Tag: Paul Deacon

Free Bonus Brainstrain, Visiting Radio Kings And Remembering The Free Bonus LP, 26 September 1983

In September 2018, Paul Deacon asked me to dig out whatever I might have left of our old silly tape recordings and stuff.

Sadly, little survives, as explained in my piece on Execution Scenes, recordings of which do survive:

Execution Scenes, Coin Tossers And Miscellaneous Silliness Recorded With Paul Deacon, 12 April 1977

But I did find a copy of a tape which I made for Paul – a fiendish pop quiz named “Free Bonus Brainstrain”.

By all means give it a go. Music from the 1960s to the early 1980s – mostly mid 1960s through 1970s. It’s tough and in two chunks, c10’30” and then c7’30”:

I have the answers and will gladly mark attempts and/or send the answer sheets  to anyone who dares to try the quiz and requests the materials.

Paul Deacon – I expect you at least to apply.

I recall that this epic effort was in response to a tape that Paul made for me, which he called “The Free Bonus LP”.

In 2018 I wrote, of that tape:

I recall that I had that tape – I think it was a 4″ spool – when I started my digitisation project but something disastrous happened to it. I think it was one of those (a minority, but a significant number of) tapes that had so denatured over time that the magnetic coating simply flaked off the tape making it inaudible and hazardous to the rather delicate reel-to-reel machinery I was trying to maintain for the purposes of digitising my collection.

I’m trying to recall what was on that tape. I think Paul might have cut some copies of our old silly stuff onto that spool, but it also included some comedy classics. The only one I remember for sure was on it was Bo Dudley, a piece that is so non-PC by today’s standards I almost blush to provide a link to a video of it:

The only other thing I recall about the Free Bonus LP was Paul doing a booming, echoing voice-over saying, “The Free Bonus LP” several times during the tape.

In 2020, however, for reasons explained in this linked piece…

The Free Bonus LP, A Reel-To-Reel Tape Gifted To Me By Paul Deacon, 26 September 1981

…I did manage to recover The Free Bonus LP. It was not a duff tape, but it was recorded at 7 1/2 ips and I now recall that the additional gear/belt that drives my Sony TC377 died before I had digitised that tape. Being 12 years wiser, I realised in 2020 that I could spool the tape into Audacity at 3 3/4 ips and simply tell Audacity to render the digital sound 100% faster when finalising. Result!

Anyway, my Free Bonus Brainstrain emulates the technique but it was not done anything like as well as Paul’s…Paul was becoming a vocal pro, whereas I…wasn’t.

In July 1983, I was doing my regular accountancy summer job at Newman Harris…

I got a job with Stanley, he said I’d come in handy.

…but on the Saturday:

went to Paul for afternoon

I’ll guess that he gave me the Free Bonus LP that day.

More interesting is the entry for 26 September 1983, by which time I had stopped work ahead of my return to Keele:

Lazy day – shopping – taping etc. Paul came over for dinner -> Radio Kings in eve

I think that was the day I gave Paul the Free Bonus Brainstrain.

Of course Paul was already doing DJ stuff by then as a volunteer at Kings College Hospital, the scene of my birth as it happens, on Radio Kings.

I’m sure Paul has many memories of Radio Kings but I wonder whether he remembers much about the evening he took me there and showed me the ropes. I remember being fascinated by it, but little of the detail.

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Four: Twixt Kenton, Centre Point, West End, Streatham, Friends & Family, September 1983

Centre Point Snooker Hall – This Picture “Borrowed” from the Crossrail Learning Legacy

My last few weeks of work that summer were a busy time. I was mostly working on Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises during the second half of that summer, which included Price Buster Records in Rupert Street (the one bit of the Harlequin Records empire he retained), Leisureplay (which was an arcade games business) and Centre Point Snooker Hall (depicted above), which at that time he was expanding also to include a gym venture, one within Centre point and the other out east (Barking if I remember correctly).

I spent most of my time for him pulling together various accounting records at the empire’s nerve centre – a modest former retail unit in Kenton. The team there was governed by a wonderful administrator named Marge who had a trusty part-time assistant (Jean I think), occasionally interrupted by Laurie’s former majordomo Mossy (Mr Moss) who ran Leisureplay and the occasional visit from Laurie himself.

You’re a young man. What do you think of this idea…

…he’d say, bouncing some new commercial idea off me. I usually didn’t much fancy the offer, but would always caveat my answers by saying that I’m probably not his target audience.

…yes…alright, but do you think young people in general will go for that?

…Laurie would often persist. He was a relentless entrepreneur.

The previous summer I had endeared myself to Marge and the team at Kenton by proving to be more than useful at the daily quiz on Radio London, which seemed to please them no end:

Winner, Winner, Radio London Pop Quiz Winner, Seven Singles – Summer 1982

Anyway, we’re here to talk about the tail end of the 1983 summer in this piece, so here are the diary pages and some comments/links to explain the interesting bits

Wednesday 31 August…Marianne [Gilmour’s] for dinner

Thursday 1 September…met Jilly [Black] went on to proms..

My First Night At the Proms: Me, Jilly & Claudio, 1 September 1983

Sunday 4 September 1983…[Uncle] Michael for lunch [he’d have visited my grandparents’ graves as was traditional at that time of year]…Paul [Deacon] came over later.

Friday 9 September 1983 – …helped Mum – Jacquie, Len & Mark [Briegal], Michael & Pam [Harris] came over for dinner – v nice

Sunday 11 September 1983 – Stanley & Doreen [Benjamin] came over for lunch – went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] in evening.

Basically the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur dominated these weeks.

Monday 12 September 1983 – Busy day Kenton – went out with Caroline in evening.

Tuesday 13 September 1983 – Finished P/B [Price Buster] today – went to office. Took mum and dad to The Rivals in eve.

The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Olivier Theatre, 13 September 1983

Friday 16 September 1983 – busy day of work – lunch with Ashley [Michaels]…

Saturday 17 September 1983 – Yom Kippur – broke fast with G Jenny & Uncle Louis [Barst]…

Sunday 18 September 1983 – Nice lunch – Wendy came over in afternoon…

Tuesday 20 September 1983 …went to Annalisa [de Mercur’s] for lunch – went out with Jilly in eve – Pastels [was that a wine bar or something?] -> Joy King Lau [a favourite Chinese restaurant near Leicester Square]

Wednesday 21 September 1983 …worked late – boozing with Mike [King] till late

Thursday 22 September 1983 Felt grotty today! [see worked late / boozing till late the day before – what did you expect, kid?] Went to lunch late with [Sandy] Yap…cold coming on [this all reads a bit self-inflicted to my older eyes forty years later]

Friday 23 September 1983 – Last day. Went Stockpot lunch Yap – after work Phoenix -> Mayflower for feast – v nice.

Mayflower – was excellent – now closed – image “borrowed” from Hungry Onion.

Either I was now seen as part of the team or the gang wanted to make absolutely sure I was gone. You, dear reader, can decide.

Saturday 24 September 1983 …went to Caroline [Freeman’s…now Curtis] party – stayed at Simon’s [Jacobs]…

Sunday 25 September 1983…left about midday. Had Chinese meal at home…

The Chinese meal at home was probably from Mrs Wong. Not quite the same ass Mayflower feast, but it would have been good enough. Anyway, 40 years later, Mrs Wong is still there…

…well, the restaurant is, possibly not the middle-aged woman who ran the place abck then…

…whereas Mayflower is gone.

Image “borrowed” from All In London

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Three: Meeting Adagio Acrobats & “Visiting Andrea’s New Mansion”, Second Half Of August 1983

Stephen Williams / Bushy House, Bushy Park – – aka “Andrea’s New Mansion” – via Wikimedia Commons

Following the theft of Paul Deacon’s car from outside our house in Woodfield avenue, reported in the preceding piece…

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Two: Work, Friends, Music & Car Theft, First Half Of August 1983

…one might have expected the week to have become less exciting as it went on – not a bit of it:

Here follow transcriptions and explanations of the highlights:

Wednesday 17 August 1983 – …Chinese meal for lunch – met Jim [Bateman]after work in Bloomsbury – quite pleasant. [This was no doubt similar to after work “meetings” reported previously]

Thursday 18 August 1983 – Lotsa work to do today – went to Daquise with Ashley [Michaels] after work in evening.

Ashley had an approved, private evening job arrangement with one of the firm’s client’s, Daquise Restaurant, to keep the books of account in good order ahead of audit. Over the years I went there with Ashley after work a few times – a symbiotic combination of mentoring and helping him to get his tasks done.

The things that made this arrangement interesting were the historic clientele of the restaurant (see blurb on the home page of the Daquise website), which had been going since just after the second world war, plus the original owners of the place, who had been adagio acrobats in the 1930s as part of a then famous act, The Ganjou Brothers And Juanita.

The Ganjou Brothers & Juanita, from Wkimedia Commons, on the same fair use basis.

The following wonderful video shows more, for those who like this sort of thing. Very slow start (the first two minutes is very dull) but after that the acrobatics is simply stunning and the “interview” hilarious:

Serge Ganjou was ever present at Daquise in those days, so I got to know him quite well on the back of my visits with Ashley. Serge’s wife, Juanita, was also there in the restaurant sometimes. Ashley and I were always fed on those occasions – I already had a taste for that sort of Central/Eastern European food.

Friday 19 August 1983 – Work OK – Chinese lunch – quick drink after -> [then on to] Andrea’s New Mansion – stayed over.

Andrea Dean a few years earlier

Andrea’s dad Paul headed the National Physical Laboratory, which resulted, around that time, in the family taking up rather grand residence within Bushy House.

I love the casual mention of it in my diary at that time, “->Andrea’s new mansion” as if I thought I’d get used to visiting folk in mansions. Mind you, forty years later, in the autumn of 2023, for one reason…

Gresham Society Visit To The Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court, 14 September 2023

…or another…

…I guess I am now getting rather used to it.

I remember a good few fun parties and sleepovers at Andrea’s grand place – no doubt they will come up in future diary notes.

Saturday 20 August 1983 – …got back lunchtime. Lazyish afternoon – Mays [George and Winifred] came over in evening for dinner

Sunday 21 August 1983 – …Angela & Vivienne [Kessler] came to tea…

Angela & Vivienne 1980 at Auntie Francis’s place

I have no idea why (or whether) John wasn’t there. My diary squiggles are almost illegible, but I think he was away on business on that occasion.

The following week was very quiet by comparison:

Tuesday 23 August 1983 – …went over to Jilly’s for evening – most pleasant

Friday 26 August 1983 – drinks at lunch – went home – lazy evening [those were the days, eh? Half holiday ahead of a bank holiday]

Sunday 28 August 1983 – birthday – went to Inn On the Park for lunch – v nice.

All that ahead of a significant change in work pattern after the bank holiday, as I was then assigned to Laurie Krieger’s Harlequin, Pricebuster & Leisureplay empires. All will be explained in the next instalment.

That holiday weekend, my head was probably still full of adagio acrobats and mansions.

Stephen Williams / Bushy House, Bushy Park

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Two: Work, Friends, Music & Car Theft, First Half Of August 1983

Photo by Kieran White from Manchester, England, CC BY 2.0 – image not Paul’s actual car I hasten to add…

I was working, I was going out a lot, I was making, receiving and listening to mix tapes for and with Paul Deacon – I even found time to do some studying it seems, according to the diary.

Let me transcribe and explain the highlights of that first week of August

Monday 1 August 1983 …met Marianne [Gilmour] for lunch…

Wednesday 3 August 1983 …Paul [Deacon] came over in evening…

I attribute Paul’s wonderful Summer 1983 mix tape to around this time. I have posted two pieces about this mix tape with embeds of the tracks – you can click through the image links below to see those:

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side One, c.August 1983
Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side Two, c.August 1983

Thursday 4 August 1983…had Chinese lunch [probably at the wonderful Lee Ho Fook No 2 in Macclesfield Street] with the chaps

“The chaps” would be my fellow Newman Harris accounts clerks, several of whom were of Chinese origin – mostly Chinese Malaysians

Friday 5 August 1983…work OK – drink after with Michael …

…Michael King, who would doubtless have joined us for the Chinese lunch and who ended up marrying Sandra, who was one of the Chinese Malaysian clerks. We might have deemed her to be “one of the chaps” back then – she was, I think, the only female in that clerks’ room at that time

Saturday 6 August 1983…met Jilly [Black] in eve – went Rasa Sayang – v nice

In Soho, but not to be confused with the Rasa Sayang currently (40 years later) in Macclesfield Street (coincidentally, I think where Lee Ho Fook No 2 used to be) – the Rasa Sayang I frequented back in the 1970s and 1980s (thanks again to my Chinese Malaysian holiday job colleagues) was on the corner of Bateman Street and Frith Street. Mentioned in the book Waterloo Sunrise as a place frequented by students…well, yes!

Sunday 7 August 1983 – went to Anil’s [Biltoo] 21st in afternoon & evening – much booze

Anil, cousin Shahil Soniassy and me, four years earlier to the day

…and now the second week…

Monday 8 August 1983 – …met Simon [Jacobs] for lunch,,,

Wednesday 10 August 1983 – …Paul [Deacon] popped over in evening

Thursday 11 August 1983 – …Chinese lunch…

Friday 12 August 1983 – …had drink after work [that will have been with “the chaps”]

Saturday 13 August 1983 …did academic work. Watched films in eve…

…film watching will have been on the TV with dad. Judging by the on-line listings, I think we saw The Last Married Couple In America followed by Arsenic & Old Lace.

I must say, reading this 15 August diary entry caused me to make a sharp intake of breath and sense that “oh no” feeling I no doubt had at the time. In truth I only vaguely recall Paul’s car being stolen from outside our house, but I suspect that Paul has stronger memories of it. Any thoughts to share on that, Paul?

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side Two, c.August 1983

Side Two Track Listing

You can see/hear Side One of Paul Deacon’s exceptional Summer 1983 mix tape by clicking here or the link below.

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side One, c.August 1983

Here are embeds for Side Two.

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side One, c.August 1983

Paul some 34 years later – still crazy (about records) after all these years

The reel-to-reel mix tape that Paul made for me in the summer of 1983 was a true belter. Most of his mix tapes were terrific, of course, but this one I especially remember listening to a great deal that summer and during the 83/84 academic year at Keele, having ported the material onto cassettes.

Here’s Side One. I’ll up Side Two soon.

Below I have embedded them all – hopefully most/all will still be here when you get to this piece, if you want to listen (and/or, in a few cases, watch).

I feel compelled to interrupt this playlist to heap praise on the brilliant selection of the above three tracks as a sequence. It’s hard for me to explain (Paul might be able to do so) but it worked brilliantly for me. I realise, with hindsight, that any smidgeon of ability I brought to DJ-ing at Keele the following year was to a large degree attributable to what I learnt from Paul. What a pro.

So for you, Paul, as I know you will enjoy this, here is a live version of Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at The Marquee introduced by a young German woman in a mixture of German and English that we might easily have made up:

And now, back to the playlist:

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part One: A Social & Emotional Whirl…With Some Work Thrown In, July 1983

Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.

The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.

As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.

I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.

https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/surplus-stores/5766-laurence-corner

In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…

The Sneyd, The Jedi, The Parents & The Return To London At The End Of My P2 Year At Keele, 1982/1983

…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.

There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.

Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening

Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late

Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]

Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening

Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed

Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve

Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.

Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.

I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.

Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]

Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…

Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…

Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.

Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:

Remembering The Heatwave Of Summer 1983 At Keele, Late June or July 1983

Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.

Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …

Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.

Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]

Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.

I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.

Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…

Tuesday 26 July 1983 – …Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] after work – boozed & ate in eve [almost certainly a Sun in Great Ormond Street/Lambs Conduit Street event] along the lines of evenings during holiday jobs passim…

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…

Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …

Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…

Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!

I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.

Return To Keele For “Twelve Days Of Post-Christmas”/New Year 1983 After A Very Short Seasonal Break In London, 23 December 1982 to 9 January 1983

Boat & Horses Newcastle borrowed and edited from WhatPub.

I returned to Keele very soon after Christmas, for reasons that need no more explaining in this piece than they did in my last substantive piece for 1982.

The Sun Sets On The Outside Edge Of 1982 At Keele, 11 to 22 December 1982

Just A Few Days In Streatham, 23 to 28 December 1982

I basically just spent a few days in London with family and friends that year:

Thursday 23 December…went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] for the afternoon…

Friday 24 December…went over to [Andy & Fiona] Levinson’s…

Saturday 25 December…Benjamins [Doreen, Stanley, Jane & Lisa] came over in evening…

Sunday 26 December…went to [neighbours Eardley & Aidrienne] Dadonka’s in evening…

Monday 27 December …Italian meal [almost certainly Il Carretto]…met Jim [Bateman] in evening…

Tuesday 28 December …did some taping. Went to [John & Lily] Hoggan’s in afternoon. Nice Chinese meal [almost certainly Mrs Wong‘s]. Paul [Deacon] came in evening

Back To Keele For “Twelve Days Of Post-Christmas” Before the Start Of Term, 29 December 1982 to 9 January 1983

The diary mostly refers to hanging around with Liza O’Connor during that pre-term period.

On New Year’s Eve it seems that I made some dinner at Barnes L54, the menu for which is lost in the mists of time but it would have probably been one of my Chinese wok specials. We then went to the Boat and Horses in Newcastle for a New Year’s Eve party.

I have a feeling that Liza’s brother Liam was involved – possibly even the brains behind the idea. But it might have also involved Ashley Fletcher and/or Bob & Sally (Bob Miller and Sally Hyman). I certainly recall Bob having an affection for a Bass pub around there, but perhaps not that one and/or perhaps not New Year’s Eve.

It must have been a good night because it seems we dossed all day the following day, reporting only watching a film on (Alan Gorman’s) TV in the evening. New Years Day aged 20.

Friday 7 January – went to visit Simon {Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] today – went to pub, shopped etc.

I think those two must have been sharing a place off campus by then. I must ask them.

OK, I think I have assessed that those 12 days before the start of term do not contain a great deal of interest for the general reader. There are several mentions of doing some work, as well as several more of spending time with Liza.

In the interest of science, I have assessed the text and can provide the following, quantitative data about those 12 days.

  • Days spent with Liza but not working: six.
  • Days spent working and also seeing Liza: one.
  • Days spent working and not seeing Liza: four, three of which described as “did a little work”, only one described as “worked all day”;
  • Days spent neither working nor seeing Liza: one.

Also in the interests of science, forty years on, I have been playing with bots ChatGPT and DALL-E over the seasonal break, with predictably hilarious results.

As I have so few images from my Keele years, I thought I’d get DALL-E to help me depict that seasonal break. The above picture is a DALL-E image generated solely from the instruction:

Depict a University Student in January 1983 spending 12 days before the start of term dossing with his friends and girlfriend, doing a little work but not much.

Looks only a smidge like me, but more importantly I think DALL-E has erred on the side of the work rather than the dossing. Probably just as well.

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

Ashley Fletcher reminiscing for me in The Sneyd Ams, 35 years later.

I retrieved this memory vividly at a pilot of Rohan Candappa’s new performance piece on 31 October 2017:

What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has taught Me About Love. It’s an exploration of love, and music, and how the two intertwine. it’s also about how our lives have a soundtrack.”

Here is a link to my write up of Rohan’s performance piece.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Rohan used (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space by John Cooper Clarke as one of his examples. If you have never heard a recording of it, here is a vid with an unexpurgated version:

It was Paul Deacon who introduced me to the recording (the expurgated version as it happens), in April 1982. I know these exact details because I still have the track listing from the relevant cassette, beautifully typed by Paul as part of the gift:

In October 1982, that cassette would have still been in the recent section of my cassette cases and was still getting plenty of play.

Now turn your mind to Freshers’ Week on the 1982/83 year; my third. Thus spake my diary:

That’s not a bad few days.

I saw The Beat at the Freshers’ Ball on the Wednesday. I’m pretty sure I liked them a lot before I saw them live. But once I’d seen them live I liked them even more. They were a terrific live act. I especially remember the Keele audience going wild for Ranking Full Stop and of course Stand Down Margaret, but pretty much all of the gig was superb as I remember it:

Writing in October 2017, I only wish that someone would write something with similar sentiments about our current prime minister. I mean, where’s Simon Jacobs when you need him?…

…ah, there he is. Thank you, Simon. But I digress.

Two nights later, with just one evening between gigs for me to recover (by “getting quite intoxicated”, apparently) it was Culture Club. That gig was eagerly awaited. They had been unknowns when booked, but were Number Two in the charts come Freshers’ Week, with the clever money suggesting that they would be Number One by the time the next chart came out – which they were.

Liza was at that gig with Ashley Fletcher and a few others of that Hawthornes Hall crowd. Liza wasn’t a Keele student; she had just enrolled on an art school type course at North Staffs Poly as it then was. Liza lived in The Sneyd Arms; she was landlord Geoff O’Connor’s daughter.

35 years later…Ashley in The Sneyd Arms – with thanks to Ashley & Sal for the picture

I remember being underwhelmed by the Culture Club gig. To be fair, their rise (and therefore the increase in expectations) had been stratospheric – in truth they were still a fairly inexperienced band who would have seemed “better than most” if people hadn’t been expecting overnight superstars. I remember them playing “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” at least twice. I think it was just twice. Fairly short set, though.

Weird vid, but if you want to see/hear the song:

Anyway, Liza and I went on to the Postgraduate Bar – KRA afterwards – I have a feeling that Ashley and the rest went on somewhere else. Then one thing led to another with Liza.

I was over the moon, I took her back to my place…and we ended up going out for the rest of that academic year, basically.

I vaguely associate the start of my relationship with Liza with Culture Club. Very vaguely. Until I looked at the diary to prepare this piece, I had completely forgotten that Liza and I got started the night of that gig.

But when Rohan spoke about (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space I had a strong memory flash about it. For a start, I realised that I always associate that record with starting out with Liza.

I cannot swear that the following interaction took place that very first evening/night…I’d rather like to think it was…but I clearly remember Liza rummaging through my cassettes, finding the above one and yelping with joy that I had “I Married A Monster”, which she loved.

It was one of those joyous things; the shared pleasure in a rather obscure, let’s face it, weird, recording. It helped to cement Liza’s and my relationship in those early days. We knew that we must have plenty in common, because we both really liked that John Cooper Clarke record. What additional evidence could you possibly need?

In Rohan’s show, he didn’t really explore the business of how we use the discovery of shared taste in songs to help cement our relationships. But I think that happens often and is quite a central part of why music is so important to us, whether we are seeking, starting, in or ending relationships.

But thanks, Rohan, for helping me to recover this memory through “Monster”. And thanks Paul Deacon, for all you did to help me and Liza, without ever knowing it, until now.

By the way, Rohan’s favourite line from “Monster” is:

…and it’s bad enough with another race, but f*ck me, a monster from outer space.

That might be my favourite line too. But Liza’s favourite line was:

…she lives in 1999, with her new boyfriend, a blob of slime.

Perhaps that was Liza’s way of trying to keep me on my toes; “you’re not the only pebble on the beach…if you keep on like that I might prefer to date a blob of slime…”.

I’m done, but you might enjoy this ranting poetry version of I Married A Monster:

Ten Days In London For Passover & Easter 1982

There was a lot of taping involved, apparently.

Saturday’s “Paul came round in the evening” will be Paul Deacon. Some notion of music/tape swapping or at least an exchange of views on the topic of ,usic will have been high on the agenda.

“Bushey for the day” on the Sunday will have been multiple stone-settings at the Jewish cemetery to mark the end of mourning for Uncle Manny’s death…

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

…and that of Grandma Anne:

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

I vaguely recall the family taking refuge between ceremonies in a ghastly hostelry on the side of the A41 near to the Bushey Cemetery. “Yuk” indeed.

Spending some time with Wendy (Robbins) that evening will have been respite for sure, although my sense of humour that evening probably didn’t extend to the events of the day.

Tuesday evening with Anil Biltoo at The Fox On the Hill and an overnight stay at the Biltoo house will also have been fun.

The word “lazy” appears a lot in my diary for that Easter break.

Wednesday 7 April 1982 …Seder in evening with Louis & Marie [Barst], G[randma] Jenny & [Lionel & Dinah] Aarons.

Seder is the traditional Passover feast and ceremony. In truth I don’t recall that particular Seder well. Dad will have tried to “speed trial” his way through the prayers and story-telling bits. We would have taken our time over the singing, however, not least because Marie was a proper singer (who taught and sang with the BBC Choir) which made the singing worth hearing when she was around. We latterly went to communal Seders in Kingston with Louis, Marie and Grandma Jenny – more on those in subsequent pieces I’m sure.

I should have some latter pictures of Louis and Marie but the one below of Louis at Jenny & Grandpa Lew’s wedding will have to do for now.

Grandma Jenny left, Louis Barst right – 1930s.

Lunch with Caroline [ then Freeman, now Curtis] and on to RTE (Record & Tape Exchange) on the Thursday was a very “me” thing to do in the University holidays.

Yup – that visit to RTE led to more laziness, more taping and another visit from Paul.

On my return to Keele it seems I was lazy no more – instead I festered. I’ll pick up on what festering might have been about in my next Keele episode.