Andy Lewis

Manfred Mann Chapter Three on Vertigo.

It's a fab tune indeed. And nothing says "delivering the post" more than a song about the isolation and paranoia that are the flip side of being a success in show business.

Weather too, if you're a fan of the Changes trilogy.

YouTube video by Manfred Manns Earth Band (MMEB) Manfred Mann's Earth Band - One Way Glass (Sydney 1972)

The world may be in danger of turning to dust and ashes, but while we can we should remember humanity’s greatest achievements including this belting tune by Manfred Mann. Here’s a video of it I’ve not seen before youtu.be/-exoVJp5CoY

- I know "cool" is relative and in the eye of the beholder and all that, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, cool about leisurewear. I don't care how "comfortable" it is, and that it's "only a rehearsal".
No names, no pack drill, but I hope a bit more of a bloody effort is made for the gig.

I've just seen a video clip of a mid 90s British pop band limbering up for a reunion gig, and my goodness. I'm no oil painting myself but blimey they've disimproved.
It reminds me that when I went to see a reunited The Creation in 1993 they were a) younger than I am now and b) still looking cool.-

It’s bloody ridiculous

YouTube video by Cult Cinema Classics A Prize of Arms (1962) Breaking into the army: The heist that burned the rulebook

Anyone else know this film? Cracking Stanley Baker performance, and a wonderful Britxotica 1962 soundtrack youtu.be/sAh5le4xeAE?...

A decade-long zone so flooded that some of the highlights had been forgotten.

Oh yeah. Them too!

Including at the next election places where they already have MPs. Something they’ll doubtless blame on immigrants or Muslims.

Emily Hahn (left) presumably

They'll keep remaking it until Katharine Birbalsingh no longer gets it mixed up with Lord Of The Rings.

It is one of my favourites of theirs.

-which has Rhubarb Tart on it, an absolute banger.

I got mine for a good deal less than that! I think I've had it for nearly 40 years. I heard a snippet of it on a BBC show where Oddie himself had said the corporation had banned it for "being boring". Which of course it isn't. I also got his album for Polydor - Distinctly Oddie- -

The soundtrack is one of my picks for Best Album of the 1980s.

"I don't like Bill Oddie, he's a grumpy little man" said one of my greatest musical collaborators. "Hang on a minute" I said. "Did you know he did all the music for The Goodies? Was a massive soul and funk fan?" I'll have to play them Cricklewood next time we're together. It'll blow their mind!

Roughly once a year I give it a watch, and my conclusions regarding it are drawn from repeated viewings. I think it's a brilliant time capsule of the mid 80s, dressed up to look like the late 50s. But that's the historian in me, I guess! I still prefer the book, but that's comparing chalk and cheese

Sometimes the best pictures are the ones in your head. Read the book. Listen to the songs it inspired. Those'll never let you down.

If you made a film of Absolute Beginners now, it would be a costume drama. Some would say it would be all the better for being so, more authentic, more true to the text. This might well be true, but it wouldn't be advancing the teenage dream. It'd be historical re-enactment. -

What had been the ABC cinema, now a collection of flats and a shop that I think is currently a barber. The white is now beige and pale grey.

- but 40 plus years on from 1985, even those vestiges have all gone now. Even the ABC/Empire in Watford is no more, converted inevitably into flats-

-but everything was about to. The film- and Bowie's song- mark a moment in time where it would've been very possible to have made a present day update of the plot without having to change anything much except the clothes. The text of Absolute Beginners still had a vestige of contemporary currency-

-as the great Tom Robinson put it a year or so later. And there were still traces of 1958 all over London. Soho still authentically edgy, full of film companies and sex clubs. Cheap flats to rent in scruffy neighbourhoods. Nightlife. Opportunities. Not a lot had changed in 30 years, really-

- the audience were being very "selective". Suffice to say, I thought the film was a lot of fun. Like a cartoon vision of London in the late 50s. It mirrored perfectly the view that the media classes had of that era at the time. We were on the cusp of "teen nostalgia TV ads for chewing gum & beer"-

I'd read a piece about the film in one of the Sunday papers- The Observer I think- and was really excited for it. I had tried to rustle up some mates to go with me but they all had better things to do. As had a good many of Watford's moviegoers. It wasn't exactly empty, the ABC/Empire, but -

No! Tales From The Riverbank was the flip, although the record company later said it ought to have been the a-side. Whatever, you're right. Both sides are incredible songs.

A cinema in Watford called the ABC. A big brick built cuboid, it has a white painted facade with steps leading up to the front doors. It looks tatty and shabby as do the shops it's next to.

- I went to the cinema on my own in Watford to see it one Saturday night- The Empire on Merton Road that had just changed its name to ABC. Here it is in 1987

Both this song and the one by The Jam that has the same title are each tremendous. As is the book that inspired both. And-although it's possibly a heretical opinion- so is the film. If you imagine it being more about 1985 than 1958 it makes a lot more sense. -

Horrible hulking great thing. No need for it.