you could get the free gifts?

I found a website that details all the free gifts given away inside a packet of Weetabix, from the 1930s to the present day. I remembered quite a few of them from the 70s and 80s. 

They don't have free gifts inside Weetabix anymore. Further evidence, if evidence were truly required, that life was so much better when we were kids. 

As discussed last week, I couldn't eat Weetabix with cold milk, so I had hot milk (which made them dissolve into a paste) and a large spoonful of Golden Syrup to make them palatable. Sam eats his with just cold milk, nothing else. He's a much healthier child than I was. 

Here are some songs that mention Weetabix, starting, of course, with Mark E. Smith...

Real ale, curry as well - sophisticate!
Spanish guitar doesn't get far
In computer teaching job
His dreamgirl sings adverts for the Weetabix
A fancied wit that's imitation of Rumpole of Bailey

The Fall - Mere Pseud Mag. Ed.

The Seahorses were John Squire's band after he fell out with Ian Brown. I see John's working with Liam Gallagher these days. He obviously has a penchant for collaborating with Neanderthals.

Please, may I leave the table? I don't think that I'll be able

To swallow your family values again today

Because a giant squid, he stole my wife and kid

Full story and pix, ten pence off your Weetabix, yeah, yeah

The Seahorses - Suicide Drive

Louise is gluten free. She has, on occasion, tried that dietary alternative to Weetabix. Although these guys don't recommend it...

I would rather die than eat gluten-free Weet-Bix!

Tutant Meenage Neetle Teetles - Gluten-Free Weetbix

For many people though, Weetabix are symbolic of the start of the day. This probably rings a bell for a few people...

Kids to school, waking up at 6

Half asleep and making baby bowls of Weetabix

Now dogs keep barking and the neighbours start shouting

And next thing I know my eyes closed, just despairing

Ghostpoet - Longing For The Night (Yeah Pause)

At least Jilted John gets a bit longer in bed...

I got up at half past six

And had two Weetabix

And then I put my Parka on

And went into the street

Jilted John - The Paperboy Song

For Lindisfarne's Alan Hull though, Weetabix is part of a much bigger breakfast...

Intimate breakfast scene: sausage, egg and beans

Weetabix, jam, lightly grilled brown ham

Alan Hull - Breakfast

Greedy git. These days, I just have a coffee. And some of us are struggling with our budgets, Alan - take this dude, for instance...

I want to dine out in style but I'm bloody skint

I've got 27p and a Polo mint

And a natural aversion to another buttered Weetabix

MJ Hibbert & The Validators - Good Cooking

While Poly Styrene appears to be a bit confused about what Weetabix are for...

My mind is like a plastic bag

That corresponds to all those ads

It sucks up all the rubbish

That is fed in through by ear

I eat Kleenex for breakfast

And use soft hygienic Weetabix

To dry my tears

X-Ray Spex - Plastic Bag

My most important discovery today was that Goths like Weetabix too...

Tune into the horror

This is Dracula's daughter

There is a coffin and crucifix too

And then just after the struggle

With the good and the evil

There's a Weetabix advert to view

Lestat - Awake & Watching

We end with the closing track from Robyn Hitchcock's debut solo album from 1981, Black Snake Diamond Röle. It's a Love song...

The gnomes are moving through the night

They sing and fiddle with delight

And we eat Weetabix and sing

About the joys that love can bring

Ah, ah, ah, ah - if they ever come...

Have you had yours?

Celebrity Jukebox #72: Dickie Davies

It's common knowledge that I'm not a football fan, so you might imagine I wouldn't have much to say about the passing of Dickie Davies... however, I did watch World of Sport almost every Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. Not for the football... for the wrestling! Giant Haystacks, Mick MacManus, Kendo Nagasaki, Mark “Rollerball” Rocco... and, of course, Big Daddy! Easy! Easy! Easy!

I was therefore very familiar with the genial moustache of Dickie Davies, who introduced the wrestling... and all the other sports we were allowed to watch on Saturday TV before Premier League football was even invented. 

There's an obvious winner on the jukebox today, but before we get to that, here's those dashing charmers, The Sleaford Mods...

Ya can earn seventy quid on a Monday night

Sliding round a pole

In front of four or five rotting bits of bacon

Blokes that look like Dickie Davies

Smoking fags like it's the Seventies

The Sleaford Mods - Dead Cities

Next up, a solo offering from the current lead singer of Thin Lizzy, Black Star Riders and The Almighty. Busy bloke.

Red hands as big as Ulster

Stubble on his chin

We wrestle on the front room floor

And his beard would burn my skin

When Dickie Davies told us

That Lester's horse had won

I'd run along behind him

And he 'd shield me from the sun

Ricky Warwick - When Patsy Cline Was Crazy (And Guy Mitchell Sang The Blues) 

Finally, a tribute to the glory days of wrestling...

I read in the obituaries that Giant Haystacks died

He's gone to fight Big Daddy in that big ring in the sky

Where every day is Saturday, and Dickie Davis smiles

And the Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers never died

MJ Hibbert & The Validators - The Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers

Today's obvious winner is so well-associated with Dickie that it even merits a mention on his iffypedia page. Not only that, but it'll claim another victory if ever I get around to Cadbury's Flake on Product Placement Friday. Kim Carnes had Bette Davis, but Nigel Blackwell always preferred Dickie...

God I could murder a Cadbury’s Flake

But then I guess you wouldn’t let me into heaven

Or maybe you would

‘Cos their adverts promote oral sex

A Romany bint in a field with her paints

Suggesting we faint at her beauty

But she’s got Dickie Davies eyes