***
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 …
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