Much has occurred in the wide world of shenanigans since the last, regular, From The North bloggerisationisms update last month, dearest blog fiends. Not least the publication of the always popular Keith Telly Topping Presents ... The From The North TV Awards (2023). And, obviously, there has been the return to television of one, particular, From The North favourite. You may have noticed.
No, seriously, you must've heard about it. It's been on telly and everything.
And, lo, deep joy was had among the multitude at this happenstance (except for all of the sour-faced naysayers and the Special People, who had their usual lip-on and can, frankly, go forth and multiply as far as this blogger is concerned). So, for those dear blog readers who are interested, first there was The Star Beast. This blogger thought that was great. He even got invited to his old place of broadcasting employment, BBC Newcastle, by his former colleague Nick Roberts, to talk about how spectacularly marvellous and great this blogger thought the episode was (as did Nick, as it happens). You can hear this blogger's contribution to The Emma Millan Show, which Nick produces, here for the next couple of weeks until the end of December as Keith Telly Topping discusses all-things Doctor Who. Including that perennial favourite, why 'whovian' is such a fek-ugly word and should be shovelled into the nearest gutter along with all the other turds. Keith Telly Topping crops up from one hour and thirty six minutes into the episode - immediately after Janet Jackson.
Then, a week later, there was Wild Blue Yonder. Which this blogger also thought was great.
All of it. But, especially one particular little bit right at the end. Which was even greater.
Then came The Giggle. Guess what, dear blog reader? Yes, that's right, this blogger thought that was great as well. How did you guess? Proper, twenty-four carat great at that with a big, ripe, juicy cherry on top. An episode with not just one happy ending, but two. When Russell Davies said The Giggle was going to be 'unique' as a Doctor Who episode, this blogger doesn't think anyone realised just how literally to take that.
Of course, not everyone thought these three episodes were great, dear blog reader. Oh, deary me, no. You guessed that, yes? There's always some monobrow'd, slaw-jawed glake with a sodding great chip on their shoulder who will find something to whinge about. The BBC reportedly received more than one hundred - suspiciously organised - complaints from 'viewers' (or, more accurately, transphobic, agenda-soaked hateful, phlegm-flecked pond-scum) who argued that the inclusion of Yasmin Finney's transgender character, Rose, was 'inappropriate.' And, by implication, the suggestion that Doctor Who as a series being inclusive and open and kind to those who are different is something to be spat upon. The Twenty First Century in a nutshell for you, right there, dear blog reader. The corporation revealed it had one hundred and forty four 'messages' from 'disgruntled viewers' in its fortnightly report on audience complaints. Some of these, no doubt perfect specimens of humanity, claimed that Heartstopper star Finney's character was 'anti-male' (whatever the fek that utter nonsense means) while others alleged it was an 'inappropriate inclusion of [a] transgender character.' 'Inappropriate' in what way, other than to confirm their own narrow shitty worldview and sick agenda, they did not reveal. The Star Beast had a consolidated seven-day audience of more than 7.6 million people meaning these ugly whingers (or scum as this blogger will continue to refer to them now and hereafter) make up the tiniest fraction of but one per cent of the total audience. It is not unusual for the BBC to receive complaints over transgender storylines or reporting (from, just to be clear about this and repeat, scum), 'but the corporation will likely stand by the representation of Rose in Doctor Who' suggests Deadline. Somewhat pointlessly since, of course the BBC will stand by the representation. Because they, themselves, are not scum, basically. During a press conference last month, Russell Davies was unequivocal about his ambition to reflect more of society on screen. He lamented how transgender representation can be vilified in the scummish right-wing press, arguing: '[There are] newspapers of absolute hate and venom and destruction and violence who would rather see that sort of thing wiped off the screen destroyed. Shame on you and good luck to you in your lonely lives.' It seems they're not listening to you, Big Rusty. So, what you really need to do is to cast an actor of colour as The Doctor. That'll definitely piss all the right people off and make them mad as Hell. Oh wait, you already have. Good on ya.
The second episode also had its - extremely vocal and unwelcome - gobshite online 'backlash' from some worthless lice-cretins who are, obviously, not racist in the slightest (oh no, very hot water). But who, it would seem, did not like the idea of the discoverer of 'mavity', Isaac Newton, being played by Nathaniel Curtis (an actor of British-Indian descent). Though these same people, seemingly, had no problem whatsoever with any number of Asian characters in the series' past being played by Caucasian actors. That was fine, apparently. Doctor Who Upsets Conservatives As Isaac Newton Played By Person Of Colour noted the Indy, far more jovially than they should have done, in this blogger's opinion. Sometimes, dear blog reader, there simply aren't the words to describe just how loathsome, wretched and nasty some members of the human race are. 'But ... but ... but ... Keith Telly Topping, I'm not a racist, perish the thought. I'm only interesting in historical accuracy. Like the episode with Charles Dickens, or the one with William Shakespeare where they both met aliens.' Like the man said, 'that's all right, then.'
At the time of writing, the third episode of the sixtieth anniversary trilogy has only just gone out so anything The Special People have found to whinge about in The Giggle hasn't yet reached Keith Telly Topping's attention. But, there's an 'y' in the day so it shouldn't take too long. This blogger is guessing The Toymaker dancing to The Spice Girls, or the bi-generation, or Ncuti's y-fronts all probably have gone down like a bucket of cold sick with someone who has access to a keyboard near you and who, of course, knows that they're right. 'At last, you finally caught up with the Twenty First Century!'
That said, dear blog reader, this blogger is already aware of certain online whinges taking place about elements which are rumoured (though not yet confirmed) to be included in Ncuti Gatwa's debut episode, The Church On Ruby Road a full fortnight and a bit before it has even been broadcast. By overgrown schoolboys in their sixties. So, no change there, then. We're really rather unique, us Doctor Who fans, dear blog reader. You may have noticed. Give us a reason to celebrate and some of us will find a way to turn it into a howl of anguish, despair and wholly impotent rage. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Bring on the singing goblins, Russell, you know it makes sense.
The future has, very much, arrived dear blog reader. And, despite what some self-entitled arse-wipes of no importance have to say on the matter, it's going to be great! Well, it will be once the new Doctor puts some pants on!
No, seriously Ncuti mate, you're gonna get yourself arrested before you even meet Ruby down the disco at this rate. Take Detective Inspector Regan's advice and get yer trousers on.
Meanwhile, the possibilities are now open for a spin-off Doctor/Donna series, of course (or, at the very least, the odd 'special' during periods when the main series in on down-time). This blogger may be going out on a limb here but, given the events of The Giggle, Keith Telly Topping is as reasonably certain as one can be in an uncertain, ever-changing world in which we live in (that line still doesn't make sense, Sir Paul) this isn't the last we've seen of David Tennant's Doctor. Personally, this blogger still believes a Sylvia Noble spin-off could work magnificently. Keith Telly Topping has even got the theme tune sorted. It goes - 'Donna's mum, Donna's mum, Donna's mum, Donna's mum, Donna's mum, Donna's mum, Donna's mum, wooo-oooo-oooo/ooo-ooo...' C'mon, it has potential.
This blogger is also delighted to report that he is, currently, three episodes into the third series of From The North favourite Slow Horses - a regular feature in both the 2022 and 2023 From The North 'Best Of' lists. And, it's bloody brilliant. Which, to be fair, this blogger entirely expected, but still, it's nice to have it confirmed. Who can avoid loving a series which suggests that MI5 cold cases are assigned with the importance levels John, Paul, George and Ringo?
As they mingled in a rooftop bar overlooking Battersea Power Station, ITV executives were 'in a celebratory mood' according to a lengthy piece in the Torygraph. ITVX, the broadcaster's streaming service, was turning a year old. Kevin Lygo, ITV's director of television, hailed ITVX as the year's 'biggest and most successful' streaming launch in the UK. Yet the celebrations belied more fundamental problems currently facing the channel - and public sector broadcasting more widely. I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Boat-Race Back On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible (I'll Even Eat Worms If You Want), one of ITV's most sure-fire hits, has suffered a sharp fall in viewing figures, despite (or perhaps because of) the participation of hateful, slappable horroshow Nigel Farage. To the absolute delight of the Gruinad Morning Star who described the reported one million smackers-plus fee paid to Farage for his appearance in the jungle as 'a remarkably bad investmant.' A rapid shift to streaming has left both ITV and rival Channel 4 scrambling to catch-up. And the worst advertising recession since the financial crisis has plunged ad-funded broadcasters into crisis and left them casting around for new areas of growth. As more and more viewers switch off traditional TV in favour of apps such as TikTok and YouTube, executives are facing existential questions about whether their audiences will ever return. I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Boat-Race Back On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible (I'll Even Eat Worms If You Want) has always been a breadwinner for ITV, with millions of viewers tuning-in to watch public figures put through gruelling humiliation. Yet this year's show has been a disappointment. The series launched to an opening overnight audience of seven million – a two million fall from the previous year's first episode and the worst start to a series in recent memory. It is not just ITV. Earlier this year, Channel 4's audience share dropped to a record low, while the latest figures from ratings agency BARB show its reach was down by more than two million in October compared to a year ago. Falling audiences alone would prompt soul-searching at the broadcasters. But compounding matters is a prolonged advertising slump that has battered their finances. Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV chief executive and Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon have both described the current advertising recession as the worst since 2008. ITV 'expects', the newspaper claims, revenues to be down eight per cent for the year. Channel 4, meanwhile, has warned it may need to dip into its emergency seventy five million knicker 'revolving credit facility.' It expects revenues to be down eight to nine per cent - deeper than previous forecasts - and run a budget deficit this year. Gill Hind at Enders Analysis warns of a 'tough winter' ahead, with ITV's advertising revenues potential falling by as much as fifteen per cent over the festive period compared to last year when there was a boost from the football World Cup. 'Everyone knew the first half of the year was going to be difficult, but there was always this assumption that things would pick up in the last quarter,' she says. That has not come to pass. The prolonged economic crisis is largely to blame, with rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty hitting confidence. In particular, tech giants such as Amazon and Deliveroo, which in recent years have splashed out on TV campaigns to build their brands, have cut back spending. Bosses insist the advertising market is cyclical and that they must simply weather the storm. There are also signs of increased investment from consumer giants such as Unilever, P&G and Reckitt Benckiser. But others are less convinced after official government forecasts showed the UK economy will grow by a mere but 0.7 per cent in 2024. 'That's not the sort of stellar macro growth that generally would lead to good advertising,' says media analyst Alex DeGroote. 'I don't buy the cyclical recovery in media and entertainment, not with the economic forecast we have. I just don't buy it.' The sharp downturn has, the Torygraph allege, 'left executives scrambling to prepare for life after terrestrial TV.' The rise of streaming rivals at the expense of traditional TV viewing - known in the industry as 'linear' - has prompted the channels to pump vast sums into their own online offerings. The aim is simple in theory: turn streaming into the primary source of revenue to offset the decline in linear. ITVX has racked up over 2.7 billion streams in its first year. Channel 4's streaming views are up twenty three per cent in the year so far, with 6.7 billion viewer minutes recorded in October alone. However, the broadcasters are competing in an increasingly crowded field and US giants are struggling themselves. Both Netflix and Disney have rolled out ad-supported tiers in an effort to stem a slowdown in subscriber growth. Amazon Prime will push ahead with similar plans next year. These new tiers threaten to eat into advertising budgets and offer more choice to subscribers just as the linear TV players are seeking to build their platforms. In a further looming threat, the Government this week launched a review into future funding models for the BBC, which could see the broadcaster's licence fee income replaced - at least in part - by advertising. Supporters of TV advertising argue that the emergence of new ad-funded tiers is a vote of confidence in the medium, adding that this is expected to boost overall TV investment next year. DeGroote is not convinced: 'There is a relatively finite demand for advertising in most markets.' Perhaps more alarming for the traditional broadcasters is a step change in how audiences are consuming media. Analysts warn that ITV's digital viewing is simply cannibalising its linear audiences, leaving limited scope for growth. Figures from BARB show ITVX viewing has grown by four hundred and fifty eight million hours this year, but its traditional viewing has fallen by more than four hundred and eighty five million over the same period. 'The issue is that your digital audience is not compensating for your decline in linear audience,' says Hind. Figures published by Ofcom over the summer showed a record fall in the weekly reach of broadcast TV to seventy nine per centc in 2022, down from eighty three per centc the previous year. In addition to services such as Netflix and Disney, younger audiences in particular are defecting to short-form rivals like TikTok and YouTube. Channel 4, which primarily targets young viewers, has inked a partnership with YouTube in an effort to expand its audience. Yet traditional viewing is declining even among the over-Sixty Fours. This raises the prospect that broadcasters are now battling a structural decline as audiences spend ever more time on their phones and online. Speaking in front of MPs last month, Mahon played down the threat from streaming and insisted that free-to-air TV still had a role. She said: 'With an economic crisis and inflation and the realities of people not being able to spend what they previously could, people are also switching off subscription services in some cases and are quite happy to have things for free and understand that in recompense for that they watch adverts.' As viewing declines, ITV is placing ever more focus on its studios business, which is responsible for hits including Line Of Duty and Bodyguard. The company made 1.52 billion quid from this division in the third quarter and plans to grow revenues by at least five per cent each year on average to 2026. In the short term, though, it has been hurt by Hollywood strikes. For Channel 4, too, production could be the answer. The recently published Media Bill drops a ban on the broadcaster from making its own shows, opening the door to a new in-house production unit. However, bosses have acknowledged that any such move would take years to get up and running. Sir Ian Cheshire, Channel 4's chairman, recently admitted that this strategy was 'not a silver bullet', although a company spokesman said its 'digital transformation is well ahead' of rivals. While Christmas will be tough, broadcasters face even tougher longer-term questions over whether the decline in both audiences and advertising revenues can be reversed. 'TV is not going to die because there's certain things that you watch TV for that will always be on TV,' Hind says. For DeGroote, however, the shift to streaming can ultimately do little more than soften the blow of broader decline.
From The North favourite Stephen Fry has said he finally feels comfortable returning to work - three months after having a nasty six feet fall from a stage at London's O2 Arena. The actor, writer, broadcaster, wit and all-round good bloke spoke about his recovery for the first time during an interview with Claudia Winkleman on her Radio 2 show on Saturday. He was left needing constant physiotherapy after breaking his leg, pelvis and a 'bunch of ribs.' But he will soon be back on screens, hosting a UK version of Jeopardy! Stephen said he 'praised my lucky stars' he did not injure his spine or skull after falling onto concrete while trying to exit the stage following a lecture about AI at the O2 Arena in Greenwich, in September. 'I did my bow after delivering this lecture, turned to go off-stage and didn't realise that I was walking off the part of the stage where there was nothing - just a six-foot drop onto concrete,' he said. 'So I broke my right leg in a couple of places and my hip and pelvis in four places and a bunch of ribs.' Speaking to Winklepicker about his new ITV show Jeopardy! - which is already a popular quiz in the US and has been for decades - he said it had been 'an exciting week' as he flew to Zurich for an event and did not need to use his walking stick for the first time since his fall. The sixty six-year-old added he was now fine, as 'like Lazarus I cast aside my crutches' and will return to work. Whatsherface said she had no idea his accident had happened, but Fry quickly responded that 'I didn't want to make a fuss about it.' When asked what the secret was behind his recovery, he said 'constant physiotherapy,' although he was reluctant to take Oxycontin on his first night at hospital, as it is known for being a highly addictive opioid. He has spoken openly in the past as his previous battles with addiction and, in his memoir More Fool Me, admitted to taking cocaine in Buckingham Palace, both Houses of Parliament and BBC TV Centre. However, he changed his mind about taking the opioid when a surgeon told him the pills 'are not there for your comfort, they are there for your recovery and to save the NHS money.' Stephen also said he felt 'self-conscious' about walking without a cane for the first time near his home in central London. 'The pavements are absolutely packed and people will stop to take a picture of the Christmas lights and you get worried about bumping into people. but it has been fine so far, but I feel self-conscious without the stick,' he said. Finally, he added that although it was a 'tired cliché', he wanted to thank that staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich as 'it is not a famous hospital but they are doing extraordinary work and were very kind.' Recalling how he got the job as host of Jeopardy!, which begins on New Year's Day, Stephen said he just happened to bring up the show during a dinner with his American agent while he was in the US filming episodes of the Apple TV series The Morning Show. 'He asked me what I was getting up to everyday and I said: "Well, my husband and I are not very Hollywood party animals or anything like that. We usually stay at home, one of us will cook and we'll watch Jeopardy!,"' he told Winkly-Wimey. He added they went on to talk more about the show, with Stephen telling his agent he wondered why there had never been a UK version, as it was 'the best format I've ever encountered. A couple of weeks later, he calls up and says: "They're very excited about you hosting Jeopardy!" and I said: "Excuse me?"' He joked, before adding he was won over when he visited the set. Jeopardy! was an 'absolute institution', Stephen said, as the rules are different to other quiz shows. Rather than a traditional question and answer format, contestants will instead receive facts about a subject in the form of answers and they have to identify what the question could be.
From The North favourite Stephen Fry, yes him again, once noted during an episode of Qi that there is an area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where, for some reason, much of the world's discarded flotsam and jetsam seems to collect itself. This is known as the 'Pacific Trash Vortex'. And this, Stephen claimed, was the best unused name for a thrash-metal band imaginable. Recently, this blogger learned that there is a layer of archaeology in London which historians believe marks the point that much of the Roman city of Londinium was destroyed circa 60AD during the Iceni uprising. This, apparently, is known to archaeologists as the 'Boudican Destruction Horizon'. Does anybody else really want to go to their local entertainment venue of loud popular music on Saturday night (after Doctor Who's finished, obviously) and watch Boudican Destruction Horizon supported by Pacific Trash Vortex? Just this blogger, then?
Let's face it, dear blog reader, all the cool kids are doing it.
Saturday is probably this blogger's favourite day of the week, dear blog reader. It's so ... Saturday-y. Of all the days of the week, Saturday's are, definitely, the most Saturday-y. Except, possibly, Friday.
And so, we come to that part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's medical malarkey. Or, strictly speaking, malarkeys as there are several of them. For those dear blog readers who haven't been following this on-going fiasco which appears to have been on-going longer than ... The Universe, it goes like this: Keith Telly Topping spent some weeks around Christmas 2021 into the New Year feeling rotten; experienced five day in hospital; was discharged; received B12 injections; then more of them; somewhat recovered his missing appetite; got an initial diagnosis; had a consultant's meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a second endoscopy; had another consultation; got (unrelated) toothache; had an extraction; which took ages to heal; had another consultation; spent a week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; received further B-12 injections; had an echocardiogram; was subject to more blood extractions; made another hospital visit; saw the unwelcome insomnia and torpor continue; received yet more blood tests; had a rearranged appointment; suffered his worst period yet with the fatigue. Until the following week. And, then the week after that. Oh, the fatigue, dear blog reader. The depressing, ceaseless fatigue. He had a go on the Blood-Letting Machine; got another sick note; had an assessment; was given his fourth COVID jab; got some surprising but welcome news about his assessment; had the results of his annual diabetes check-up; had another really bad week with the fatigue; followed by one with the sciatica; then one with the chronic insomnia; and, one with a plethora of general cold-related grottiness. Which continued over the Christmas period and into 2023. There was that whole 'slipping in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath and putting his knee through the side' thing; the painful night-time leg cramps; getting some new spectacles; returning to the East End pool. Only to discover that he remains as weak of a kitten in the water. Or, indeed, out of it. Feeling genuinely wretched. Experiencing a nasty bout of gastroenteritis. Had a visit from an occupational therapist. Did the 'accidentally going out in my slippers' malarkey. The return of the dreaded insomnia and the dreaded return of the fatigue. The latest tri-monthly prickage; plus, yet more sleep disturbances, a further bout of day time retinology, exhaustion, a nasty cold in the week that he got his latest Covid and influenza inoculations and then, he got through the entire Department Of Baths malarkey (and, its sequel) whilst suffering simultaneously from significant, on-going, really dreadful back-pain.
This blogger had just settled down with a nice cup of hot, sweet Joe on Wednesday 29 November to watch some TV when the post arrived at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. Including, as it did, a letter from the hospital confirming that this blogger does not have cancer of the arsehole. Not that he thought he did, you'll be delighted to know. But he does get tested for it, annually (and, indeed, anally) and it's always nice to get confirmation of the all-clear.
Friday 1 December, dearest blog readers, was a truly horrible day on all sorts of levels what with one thing and another. Mainly another. It was the coldest of the year to date, a foot of snow had fallen outside overnight and, as usually happens when the biting cold comes, this blogger's back decided to pretty much wave a little white flag and stop working completely. Thus throwing tentative plans Keith Telly Topping had formed to manoeuvre his new mattress into place and get rid of the old one over the subsequent weekend right out of the window (for the second time in as many weeks). Fortunately, all of that was somewhat petty and small in the great scheme of things but then this blogger had a phone-call from a close friend imparting some properly heart-breaking and appalling news. It was, frankly, one of those days where one just felt like crawling back into bed and giving up on the day completely by lunchtime. So, this blogger did. Nevertheless, some really deserved salt and chilli crispy beef with yung chow fried rice and a smattering of curry sauce helped to cheer this blogger up a bit. Not a lot, you understand, just a bit. Then, this blogger's new bedtime regime (filling three hot water bottles and having a roasting-hot shower immediately before turning-in to watch Doctor Phibes Rises Again on Talking Pictures TV) saw Keith Telly Topping having the best night's sleep he'd had in, literally, months. Causation does not equate to correlation, of course, dear blog reader. Nevertheless, this blogger is going to be doing that pretty much every night from now on (well, not the Doctor Phibes bit, necessarily. That was a one-night-only thing - although this blogger does have it on DVD if push comes to shove).
This blogger mentioned that he really deserved this, yes? And the beef was, indeed, very crispy dear blog reader.
Praise be, hosanna on high and all heil in merciful gratitude was, therefore, due to Our Maureen Telly Topping and Our Colin Telly Topping for coming down to The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House, manoeuvring the old, rotting-to-sawdust Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House mattress (which, point of interest, used to belong to Our Aly Telly Topping) out of The Grand Appointed Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bedroom, down The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House stairs and out into The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House garden for the council to come and collect. And then, after some necessary vacuuming, also manoeuvring the new, extra springy (only without any actual springs) Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House Dormeo supa-doopah mattress in its place. Above and beyond the call of duty, fam. Respect is due, blood. And further crass and semi-inarticulate expressions of thanks.
At early morning appointment at the Medical Centre followed the next day for yet more blood and wee-wee tests. As usual, regarding the former, the nurse - in that case, the extremely lovely but a bit hapless Nurse Sarah - had great difficulty in finding a vein in this blogger's notoriously thin-veined armd. And so, she had to have a go at both of them before finding any blood in there to actually extract. Thus this blogger now has matching - and, rather comfortingly balanced - small Elastoplasts on each arm. A couple of days later, this blogger received a call from the surgery informing him that the blood tests had suggested his kidney functions weren't, quite, what they should be and he would require a further series of bloods (with an appointment arranged for 22 December). 'That doesn't sound very good,' this blogger noted. 'Should I be worried about this?' The nurse reassured this blogger the fact that he hadn't been rushed in the next day suggested it was a minor issue rather than a major one.
Nevertheless, this blogger must confess that he's never been a fan of steak and kidney pie. Never eat anything the lack of which in any animal causes renal failure. It's one of the principles this blogger lives by, dear blog reader. Not even if you get them with a nice plate of chips and gravy.
Let is be noted, however, that the last fortnight hasn't entirely been what we Oop-North call 'a right-shite state of affairs', dear blog reader. There has, actually, been some moderately pleasant stuff occurring. Take, for instance, a pure-dead total cush and well-civilised couple of hours this blogger spent talking TV and movies over a jolly nice lunch with his fiend Young Malcolm Hunter at the Little Asia on Stowell Street. We do this sort of thing every six weeks or so as previous bloiggerisatiuonism updates have recorded. But this one was the first time since September due, at least in part, to this blogger's inability to leave the house for any serious length of time whilst all of that there Department Of Baths malarkey was on-going.
It was, as you may be able to tell from the photographic evidence provided, a thoroughly miserable, wet, cold and gloomy day. Which necessitated, firstly, a pot of hot Jasmine tea just so this blogger was able to feel his extremities again after standing out-doors waiting for Young Malcolm to arrive. A man could lose his bearings on such a day and this blogger very nearly did. Once he got warm, however, he started to feel much better.
That was followed by a starter of chicken and sweetcorn soup with prawn crackers.
Then, sesame prawn toast with a very tangy sweet and sour sauce dip.
And, as the main course, chicken and pork curry with egg fried rice. All of which was polished off during a lengthy debate about the relative merits of The Gold Robbers, Manhunt, Doctor Who, The Champions and other vitally important matters that we men discuss when setting the world to rights.
Jeez, dear blog reader, deliveries from Amazon just seem to get worse and worse. There was a furious rap on The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House door one day last week. 'Ho', this blogger thought, as is his want. 'Ho! There's someone at the front door, so there is.' Keith Telly Topping had ordered, the previous day, a new external DVD drive for The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House laptop which was something he'd been after for a while but had never gotten around to purchasing. Decent price and next day delivery persuaded him that the time was right for such a purchase. So, he got himself out of the armchair and went downstairs a quickly as he could (which, let's be honest, isn't exactly rapid even at the best of times ... and this certainly wasn't the best of times). Only to find no-one there except for a delivery driver chap just about to get into his car and drive off. 'Yes?' this blogger bellowed across the snowbound lawns of The Stately Telly Topping Manor garden towards him. 'By the bin, mate' had said without further explanation, getting into his vehicle and speeding off as fast as his wheels would go on the ice-covered roads of The Estate. There, indeed, was the package (see photographic evidence, attached).
Plus points first, when they said 'next day delivery' this blogger certainly didn't expect it to be before 9am next day so well done to them for that. Significant minus point however - it was, according to this blogger's phone, minus four (Celsius) out there. If this blogger hadn't heard the knock it could've been hours before he'd gone down to check and the package - resting, delicately, on a pile of leaves atop a further pile of snow - would've been frozen solid like a brick of ice. This blogger looked forward to trying out his new - non-frozen - DVD drive later but, what a complete Christoph Glucking Jeremy Hunt of a stunt to pull, eh? Keith Telly Topping received a 'your package has been delivered, please give us a rating' e-mail shortly thereafter from Amazon. He did, indeed, do exactly that. It wasn't a pretty sight, dear blog reader.
A rotten Monday morning, followed. The snow, by now, had been replaced by sleet, meaning that the roads were like glass in some places and total mush in others. This blogger had to go out to get the weekly shopping because he was going to be busy most of the rest of the week what with one thing or another. Mostly another. The bus was, somewhat inevitably, late so he was drenched from head-to-foot by the time it arrived. And, also, it was a single-decker so it was sodding jam-packed solid and this blogger, bad-back and all, had to stand all the way down to Waallsend. By the time this blogger got to the hypermarket, with a throbbing headache and full of phlegm, he rushed round the shop as fast as his little legs would carry him getting everything he needed for the week ahead. Because he wanted to get home and out of the sleet, fairly obviously. And then, the fun really started. There was some spotty youth on the tills who, frankly, didn't have a frigging clue. This blogger knew there were going to be problems when Keith Telly Topping saw this kid taking several attempts to get the barcode reader to recognise a bag of onions for lady in front, finally give up with a disgusted 'crap!' and, instead of typing in the handy fifty seven digit barcode(!), he simply threw the bag at her with a 'you're getting that one for free, be grateful' look on his spotty boat. Now, listen dear blog reader, in his time this blogger has done the whole 'learning a job by doing the job without any any meaningful training' thing on more than one occasion. This blogger was not unsympathetic towards the spotty youth's plight. Keith Telly Topping is not a monster. But, it must be said, this kid was worse than bloody useless. He over-charged this blogger for one (on-sale) item (only fifty pence, but still, it's better in my pocket than someone else's), undercharged this blogger for another (so, that kind-of balanced it all out) and then, when this blogger gave him a handful of ten per cent off coupons and a five pound off the total coupon (which, remember, they had given me when this blogger was last in the shop) the look of horror on the spotty youth's face was worthy of the final scene of The Wicker Man.
So, the spotty youth puts them through the barcode reader and the five pound one works fine. One of ten per cent coupons works fine. The other one, however, does not. So he gives it back to this blogger and mumbles something incoherent. 'I beg your pardon?' this blogger asks. He mumbles again. 'I'm sorry, I can't hear what you're saying.' 'That isn't working' he blurts out, only slightly louder than the previous two mumbles but at least this blogger understood that. 'Why?' this blogger asks, not unreasonably, he felt. The spotty youth shrugged, unhelpfully. This blogger points out that the coupon offers ten per cent off all milk and dairy products, that it has a 'use by 4 December' date on it, which was that day's date so it was, clearly, still valid. And, that this blogger had bought two pints of milk and two tubs of butter so, what, exactly, was the problem? The spotty youth shrugged again, looking really rather pathetic. By this point, of course, there was queue of ten behind this blogger and he was starting to perceive really nasty 'fek-off' vibes from some of these punters. Keith Telly Topping says 'oh, never mind, I'll take it up with someone who knows what they're doing', dumps everything into his trolly and heads off towards Customer Services down by the exit. When this blogger got there, however, there was a queue as long as ... a very long queue indeed. Oh, sod this, Keith Telly Topping thought to himself, ten per cent off £2.60 and a fiver is only seventy six pence, the hit can be taken. So, this blogger went outside, loaded all his shopping into two bags, limped to the bus stop, got on the bus which arrived, thankfully, within a minute and then, only at that point, did he actually look at the bill and find that the spotty youth hasn't actually charged this blogger for anything and it was a zero total. This blogger checked to make sure he still had his bank card which he had giving to the spotty youth to run through. Happily, he had. Then Keith Telly Topping, briefly, considered getting off the bus, walking the two stops back to the shop, queuing up for twenty minutes (at least) at Customer Services and then having to explain to them that he'd just purchased around thirty quid's worth of stuff but that he appeared not to have been charged for it. Because the spotty youth on the till, clearly, didn't know what the Hell he was doing. This blogger considered the options, by which time, the bus had travelled two further stops and the sleet was now pelting down and Keith Telly Topping decided, do you know what, I'm not going to bother frankly. This blogger did, however, feel genuinely unhappy about it in one way (cos he is, basically, an honest chap at heart) and he imagined that when the shop totalled up that particular till at the end of the day, the spotty youth was going to be on the end of the bollocking of a lifetime. But, on the other hand ... this blogger was wet and cold and his back was knacking. And he urgently needed to make himself a ham and cheese sandwich and nice hot sweet cup of Joe and have a sit down for an hour to recover. So, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, level with this blogger, was he an utterly terrible person? Did he do the wrong thing by not attempting to correct what was, let usd remember, the shop's own mistake? Should he have spent four quid getting the bus back there once he'd dried off and taken a couple of painkillers? Or, should he - as, in fact, he did - look upon this as a) a blow against The Capitalist System? b) a necessary and, this blogger feels, productive, lesson to that particular hypermarket chain not to put untrained teenagers on the tills (even, perhaps especially, during busy periods)? and c) a thirty quid bonus which this blogger could use to heat The Stately Telly Topping Manor for about half-an-hour? Comments? Suggestions?
This blogger was never a supporter of any of the football teams that Terry Venables either played for or, later, managed (apart from England, obviously - although he always had something of a soft spot for Barcelona). But, Keith Telly Topping always rather admired El Tel on all sorts of levels. He was a class player, particularly later in his career at Queens Park Rangers when he became one of those embodiments of a player who actually improves with age (see also, Johnny Giles, Gary Speed, Peter Beardsley et cetera). And, as a manager, his teams always played the game the way that we'd all like to think it should be played, with skill, intensity and an occasional reckless abandon towards defending. Additionally, he was a multi-talented man. A singer (with one - cheerfully awful - top fifty UK hit on Decca Records), an actor and a writer - this blogger was a big fan of Hazell, the TV series based on the novels that Terry co-wrote whilst still playing football professionally. More importantly, from interviews he always seemed like a genuinely good bloke - with a great sense of humour and a compassion for others. And, importantly, a love of Elvis. So, this blogger was saddened to hear of his death and, whilst eighty isn't a bad innings by any stretch, Keith Telly Topping still thinks the world would've probably been a better place if he'd managed another decade on it.
From The North favourite Brigit Forsyth, who has died aged eighty three, made her name as Thelma in the award-winning BBC sitcom and from The North favourite Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? One critic described Thelma as being so prim that 'she could turn the lifting of a lace curtain into an art form.' Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' creation, which ran from 1973 to 1974, was the sequel to the popular 1960s sitcom The Likely Lads, which starred the late Rodney Bewes and James Bolam as Bob Ferris and Terry Collier. it was one of the few occasions where a sequel not only equals but, actually, surpasses the qualities of the original. Thelma Chambers was brought in as the upwardly-mobile fiancée of the upwardly-mobile Bob, now in the white-collar class with a mortgage, car and an annual holiday in Cyprus, all scoffed at by Terry who still clung on, doggedly, to his working-class roots. Thelma and Bob were married at the end of the first series. 'Up until then, I had done a lot of drama on telly,' said Bridgit. 'If I wasn't being murdered, I was murdering somebody or I was a disturbed art teacher. I was playing quite a lot of deranged people, so comedy was a nice change.' She also appeared in the 1976 big-screen adaptation, The Likely Lads.
She created laughs again with the sitcom Sharon & Elsie (1984-85), in which she co-starred as the middle-class Elsie Beecroft alongside Janette Beverley as the more down-to-earth Sharon Wilkes, two employees in a greetings card manufacturing company. But Bridgit's own favourite television part was that of Francine Pratt in Playing The Field (1998-2002), the on-and off-pitch women's football drama created by Kay Mellor. Her character, who hated the game, was married to the Castlefield Blues' sponsor, played by Ricky Tomlinson and kept him happy in return for designer clothes and other luxuries. 'I have never played awful glamour before,' she said. 'I had a blonde wig, six-inch heels, makeup and my bosom hitched up high.' Bridgit was born as Brigit Dorothea Connell in Malton, to Scottish parents Anne, an artist and Frank Connell, an architect and town planner, and brought up in Edinburgh. She was mesmerised by Stanley Baxter's performances as a pantomime dame at the city's King's Theatre and, aged eighteen, landed her own first lead role, as Sarat Carn, on her way to the gallows, in Charlotte Hastings's play Bonaventure with The Makars amateur drama group. But when she left St George's school, Edinburgh, her parents insisted she learn a skill, so she trained as a secretary. After a couple of jobs, she headed for London and RADA (1958-60), where she won the Emile Littler prize. She began her professional career back in Edinburgh with the Gateway theatre company (1960-61) before moving on to the Theatre Royal, Lincoln (1961-62) and the Arthur Brough Players in Folkestone (1962). With other actors already named Brigit McConnell and Bridget O'Connell, she changed her professional name to he mother's maiden name, Forsyth, on her return to Lincoln in 1962. At the Edinburgh festival three years later, she played one of The Weird Sisters in a headline-making production of Macbeth. 'That show caused an absolute uproar because they wanted the witches to have the bodies of young girls and the faces of old women and they wanted us to have our top-half naked,' Bridgit recalled. 'But the Earl of Harewood, who was running the EIF at the time, said "No." So they put nipple caps on us, which looked absolutely disgusting - and they used to drop off each night. It was absolutely hysterical.' Later, in the West End, she played Annie in The Norman Conquests (1974-76) and Dusa in the feminist play Dusa, Fish, Stas & Vi (Mayfair Theatre, 1976-77). She put her TV breakthrough down to cutting her hair short. 'It proved a tremendously lucky omen,' she said. That break came with Adam Smith (1972), in which she played the younger daughter of the title character, a Scottish minister (Andrew Keir). The director, Brian Mills, then worked with Bridget on the psychological thriller Holly (1972), in which she took the part of a young arts teacher kidnapped by a mentally unstable student. Bridgit and Mills married in 1976. Television roles kept on coming. She was Veronica, one of the product-promotion team, in The Glamour Girls (1980-82), Harriet in the inter-generational sitcom Tom, Dick & Harriet (1982-83) and Helen Yeldham, a hotelier, in the 1989 series of Boon. There were also appearances in soap opera: as GP Judith Vincent in The Practice (1985-86); Babs Fanshawe, Ken Barlow's escort agency date who died of a heart attack, in a 1998 Coronation Street episode; Delphine LaClair, a sales rep for a French company interested in buying Rodney Blackstock's vineyards, for two short runs in Emmerdale (2005-06); Cressida, mother of the millionaire Nate Tenbury-Newent, in Hollyoaks in 2013 and three roles in Doctors between 2000 and 2012. She was terrific as the kindly, if frequently bewildered school teacher Miss Maitland in Russell Davies's debut TV drama series Dark Season (1994), also noteworthy for co-starring a young Kate Winslet in her first major television role. Brigit also played the miserable Madge, who frustrates her sister Mavis's attempts at a relationship with Granville, in the sitcom sequel Still Open All Hours (2013-19). Her CV also included appearances in R3, The Wednesday Play, Boy Meets Girl, Doctor Finlay's Casebook, Doctor Who (in 1967's memorable seven-parter The Evil Of The Daleks), Thirty Minute Theatre, Detective, The Sinners, Leave It To Charlie, Graham's Gang, Holding The Fort, Poirot, Running Wild, Nice Town, Murder Most Horrid, Harry Enfield & Chums (in the well-remembered William Ulsterman sketch), Down To Earth, The Outsiders, Jinx, Waterloo Road and Time & Again. A cellist from the age of nine, Brigit starred as the real-life virtuoso Beatrice Harrison in a 2004 tour of The Cello & The Nightingale. Also on tour, she was a remarkably believable Queen Elizabeth II in A Question Of Attribution (2000) and played Marie in Calendar Girls (2008). 'I'm Mrs Frosty-Knickers, the one who doesn't approve of it all.' In 2017, she played a terminally ill musician in the stage comedy Killing Time, written by her daughter, Zoe Mills, who acted alongside her. At the time, Brigit revealed that her maternal grandfather, a GP in Yorkshire, had helped dying patients to end their lives. Declaring herself a supporter of euthanasia, she said: 'He bumped off probably loads of people with doses of morphine.' In 1999, Brigit separated from her husband, but they remained on good terms until his death in 2006. She is survived by their children, Ben and Zoe.
Despite the occasionally visceral and often rebellious nature of his poetry, From The North favourite Benjamin Zephaniah, who has died aged sixty five of a brain tumour, had such wide appeal in the UK that he became something near a national treasure, attracting devotion among all classes and types of people. With a down-to-earth mission to take poetry wherever he could - and especially to those who would not normally read it - his reach also extended to other parts of the world, where he was respected as a writer and performer who could be relied upon to speak his mind with forthrightness, honesty and often self-effacing humour. From an unpromising start to life in Birmingham, Zephaniah hauled himself into the public eye during the early 1980s by hitching himself to a post-punk caravan of streetwise performance poets such as John Cooper Clarke and, at a slightly greater remove, one of his heroes, Linton Kwesi Johnson - all of whom eschewed the abstract in favour of writing with a fierce political edge about everyday life. Focusing initially on the debilitating effects of racism, including through his breakthrough poems 'Dis Policeman Keeps On Kicking Me To Death' and 'Fight Dem, Not Me', Zephaniah later branched out to consider other topics that were close his heart, including unemployment, homelessness and, as a vegan from the age of thirteen, animal rights. In addition to writing novels for adults, he also harnessed his talent for simple language to become a bestselling author for teenagers, with books such as Talking Turkeys (1994) and Windrush Child (2020) that became standard school reading material in multicultural Britain. Zephaniah was born Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Springer in the Hockley area of Birmingham in April 1958 to Oswald Springer, a post office worker and Leneve, a nurse, who had emigrated to Britain from Barbados and Jamaica respectively. He had a twin sister, Velda and six other siblings. Experiencing racism as a child on an almost daily basis, he also felt unhappiness at home, where his father was a distant and violent figure, especially towards his mother. When Benjamin was ten, after Leneve had received an especially savage beating, she and Benjamin went on the run together. Living a hand-to-mouth existence, the pair never returned, leaving the other children of the family in estrangement. The dislocation that followed had its effect on Zephaniah: at thirteen he was expelled from Broadway school, later spending time in borstal, while in his late teens he was imprisoned for various offences, including affray and burglary. Poetry, Rastafarianism and an iron will were his salvation. Realising that he was going to face further longer spells in jail or even an early death through gang-related violence, at the age of twenty two he left Birmingham and headed for London to be a poet. One of his first memories of composing poetry had come as a small boy while walking to the corner shop and, though dyslexic, he had inherited from his mother a great lyrical facility. By the age of fifteen he had a reputation as a wordsmith and when the elders of his mother's church, feeling he had a prophet-like quality with language, dubbed him Zephaniah ('treasured by God'), the name stuck.
In London he became part of the often overlapping punk, reggae and alternative comedy scenes, reading his poems during breaks at gigs. His first collection of poetry, Pen Rhythm, was published in 1980 by a co-operative, after which, like Johnson, he began to turn to dub poetry, adding reggae music to his words with a debut album, Rasta (1982). It featured The Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. The album gained Benjamin international prestige and topped the Yugoslavian charts. It was because of this recording that he was introduced to Mandela and, in 1996, Mandela requested that Zephaniah host the President's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Soon in demand for radio, TV and film work, Zephaniah played Moses in the film Farendj in 1990 and had his own TV play, Dread Poets Society, screened by the BBC the following year. In it, Benjamin plays himself on an inter-city train to London for a job interview meeting Byron, Keats and Mary and Percy Shelley. He laos made minor appearances in several TV programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, including The Bill (1994), The Comic Strip Presents ... (1994) and Crucial Tales (1996). His 2005 BBC documentary about his life, A Picture Of Birmingham, was much acclaimed as was a 2020 appearance on Qi. His first novel, Face, about a young man whose life is dramatically changed by facial injuries he receives while joyriding, was published in 1999, but in the preceding years he had continued to produce a steady stream of poetry collections, including The Dread Affair (1985), Inna Liverpool (1988), City Psalms (1992) and Propa Propaganda (1996). In addition to his fourteen poetry books and seven dub poetry CDs, over the years he produced further novels and children's books, as well as seven plays. Among his more high-profile acting roles was a stint as the street preacher Jeremiah Jesus in the TV drama series Peaky Blinders. Zephaniah was poet in residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases, these experiences leading to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection (2001). We Are Britain! (2002) was a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity. In August 2001 his second novel Refugee Boy, about a fourteen-year-old from Ethiopia and Eritrea, was published. It was the recipient of the 2002 Portsmouth Book Award. In 2013 the novel was adapted as a play by Zephaniah's long-time friend Lemn Sissay. In May 2011, he accepted a year-long position as poet-in-residence at Keats House in Hampstead, his first residency role for more than ten years. Accepting the role, he commented: 'I don't do residencies, but Keats is different. He's a one-off, and he has always been one of my favourite poets.' In 2016, Zephaniah wrote the foreword to Angry White People: Coming Face-To-Face With The British Far Right by Hsiao-Hung Pai. Benjamin's frank autobiography, The Life & Rhymes Of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published to coincide with his sixtieth birthday in 2018, when BBC Sounds broadcast him reading his own text. 'I'm still as angry as I was in my twenties,' he said. The Birmingham Mail dubbed him 'the people's laureate.' In later life he moved from London to Lincolnshire, where he lived quietly, notwithstanding the energy he threw into countless projects and his energetic support for his beloved Aston Villa. Although committed to widening access and undermining elites, Zephaniah saw this as compatible with academic work and in 2011 accepted the post of professor of poetry and creative writing at Brunel University, where he was a regular, friendly presence in the staffroom and a committed, hardworking lecturer. More recently he had been spending three months of the year in China, where he practised tai cht, but, despite his largely peaceable nature, he remained an angry man with a punk sensibility, identifying, he said, most easily with anarchism and observing that 'when I see what people have to put up with from their governments, I'm surprised they don't rise up more often.' Consistently radical to the end, he refused the offer of an OBE in 2003. In a subsequent article for the Gruniad, he elaborated upon reasons for rejecting it: 'Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. Benjamin Zephaniah OBE - no way Mister Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.' Fifteen years later, he scotched any idea that he might become the poet laureate in succession to Carol Ann Duffy by explaining in poetic form: 'Don't take my word, go check the verse/Cause every laureate gets worse.' He joined Amnesty International in speaking out against homophobia in Jamaica, saying: 'For many years Jamaica was associated with freedom fighters and liberators, so it hurts when I see that the home of my parents is now associated with the persecution of people because of their sexual orientation.' He was married for twelve years to Amina, a theatre administrator. The couple divorced in 2001. In May 2018, in an interview of BBC 5Live, Zephaniah admitted that he had been violent to a former partner. 'The way I treated some of my girlfriends was terrible. At one point I was violent. I was never like one of these persons who have a girlfriend, who'd constantly beat them, but I could lose my temper sometimes. There was one girlfriend that I had and I actually hit her a couple of times and as I got older I really regretted it. It burned my conscience so badly. It ate at me. And I'm a meditator. It got in the way of my meditation.'
With his disastrous teeth and large ears, Shane MacGowan, who died aged sixty five, might have seemed the most unlikely frontman for a pop group. But The Pogues never set out to become teen idols. They grafted punk style and attitude on to the raucous end of Irish folk music, as typified by their heroes The Dubliners and Shane, in particular, gave the band a reputation for drunkenness. Just like The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, who revolutionised Irish folk music from the distance of the New York diaspora, the first-generation, London-based Irish community spawned The Pogues. Indeed, MacGowan astutely observed that the band could not have originated in Ireland. The key to The Pogues' success was the songwriting of MacGowan, in such masterpieces as 'Streams Of Whiskey', 'Sally MacLennane' and 'A Rainy Night In Soho', but above all in their best known song, 'Fairytale Of New York', on which he duetted with Kirsty MacColl. First released in 1987, it became a highlight of the band's Christmas gigs, with re-released recordings becoming more poignant after MacColl's death in a speedboat accident in 2000. 'Fairytale Of New York' has subsequently re-entered the charts many times (including this year) and is frequently voted as Britain's favourite Christmas songs. Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was born on Christmas Day 1957 in Pembury, Kent, while his parents were visiting relatives. He grew up in Tunbridge Wells, often visiting extended family back in County Tipperary. His mother, Therese, was a prize-winning Irish dancer and singer and former model and his father, Maurice MacGowan, an executive at the C&A retail chain, loved literature and poetry. Shane was an avid reader; he attended the fee-paying Holmewood House prep school, where his creative writing skills were first identified. He then won a scholarship to Westminster school in London at the age of fourteen, but a year later was found to be in possession of drugs and expelled. MacGowan was by now already a keen music fan and he drifted through casual jobs in a record store and as a barman, living in a succession of squats and shared flats. In 1976, he achieved notoriety when a girlfriend cut his earlobe with a broken bottle during an early Clash gig. Photographs of MacGowan, his head covered in blood, appeared in the press. He was one of the original punk scenesters, often seen in his union flag jacket and photographed at gig by The Clash, The Jam and The Stranglers. By the following year, MacGowan had formed his own band, The Nipple Erectors, later renamed The Nips. They released four singles and an LP (Only The End Of The Beginning a live recording), but never made much of an impression beyond London pubs and clubs, although 1980's 'Gabrielle' was a favourite of John Peel.
MacGowan had a problem with the names of his next two bands. Singing Irish rebel songs to a pub full of off-duty British soldiers when your band is called The New Republicans was not, perhaps, the most obvious of career moves - they should, perhaps, have stuck with the original name, The Millwall Chainsaws. The third band was originally called Pogue Mahone, which in Gaelic means 'kiss my arse', a clear expression of their Irish heritage and punk attitude. MacGowan was knowledgeable about a broad range of Irish folk music, but he found bands such as The Chieftains and De Dannan too clean-cut, much preferring the atmosphere of a rowdy pub session and the raucousness of the Irish folk legends The Dubliners, who influenced his new band's style and repertoire. But, in any case, the folk scene was an irrelevance to Pogue Mahone, whose natural constituency was the young, first-generation Irish community in Kilburn, Camden Town and Hammersmith. The band made its debut in October 1982 at what was then The Pindar Pf Wakefield pub in Gray's Inn Road. The performance was described in the rock journalist Carol Clerk's history of the band as 'shambolic but spirited.' At first, some of the band members could scarcely play their chosen or allotted instruments, but they were all keen to learn and soon attracted a local fanbase in London. MacGowan, who initially played guitar as well as singing, was joined by his former Nips colleague James Fearnley on accordion, Jem Finer on banjo, Andy Rankin on drums, Cait O'Ridorden on bass and the remarkable Spider Stacy who sang, played penny whistle and frequently added to the percussion by bashing himself on the head with a tin beer tray. By the end of 1983 they were voted 'band most likely to succeed' by the trade paper Music Week, although at the time they had not secured a record deal. Pressure from their newly arranged record label led to a name change and they became The Pogues. Only half of the band at that stage had any connection with Ireland - none of the original members had been born there. Though often described as an 'Irish band', they were really a London band who drew on an emigrant Irish experience for both style and repertoire (at least until genuine Irish musicians Phil Chevron and Terry Woods joined in 1985). This was seen most markedly in MacGowan's own songwriting - he was writing as an outsider in his own community.
Their repertoire of Irish traditional songs was largely suggested by MacGowan and many of them came from The Dubliners, such as 'The Auld Triangle', 'Muirsheen Durkin', 'The Leaving Of Liverpool', 'The Wild Rover', 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and 'Waxie's Dargle'. Ewan MacColl's 'Dirty Old Town', originally written (in 1949) about Salford, is now often thought to refer to Dublin after MacGowan's rendition with The Pogues. The band's folk instrumentation were unusual in the rock and pop venues in which they performed. Alongside the Irish traditional material were MacGowan's own songs. Appearances were deceptive - MacGowan was well-read, with a sound knowledge of Irish literature, which he used to good effect in his songwriting. He was seen and, perhaps regarded himself, as the latest in a line of Irish literary figures - such as Brendan Behan - whose creativity was boosted by alcohol. MacGowan was lauded as one of the best songwriters of the late Twentieth century. His early songs, such as 'Streams Of Whiskey', 'Boys From The County Hell', 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes', 'A Rainy Night In Soho', 'The Sick Bed Of Cúchulaínn', 'The Old Main Drag' and 'Sally MacLennane', all display similar themes - alcohol-fuelled, often with a hint of despair, set in the seedy side of North London life. Yet the fast-paced tunes and MacGowan's growling, in-your-face delivery, gave a celebratory atmosphere to the songs, suggesting that the lifestyle portrayed - often close to MacGowan[s own - was unapologetic. Clerk summed it up: 'A large part of The Pogues' appeal was the whiff of the bar-room wafting through their lyrics, the irrepressible gallop of their up-tempos and the teardrops in their ballads.' Their first single, 'Dark Streets Of London' appeared in 1984. Their first three LPs were for Stiff Records: Red Roses For Me (1984), the magnificent Rum Sodomy & The Lash (1985, produced by Elvis Costello) and If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988) and the EP Poguetry In Motion (1986) contained a rich mixture of Irish folk and songs by MacGowan, each one better than its predecessor, with Fall From Grace reaching number three in the album charts. Their transition from the world of London clubs and pubs to international concert halls had been aided by the group's bass player Cait O'Riordan's romance with Costello, with whom The Pogues toured. Through 1984 and the whole of 1985 they gigged in Britain, Ireland and continental Europe and performed at Glastonbury. They subsequently toured the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This blogger first saw them on the Run, Sodomy & The Lash tour at The Mayfair in late 1985. At the Vienna folk festival that year, The Pogues met up with The Dubliners and this led, in 1987, to a joint single, 'The Irish Rover', which reached number eight in the UK singles charts in March. Further chart success followed in December, when Jem Finer and MacGowan's 'Fairytale Of New York' was kept off the Christmas number one spot by The Pet Shop Boys' cover of 'Always on My Mind'. An idea of the average Pogues gig during their golden years of the late 1980s can be glimpsed on the extraordinary, shambolic, anthemic live version of 'Wild Rover' released on the b-side of the 'Sally MacLennane' single. The heavy drinking that affected some of the other band and crew members became contained by performance demands, but MacGowan was always a bit of a loose cannon. He frequently missed flights, rehearsals, photoshoots and sometimes even gigs. As the fame of The Pogues and the critical acclaim of his songs reached their height, MacGowan's cocktail of alcohol and drugs was a matter of serious concern. On tour in New Zealand in 1988, he painted his hotel room, face and chest blue, apparently because 'the Maoris were talking to me.' Shane and his girlfriend, Victoria Mary Clarke, were spending free time in Thailand, where drugs were plentiful, but during the period he was hospitalised in Dublin and London.
MacGowan was gradually withdrawing from his close involvement in the band; he was more erratic on stage and brought fewer songs to the studio for their fourth LP, Peace & Love (1989), which gave the rest of the band an opportunity to develop their own writing. By now his drug use had extended to acid, but he was still capable of writing good songs, such as 'White City', an homage to the London greyhound track. But in 1989, MacGowan missed a six-concert tour with Bob Dylan in California, when the airline refused to let him on the plane. The Pogues' next LP, Hell's Ditch (1990), included a Thailand trilogy of songs that seemed to indicate he had lost the basis of his London Irish pub-based inspiration. Matters came to a head in September 1991 when on tour in Japan. MacGowan missed two of the four concerts and the rest of the band sacked him. He was not surprised - 'What took you so long?' he asked. The band soldiered on, replacing MacGowan with one of his heores, Joe Strummer, but the cracks had already been revealed. The Pogues could not have continued with MacGowan, but they also could not continue without him. After several band members left, they disbanded in 1996. Meanwhile, MacGowan was involved in collaborations, with artists including Nick Cave, the Breton singer Alan Stivell, Van Morrison, Christy Moore and The Jesus & Mary Chain, before forming a new band, The Popes. His LP The Snake (1994) included his love song 'Aisling' and - on the extended edition the following year - a reworking, featuring a duet with Sinéad O'Connor, of The Pogues' 'Haunted'. He and O'Connor formed a close, genuine and lasting friendship after a somewhat shaky when she had said in an interview that she didn't consider The Pogues to be 'real Irish' and MacGowan responded, 'that okay, she's not a real skinhead!' The pair, in fact, had much in common. A subsequent single 'That Woman's Got Me Drinking' featured Johnny Depp on guitar. There was a further Popes LP in 1997, The Crock Of Gold. There was no let-up in the drink and drugs and MacGowan suffered with stomach ulcers and alcoholic hepatitis. In 1999, O'Connor - in an effort to help her friend - reported him to the police for heroin use and, although MacGowan was furious at the time, it served as a necessary wake-up call. A Pogues reunion tour, with MacGowan back as the band's frontman, prior to Christmas 2001, led to occasional gigs in 2002, another tour in 2004 (on which this blogger saw them for the second time - they were fucking great) and appearances in Japan, Spain, the US, Ireland and the UK in the years following. There were no new recordings - audiences seemed happy enough with their extensive back catalogue. A biography, A Drink With Shane MacGowan, written by MacGowan and Clarke in the form of a conversation between the pair, was published in 2001 and the documentary If I Should Fall From Grace: The Shane MacGowan Story, had a cinema and then DVD release, also in 2001. A further film documentary, Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan, was broadcast by the BBC in 2021 and a new biography, A Furious Devotion: The Life Of Shane MacGowan, by Richard Balls, was published the same year. A limited-edition book of his artwork and handwritten lyrics, The Eternal Buzz & The Crock Of Gold, was published in 2022. MacGowan was long known for having very bad teeth. He lost the last of his natural teeth sometime around 2008. In 2015, he had a new set of teeth - including one gold one - fitted during a nine-hour procedure. The new teeth were secured by eight titanium implants in his jaws. The procedure was the subject of the hour-long television programme Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn. The dental surgeon who carried out the procedure said that MacGowan had recorded most of his great works while he still had some teeth: 'We've effectively retuned his instrument and that will be an ongoing process.' Never in the best of health - during, at least in part, to his various addictions - MacGowan fractured his pelvis in 2015 and thereafter used a wheelchair. Six years later he broke his right knee and then tore the ligaments in his left knee. In January 2018, the National Concert Hall in Dublin hosted a celebratory concert for MacGowan's sixtieth birthday, with the performers including Cave, Bono, Depp and O'Connor. As a finale, MacGowan himself sang the folk song 'Wild Mountain Thyme', before the Irish President, Michael D Higgins, presented him with a lifetime achievement award. Later that year, MacGowan married Clarke. She survives him, along with his sister, Siobhan and his father.
And now, a new semi-regular feature, The From The North Twelve Films Of Christmas. In which yer actual Keith Telly Topping watches twelve random (reasonably recent) movies on wet and cold December afternoons cos he can't be bothered to do anything else. Number One: Review in thirty words or less: 'I wouldn't argue that it wasn't a no-holds-barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill-ride. But there's no way you could perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.'
And finally, From The North's Headline of The Week award goes to Wigan Today for Wigan's World Pie-Eating Championships Collapse Into Chaos As 'Woke' Health & Safety Officials Ban Speed-Eating. In this blogger's day, dear blog readers, they were called 'mothers'.
