Lee Kelly

in case anyone ever needed confirmation that it's not about building a democratic Iran, it's about collapsing Iran and turning it into a land of rubble that can be bombed every six months

This is total nonsense and has no regard for any actual policy content it’s just a vibe. Meanwhile I’m yet to see a single decarbonisation policy from Polanski that isn’t wealth taxes but apparently that’s acceptable?

She was pleasuring herself while thinking about all those dead Iranian schoolchildren, and the air raid siren put her right off her stroke.

Ooh.

Interesting. What dishes is it used for? [West Indian curries are one area I’m less sure on, I can easily see there being a French cuisine influence - or influence ON French cuisine - there…]

This has cheered me up slightly. No particular reason though he was obviously an objectionable little scrote.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadineja was killed in an airstrike.

The single sleeve for the Pet Shop Boys’ Christmas 1987 release, a cover of the Willie Nelson song “Always On My Mind”. Plain white background, a very small shot of Tennant & Lowe from the video (and eventual film, 1988’s It Couldn’t Happen Here). Name of band & song in small black text.

Each to his own, obviously. Maybe it just wasn’t minimalist enough for me (too “classic”, too… twee?)…

My favourite record sleeve of 1987 may hold a clue:

The Borgen effect? Like how we (still) wish US politics was more like The West Wing?

Fair, but I do know my way around green and yellow ones too, as well as those which - mainly random-store cupboard experiments - can only be described as “generically brown”!! Anyway, I will definitely seek out some of this mystery Gallic condiment… 😁

(Don’t know where that “red” came from?!)

That was going to be my next question, which one this was. I was guessing Morrison’s. There aren’t many Waitroses in north Bristol, and the new one that’s opening is in an exclusive development that’ll probably end up gated, I’ll need my passport to visit if at all…

I was familiar with everything else, but I did say “‘French-style’ curry powder?!” out loud. I know my way around red curries of the world, yet that one gave me pause…

Oooh, new ridiculous trans-atlantic food discourse unlocked!

Their anonymity could be a double-edged sword: I had a friend who (based on my memory of him excitedly telling me) seems to have genuinely believed their TbtHoG video “look” was their actual look…

Everything is awful, but we can still use the internet to spend Sunday morning geeking out about New Order, sleeve design, the vagaries of Factory Records’ cavalier attitudes to.. well, everything really, but release & promotion in this instance. And that’s a good thing. A great, even bigly, thing!

The whole Substance “look” always felt a bit phoned-in to me, a bit “Will this do?” Like their (label’s and/or band’s) alleged attitude towards promotion perhaps even extended to issuing a (hardly a Greatest Hits or Best Of) compilation at all, never mind giving it an (ugh) iconic sleeve design.

Also, is it bad that I can, still (39 years later?! 😭), absolutely nail every answer in that crossword?

Still, that Peter Saville design for the TBtHoG artwork… absolutely phenomenal.

Which would explain it - I was def out of the country for the school Christmas holidays by that next Sunday (13th) - when it entered at no. 25, and also when PSB got to no. 1, this latter a fact of which I was unaware until I got back to the UK in January…

It certainly appears to have taken off on the, er, big runway (my aviation terminology fails me) but landed on the shortest, suggesting it was a lot lighter coming back…

It probably wasn’t as erratic as the track suggests but it does look like they took a very random series of turns to lose height in an unpredictable way rather than a straight-on approach vector. I don’t know how in-flight refuellers work, if they dump leftover fuel before landing?

The Saudis say they’ve been authorised to strike back against Iran if there are more attacks on their country. (CNN)

It’s a curious thing that I’m continually surprised Touched By The Hand Of God was a (middling) hit. I thought it bombed. I completely missed it being in the charts somehow even though it was for a while a def shortlister for my fave song of theirs. Only poss explanation is I was out of the country!

Getting to the last one like

BREAKING: The NEC has sensationally BLOCKED Andy Burnham from standing to become the next Ayatollah

First of two pages of New Order’s singles success, mainstream vs. Indie charts; this one from Ceremony in 1981 to Shellshock in 1986.

Second page, from State Of The Nation in 1986 to Regret in 1991 (their first post-Factory non-indie single). From the New Order discography Wiki page.

Just looking at their charts (mainstream vs. indie) and, while it’s probably nowhere near as divergent as plenty of other indie bands of that era (as already & ongoing…ly featured on Dave’s blog), the consistency of it is what’s most stark about it.

Sure I commented as such on the blog posts for either Perfect Kiss or State Of The Nation as well, but only recall ever hearing many of these songs for the first time when they were on Substance. Lack of R1 playlisting was definitely a factor.

Genuinely, here is advice for how to reply to things on this website and others like it.

If you see a post you want to reply to:

From Beirut to Amman, with sightseeing detours to, er, Alexandria and Aqaba.

Or there’s the flight path this Royal Jordanian had to take to get from Beirut to Amman, normally a distance of about 100 miles..!