Picture from Mental Floss

I am old enough to remember when MTV was a television channel that showed music videos, the 'M' in MTV would you believe is for 'music', so the full name was 'Music Television'. People my age and older will know this and maybe share my memory, but today's MTV audience who think the channel might always have been about reality shows and vacuous nonsense that even ITV2 and BBC3 between them would refuse to consider would be unaware of this. Not only do I remember this, I remember lots of things that today's youngsters will possibly only know through Buzzfeed lists; queuing up to use a phonebox, dial-up Internet cutting off as soon as the phone rang, MySpace being the best social networking site, BBC1 closing down at night after the weather and a blast of the National Anthem, penny sweets, long summers, snow at Christmas, taking glass bottles back to the shop for a refund, orange juice being a starter in restaurant,  making the effort to walk to a shop to rent a film on VHS, schools having one computer to share, and hotels having a television room. I could do a Peter Kay routine apart from it wouldn't be funny, actually it would be just like a Peter Kay routine in that case. 

Aside from all these nostalgic memories, I can vaguely recollect a time when the NME was a relevant periodical that dealt with the kind of music that wasn't covered by the likes of Smash Hits or seen on mainstream television. The New Musical Express has existed as a music magazine since 1952 and was the only magazine to give extensive coverage popular music. I personally always wanted to work there during the punk era where I would have been able to hang around with the likes of Danny Baker, Charles Shaar Murray, Johnny Cigarettes, Tony Parsons and others. My interest was further prodded as I made the transition from comics to grown up reading and realised that the NME shared a building with Whizzer and Chips, Buster, and various comics that were a lot cooler than The Beano and The Dandy. Kings Reach Tower is such an iconic address that I made a pilgrimage there in 2012 and made no difference whatsoever. 

It always looked from the outside looking in that the NME was more fun to work at than to read, as most of the writers apparently spent most of their time trying to impress each other by slipping in clever references. It has lost readers consistently for a long time and has now decided to become a free sheet, putting a once great publication in the same boat as Metro. Personally I prefer to read physical newspapers and magazines, especially as websites (and the NME is guilty of this as is my local paper) are impossible to read because of all the pop-up adverts that get in the way. Last time I was in London I was surprised to see that Time Out and the Evening Standard were free nowadays. The difference being that a newspaper and a guide to what's happening in London are well placed by tube stations, but the NME needs to be able to reach further afield. NME served a purpose in aiding the cool kids in rural areas by telling them about The Smiths or Wedding Present because they couldn't get this information elsewhere, (it was one of the few places that had information about Kurt Cobain's death in the pre-Internet days, even if you had to wait for it). If the village newsagent didn't stock it then at least it could be ordered, something that won't happen now because they will be piled up in cities and somewhere with a minimal demand won't be served at all. 

Making the paper free is a last ditch attempt to salvage something that perhaps doesn't really need salvaging anyway, especially if they are going to expand their interests into film, computer games, television and fashion making it look like every other magazine available. NME Radio kicked the bucket not long after an all singing all dancing launch, the TV channel is no more,  and the website as I have already said is a pile of shit. It is my opinion that keeping NME going as a free sheet is as cruel as keeping someone on a life support machine even if they have no quality of life. The days of working for a cool music magazine and being offered gifts of varying degrees of legality just to put a band's picture on the cover are over, as are the days when anyone gave a flying fuck about what the NME had to say about music. The magazine goes free in September, I will give it until Christmas.

The Sunday Alternative #46 is available from here.

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July Housekeeping

Bags and T-Shirts are still available from here. All money goes in the fund. Feel free to browse the shop page while you're there.

If you donate £5 or more, you get to choose a song for me to cover on kazoo for a YouTube video, details here.

Seriously, I am grateful for the donations so if you haven't got round to it yet, I thank you in advance.

steveEoliver@gmail.com

@SteveOliver76

The National Gallery was on the agenda today, or rather it was on Mandi's. Later on today we were going to look at what is essentially a closed down office block, so I couldn't really say no. I have tried my best with art galleries, and there is just something about them that I can't get along with. Museums I enjoy, but I soon got bored in the gallery. It was nice to be able to say that I have seen Sunflowers and Chair by Van Gogh, but once I had seen them, I had seen them.

Something that I had been very enthusiastic about was doing this photo:

I seemed to be the only person doing this. Why aren't the council, or the tourist information board doing something about this? There should be people walking up and down The Strand handing out bananas with a friendly "Have a banana". 

This isn't just any old disused tower block. King's Reach Tower was once the home of IPC Magazines, and a remembered postal address for people of a certain age. If you entered a competition, or wrote a joke for publication in Whizzer and Chips, Buster, Cor, Whoopie, or any of the other titles, then you will have written to King's Reach Tower. Stamford Street. London SE1 9LS. Once you grew out of comics, you started to read the NME and the correspondence to King's Reach Tower continued as you sent letters, and in my case, reviews and articles. I made a short video to put on YouTube about why the building should have a plaque, and commemorated all those jokes in the post, by sticking a Post-It note to the window with a joke on it. Once the video is online, I would love to think that people who watched it did the same. The video didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, the first take was brilliant up to the sticking a note to the door. It fell straight off, and the recording picked up me shouting "oh flipping nuisance", or something. By the second take, traffic had increased, people were rubbernecking, and a security guard had appeared in the building behind me. Still, the video is what it is, and will go online when I get home.

Yesterday evening, I turned my office upside down and inside out trying to find an old Whizzer and Chips comic. All my original copies are in storage, but I knew that in a box somewhere there was a facsimile copy that was given away with The Guardian a while ago. We're going to London for a night, just to give us a post-Easter rest and a bit of tourist-ing, and I am taking the opportunity to film a short video about King's Reach Tower. I have wanted to pay a visit to this legendary location for a long time, and as a sign of Mandi's extreme patience, we are going to visit it. 

We arrived in London at half eleven, after a surprisingly easy three hour journey along relatively clear roads. I didn't expect that the day after a bank holiday, but it was most welcome. This gave us time to kill however, as we couldn't check in to our hotel until two o'clock. I lived in London for a year in 1995, so I could navigate my way around like the sophisticated man about town that I am. At least I could have done, if they hadn't moved everything around so much. Getting out of the tube at Oxford Circus and walking down Regent Street was easy enough, as Regent Street is in the same place, but parts of Soho had been moved around so much that my sense of direction was all to cock. It might just be that I've been away too long, and my memories had let me down, but I prefer to blame it on London.

Something that had definitely changed was Hamley's, the whole thing had been restructured. I am pretty sure that the sweet shop on the fifth floor is what used to be the staff canteen. There wasn't a single member of staff there that I recognised, although I asked a demonstrator working for the same company that I was employed by when I worked there if a magician called Bruce Smith was still working there. He was part of the furniture back then, a professional magician who could sell the range of tricks sold under the Marvin's Magic range. I was told that he was still at Hamley's, but was on his lunch. The chances are that he wouldn't remember me, as the transient nature of toy demonstrators, ('dems' as we were known) dictates that you are only there until an acting job comes along. It would have been nice to see him though, just to see that not everything changes.

The iconic advertising light hoarding on the corner between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street is thankfully still there, although using more animated screens than it used to.

I don't understand why Barclays Bank moved into the shop next to Boots on that side of Piccadilly Circus, as they used to be situated in the pillared building that the double decker bus is passing. This was a purpose built, grand bank similar to the one George Banks worked in, it had elegant marble counters and my big shock on using the branch for the first time was that you were allowed to smoke in there, (in 1995 at least). Why they moved into the old McDonald's and created a homogenised high street bank is a mystery.

After a buffet lunch in China Town, (when in Rome, or China, or something) I wanted to find the building where once stood the Wag. The Wag is one of the most famous nightclubs in the country, and sadly closed down in the early 2000s. Aside from the historical connection with the 1980s post-punk scene, it was also home to a Wednesday event called Club Wild. If my memory serves me right, it was indie downstairs and more heavy metal emphasis upstairs. I didn't go in to see if they still had the spiral staircase, or if Boy George still worked in the cloakroom, because I couldn't be arsed. I was sad to see that the heritage brigade have yet to adorn the wall with a blue plaque.


Soho has changed a hell of a lot since my last visit, so much so that they seem to employ someone to move buildings around while you are walking around. I wanted to take Mandi for drinks in The Coach And Horses in Soho, having walked past it once. It totally disappeared while we walked around, and the employees put it back while we were sheltering from the rain. I'm all for keeping people in gainful employment and reducing the dole queue, but I do feel that Westminster Council could make better use of funds than employing these pranksters. While it is sad that The Coach And Horses now belongs to a chain, (Fullers), they have respected the place. 

The Coach And Horses has always attracted an arty, creative crowd, and it was nice to see that it is still filled with musicians, writers, and the like. A major difference is that a lot of people drank soft drinks, what Jeffrey Bernard would have made of that I dread to think. Such is their intention to period detail, (pictures of Peter O'Toole as Jeffrey Bernard on the walls is the only real 'tourist' affectation) that the ceilings are still a dirty nicotine colour. In fact, pubs with such historic connections should by rights be exempt from the smoking ban.

We rounded the evening off by walking along the river all the way back to the hotel. All the way there I managed to hide the fact that I didn't really know where I was going.

Whizzer And Chips And Pen Pals Reunited!

I have been waiting all week for this. The Guardian has been giving away, for reasons I am not fully aware of, a free classic comic every day since last Saturday. I now have a copy of Jackie, The Beano, Roy of The Rovers, The Dandy, Tammy and Bunty. But today was the one, the best comic of the lot. Because today was the free copy of Whizzer and Chips!

For those who do not know, Whizzer and Chips was two comics in one. Whizzer was the outer layer and Chips was meant to be pulled away as a separate read. The reader was supposed to pledge allegiance to one of the titles, although I doubt anyone actually did.

If millions of children had actually pulled the comic into two and thrown half away, then you would be able to hear the sound of a million adults kicking themselves when eBay was invented. As my own comic collection fell victim to a much-regretted visit to a second hand book trader (£50 the lot, which to a seventeen-year-old student in 1992 was akin to a lottery win) I regularly scout eBay for old comics of my youth. I simply will not go on holiday without Whizzer and Chips Summer Special.

It was nice to see that the comics being given away were not some copy and paste ‘best of’ collection, but an actual copy of the original comic taken from an archive.

Whizzer and Chips, along with Buster, Monster Fun, Whoopee and all the other IPC Magazines titles, were always that bit edgier than the offerings from DC Thompson. Yes, I did buy The Beano and The Dandy, but they were hardly rock n roll were they? If DC Thompson was Swap Shop, IPC was TISWAS!

In IPC comics, the bad kids got away with it. While Dennis the Menace was being slippered by his dad, Junior Rotter was swindling money from smaller kids. It wasn't parents and teachers who dished out revenge it was older brothers, or big snakes, rubbery balls with eyes, magic pop up books or the ability to ‘scrunge’ your face into something scary.

Another bit of nostalgia for me was the postal address, which I still remember off by heart: IPC Magazines, King’s Reach Tower, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LS.

This was the postal address for both Sid’s Whizz Kid Page and Shiner’s Chip-ite Page. I do not know how much pocket money I spent on stamps and envelopes sending jokes for publication, or entering competitions, but I bet I did not break even when I finally got a joke printed on Chalky’s Joke Pad in Buster. The two-pound postal order could not have covered it. However, according to my CV/biography, that is the date I became a published comedy writer! Sadly, I do not still have the comic, but I do have the letter to inform me it was going in. Now I know whom the archive belongs to, I will have it again some day.

By the way, before I go on, this was the two quid earning gag:

Doctor: You say you've had this 50p coin in your ear for a week, so why are you only coming in today?
Patient: I didn't need the money until today!

To think, at one stage in my life I was a paid comedian and comedy writer!

The King’s Reach Tower address is special to me in a way, because once I had graduated from comics to the NME I realised I was staying loyal to the same publishing company. When I started writing letters to the music mag of choice for the young grunge kid, and eventually submitting articles and reviews, my typed up efforts were being posted to the very same King’s Reach Tower. I was heartbroken when the NME moved to the Blue Fin Building and have never forgiven them.

What ruined my enjoyment of Whizzer and Chips today was the idiotic advice they had printed in small type. It is obvious that the appeal lie with the adult who read the comics as children, to ride their Raleigh Grifter down memory lane. Was there any need to write 'Facsimile of vintage 1978 advertisement, please do not respond' on every page that carried an advert or a postal address? 

This did get me thinking though. The Guardian has missed a trick during the run of the classic comic giveaways this week. Why didn't they make any effort to contact the people who had published letters and jokes in the various comics/magazines all those years ago?

What A Pong!
My mum and I have quite a collection of perfumes. Between us we have:- 12 sprays, 10 mini sprays, 4 purse sprays, 3 roll-ons, 33 ordinary bottles of perfumes and 8 jars in cream form.
All these add up to 70.
Oh, sorry, my mother’s just told me she’s bought another mini spray, so that makes a total of 71! Sue Foster
Barrow-On Humber

Sue Foster felt the need to share this with her fellow Jackie readers in the issue dated February 15th 1975. I for one am curious to know how she turned out. Assuming the average Jackie reader was 13, she will now be 44 years old. Does she still have a ridiculous amount of cosmetics in her house? Did her and her mother die of asthma due to inhaling too much spray perfume? 

Dear Dennis,
I am going to Spain on holiday and am taking a pile of Beanos to have a laugh on the beach.
Viva el Beano
Yours sunbathingly
Barry Roberts,
Shipley, West Yorkshire

Barry’s letter came from the 2000th issue of The Beano, dated November 15th 1980. Using the assumption he was ten when he wrote this, he will now be 39. Maybe he could go on a date with Sue Foster. If you know either of these people, then get in touch with me and I will fix it.

This whole idea of writing to people and finding out something about them as people came to me a while ago. Last year I bought several old copies of Smash Hits for research. They all came from the early 1980s, and were useful to me at the time as I had never actually read the magazine as a youngster. Having seen a programme about it on television, I figured I would use its cheeky style as a template, as I was starting a magazine at the time. Although it never came to anything.

What struck me, as a classic case of ‘how times have changed’ was the pen pals page. These days we are warned about letting children loose on the Internet, do not give your address, or arrange to meet anyone. Do not trust anyone, as they are all paedophiles. However, on the pen pal page, the young reader published their full home address!

So just to see if this experiment works, I have chosen two people at random from Smash Hits, dated July 21st- August 3rd 1983 and written to them. On the envelope next to their name, I have written in brackets (last known address). If you are playing along at home, write on the back of the envelope your name and address, as a ‘if not resident please return’ safety net.

Hi! My hobbies are collecting earrings and pop posters. My name is Hayley and I’m 11 and mad on Wham! FGTH and Madonna. Write to Hayley, 117 Knowle Hill Road, Netherton, Dudley, West Midlands DY2 0HW

Boo! That woke you up didn't it???! Hi, my name is Jane, I love TFF, Spands and Paul Young. I hate CND, worms and dissecting things. If you’re male, female or in between, write to Jane, 7 Peartree Walk, Yaxley, Nr Peterbourgh, Cambs, PE7 3HQ

I will of course report on my success or lack of, please do the same! There might be a Dave Gorman style book/film/tour in an experiment like this. If I wrote to every single pen pal address in all my old Smash Hits and could arrange to talk to them about the response they got at the time. You never know, some people do not move too far from home, and their parents might still live in the house.