![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I have been DIY-ing for my folks with, um, somewhat mixed results. And I am slightly deaded. I have screwed all the screws. I have drilled and sawed. No hammering, which is probably just as well. My aim isn't great. But! Enough of 2015, for it is 1989. Fortunately only in a manner of speaking, because I'll be damned if I'm going back there again, even just for a visit.
I mostly remember unrest in 1989. Tiananmen Square. Eastern Europe - Romania, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and then the Berlin Wall coming down. And Hillsborough of course, back in the UK. And did my sister get married that year? I think she did (and no, I have no idea why I'm asking you either). I'd ask her, but it only lasted a year, so I'd get my head bitten off if I mentioned it. ;) My overriding memory of it is making about a billion sandwiches, as we did the catering ourselves.
Otherwise, with the obvious exception of the cancelling of Doctor Who, for me this year was mostly about Monty Python's Flying Circus. Repeats on the Beeb, Michael Palin doing Around The World In 80 Days, books galore on the history of the show, and the release of Monty Python Sings, an album of their songs (which I bought in Our Price, on cassette (can life get any more 80s than that?!)). Played it to death that year, albeit very carefully, given some of the lyrics. You have no idea how many times I have caught myself singing Medical Love Song at inappropriate moments. I'd blame dear old Graham (he wrote it), but of course this was the year that he died, one day before the anniversary. His (sort of) autobiography was re-released a couple of years later, and is still one of my favourite books.
Somewhat Pythonesque goings-on elsewhere too that year - A Bit Of Fry & Laurie debuted, and so did Maid Marion & Her Merry Men. Also KYTV, although that's rather less well remembered! It was all about the goings on in a fledgling satellite TV channel, was very good indeed, won a ton of awards, and then disappeared without trace. And speaking of disappearing, the last Blackadder episode - that Blackadder episode - aired in November.
And the music that year was almost as tragic, because this was the year that New Kids On The Block hit British shores, tangling in the charts with yet more Bros, Kylie and Jason, and now joined as well by Sonia and Big Fun. One big pop nightmare! Added to which, Bruce Springsteen (who was seriously ill with bipolar disorder, although none of us knew that at the time), went and sacked the E Street Band (they got back together again a few years later, when he'd recovered some). Things were bad in Musicland. Fortunately, there were a few exceptions.
( Loud stuff here )
Farewell to the 80s, then. Onward to the 90s.
I mostly remember unrest in 1989. Tiananmen Square. Eastern Europe - Romania, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and then the Berlin Wall coming down. And Hillsborough of course, back in the UK. And did my sister get married that year? I think she did (and no, I have no idea why I'm asking you either). I'd ask her, but it only lasted a year, so I'd get my head bitten off if I mentioned it. ;) My overriding memory of it is making about a billion sandwiches, as we did the catering ourselves.
Otherwise, with the obvious exception of the cancelling of Doctor Who, for me this year was mostly about Monty Python's Flying Circus. Repeats on the Beeb, Michael Palin doing Around The World In 80 Days, books galore on the history of the show, and the release of Monty Python Sings, an album of their songs (which I bought in Our Price, on cassette (can life get any more 80s than that?!)). Played it to death that year, albeit very carefully, given some of the lyrics. You have no idea how many times I have caught myself singing Medical Love Song at inappropriate moments. I'd blame dear old Graham (he wrote it), but of course this was the year that he died, one day before the anniversary. His (sort of) autobiography was re-released a couple of years later, and is still one of my favourite books.
Somewhat Pythonesque goings-on elsewhere too that year - A Bit Of Fry & Laurie debuted, and so did Maid Marion & Her Merry Men. Also KYTV, although that's rather less well remembered! It was all about the goings on in a fledgling satellite TV channel, was very good indeed, won a ton of awards, and then disappeared without trace. And speaking of disappearing, the last Blackadder episode - that Blackadder episode - aired in November.
And the music that year was almost as tragic, because this was the year that New Kids On The Block hit British shores, tangling in the charts with yet more Bros, Kylie and Jason, and now joined as well by Sonia and Big Fun. One big pop nightmare! Added to which, Bruce Springsteen (who was seriously ill with bipolar disorder, although none of us knew that at the time), went and sacked the E Street Band (they got back together again a few years later, when he'd recovered some). Things were bad in Musicland. Fortunately, there were a few exceptions.
( Loud stuff here )
Farewell to the 80s, then. Onward to the 90s.
Tags: