31.1.22 Born To Be Sold

 So. The last Monday lunchtime in January and where do we find ourselves?

(I was asking myself exactly this question last night, decided one of my more admin-y jobs for today will be to review the diary and list what I actually *did*. It's going to be either more or less than I thought/think/planned/expected but it's important to know where you're up to. What's the point of having goals if you don't know where you are?)

The world outside the front door then. Bit windy but we escaped the worst of the predicted 90mph gales. Sounded a bit wild outside the bedroom window last night but - as with snow - being coastal seems to keep us from the worst of most things. I've no idea if that last sentence is even vaguely meteorically sound. The existence of a massive storm across America's East Coast would suggest that I've no idea what I'm talking about. Which is nothing new. And weather kind of falls within geography doesn't it? I paid very little attention in geography, it captured nothing of my heart soul or mind.

Johnson's apparently unleashing 'the Brexit Benefit' (title courtesy of one of the rabid right wing papers); he's going to unlock a billion pounds' worth of EU red tape. Leaving to one side the idea that you can remove the regulations of others - a billion? Really? Your mate Rishi (the richest chancellor ever to set foot in Parliament and bloody determined to make the poor pay for everything, ignore the idea his furlough scheme was for us when he's angling for the top job in the next fortnight) just wrote four of those off against the Furlough fraudsters that his department weren't efficient enough to spot.

Liverpool FC went mad and started buying footballers. Which was nice. And allowed me to wind up the #FSGOUT! crowd ion twitter. They've spent ages demanding that the owners buy someone/anyone while plenty of us (who are now described as 'top reds' - as an insult, one that stands alongside 'antifa'; something coined by others who simply don't get the idea that they've used a positive term in an effort to be damning) pointed out that the owners, and the boss, have always said that the money is there for players who will improve the side.

The FGSGOUT crew? Decided that it's their pressure on social media that's made the billionaires cave in and spend money. Lads, they genuinely haven't got a clue you exist, they haven't seen your tweets, you've had no impact at all. Soz like, that's just how it is. It's fine, they don't know I exist either and I'm sound about the fact.

We were talking Transvision Vamp, weren't we?

Well, I was. I'd bought Velveteen the other day. For a quid. The second album. Didn't buy it at the time. Didn't buy the first album at the time. 

I quite liked the idea of Transvision Vamp, and Wendy James was a bloody good pop star. If you were going to invent a pop star in the late 80s then you might as well invent Wendy James. All attitude and snarl, definitely in charge. Of basically everything she wanted to be in charge of. I first encountered them with their cover of Holly & The Italians' 'Tell That Girl To Shut Up' the original of which everybody already knew was a slice of pop genius. They did a decent version. Then there were a couple of singles of their own (consults wikipedia) (corrects self) No, there was basically only I Want Your Love from that first album. Baby I Don't Care (as I know because I've been listening to it) is on Velveteen. 

I think I though the album was... okay. But now worth buying. So I didn't.

The second? I have a feeling the critics weren't kind. But it went to number one. So it was a big deal at the time. The third didn't chart though. Two year gap and the career's kind of over.

My take on the second at the time? Bit derivative of the obvious classics.

Which I'm now taking as the entire bloody point.

It's actually a slice of really enjoying, gloriously knowing pop.

None of which is the point (though I'll happily recommend you give it a spin, it's fun)

The point is: I met Wendy James once. She came to the old Lord Street shop with a rep. She was tiny. Pop stars are always shorter than you think they're going to be.

She seemed nice. Most of them do. 

We met a few. The 'hitting the road with the local sales rep' was a big deal back in the eighties: the lads from Danny Wilson, Clark Datchler from Johnny Hates Jazz (son of Mickie Most who, decades later, I would write a few lines of dialogue for in Girls Don't Play Guitars - Most being the man who signed the paperwork for the seventeen year old Sylvia Saunders to go to Hamburg), Sam Brown around the time of Stop, Melanie Williams the vocalist for Sub Sub (really nice though it would have been better in the long run to have met the lads behind that single as they ended up being Doves). 

And in PAs? Julian Cope, Space, Pete Wylie, Peter Andre, McFly. Robbie Fowler, Sami Hypia, Dave Watson.

This was one of the joys of the job. The job that ended eight years ago yesterday (I know this, Facebook keeps letting me know how that week was going). 

And the thing is? All these people? All these people you saw at one point or another on Top Of The Pops. They were all basically sound. I only ever met one act who acted as though they were famous. I won't mention them and you've probably forgotten them.

The point then?

Most people are nice, most people are basically sound. And much more like yourself than you'd imagine.