Xenon's Seventh Circle

1994 was a big year for me. I went to university, and also got online for the first time. Access was a bit limited to begin with; they were still installing the equipment to properly get the place Netted up. But it was there. Instant communication with the entire world! Okay, okay - a little bit of it, mostly in other colleges. The internet was a lot smaller in those days! But communication, without that troublesome face-to-face nonsense. It was quite the revelation.

Lots happened before I got there though. My local area got turned on its head at the start of that year, when the Fred West saga was uncovered (literally). He'd been murdering young women for years, and burying them in his back garden. One of a number of jobs that I had that year was delivering newspapers, and I had strings of little old ladies sitting by their front doors every day, desperate for the latest bit of news! One of the victims, who had disappeared in 1973, was local, and they all remembered the search that went on for her at the time, in fields round about. That turned into quite the major story - and Gloucestershire was collectively most put out when Harold Shipman turned up a few years later, and Yorkshire stole the "home of the country's most prolific serial killer" title. Granted, it's generally held that West killed more people than was proven, but he's highly unlikely to have hit Shipman's total. Although, do we win on points for having a violent one, when Shipman did it all with a quiet voice and a syringe? A vital point of order, I think...

Happier news in South Africa! Nelson Mandela was elected President in this year, which was good to see. A long, long time coming. Good for two reasons. One, he was the best man for the job - and two, his amazing shirts instantly brightened up any gathering of international leaders. I loved those shirts.

Elsewhere though, it was one of those years. Pretty much anybody I'd ever watched on telly seemed to die in '94. George Peppard! Farewell, Hannibal Smith. Telly Savalas (so long Kojak). And whilst I'm on the subject of policemen - how'd I forget to mention Raymond Burr yesterday?! Cameron Mitchell, who had had a long film career, but who I remember best as good old Buck Cannon in The High Chaparral. And of course Roy Castle lost his cancer battle this year. Nick Cravat and Burt Lancaster both went in '94 as well - together until the end. And Kurt Cobain of course.

John Smith, the admittedly dull leader of the Labour Party, also died this year, very suddenly. I don't know if he would have stood much chance making Prime Minister come the next election (he really didn't seem to have a personality at all), but his death saddled us with Tony Blair. Heaven only knows what might have happened had he lived. Iraq? Afghanistan? It's hard to believe that he'd have gone down that route. But, inevitably, there's no way of knowing that now.

Good year for music. Britpop was well underway. Blur's third album and Oasis's first one both went stratospheric. Pulp's ninety-ninth (or whatever it was) finally made them stars. M People were gigantic for five minutes, and the Manics came out with the critically acclaimed The Holy Bible. Don't know that it was a big commercial success at that point, but it made their name as a band to watch out for.

Lots of big stuff from America as well. REM released Monster, with songs What's The Frequency, Kenneth? and Bang & Blame; Jeff Buckley released Grace, which featured the ubiquitous Hallelujah. Was there a TV show in the 90s that didn't feature that somewhere?! Arguably the big song of the year was Springsteen's Streets Of Philadelphia, from the previous year's film Philadelphia. It won just about everything going in '94 and '95 - and (far more importantly!) when he played it live at the Grammys, he did so with Max and Roy. The E Street Band was on its way back!

( ... )

Argh, 1992. What do I know about 1992?! I do know that Peter's Friends was released. I went to see it, but the projector broke down part way through, so I had to go back the same time next week to see the rest. Fortunately it was worthwhile! I wound up buying the soundtrack (which I recommend). Windows 3.1 came out, although I don't think I got anywhere near it until probably around '94, by which point it was about to be superceded by 95. I didn't start using 95 until about 2000 though, by which time... I sense a pattern. :)

Oh, what else happened in '92? Um. It was a leap year. (Counts, hurriedly). Yes. Definitely a leap year. Bush and Yeltsin spent ages having talks to decide that they weren't going to try blowing each other up anymore, which was quite nice of them I suppose. Clinton got elected. I like Bill Clinton. He plays the saxophone, and likes fish and chips. Does it show that I'm struggling with this year? I really don't remember a bloody thing, except school sucking.

There was the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert of course, but I wasn't able to watch that. A rock concert in tribute to a member of Queen was not going to happen with my father present. Happily he was out when it got repeated. Whether that was Christmas '92 or '93, I don't recall, but it was one of the two. Springsteen put out a pair of (E Street Band-less) albums, but I was still cross with him for sacking them, so I don't think I paid much attention. Being (mildly) less ridiculous nowadays, I've got over all of that, but I still think those two albums are rubbish (sorry Bruce). Except for Human Touch and Better Days. Least said about 57 Channels (And Nothing On), the better. What were you thinking, Bruce?! About the same as the British public were thinking, when they elected the Conservatives again this year. 1992! If they'd waited one more year, I could have voted. And I'm not trying to make out that this would have made any difference to the outcome, especially given Britain's rubbish first-past-the-post electoral system, but at least I'd have felt like I could have helped. I still don't know who I would have voted for though. No Greens then, at least locally. Never could quite believe in Neil Kinnock, and Paddy Ashdown irritated me. Safe Tory seat here, so it's irrelevant anyway, but dreams are nice.

What was I watching in 1992? That's usually a safe subject. It was the year that Between The Lines started. I love that show. Still good. That first series is a humdinger, although I do still prefer series two. And there was The Good Guys (which I alone seem to remember, with Nigel Havers and Keith Barron swashbuckling their way about. With swords! There were definitely swords in one episode at least). And there was Sam Saturday, which I'm definitely alone in remembering, about a policeman. (It was a nickname - he was Jewish, so they called him Saturday. Because...? Saturday could just as easily be for Catholics. Anyway, I liked it at the time). And the BBC caused national panic airing Ghostwatch, in which Mike Smith and Sarah Greene, with Michael Parkinson just to make it all look extra believable, pretended to discover ghosts in the suburbs. It was brilliant. They were banned from showing it again. Some people have no sense of humour...

( Music! That's something that I do know something about. )

1993 is far less of a struggle. Though that's not necessarily a good thing.

The nineties came in with a flurry of absurd fashions, if I'm remembering things right. Long hair with centre partings and lots of floppy fringes. Ridiculously baggy clothing. MC Hammer with the world's stupidest trousers in the video for U Can't Touch This. One of those decades when I could be very grateful for not being fashionable! Better stuff going on in other avenues though. Nelson Mandela was freed this year, which was a great thing to see. Brian Keenan was released as well, after four and a half years in Lebanon. The British public actually managed to accomplish something constructive this year as well, standing up to the Poll Tax, and eventually forcing Margaret Thatcher out of office. Why can't we do that kind of thing anymore? Her resignation was one of those great moments in history (I fully accept that other political viewpoints do exist, but the important thing to remember is that they're wrong).

And as for the rest of the year - we lost Sammy Davis Jr, which was a terrible shame. I don't know quite when I first latched on to the whole Rat Pack thing - certainly it all started with Dino, but the other two weren't that far behind; and Sammy was a heck of a talent. Elsewhere, Sue the T. rex was found in the hills of Dakota, a truly beautiful discovery. This was the pop video that everybody was talking about. Woman dances seamlessly with cartoon! It looked really impressive. Guess I hadn't seen this yet. Not that it cheapens Opposites Attract exactly, but when you've seen Gene Kelly dance with a cartoon, Paula Abdul seriously ain't gonna cut it anymore. You know, that's either one gigantic mouse, or Gene Kelly was a lot shorter than I've been led to believe...

Good year for the telly. The Mary Whitehouse Experience transferred from Radio 1. I loved it because it was funny, but I must admit that I also loved it because my mother wholly disapproved of the theme music. When you're fifteen, you know a TV show is good if even just the theme tune makes your mother bristle! Fry & Laurie were still doing their sketch show for the BBC, but also started the excellent Jeeves & Wooster for the other side. And they filmed bits of it near here. I didn't see them, but there was much local excitement! Quantum Leap aired for the first time, and Drop The Dead Donkey as well. Probably not all at the same time. I was still watching a lot of TV in those days, but even I couldn't have handled that. I think Have I Got News For You started in 1990 too. It was still watchable then, before they sacked Angus.

But for me, one thing above all else sums up 1990. On August 8th, my mother decided that we had been without a cat for long enough, and we went to visit the local branch of the Cats Protection League. There was a little tabby there, with half a tail, and a whole lot of personality. I can't claim that it was love at first sight, as she'd been badly treated by somebody, and was a little bundle of nerves to begin with, but we got over that in time. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. The 8th August 1990 was a Good Day.

( Music time )

Writing these things every day is bloody hard. Whose stupid idea was this anyhow?!

Oh, 1988. Peter Powell and Mike Smith both left me in 1988. To be perfectly fair, Smithy didn't go away - he just left the radio and went back to the television - but Radio 1 replaced him with Simon bloody Mayo, and how's that supposed to get me up and ready to face school?! And then he went and crashed his helicopter. That was a scary couple of days. Presumably a lot more so for him and Sarah Greene, but even so.

By this stage, me and music had pretty much agreed to take a trial separation, and start seeing other people anyway. 1988 was the year when Stock, Aitken & Waterman's stranglehold on the charts began (think Simon Cowell, but with '80s bounce). Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and bland pop for the pre-teen. And on top of that there was Bananarama every way you turned, and Bros on the rise. I got pretty heavily into '50s and '60s stuff at this stage in my life. There'd been a fair bit of it on offer anyway thanks to my parents' record collection, and since there was only me and my younger sister left at home by now, there was plenty of opportunity to investigate all that. It did wonders to help me fit in at school. :D We lost Roy Orbison of course this year, so his music was all over the place, and there were a few reissues of old songs due to adverts. I know that the Hollies' He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother came out again around about now, but I can't remember what advert that was from. My brain says beer?

It was around now that Monty Python's Flying Circus got a partial repeat as well. Had to wait for the twentieth anniversary the following year for the early stuff, but what I saw was enough to get me heavily addicted. It was also the year of A Fish Called Wanda, so there was certainly plenty of Python to go around. Speaking of anniversaries, it did seem to me as though the Beeb was a bit lacklustre in celebrating the Doctor's. There was a special episode of course, but that was about it. (Nice trailer here, courtesy of YT - Ian and Vicki! (this was also the year that William Russell became a father again, when little Alfie Enoch was born)).

And then of course the year ended with Lockerbie. Crazy days.

( ... )

This one has taken ages to write, because I hated 1986 at the time, and I still hate it now. So I'm just going to skip all that and bluster about the good bits. Or semi-good bits, since this is the year my jammy-dodger brother got to go and see Queen live (at Knebworth) (hiss, boo, grumble, sulk, etc). I wasn't allowed to go, because I was eleven, and that wasn't old enough. Also, to be perfectly fair, he probably wouldn't have wanted me tagging along anyway! But it turned out to be their last concert. I should have hidden in the back of the car, damn it!

Important to me, though I suspect for very few other people - this was the year when Mike Smith took over the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Not the weekend one; that was still Peter Powell, with his Aswad fixation and his insanely jolly jingle. The weekday one. 07:00 - 09:30, which meant that I had to miss half of it due to school. I did get very good at sticking around for as long as mortally possible though, in order to hear as much of it as I could. I needed that damn show. I genuinely don't know how I'd have made it through those first few years of secondary school without it.

Big year for news. Reagan and Gorbachev trying to agree on how they shouldn't blow each other up (you wouldn't think that would take weeks of negotiation, really, would you. But it did). The Challenger disaster. Keenan and McCarthy, vanishing into the depths of Beirut, to surface again in 1990 (Keenan), and 1991 (McCarthy). I don't know why their story fixated me so, but it did. The other Western hostages in Beirut were American, and older, and looked like CIA agents. They were all over the news to begin with, but it was far harder to empathise with them. Keenan was just an English teacher trying to help people though, and McCarthy was a kid in comparison; this journalist still in his twenties, trying to make sense of the place. And the government handled it appallingly badly, and I've rarely hated Margaret Thatcher and her cronies more.

Good year for music, though. I used to have a double cassette called Now That's What I Call 1986, and it was about two hours of solid bouncing. Oh, and Chris de Bleurgh, with his confounded Lady In Red. What she saw in him, I can't imagine. Presumably she was tone deaf, as well as sartorially challenged. Some jeans advert (I think) led to a re-release of Sam Cooke's Wonderful World, which was nice. Much appreciated, whichever jeans brand you were. I'm guessing Levi, mostly because it's the only one I can think of just now. The kids from Grange Hill did their Just Say No campaign, with a terrible song, and a video that's actually quite nice now, though only because thirty years have passed it by. They're all so little. The Spitting Image lot put out The Chicken Song, and it's quite possible that I still have it stuck in my head, even after all these years. Still, it's not the stupidest thing that I've caught myself singing. Not quite. Oh, and Jim Diamond had a hit with Hi Ho Silver, the theme song from Boon, thereby confusing half the country, who had thought that he was a woman. And Five Star were everywhere. Why and how, heaven only knows, but somebody was buying their records. If it was you, I'm glaring. Very fiercely indeed.

( Read more... )

1984 was a pretty sucky year, for reasons that I'm not going into. Partly because it was miserable, and partly because I'd get shot if anybody found out I'd been posting about it! But it's not a year that I remember especially fondly. Still some good stuff though. For instance - Manimal! Only eight episodes. There should have been so many more. We also got Blue Thunder that year (cops in a helicopter); Airwolf (vigilantes in a helicopter); and Matt Houston (rich playboy PI with a helicopter). Clearly 1984 was the year of the helicopter. British TV didn't do too badly that year either, although the budgets rarely extended to helicopters. The Bill and Casualty both started that year. Both went on far, far too long, and became ghastly parodies of themselves, but they were both excellent to begin with. Dempsey & Makepeace started, and so did Robin Of Sherwood. Peter Davison ran away when we'd barely got to know his Doctor, and Rentaghost and Crackerjack both ended, probably rather later than they should have done. (And anybody who didn't just yell "Crackerjack!" is being glared at. Just so you know). How did I manage to do anything else, with all this telly-watching?! I think days must have been longer back then. Probably got chopped in half later by the Conservatives, to save money.

Elsewhere, 1984 was the year when my mother decided that, since I never mixed with people my own age, or spoke to anybody ever, I needed to start going to youth club. Oh joy. Consequently, for the best part of a year, I spent an hour every Friday evening in a room full of noisy people. I still didn't talk to anybody, but I suppose I was not talking to them in a different environment, which was possibly at least part of the idea? When she realised that it hadn't worked, she enrolled me in a local Evangelical Bible group instead. What the bloody hell that was supposed to accomplish, I still have no idea. A safe environment, I suppose! Given that the area's three worst problem children had been enrolled as well, presumably in a last ditch attempt to sort them out, it was an experiment quite hilariously doomed to failure. Anyway, we clapped our hands a lot, sang a lot of songs, and I didn't talk to anybody. I'm sensing a pattern. Being the only introvert in a family with seven noisy extroverts takes some careful explaining! Especially when you haven't heard of the word "introvert" yet.

Oh, 1984. You were a problem year. Perhaps that was inevitable, once George Orwell wrote that blasted book!

( ... )

I got a new sister in 1982. That was nice. I hated being the youngest. We didn't get along until she was practically out of her teens, but it was mostly nice having her there anyway! I guess that was also the year that the garage fell down, and squished my bike. Probably one of the few times I'd put it away, rather than leaving it out on the lawn! It must have been in the winter, either at the start or the end of the year (bit vague, I know). I do know that we were watching Tarzan, in one of its various forms; and he jumped out of a tree, and landed with the most almighty crash you ever heard, which shows that sometimes the wind has jolly good timing.

TV wise, I think I was turning steadily American from this point onwards. I don't know when The Dukes Of Hazzard starting airing in the UK, but it was certainly underway by now. The Fall Guy was just getting going, and so was Tales Of The Gold Monkey, although I guess everybody would rather forget about that one nowadays. Obviously there was Starsky & Hutch in near permanent repeat, and Bonanza settling into what seemed like a decade-long position in the BBC schedules at noon on a Sunday. Guns! Explosions! Car (horse) chases! Hurrah! (Although America also gave us Fame in 1982, so by no means was it all good). I must be fair to British TV, which did give me a good series of Doctor Who this year of course. And then killed Adric at the end of it. I was devastated! Boy have times changed...

Musically a few surprises. Bucks Fizz managed to become temporarily cool with The Land Of Make Believe, the Jam fell apart, Chas & Dave would keep bothering us with nonsense (that my sister would insist on singing, loudly), and half of the Specials unfathomably formed a duet with Bananarama. Me and some friends from school formed a band this year, although I don't think it lasted the year out. I don't remember much, but there must have been some pretty severe musical differences, given that (of a trio, if memory serves), one was a Bucks Fizz devotee, and wasn't really allowed to listen to anything else (paranoid parents), and the other third only seemed to know Christmas carols. My abiding memory of our attempt at musical stardom is that we were initially called Hot Chocolate, as it was the one thing we all seemed to like! Then we found out that there was already a band with that name, which was bound to cause confusion on Top Of The Pops, so after much deliberation we changed to Blancmange. Somebody nicked that one off us too. :) Why we were so obsessed with foodstuffs, goodness only knows. And I don't think any of us could sing. Two of us played the melodica, and I don't remember what the third one did. She had one of these, so probably that.

And now I'm going to shut up, before this gets any more embarrassing!

( 1982 stuffs )

Channel 4 started this year too of course, but my family didn't get it until 1983. Something to do with the aerial, I think. And we went to war with Argentina, mostly because the leaders of both countries were low in the opinion polls, and needed a handy distraction, sharpish. (When I say "we", I do of course mean Britain. Not my family. We always were a rowdy bunch, but we were never that bad. And in 1982, the furthest we went was Cornwall. Honest).

"Flash! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!"

I suppose 1980 is the year of John Lennon. I don't know that I remember his death so much as the shockwave it caused. It was clearly something really big; something that everybody everywhere was talking about - and then Imagine was everywhere, for the next year. Good things happened that year too though; in the telly department especially. My eldest sister had been a fan of Blake's 7 since it began, so I was aware of it all along. It didn't really engage me to begin with though. Vague memories of finding Servalan a bit scary, and of wondering why they kept Avon around, as he was clearly a bad guy(!). And then, in 1980, Blake went AWOL, and Tarrant and Dayna turned up instead. I've been a fan ever since. :)

I must have been growing up that year actually, as it was the year that Grange Hill won me over as well. My brother was the same age as Tucker and co, and had been watching all along, but it wasn't until series three and four, which both first aired in 1980, that I began to watch properly. That was when Stewpot's year joined (still my favourite GH group). Stewpot, Precious, Pogo and Gripper. It was properly good back then, and well worth a rewatch.

Musically, 1980 was a heck of a mishmash. Adam Ant first caught my attention, with his white stripe and his big boots. Ska was catching on - The Specials had probably been around a while, but I was noticing a lot of stuff for the first time. Madness were getting bigger; and meanwhile Dennis Waterman was singing I Should Be So Good For You, which I don't mind admitting I still love. Actually, if you look at this handy link here, you can see the biggest hits of 1980, and it really is a weird mixture. Some truly great pop, ska, rock, etc; and in the middle of it all, the likes of Doctor Hook and the St Winifred's School Choir, the latter with the most terrifying song ever performed on TOTP. And dear gods, Liquid Gold with Dance Yourself Dizzy. I can't have heard that song in a good thirty years or more, and now I have the chorus prancing about inside my brain, like some ghastly spectre raised from the dead. Please send help. Urgently.

There's Keith Michell there as well, mind, just squeaking into the year's top one hundred, with Captain Beaky. We lost him last week. I highly recommend his 1960s swashbucklers The Hellfire Club (1961) and Seven Seas To Calais (1962), should you be in the mood for some swords and fisticuffs. Yes, I know that's a pretty tenuous link to 1980, but I was raised in a swashbuckle drought.

( Some assorted 1980ish stuff is beneath here )

1978 was quite a good year, I suppose, on the whole. Not that I remember much of it. I started nursery school that year. Vague memories of Ritz crackers, and a tree in the garden with a rope ladder up it. The school was run by a terrific woman much in love with the Montessori method, so we went there to learn stuff, not just to climb trees. She had a tiny little office filled with what seemed like endless collections of short stories that she used to let me borrow. It was great. And I did love that rope ladder!

In the wider world, I mostly remember 1978 as the year of Grease. I wouldn't have seen it until it eventually premiered on the telly, but the songs seemed to be in the charts for the whole year, and were forever on Top Of The Pops. Somebody gave my family the soundtrack album, probably that Christmas. I vividly recall us all happily singing along, totally innocent of the swear words! Or at least, I was. My eldest sister would have turned fourteen that year, so presumably she was a bit more clued up. I'm amazed the record never got itself confiscated. Never did much care for the film though, I must admit. Too long, too slow, and too much John Travolta. Also, if you have to dress like that to get him to take an interest, dear, he really ain't worth it. Still, Kenickie and Rizzo are good.

Must have been the year I started taking a proper interest in Top Of The Pops, I guess. The eldest three would have been fourteen, thirteen and eleven that year, so it was probably inescapable! The others all used to air guitar along with the show, but I was already drum mad. It was a funny parade in those days though, which must have put a strain on the air-guitaring. Alongside Grease, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of Andrew Lloyd-Webber back then. And the least said about Boney M, the better...

Just for the hell if it, beneath the cut is my family's favourite Grease song. ( ... )

There was a really great summer in 1976, apparently. It was so good that people still talk of it now. I don't remember it though, so I can't comment. This seems to baffle my mother, who is convinced that I should remember it - either because it was so good, or because remembering stuff from when you're one is perfectly normal, I have no idea. I don't remember yesterday, for goodness sakes, and she wants me to remember 1976?!* She also remains convinced that I should remember 1976 for another reason - apparently it was the first time that I went to the cinema. She took my brother and sisters to see Bambi that year, which was presumably on a re-release, and clearly couldn't get a babysitter! I can only hope that I behaved, although I find this highly unlikely. But sorry, Mum, no. I don't remember that.

Still, 1976 isn't just a yawning gulf of nothingness in the back of my brain, as it's also the year of Queen's A Day At The Races, the follow up to the massively acclaimed A Night At The Opera. It's been rather lost in the shadow of its predecessor, which is a shame, as I think it's better. It gave the world Drowse, Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and Somebody To Love (which I always think is better than Bo Rhap). Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy has long been a favourite of mine too. Firstly because it's a good song, and secondly because I warmed to it early, when my father was absolutely scandalised by it, probably when it turned up on the radio some time in the eighties. It contains the line "He's my good old fashioned lover boy". Ye gads! Civilisations will crumble!

How easy would this be if I could use Queen every year! Sadly that's not really possible. ( However... )

* On reflection, this wasn't the best task to set myself then really, was it.