pulphack

Make no apologies for returning to this thread as, after something jogged the memory on a.n.other forum, decided to revisit. Speed read it in a couple of sittings,and looked at the ridiculous thread set up when someone closed this. I have only one thing to say (well a lot, actually, but I'll stick to one thing): the Potato man, Harvester of Souls and Windsor - if they are all still here, I do hope they've got a sense of proportion at last, come out of their intellectual ivory towers, and have realised that this is an internet forum, and as such is inherently pointless and stupid. As, sadly, were they. As are we all. There were some ridiculously self-important proclamations of the supposed intellectual ambitions they held for this forum (and, by extension, themselves) in there. I think the likes of MPFC, Pooka and Godot knew this, and I exclude them from my pity. As for the rest of the forum? Otherwise, still rather good on the whole.Nice to see it still here.

I had absolutely no staying power, but have been looking in again over the last couple of months. Where are BHB and The Pooka these days? Also fallen by the wayside, no doubt. Haven't seen Notapotato either. My respects to those who keep this up for so long. My attention span has been ruined by modern culture. At least, that's my excuse...

If it's true that he used to read this (perhaps still does), he may just keep himself alive by sheer force of will to spite everyone on here. In the past year he's done the odd bit of work and generally bugger all else which, even for a man with his medical past, probably means that he could go on indefinitely. Bet he doesn't get much in residuals from all those MATH and Robins Nest re-runs on Paramount, though.

why, atj, nice to know i'm remembered. i was, of course, joking... everyone has guessed that you're alvin lee... caravan: apparently they'll be touring in a shiort while (might already be out for all i know) with richard coughlan, but as his rheumatoid arthritis has been playing up, they've got a stand-by rehearsed. the problem with RA is that i fades in and out and is unpredicatble in early stages. incidentally, they might finish anyway, as apparently pye hastings reckons he's getting a bit old to bother with touring. stray: not on here yet, but back on the road with del bromham plus a rhythm section. as he wrote most of the tunes, played most of the guitars, all the keybards, and did at least half the lead vocal, i figure he has the right to use the name. saw him a few months back and he did a 45minute acoustic set followed by two hours with the band. cracking set, and he still has it. ok, they were never big, but any band that decided a switch to Pye in the mid-seveties was a GOOD move, additionally taking on charlie kray as their manager, were not business heads...

Sorry to go back to Chesty Morgan again, but - crimes against fashion aside (and even for '73 her fashion sense is challenged) - the oddest thing about her movies is that they were written and directed by Doris Wishman. So the bizarre idea of a camera implanted in one boob that will EXPLODE in 72 hours if the mission isn't accomplished and the equipment removed actually came from a nice housewife from (I think) New Jersey. Who also made a movie about a penis transplant just before the wonderful 'Percy'. And apparently Chesty was so crap that she had to be dubbed. And never mind the flowery blouse and plaid skirt - what about those clumping red platforms she seems to love so much? And those wonderful support hose. Honestly, that was supposed to be erotic? BTW, can't include Doris in anything as she died a year or two back. Certainly not forgotten, though...

Not drunk, just bored... with Starcrossed and Windsor, who seem to be young lads having problems forming attachments to young ladies, hence their testosterone (emphasis on toss) fuelled mega-rants at each other. If Starcrossed really was that bothered about moderators, moderaters, and any other F*****g spelling you care to use, he would have buggered off in a huff and not come back. No, he just likes baiting people because he needs to get laid. Same goes for Windsor. Grow up, for f**ks sakes. You're entitled to rant to your heart's contents if you want, but it's starting to get boring, so why not just PM each other and then set up home, eh?

Blaster Bates was a kind of celebrity almost killed off by multi-channel tv. Once upon a time there were lots of guys like him who used to play provincial halls (did he ever do London town halls?) and record albums that you would always find in small town charity shops. I had a chum who used to talk about being taken to see him, when a small child, in almost hushed tones. But then Shaun liked blowing things up and very loud noises (he was a headbanger)... hmm, probably related. Back then, someone like that coming to a tiny town was a bit of an event. Now no-one gives a toss unless they've been on Big Brother - otherwise it's back to UK Living +1 for yet more repeats of 'Will & Grace'. Famous in his own way, and also an indicator of changes in the way we get entertained. Actually, I notice I've equated provincial with 'tiny' and 'small' - I remember seeing posters and albums in small towns, but did he perform in provincial cities? Given his Cheshire backgropund, was he big in Manchester, Bolton, etc? Ha! 'Provincial cities'! F*****g cockneys...

So that's what Piblokto really is! Thank you, my dear sir, for your erudition! I feel enlightened. I also like the sound of koro, having tried something similar to this in 'Faces' nightclub in Ilford some time back. A fine and a stern warning from the bench put paid to a repetition. Jack Bruce met Pete Brown when they were doing the poetry and jazz tours in the early sixties, and he gave him a call when he was having trouble writing lyrics. Within a few days Pete found himself signing a contract with Robert Stigwood that tied his publishing up in knots for years. I only know this as I once interviewed Pete Brown, about fifteen years ago, and he was a diamond bloke. And track 3, side 4 of Bumpers? Had to pull that one out - 'Islands' by Renaissance. Bassist was Louis Cennamo (sp?), who went on to play on loads of new age stuff with Jim Carty in the eighties and nineties. By coincidence, I also interviewed Carty around the same time as Brown, and if I remember right, I think Cennamo was also a psychotherapist by then. But I don't have the tape, so I wouldn't swear to it.

Cymbal crash and ayethangyew... you're not the real lennie bennett obviously, as that was too funny for him.

I think you're missing the obvious, Mary - Clitheroe and Ronnie Dio? Seperated at birth, surely? Small men with very strange voices (though I am a fan of Ronnie and not Jimmy). Perhaps the result of an odd Anglo-US experiment in genetic engineering...

Pete Brown had his own back - he formed a new band called Piblokto, which I believe is either a skin disease or an Eskimo word (perhaps an Eskimo skin disease?). Either or none may be true, but I don't care - it's too good an explanation to spoil it with truth. Good band, though. Pete Doherty? Oh yeah, this thread is about him, isn't it. Just a boring C**t these days. But a rich one if the EMI deal goes all the way.

Hmm, I think you've been hanging around with the Pooka too much, BHB. An injunction can't be far away...

I don't think he's worth listing, being a complete waste of space, but whether he should or not is an interesting point. There's such a high turn-over of fame & celebrity these days that obits could appear for some twat who's been famous for F**k-all for fifteen seconds, and also obits for another twat who was once famous for fifteen seconds for F**k-all, but has been remembered by the obits editor who thinks someone else might. After all, as the concensus behind editorial opinion changes, who's to say what the criteria would be for getting in there? Editorial follows what it thinks the demographic of the paper might be: in a few years, the Times could be pandering to a Sun style demographic. Which makes the kind of rules that exist here obsolete. So, do they get changed and adapted, or what? And on whose say-so? And how in touch with what's happening in the mainstream media are those who make the rules (or how much do they want to be)? Just askin', like...

Absolutely... the Hatfields and the Health were two very idiosyncratic bands that combined jazz and rock voicings witout being 'jazz-rock' in its generic sense. Pip Pyle had a unique style tha kind of rolled around the beat, with some very odd accents that shouldn't have worked, but did. He also wrote many of Hatfield's wry and witty lyrics, and on the second Health album ('Of Queues And Cures') wrote 'Phlakaton', possibly the first drum solo written for voices (...). He worked with Phil Miller for most of his career (In Cahoots being in some ways a continuation of the jazzier sides of National Health), and I remember reading a Dave Stewart note for a Health reissue wher he talked of meeting Miller and Pyle for the first time, auditioning for the hatfields. It went something like: 'Phil Miller said "You're in". Pip Pyle said "I don't think so, actually", whereupon they went in the kitchen an argued furiously for fifteen minutes, coming to blows. I later learned that it had been this way since they had first met each other aged five, in the same village, and had argued over a toy.' Bye, Pip - I'm sorry I'll never see you behind the kit again.

Pardon My Genie? What a man of taste and resource you are, mr Pooka. Hugh Paddick followed by Arthur White (aka David Jason's less successful brother), and written by Bob Block, of Rentghost fame (oo - Nadia Popov! Pity she morphed into Gail's mum on Corrie)). One of the few shows from childhood I can remember really well. Wonder if it would still look good - I always remembered Do Not Adjust Your Set fondly, and got the DVD; ok, but nowhere near as wonderful as memory would have it. Obscure gems? Nightingales - David Threllfall, Robert Lindsay, James Ellis as night security guards. 'There ain't nobody here but us chickens', was that really a werewolf lurking in the building, and lots of Pinter goes sitcom dialogue. A short-lived gem, but now out on DVD... after recent experiences, a bit iffy about getting it unless it's another let-down. Then there's another Channel 4 show - 'Dream Stuffing'. Loved it, but mostly 'cos I was with someone who was really like the punk bird at that time, and it gave me a good excuse to laugh at her foibles under the guise of sit-com...

Hmm... the thought of Susan George indulging in the sin of... no, stop it! Let's get back to the important stuff (by the way, wasn't her first film role being strangled by Ian Ogilvy in 'The Sorcerors'?) - Mitch Mitchell, Dickie, Asquith, and Waterman? That could have been Kipper. You'd do the Clapham with them, wouldn't you? And knowing what that references means you could qualify for the new DL Trivia University. Lots of people on here would hate the idea (boring sods), but let's face it, how else can you justify knowing so much ridiculous and inane information about pop culture? Particularly when you can name the contents of Tessa Wyatt's wardrobe in 1978 and yet not be able to remember how many miles were on the limits of that pesky exclusion order?

I don't give a toss who Amanda was, but I do like the stupid wrestling name thing... mine comes out as Dick Hurricane Salzen. I think it's the mother's maiden name bit that makes it. Like the pornstar name game: your first pet's name and mum's maiden name. Which makes mine Rusty Salzen... horribly feasible.

Mary! Been dropping in to read but not had time to post for a while. Didn't get to the game (in fact, spent most of the afternoon painting my mum's hallway while listening to Jeff Stelling despair of Hartlepool ever scoring), but not too surprised at the result. Always thought of Carlisle as being a bit of a bogey team for us since that time we went 5-0 down in about 20 minutes... some things just stick in the mind. Good for you to Karl Hawley on the scoresheet, and at least Lee Steele is in form for us. Our new no5 is a donkey, though, isn't he... no repalcement for Gabby. And well done OoO - coming back from what must have been a shattering first 20 minutes shows a good degree of fortitiude. Some way to celebrate the first top flight game...

Definitely! That one always gets me, too - that second 'i' really should be an 'e'. Isn't part of the problem with spelling these days that US & UK versions of English have become confused? A couple of generations back there was a very clear delineation. With the shrinking world and Hollywood culture riding roughshod over everything else, the uses of US English have spilt over. Which still doesn't explain or excuse 'tonite', really.

Mackie? Form? Depends what you mean... don't worry that he's suddenly got good, or anything. He's a 100% player, I'll give him that, but he's slow, can't turn, and has a distressing propensity to grab shirts, tug at arms, and fling elbows. He was able to get away with it in League 2 as refs are poor in that division; in the League 1 I think he'll be found out, and will actually prove to be a liability - too many cards and sendings-off beckon. Although, bizarrely, he shows a certain something as a last-ditch striker, having scored some crucial goals when thrown forward in the last ten minutes. No, selling him was a VERY good bit of business for your boys.

As it happens, it's the mystic curse of the Orient. He's just another striker who arrived at the O's full of promise, flopped, and then went elsewhere and couldn't stop scoring. There was a time a year or two back when, as we gathered for sunday mornig kickabout, either myself or my fellow sufferer Mark would go through the results in the NOTW - 'he's scored, sh*t at Orient... he's scored again... bastard couldn't hit the net for us...' and so on. Would you believe Lee Thorpe was a sh*t-hot striker when we bought him? Josh Lowe at Northampton scored against us after flopping in front of goal. And Saturday... according the O's website, the defence was beaten by the electrifying pace of Leon Constantine (scored twice)... that'll be the same Leon who ambled around the pitch when we had him a couple of years back, then started banging them in for Torquay, Peterborough, etc. Gary Alexander & Lee Steele have escaped so far, but then Alexander has long droughts, and Steele is injury plagued - so perhaps it's hit them that way.

That'll be the same Gary Taylor-Fletcher who, as just plain Gary Fletcher between two spells at Lincoln, scored 1 goal in 3 years for Orient, will it? Hmm... Still, beat Millwall 2-0 tonite and emerged unscathed. Can't remember the last time I saw that many police at an O's game!

could also apply to any and all of the orient back four...

One of Patrick Allen's last jobs was doing the silly voice bits on Christian O'Connell's Virgin FM show. Terrible show (made worse by my old clock radio alarm's insistence at that point of receiving nothing except Virgin with any degree of clarity), made vaguely bearable by those distinctive tones. Around March he disappeared, repalced by Brian Blessed, with a few references to ill health. I got a new clock radio alarm and dispensed with Virgin, and assumed that the 'ill-health' was a minor indisposition. Which is why it was never mentioned on 'possibilities. etc' by myself at the time. Damn! Very sad for Allen, but an opportunity missed for yours truly. Incidentally, if anyone ever gets the chance to see the DVD of 'The Bodystealers', the commentary by Allen is well worth listening to: the film is a turkey*, and in lieu of anything else he discusses his career and people he's met at great length, coming across as a terribly nice bloke, and very self-effacing. (*though of the 'so-bad-it's-good' type if you like swinging sixties movies)

That would probably be the ultimate insult in Tonga... 'Sir, I may have buggered your wife AND your mother-in-law before embezzling half the state treasury, but you are still a thin bugger!'