Life's Lottery (81 page)

The term ‘goth’ wasn’t in much use then; my nomination for first-ever goth is Vivian Darkbloom (Marianne Stone) from the Stanley Kubrick film
Lolita
.

In Britain, licensed premises are supposed not to sell alcoholic beverages to anyone under eighteen. However, UK citizens are not required to carry identity cards, driving licenses or any other form of identification listing a date of birth, so the matter of whether a drinker is of age is down to the snap judgement of the bar staff. Like the 18 certificate for films (an X certificate in the 1970s), it is generally if unofficially accepted that seventeen or even sixteen-year-olds will pass.

A hit for Andy Fairweather-Low, popular with 1970s drunks.

Available on:
www.telesearch.org/themesonline/index.htm

A soluble cold medicine.

A brand of whisky.

Claiming supplementary benefit (welfare).

Government-run employment agency.

The Salvation Army, who operate a chain of charity shops.

Welfare cheque (or check).

The DHSS, the government department concerned with health and welfare. This has now been reorganised, and the relevant initials are DSS for Department of Social Security.

Do-it-yourself; home improvement handicrafts.

The White Album.
It’s not true, apparently, that Charles Manson was a big fan; in an interview, he said he was a child of the 1940s and preferred Bing Crosby.

Drunk, not angry – in the UK ‘pissed off’ means what Americans mean by ‘pissed’.

Horrible Peter Sarsted hit from 1969, abused by buskers and entry-level guitar-players almost as often as ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and ‘Streets of London’.

Rum and blackcurrant juice. Go on, try it, why don’t you?

Troll-like furry creature from the children’s TV series
The Wombles.
They had a couple of hit records (‘Remember You’re a Womble’, ‘Wombling White Tie and Tails’) and a feature film spin-off,
Wombling Free.

UK slang: slut, girl of easy virtue.

UK slang: a girl who refuses to have sex.

A sofa and two armchairs; in the 1970s, probably with an eye-abusing orange-yellow pattern fabric cover.

A hit in 1967, memorable for the Japanese-language spoken word section.

The flimsy card document presented at the DHSS by claimants for Unemployment or Supplementary Benefit. The band UB40 took their name from the thing.

A gas station, garage.

British comics writer:
Watchmen
,
From Hell
, etc.

US comics writer-artist:
Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns
, etc.

Co-creators of many Marvel Comics characters in the early 1960s.

Dick Grayson grew up and became Nightwing, so Batman took on a new Robin, street kid Jason Todd. The character was disliked by many fans and killed off by the Joker after a mildly distasteful phone-poll as to whether he should live or die. DC later brought in yet another new Robin, Tim Drake.

From
Thunderbirds
. Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John.

Children’s TV show. Hector was a dog. Originally a French production, entitled
La Maison de Touton
, it was dubbed into English by, among others, Joanna Lumley.

Children’s TV show.

A catch-phrase from
Play School.

An emergency measure taken during the oil crisis of 1972–73; it didn’t mean shortening the calendar week, but the working week.

From 1969 on, friction between the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, terrorist campaigns on behalf of both factions, and the deployment of troops on the streets of Belfast.

Types of popsicle.

Smith’s Crisps (potato chips in the US) used to be sold unsalted, and you had to shake salt into them from a little blue bag.

Early 1970s British chart band, yobbish glam in character. Hits: ‘Tiger Feet’, ‘The Cat Crept In’.

Mormon boy-band of the early 1970s. UK hit: ‘Crazy Horses’.

Not related to the BBC chart music show, but LP collections of soundalike cover versions of recent hits marketed – as specified – with smiling pin-up girls in weird outfits on the sleeve.

Licorice-based sweets (candies) which came in several varieties.

Known as ‘hobby kits’ in America, these representations of the classic Universal monsters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, etc.) mixed with odder characters (the Witch, the Forgotten Prisoner) were commonplace in the UK in the early 1970s. ’60s editions were just plastic, but 1970s variants (‘frightening lightning strikes!’) had luminous heads, hands and accessories.

Model cars and other vehicles.

One of the most popular toys of the 1960s, but the gun-pointing minion who could be ejected from the car at a flick of a switch did tend to get lost over the years.

A 1970s strategy-based board game with a Napoleonic theme.

The
Daily Telegraph
, a conservative (and Conservative) newspaper.

A brand of instant coffee.

Chunder or chunder-up, UK slang = to vomit. Dave Tamlyn is now a bookseller in London; his record was actually set at my twenty-first birthday party, a few years after this scene is set. It remains unbroken.

Mountainous region in Wales.

Breakaway faction formed by right-leaning members of the Labour Party; later amalgamated with the Liberal party to become the Liberal Democrats.

A major horse-race.

A rough, strong cider, associated with Somerset.

A 1973 hit for Wizzard.

This expression comes from a
MAD Magazine
joke.

For a good reason not to take this, see
The Quorum
.

A brand of typewriter correction fluid or liquid paper. Now obsolete.

A 1967 hit for the Moody Blues.

The Assyrian wind demon in
The Exorcist.

A children’s song from the 1950s, recorded by Mandy Miller.

First line of ‘Anarchy in the UK’ by the Sex Pistols.

Uncle Mac (Derek McCullogh) was the host of the children’s radio request program
Junior Choice
, a BBC institution for decades. Many of the staples of his playlist are available on the
Hello Children, Everywhere
CD compilations.

A novelty record by the New Christy Minstrels.

‘Ruff-Ruff, the one with the waggly tail.’ A much-covered children’s song, the
Junior Choice
favourite version was by Lita Roza.

By The Beatles, who were a popular beat combo of the 1960s, m’lud.

By the Rolling Stones. G.I.s in Vietnam swore Aretha Franklin’s version was the superior.

By 10cc; maudlin pop hit, often played at the end of school discos in the 1970s.

By Jeff Beck. The 1970s DJ trick was to turn the sound off for the chorus and have the dancers raucously fill in. Don’t you wish you could travel back in time with an Uzi?

Suspenders.

A private health insurance firm, like an American HMO; the impression given by their adverts is that BUPA hospitals and doctors are far more efficient, luxurious and personal than the National Health.

Ze cartoon skunk formidable.

A reverse ‘V for victory’ sign, the two-fingered fuck-off salute, equivalent to the American single finger.

First syndicated in 1970, these little singleton cartoons by Kim Casali – more recently, by the creator’s son Stefano – depict a strangely naked child-adult couple, with the sentence completed by some example of everyday devotion and cuteness.

Vanda is thinking of ‘A. Wilson, Manager’, a poignant episode of the classic UK sit-com
Dad’s Army.

Even then, the Moorcock back catalogue was extensive.

The first drip of an eventual merchandising tidal wave, this modest one-sheet cleared the way for posters, t-shirts, action figures, mugs, tattoo transfers, lunchboxes, etc.

Underground comix characters lampooning hippies; much-loved by same. Created by Gilbert Shelton.

A brand of cigarette papers for roll-your-own enthusiasts. The cardboard packets they come in are more often torn up and used as roach-filters than any other commodity on the planet.

Large green, vaguely maternal Thunderbird, piloted by Virgil Tracy. Models of it have pods which are useful for hiding things in.

Catch-phrase from the Gerry Anderson show,
Thunderbirds.

Australian slang: idiot.

The instruction printed on Standard brand fireworks. After decades of jokes at the expense of this somewhat prissily ambiguous warning, the wording has now been updated to ‘Light the blue touch paper and stand well back’.

1977 was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II; in theory, it was celebrated throughout the land with patriotic street parties, but in retrospect the most memorable contributions to the event were the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ and Derek Jarman’s film
Jubilee.
I’ve still got a Jubilee paperweight in use as a doorstop.

In 1979, not yet an outmoded synonym for radio.

For more on this, see
The Quorum
– obviously.

1649–60; the period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration of the Monarchy with the accession of Charles II. The English Civil War
was
on the A Level history syllabus in 1977.

But they find out in
The Quorum.

The BBC’s TV and radio listings magazine; in 1977, it only carried listings for BBC channels, but deregulation means that it now – like its ITV competitor the
TV Times
and several other publications – carries listings for many UK terrestrial and cable-digital-satellite channels. It still publishes a double issue to cover the Christmas-New Year period.

James Garner in the TV series
The Rockford Files.
Probably more responsible than anyone else for the popularisation of the telephone-answering machine, though he only ever seemed to get bad news on his.

DC calls them ‘Elseworlds’ now, and Clark and Lois
are
married in current continuity.

A lemon-flavoured cold cure.

Universities Central Council on Admissions. Instead of applying individually to multiple universities, English students in the late 1970s filled in a single form which was processed by this body.

All appear in
Bad Dreams
.