Precisely

'At the third stroke'

 
Hard to believe (our children/grandchildren certainly wouldn't) that we used to ring up (from our land lines) a pre-recorded voice to get the time. It's almost as unbelievable as Dial-a-Disc. Maybe one day our call centre culture will seem just as anachronistic to future generations.

Perhaps the most famous speaking clock of them all was Pat Simmons (she had the gig from 1963 to 1985). Ms. Simmons sadly passed away in 2005, but her voice has been immortalised forever.

Not least by The Sweet: in 1973 if you flipped Hell Raiser over you'd have found this on the B-side.



Burning was that rare thing - a frighteningly original rock song. And literally frightening. Fast forward to 1:44 for some hot speaking clock action.

Macca Macca Hey!

Not for the first time, Macca finds himself linked to the original blitzkrieg boppers. I doubt if even Phil 'Hair Bear Bunch' Spector (another oily link in The Beatles/Ramones chain) could have improved on this cheeky little mashup.

Have you just trumped?

* Original members still alive: 25 %
* Big in Wolverhampton: 17 %
* Pinheads: 100 %
* Surname ubiquity: 100 %
* Popularity at Christmas: 4 %
* Gabba Gabba: 98 %
* Misappropriation of the English language: 8 %

* Original members still alive: 100 %

* Big in Wolverhampton: 99 %

* Pinheads: 25 %

* Surname ubiquity:  0 %
* Popularity at Christmas:  94 %

* Gabba Gabba: 12 %

* Misappropriation of the English language: 96 %

Friends

You can say what you like about this Blog (and many do) but I try and keep personal issues on the other side of the office door when I write it and, to that end, it's not what you'd call a Dear Diary; obviously it's got my fingerprints all over it (as you'd expect) but I've never gone down the road of logging every bowel movement as some people out there are prone to doing. My friends will often get mentioned here - sometimes by name, sometimes not - and, for the most part, I write nice things about them.

Some friends are like stray cats: they come to us and, if they like what they see, they'll stay. Others just come round for a square meal and disappear, never to be seen again. Since our move last November we've befriended some real Friends: they moved in over the road on the same day as us. Phil is a great songwriter and laughs like Basil Brush and Jane makes Mary Berry's cakes look like roadkill. And she's got a most beguiling smile. I really hope they like it here and stay a while.

K. West

 Teenager Mark Webber wondering what he's doing in a Grocer Jack blog

 

In 1967 Keith West was asked by Mark Wirtz to sing the lead vocal for his Excerpt from a Teenage Opera aka Grocer Jack. It went to # 2 in August of that year. Mark Wirtz tells the same story, but in a more long winded fashion. Doesn't stop it from being a great song though.

Name that Toon

 

'Do my ears look big in this?'

It may not be a contender for The National Portrait Gallery, but Dustin Harbin's thumbnail sketch of Brentford's finest has a certain charm nonetheless. For a life in Tumblr I recommend a quick peek here.

Distorted memories

Tic Tacs: flickable mints from the 70s (though I've no reason to doubt they're not still with us). As kids we all had a box stashed somewhere about our person. The above Philip Marlowe style TV advert is how I remember them; unlike Karl Pilkington's dystopian flashback that scarred his childhood. The Tic Tac Incident - in his own words.

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Early bath

 Beats sharing a bath with Terry Venables

The best football stories generally happen away from the field of play: the stolen '66 World Cup, Bobby Moore and the missing bracelet in Bogota and Cloughie's burning of Don Revie's desk, to name but three.

And so in 1976 when lothario and part-time football manager Malcolm Allison invited glamour model Fiona Richmond to Crystal Palace's training ground for a photo shoot, the resulting News of The World snap had a certain inevitability about it.

London power trio

 

I. Bankside Power Station

 

II. Brunswick Wharf Power Station

III. Woolwich Power Station

Lights Out

I heard today about the passing of Storm Thorgerson aka Mr. Hipgnosis. He's obviously best known for the iconic sleeve design of Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (and quite rightly too), but his canon goes far deeper than that. When I wrote a Sleeve Notes piece for Classic Rock magazine a few years ago, remembering UFO's Lights Out album cover, I grabbed a few words from Storm as well as interviewing Phil Mogg, the band's vocalist. Mogg was typically vague, only remembering two geezers (him and Michael Schenker) wearing overalls in Battersea Power Station. Thorgerson on the other hand, while admitting it wasn't the best cover they did for the band (try Force It - the one with the taps) saw a sleeve not without a certain charm: 'where vanity meets industrial design.'

In their own write

One for you, nineteen for me

Imagine if John and Paul had filed their taxes online. Or typed their song lyrics on a tablet. And what if they'd simply texted their drummer when they were on holiday? The humble biro: just one more reason why there will never be another Beatles.

Native New Yorker

Bruce Springsteen calls him The Boss 

Professional Bronxite Dion DiMucci surprised everyone in 1989, coming back after a long lay off, with a set of tunes produced by one of his biggest fans, Dave Edmunds. Yo Frankie gave the veteran Doo Wopper a more contemporary sound while still staying true to the early rock and roll singles he was churning out in the '50s with his band The Belmonts. What didn't do it any harm either were the cameo appearances of, two more fans, Lou Reed and Paul Simon; both of whom can be seen gurning at the camera in this promo video for Written on the Subway Wall.

They're gonna crucify me

In April 1973 John Lennon was fighting for his life: his American life. On 23 March he'd been served papers by the US Immigration Service giving him 60 days notice to leave the country. Or face deportation. His appeal was filed 3 April, but it would be another three years 'til Lennon got his Green Card.

His friend Neil Sedaka (pictured far right) wrote The Immigrant based on Lennon's lamentable
dealings with the authorities. 

It was a frenetic time for the Lennons: April was also the month John and Yoko moved out of their apartment in Greenwich Village to the Dakota Building in Manhattan's Upper West Side. And we all know what horrors unfolded there in December 1980.