Classic Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - Back Again in the DHSS (1987)

Craig Stephen’s route to Biscuits fandom wasn’t through the seminal debut album, Back in The DHSS (which Craig reviews here), but through its bastard sequel which was released after the band had split up due to “musical similarities” …

Back Again in the DHSS is a compilation of sorts … in the sense that it contains mostly new songs and some previously released singles tracks.

The unreleased tracks are all taken from three sessions for the John Peel Radio One show recorded and aired between November 1985 and September 1986. Peel was a huge fan and gave the band an audience that could never be attained through droll mainstream daytime radio. It was crucial that these tracks were given a release as every one of them is a gem.

Take ‘Rod Hull is Alive … Why?’ for example. A death has occurred (of a “doyen of topiary”) and the grieving relative/friend/acquaintance asks why someone else couldn’t have died instead … such as Rod Hull, the man famous in the 1970s and 80s for a double act involving a toy emu. It would require a long and tedious explanation of the strange workings of the British comedy system to elucidate why he/they were so popular.

Singer Nigel Blackwell manages to also incorporate Jacques Laffite, The Wrekin, Helen Keller and the birch in one song. Again, and as ever with the Biscuits, Google is your friend here.

From that same Peel Session recorded in the British autumn of 1986 came ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’, to which my naïve friend asked at the time what was a teenage armchair honved, as if it was some sort of new appliance or sexual position only tried by S&M “enthusiasts”. The answer was rather mundane, as Honved were a Hungarian football team.

Eastern European football was also acknowledged on ‘All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit’. This is a particular favourite for its references to Scalextric and the issues setting it up: “But it always took about 15 billion hours to set the track up/ And even when you did/ The thing never seemed to work”, and table-top football game Subbuteo.

Surely, this is greatest song about sport toys ever. Another reference to European football of the 1970s is a magnificent merger of the longest song title ever, and the most ridiculous club name: “Supercalifragilisticborussiamönchengladbach”.

The Biscuits were never a singles band per se, but ‘Dickie Davies Eyes’, released in 1986 and almost a chart hit, of all things, was an exception, and is included as are its two B-sides – ‘The Bastard Son of Dean Friedman’ and … ‘Dukla Prague’.

The A-side is a play on Kim Carnes’ ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, and is a familiar trick of the band – ‘Reasons to be Miserable (part 10)’ is a tweak on Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3)’, while ‘Arthur’s Farm’ is a play on George Orwell’s Animal Farm novel.

As well as referencing football - strictly a no-no at the time - ‘I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan’ excels primarily for the segue into a section ruminating on where the song should go: “Is this the bit where we're supposed to make guitars collide, and / Is this the bit where we release all that raw energy, and / Is this the bit where we go crashing through those barriers / Like what they do in music mags?!”

Elsewhere we have references to Siamese cats, a kitchen appliance manufacturer, spa towns, a disbanded English football trophy, double glazing adverts, Turkish Delight, Roger Dean posters, Arthur Askey and dozens more.

Back Again in the DHSS, like all HMHB albums, mimics those institutions almost sacred to the English: B-list television stars and their gimmicky shows, small-town life, sport outside the top leagues, life in cul-de-sacs, and working-class eccentricities.

And to think that these songs were hidden away on Peel Sessions, played late at night, with only insomniacs and students listening in. Releasing it in 1987 as I reached out to the Jesus and Mary Chain and Echo & The Bunnymen was perfect timing.

Most of this album was released two years later with a host of live tracks as ACD.

Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - The Voltarol Years (2022)

 Craig Stephen on the prolific Half Man Half Biscuit …

Half Man Half Biscuit never stop. Four decades on and the albums keep a-coming. Just as I wonder if Nigel Blackwell has dredged the well of humour dry, the world churns out more merde for him to get his teeth into. As it were.

The Biscuits have been around since 1985 when the world was first introduced to their love of minutiae on the seminal Back in the DHSS album, a period piece of observant, wry tracks that cast an eye over everything from unemployment to table football to the galling awfulness of children’s TV presenters.

Every two to three years the Biscuits relaunch with a new album, and The Voltarol Years is their 15^th studio album (on top of numerous EPs and a few compilations). The previous 14 masterpieces were all released on Probe Plus but with that cult label’s closure through its owner’s retirement, they’ve released this on R M Qualtrough, a name so anti-rock’n’roll I’ll assume it’s their own set up. That change may explain the gap of four years since No-one Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut.

 The Voltarol Years contains the usual cutting edge sarcasm and satire, railing against the worst elements of society: football fans who aren’t really football fans, middle class aioli-consuming moaning minnies, pedants, grumpy online chess players, C-list celebrities and what have you. If there were ever a political statement in a Biscuits track it would be about the bickering at parish council meetings over poorly-devised pavements.

This is all delivered in a manner that defies musical norms, none of which is more evident than on ‘Grafting Haddock In The George’, where, mid song, Blackwell deviates into a monologue about Martin, one of those people who want to be at the centre of everything and who like the sound of their own voice. As he does so the band pares back to a single bassline: 

“He was at Knowsley Safari Park one day where he saw a monkey with a banana in one hand and a tin-opener in the other, and he shouted over: ‘Hey, you don’t need the tin-opener for that!’ To which the monkey replied: ‘It’s for the custard, dickhead!’ …”

In the 1980s and much of the 90s the Biscuits could drop in obscure references knowing that fans would need to ask their mates what it meant or remain befuddled. Now, all you need do is search Google. So what exactly is Urbex or buskins of mottled cordovan? Who is Anthony Power or Chicory Tip? And where exactly is Haverfordwest and why is it named so? Do I even care? That, perhaps, is the entire point.

‘Rogation Sunday’, meanwhile, reveals how a man finds a curious note from his other half that brings a double-whammy of bad news:

“I came downstairs and found your note / The greater knapweed near the mugwort by the buckthorn tree is dying / P.S. Yes, I have left you”

The preamble to all this merriment and mirth ‘I’m Getting Buried in the Morning’, is the tale of a murderer about to meet his maker, and who wonders how he’ll be remembered (not fondly obviously). Our anti-hero cheers that: “Yeah, I’m getting frazzled in the morning/ So get me to the chair on time,” sung in the manner of that ol’ cockney classic ‘Get Me To The Church On Time’.

The music is a varied mash of standard rock and indie-pop, sometimes grating, often enthralling, as on ‘Awkward Sean’, a personal favourite due to the breezy pace it takes. The narrator wonders what has happened to his old pal and tries to find out from others who knew him. Some say he died a long time ago, some say he’s alive in a small town in Pembrokeshire, west Wales (hello Haverfordwest!). We discover that Sean was a little bit different: while his mates liked the flamboyant footballers such as Best, Pele and Cruyff he was an admirer of more functional German players. In the pubs: “We would play pool/ He would arrange beer mats into a tower.” 

Amongst the jollity and scornful mocking, The Voltarol Years does contain some bleakness, as on ‘Big Man Upfront’ where another ratbag hits his dog cos he’s “hard as nails” and crashes his car but survives – “I cursed the airbag when I heard” bemoans our storyteller.

The Voltarol Years won’t be picked up by global radio, trend on Spotify or be listed in the Top 75 Albums of the Year by Mojo magazine. They don’t even try to go beyond their fanbase nowadays, and never really did – after all they eschewed a TV appearance that could’ve boosted their profile in the 80s to instead see local side Tranmere Rovers. But, in age of increasing cultural tediousness and AI-generated music, bands such as Half Man Half Biscuit are needed more than ever. “What side of the indie war were you on Grandad? I was on the side of Tess of the Dormobiles, lad”.

Pass, Shoot, Goal: Football and Music

Football and music: small words that evoke memories of players singing out of tune, or Chas and Dave being dug up ahead of a Spurs appearance in the FA Cup final. Or ‘Back Home’ by the England World Cup squad, that dismal Baddiel and Skinner effort … the list of cultural criminality goes on and on.

Music has often used football for its ill-gotten gains and, on the other side of the coin, the sport has gotten a piggy back from the industry to promote a forthcoming tournament or boost the bank balance of a striker.

But perhaps it isn’t all bad, after all The Fall wrote a couple of songs about the sport.

So, here’s our resident Montrose FC sympathiser Craig Stephen, with the top football recordings of all time:

New Order - World in Motion (1990)

It included a rap and was England’s official World Cup anthem of that year but it’s by New Order, a band that could compile a range of fart sounds, add a drum’n bass beat and it would still be the best track of the year.

I was living in north-east Scotland at the time, and buying this at the local Woolworths would have resulted in pelters from the lads who would have accused me of being a traitor. So it was a furtive buy, carried out when the young shop assistant was someone who didn’t know me and probably knew nothing about football.

New Order had taken a new turn on 1989’s Technique, an album that revealed that they’d been listening and taking drugs to the emerging rave and electronica scene. For this single they teamed up with six members of the England squad for Italia ’90 and comedian Keith Allen. 

Footballers don’t tend to have very good musical tastes so it all made for an interesting session. It has a catchy chorus, a passable rap, a brilliant video and was devoid of much of the pommy arrogance that it could appeal to the masses. And it did. But perhaps not in Montrose.

The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin (1979)

Ostensibly about a family member who's good at everything including table football: "He always beat me at Subbuteo/ 'cause he flicked the kick/ And I didn't know," and the cover of this single features a Subbuteo player about to “flick the kick”. Believe me, that game was popular in the 70s and 80s.

I, Ludicrous - Quite Extraordinary (1988)

Graduates of The Fall school of witticism, I, Ludicrous spewed a handful of football-related songs, such as ‘We Stand Around’ (about hardcore fans braving all the elements and bad players), and ‘Moynihan Brings Out The Hooligan In Me’ (about the odious little shit of a Tory Sports Minister at the time).

‘Quite Extraordinary’ was a piss-take of the BBCs footballing and athletics commentator David Coleman. “Same routine year in year out/ It's predictable every summer/ Mispronouncing the Kenyan runners/ It gets worse in the winter/ with the goddamn videoprinter/ That's Stenhousemuir's 13th game without a scoring draw.” 

Getting the name of an obscure Scottish league side deserves a Brownies badge on its own.

The Proclaimers - The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues (1987)

“I'd never been to Ayrshire/ I hitched down one Saturday/ Sixty miles to Kilmarnock/ To see Hibernian play/ The day was bright and sunny/ But the game I won't relay.”

And the bespectacled Leith duo have also gifted the world ‘Sunshine on Leith’ which is now an anthem for Hibs fans.

Billy Bragg - The Few (1991)

Britain’s favourite lefty muso, Billy Bragg, also wrote ‘Sexuality’ which isn’t about football per se (you may have guessed as such from the title) but contains the remarkable line: “I had an uncle who once played, for Red Star Belgrade.”

‘The Few’, also from the Don’t Try This at Home album, was a grim tale of hooligan firms: “At night the Baby Brotherhood and the Inter City Crew/ Fill their pockets up with calling cards/ And paint their faces red white and blue/ Then they go out seeking different coloured faces/ And anyone else that they can scare/ And they salute the foes their fathers fought/ By raising their right hands in the air.”

Bragg’s ‘God’s Footballer’, by the way, was about former Wolves player Peter Knowles, who retired early to become a Jehovah’s Witness missionary.

Half Man Half Biscuit - I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan (1985)

Written in recognition of Hungarian football, and with the almost obligatory “hungary for” joke, it’s actually not even the best song about eastern European football on the Back Again In the DHSS album.

‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’ is mainly about Subbuteo, well, actually, Scalectrix, but Subbuteo gets the gig among the young crowd when the racing game conks out due to a dodgy transformer.

Barmy Army - The English Disease (LP, 1989)

The English Disease (a reference of course to hooliganism) was very much of its time, with tracks such as ‘England 2, Yugoslavia 0’ and a protest song against a plan in the UK by the then ruling Conservatives to issue all football fans with ID cards.

Barmy Army cut and paste interviews and match commentary, using them ad nauseum; expressing their love of West Ham United with snippets of the ‘Ammers theme tune I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, and songs dedicated to Alan Devonshire and Billy Bonds. 

On a hit-and-miss (the goalpost) album, the strongest moment is ‘Sharp as a Needle’, featuring the Anfield Kop in fine voice.

The Pogues - Down All the Days (1989)

My own favourite football-related song, even if the core subject is writer Christy Brown, is this track from the Peace and Love album, for the line, “And I’ve never been asked, and I’ve never replied, have I supported the Glasgow Rangers,” which can mean many things to many people.

Super Furry Animals - The Man Don’t Give A Fuck (1996)

The Welsh superstars’ expletive-ridden tale of a man who, well, you get the idea. It was dedicated to 1970s Cardiff City player Robin Friday and featured the Welshman flicking the Vs on the cover. Apparently, he really didn’t give a fig, and who can argue with that kind of footballer. It was a great song too, but let’s forget that it used a Steely Dan sample.

The Sultans of Ping - Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass (1993)

“If God meant the game to be played up there, He would’ve put goalposts in the air.”

The speculation is that this single was about Nigel Clough. Was he any good?

Primal Scream, Irvine Welsh and On-U Sound - The Big Man and the Scream Meet the Barmy Army Uptown (1996)

Three magnificent talents who utilised those skills in very different ways in this one-off single, Scotland’s unofficial theme tune for the nation’s team’s participation in the 1996 European Championships held south of the border, which ended in predictable glorious failure.

Welsh describes a boozed-up trip to Wembley to watch Scotland play England as opposition supporters chant “who are ya?” in the background, but the writer is essentially hitting out at certain Scotland fans.

“In every hick town/ Across this pseudo nation/ You can see the most fucked up scum/ That was shat into creation/ Where a blue McEwan's lager top equals/ no imagination/ You're hunbelievable.”

Oh, isn’t the mention of the top a reference to supporters of the now defunct club called Rangers? Tee hee, you cad Welsh. 

Gracie Fields - Pass, Shoot, Goal (1931)

And just to prove referencing football in song is not a new fad, Gracie Fields recorded this track before Hitler had even taken power. Fields was apparently a big Rochdale FC fan. The song was written and recorded for a film called Derby Day about a derby match between Rochdale and Oldham Athletic. 

The film was never made but the song survives, with a bedazzling chorus sung in magnificent Lancashire tones: "Football, football, it drives me up the pole. You hear their gentle voices call – pass, shoot... goal!"

Listen here

The Fall - Kicker Conspiracy (1983)

Let’s read what The Fall’s Mark E. Smith himself said about ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ in an interview with Uncut:

"It's about English soccer violence being triggered off by rubbish management and frustration that the game's been taken away from its support, that the English game is so boring there's nothing else to do.”

Like most Smith songs, the lyrics are obscure. It namechecks Jimmy Hill (as J. Hill), Bert Millichip and George Best, but also ‘Pat McCat’, “the very famous sports reporter” ...

The Fall also released a track called ‘Theme from Sparta F.C.’ which contained lyrics in Greek. Here’s some of the most transparent English words: “Cheap English man in the paper shop/ You mug old women in your bobble hat/ Better go spot a place to rest/ No more ground boutique at match in Chelsea/ We are Sparta F.C.”

Trout - Green and White (1995)

This is a single I can't recall buying by a band I had never heard from (nor since). And that's almost the same amount of knowledge as Dr Google has. 

It is gloriously non-produced with incomprehensible vocals - I can detect something about Partick Thistle and “doing the conga” in The Jungle at Parkhead but the chorus is quite transparent: "Green and white and Rangers shite/ Green and white and Rangers shite" repeated several times. And what more would you want in a song?

The single (entitled "A Tribute to Celtic") is shared with electro-friendly act Cha Cha 2000 who's ‘Tired Legs at the End of the Game’ is equally word-unfriendly but I can make out a "Celtic Celtic" chant and some sort of football connection. Somebody out there must know something?

Andy Cameron - Ally's Tartan Army (1978)

Glaswegian comedian and all round gallus Cameron released this wee cracker that even got the supporter of the old Rangers a Top of the Pops appearance when it reached No.6 in the British charts. Comparing manager Ally McLeod to Muhammad Ali was typical of the tongue-in-both-cheeks humour.

Listen to this verse with a straight face: "When we reach the Argentine we're really gonna show/The world a brand of football that they could never know/ We're representing Britain; we've got to do or die/ For England cannae dae it 'cause they didnae qualify."

Scotland lost to Peru, drew with Iran and found themselves out of the tournament instead of winning it.

Morrissey - Munich Air Disaster 1958 (2004)

He used to be an inspiration now he's a flag waver for all the shit political philosophies of the world. But back in 2004, when he was still much revered, Mozza recorded what I think is his only football related song, a tribute to the Busby Babes, the lightning Manchester United side of the 1950s, most of whom died in the infamous plane crash at Munich.

Luke Haines - Leeds United (2006)

The somewhat eccentric Haines, formerly of the Auteurs and various offshoots, wrote this about life in the 1970s of Vauxhall Vivas and Ford Corsairs; of Kendo Nagasaki and World of Sport. "From Wakefield to the Ridings/ To the ground at Elland Road/ At Leeds United they're chanting vengeance, it's a 13-nil defeat on the front page of the Post/ A last-minute substitution but we didn't have the talent/ I was beaten, we were gutted, I was sick as a parrot."

Mano Negra - Santa Maradona (Larchuma Football Club) (1994)

A typical brew of latino, reggae, dub and hip-hop from Mano Negra. There's big drums, tannoyed vocals, the sound of flares, football chants and a certain Argentinian player with a unique way of using his hands during a game. Sounds like Les Negresses Vertes.

Thee George Squares - 74 in 98 (Easy Easy) (1998)

"The official Fortuna Pop! World Cup EP". The A-side featured a “supergroup” of members of Prolapse, The Fabians and John Sims (a band) based around an actual world cup final held at Hampden Park in "92 or 93" in which Scotland beat the United Arab Emirates on penalties after leading 3-nil. 

The B-side, the "Sassenach side" by MJ Hibbert celebrates, as it were, England taking home the ‘Fair Play Trophy (Again)’. It was definitely the poorer cousin to Scotland's entry which when it comes to art and music is usually the case, and to prove how woeful the poms were, they had an image of Jimmy Hill on the back.

Colourbox - The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme (1996)

Despite featuring that same Mr Hill (on the cover, groan), this is actually supremely excellent, an instrumental built around a pumping bass and a horn section, it really does sound like it should be the theme tune for a World Cup highlights programme, or at least a segment featuring cracking goals and other choice moments. The story goes that Match of the Day producers were keen to have this as the soundtrack to its tournament highlights show. I don't care if it's true or not I'm going to tell all my friends that it is.

Pop Will Eat Itself - Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina (1990)

The Poppies were a bang average indie rock band from a humdrum town called Stourbridge; La Cicciolina was a blonde porn star who became an MP in Italy with a small left-wing group. A marriage made in ... ahem. Anyway, the Poppies eschewed their traditional greasy guitar sound for this very 1990 dance track peppered by samples from Bowie, the Human League and Funkadelic that could have been touched by Andy Weatherall. La Cicciolina doesn't have any input into the song itself but does appear in the video looking supremely lovely.

Real Sounds of Africa - Dynamos vs CAPS (0-0) (1984)

The (usually) 11-piece Zairean band who recorded out of Harare, Zimbabwe, also recorded ‘Tornados vs Dynamos’, ‘Soccer Fan’ and ‘Na Alla Violenza’ - likely to be a plea to footy fans. The band, also known just as Real Sounds, were one of the African bands, alongwith the Bhundu Boys, who came to Europe’s attention in the mid to late 1980s and collaborated with Norman Cook.

I haven’t covered everything … how can I? And there are club/band team-ups that are actually quite good, notably Shane MacGowan and Simple Minds appearing on a charity EP, in tribute to Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone, plenty of songs by Serious Drinking, or more from I, Ludicrous and Half Man Half Biscuit, and an obscure indie trio from Norwich who issued one single in 1991 and who’s name I haven’t made up yet, blah blah blah, but you get the bloody point.

(But you have covered a full first-team squad’s worth, an OCD-defying and curiously symmetrical full score plus two, which in this case, might just about be right. - Ed)

Classic Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - Back In The DHSS (1985)

Craig Stephen is back with another guest review. Bravely going places your blogger doesn't dare ...

***

Last year I wrote, on this very blog, a review of the then new album by Half Man Half Biscuit. You can read that review here.

It’s a fine piece of work, in keeping with the tongue in both cheeks at the same time attitude of the Wirral lads and their irreverent look at life, and in particular, paying attention to the minutiae of the world we live in. That being minor celebrities, low-league football referees, small item retail, daytime television and pedants, of whom there appear to be many.

Since their debut in the mid-80s the four-piece have changed little, and so it seems an opportune time to revisit that first album, that revelled in unemployment: the DHSS of the title being the acronym for Britain’s then Department of Health and Social Security, and “back in the DHSS” was a way of saying someone was signing on the dole again. Such was life in Thatcher’s Britain.

Anyone unlucky enough not to have come across the Biscuits before would have soon enough grasped through the titles alone that this was a band that wasn’t looking at life in the same gormless way as the lovelorn divas and popstars that were pumping out endless radio-friendly hits at the time.

Hence, ‘The Len Ganley Stance’ celebrated snooker referees and the rigid posture required by the tuxedo wearers who acted as the man in the middle at The Crucible: 

“Keep your arms as rigid as a juggernaut/ Clench your fists, point your knuckles straight ahead/ Do your best to look like a teddy bear/ Then try and pretend to look vertically dead.”

And it’s fair to say that the plump Irishman was a true exponent of the stoic umpire pose while mastering the art of controlling those who dared rustle a crisp wrapper or sneak off to the toilet break during a century break: “Brush the baize and keep the crowd in check.”

Ganley became an unlikely cult to the doyens of British daytime TV, and with three million on the dole during Thatcher’s reign there were certainly the numbers to feed the fledgling sport.

At the opposite end of the celebrity love-in a scouse actress had her own, ahem, tribute from the band: ‘I Hate Nerys Hughes (From The Heart)’, although it doesn’t actually have anything to do with the one-time star of The Liver Birds. It merely seems to be a chant of anger in the same way that ‘ohm’ might elicit the alternative feeling.

In a similar vein, ‘God Gave Us Life’, laments some of the “stars” that God has given the world, such as Una Stubbs, Matthew Kelly, Little and Large and Keith Harris. If you are unfamiliar with any of the above, do not, I repeat, do not feel the urge to check them out on YouTube.

‘Time Flies By (When You’re the Driver of a Train)’ is one of two tracks that reflect the band’s obsession with children’s television programmes (in this case Chigley) with the other appearing on The Trumpton Riots EP (more of which later). In the Biscuits world, however, here’s an opportunity to turn the childish innocence of the song The Little Steam Engine into altogether less wholesome pastimes: 

“Speeding out of Trumpton with a cargo of cocaine/ I get high when I'm a pilot of a plane/ Touching down in Camberwick/ I'm stoned out of my brain.”

And why not take the opportunity to mimick Syd-era Pink Floyd: “Under bridges, over bridges, to our destination/ Careful with that spliff, Eugene, it causes condensation.”

While Radiohead were chided for their use of the Trumptonshire brand by a relative of the creator in 2016, it seems that the Biscuits’ obscurity relieved them of such controversies for far greater crimes.

‘Fuckin’ Ell It’s Fred Titmus’ describes the shock of encountering the famous cricketer in everyday situations, such as at a supermarket or a railway station. Nigel Blackwell drops in references to the fabric conditioner Lenor, links Stevie Nicks to kleptomania, and notes that Dracula came from Transylvania (you’ll have to listen to it to understand the context).

The album also has references to other C and D list of celebs: ‘99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd’ and ‘I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves)’ – which as you may deduce is a parody of a song by Reeves, ‘I Love You Because’.

The 2003 CD reissue includes the 1986 EP, The Trumpton Riots, with the title track absurdly portraying Trumptonshire as a place of striking firemen, militant socialism, and military coups, where popular characters are instigators or part of the problem: 

“All this aristocracy has really got to stop/ We can overthrow the surgery and kidnap Dr Mopp/ And Chippy Minton’s Socialists could storm the Market Square/ And make plans to assassinate our autocratic Mayor/ Windy Militant leads his Basque-like corn grinders to war/ With windmill sails and bombs with nails they smash the town hall door/ But Snorty and his boys arrive with one big erstwhile crew/ Whereupon they bring about a military coup.”

If only.

Equally magnificent is that homage to Scalectrix and Subbuteo: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is a Dukla Prague Away Kit’, which as everyone knows is a Czech football team that reached the semi-finals of the European Cup in 1967.

Continuing the football theme, a track on the EP, ‘1966 And All That’, name checks Ferenc Puskas and Lev Yashin while also, somehow, getting in a reference to milk of magnesia. You could write an article on its own about former footballers featuring in Half Man Half Biscuit songs.

To win a free pen pilfered from a high street bank, tell the blog what Ali Bongo did …

Porky Post … Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - No-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin' Hedge Cut (2018)

Porky’s back, looking for laughs, so he sought out the new work by the incomparable Half Man Half Biscuit:

It’s impossible to tire of Half Man Half Biscuit, regardless of the unfortunate fact that bands trading on wit and sardonicism tend to have a short shelf life. The Biscuits, however, are made of sterner ingredients.

After a break of four years, following 2014’s eight-out-of-ten Urge For Offal, they’re back in action for their 13th studio album for which I am expecting exceptionally good things. 

Usually the song titles alone are an indicator of the content and in tracks such as Alehouse Futsal, Mod. Diff. Vdiff. Hard Severe, and Swerving the Checkatrade, it’s obvious that the Wirral four-piece has lost none of its panache and love for the minutiae of life.

The archetypal Nigel Blackwell cynicism about life’s characters is cranked up to 11 for a track that has its heart (and nose) in South America:

“You went from Magaluf to Stalingrad/ On altogether more different snow” which leads to Blackwell stating the bleedin’ obvious: “What made Colombia famous/ Has made a prick out of you.” 

Knobheads on Quiz Shows is, rather disappointingly, given its title, one of the weaker tracks, but the scathing lyrics pretty much make up for the limp bog-standard indie. Village idiots on television is par for the course, and they’re an easy target – which is why they are hauled up by the producers in the first place. But the Biscuits make it into an acidulous crusade anyway: 

“I don’t watch films in black and white/ The trees and flowers and birds have passed me by/ I’ll just guess and hope I’m right/ The first man into space was Captain Bligh.”

Its caustic content makes it the natural successor to Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess (from the band’s 2008 album CSI: Ambleside).

Renfield’s Afoot is equally caustic, with Blackwell beginning with his observation of a notification about a bat walk which recommends taking along warm waterproof clothing and a flask, and a time to meet. To which the Biscuits go all punk rock guitar and our hero has a go at the well-meaning organiser, informing them that he knows the place like the back of his hand and won’t be following the party line … 

“So don’t go trying to organise my bat walks/ I’ll be going on any-time-I-like walks” …

The outdoor life, you sense, is one that Blackwell adores but has an intense dislike for those who partake in such pleasures. Such as the man who got a Boardman bike off a Cycle to Work scheme and now goes out every Sunday in a “full Sky replica kit.” 

Football mentions are alas brief, nothing in the line of All I Want for Christmas is A Dukla Prague Away Kit. 

There’s namechecks for Dorothy Perkins, Battenberg cake, the Hadron Collider and Throbbing Gristle – and that’s just on Harsh Times in Umberstone Covert.

On realising that perhaps he is being a little too obscure, and for the assistance of his listeners in Crieff and Kinross, Blackwell whispers after a chorus in Bladderwrack Allowance mentioning Robert of Blaby, that Blaby is in Leicestershire.

Here’s some more lyrics: 

“Somebody’s mumbling Galatians/ Somewhere a wolf-print fleece needs 90 degrees/ Pushchair-related confrontations/ Pastoral conceits, Italian fancies, comic glees.” (Terminus) 

“I don’t think I’ve encountered a man so irate/ You’re a better man than I if you get past his gate/ He treats hawkers and Mormons with equal disdain/ Jesus I feel won’t be coming back again.” 

(Man of Constant Sorrow (With a Garage in Constant Use))

I think you get the picture, but the wit and obscure references are more than matched by a band on fire and making a sound that is ensuring this album is gaining more attention that the past few.

Oh, and the insert includes a crossword. I don’t imagine any Cliff Richard albums had one of those.