I posted this (albeit in a less edited form for quoting reasons) on alt.gothic, and I haven't actually put my brain into gear for writing shit which isn't relating to recent gadgetry or electroshit. So, here's the meme.
These are little snippets from the 80s for me. If you're reading this on my friends list, post something similar on your LJ and tell me (I'll probably see it too).
Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" - For me, it was running across the field from the back of our house in Tuxford, down to my best friend Becky's house (her mum had a SHEEP! They were like The Good Life family, but I didn't see it then of course). We played "Game of Life" with her little brother, and our friend Katie and her little sister Vicky (she was kinda creepy and had a crush on me; I've always been wary of "Vicky"s since). We sang along to it and ran around in the field.
Since my musical 'tastes' were just developing, I had my parents old Reader's Digest box sets - 50s, 60s and 70s. I'm always twenty years behind, ready for the next retro wave. We also sang "Hippy Hippy Shake" and other awful crap.
Radio One enjoyed a brief period of attraction for me, studying in my stupidly oversized-but-crowded bedroom full of kitsch retro-tech - 15 years old, Photoshopping pics of my freinds I'd 'scanned' with a Tamron transproofing video camera on a Mac IIx. Steve Wright and his posse. Oh... if only I'd know what he would spawn.
Before then I was loyal to Radio Hallam. I used to fall asleep listening to people's problems on their late night psuedo-psychology "my life sucks" type of show. All the local stations used to have them, but I think they've finally gone out of fashion.
Unpopular kids huddled in corners - that's me. I remember the bittersweet irony of "Don't Leave Me This Way" and being into Bowie and Kershaw, not quite getting Beastie Boys, though I did have a VW badge on a chain. I cheated; I got it from the VW dealer when we were replacing the one from my mum's Golf Cabriolet - that /was/ nicked.
It was all so overblown. Every little thing was the end of the world, in terms of interpersonal relationships. Being 11/12 and realising that you really fancied your best friend, but were growing apart (and moving away anyway).
My mum is to blame for the car obsession - or feeding it, at least (my first words all related to cars). She gave me a matchbox car whenever I completed a book. I read like a demon as a result, because I loved books anyway; I had a very 'disturbed' phase and smashed a lot of my cars so I don't own anything from my childhood now - I have one item, a red Swedish horse, that is the only thing I definitenly know was mine and I've had for nearly all my life. I don't know why I smashed the cars, I just did. There would always be more cars. Then I took a bag of them to school, my nice ones - we were allowed to take some toys on the last day of term - and they got stolen. So I kinda resented the whole idea of hanging onto anything.
I liked cars so much, I once stole one, and once stole money to buy one. The Post Office used to have the big white display with all the cars on show, and the actual cars were in a wooden drawer in those lovely cardboard boxes they came in - remember the sort of dry, scratching sound they'd make when you opened them carefully? And of course, the box was now the 'garage' for it to stay in, but they never lasted. Anyway, the new models were coming out, and Matchbox made a brown Rover SD1 with a sunroof. A Sunroof!
You could slide it open! I wanted it, but I stole it. I took it back, I felt incredibly bad about it, and I blame Matthew, the kid who had all the Star Wars toys I wasn't allowed. He was a bad influence.
The other car was a Yellow Matra Rancho. It wasn't little, it was a big one, a Corgi with a trailer and an F1 car. I didn't steal the car, I took money and bought it. I got caught, and had to return it to the shop and give my parents the money back - I got caught because being cocky or just plain stupid, I showed them the car. Doh! Either way, it came back to haunt me; an employee stole a somewhat larger amount and I got blamed for it for a while.
I mostly felt bad about that because the newsagent was always nice to me - they knew me and used to give me a new Matchbox car on my birthday, and the trade catalogues with all the upcoming models in. They were suspicious when I bought the car and had called my parents anyway. It didn't change how they were with me, but I look back on it, and I can't believe I was such a horrid kid as to not have looked after these things better - I should still have all those cars in a box, all those brochures. I have cars like them, but they aren't the same.
Siani managed to track down a mint example of the exact same Matra Rancho for Christmas a couple of years ago. So now I have one and it's mine.
I wanted to be Doc Brown - I filled my bedroom with clocks. Anything clock-like. Fashion escaped me; the only time I have pre-empted anything fashionable was wearing the Hypercolor t-shirt over a black long-sleeved one before anyone else I knew and long before Andi Peters did on Children's BBC.
Oh, and driving a 1972 Vauxhall and liking Pulp in the mid 90s. I just liked these things, the 70s revival just happened at the same time.
You could have switched the TV off and gone out and done something less boring instead...
John Craven wasn't patronising in the same way as modern kid's TV. It was still dumbed down, but they hadn't got the fine art right. I liked it.
Nik Kershaw - I liked Coming up Roses, and Dark Glasses, and Don Quixote, even though I hadn't the faintest idea what tilting at windmills was supposed to mean. I was told, but I didn't mind. I was given a walkman that was a promotional freebie and went around a holiday in Norfolk (near a chicken farm. It stank) listening to The Riddle and singing (badly, probably, so no change there) along.
I never really got into chess. Chess developed into a euphamism for 'we're going upstairs to fool around' with my first proper (as in not some warped situation) girlfriend. She actually did try to play chess with me, but I have the tactical mind of a snail and am rather more inclined to having a tactile mind.
I listened to anything on radio. Why? Because when I was quite young, I went to jumble sales. I loved jumble sales. This is post car-accident, so older than 7, but still pretty young. I went to one at the Scout Hut, and I had a couple of pounds - I missed a box of Dinky military vehicles (which would be worth about £500 now if I am remembering the models and condition), and in a strange turn, bought a Telefunken valve radio, one which could get VHF.
I brought it home and plugged it in in the kitchen. It warmed up, and I fell in love with the sound of the valves getting up to temperature and the warm buzz it made. And then, the first song. Something I hadn't heard before, listening to my 60s crap.
A-Ha. Take on Me.
Being a kid, I jumped on the kitchen table and danced to it. That song is still one of the best songs in the world as far as I am concerned. Plus, unlike that bloody Band Aid song, it didn't make me think Dr. Who was on.
Anyway. It got me started. When we moved to Kelso, I had to have my room on a 30 amp fused spur because I continually found old valve radios and my parents were convinced I was going to blow every fuse in the house. It was around that time the shipping forecast got into my psyche, too, and Sailing By.
Like most kids in the 80s I had the usual string of cheap digital plastic watches - my parents had the original Black and White/red Swatches from the duty free on a 737 headed for Tunisia (where a woman tried to buy me!). They bought me one a few years later, as they upgraded and got the jellyfish see-through one (the electricians that rewired my room stole that one I think), and I still have the black one and the kid's swatch that they got me. I bought myself (and freinds, when I earned silly money writing my first articles) Pop Swatches.
Now I don't care for watches at all.
I miss Spangles, proper Star Bars, real Milky Ways (not white chocolate, ew, foul!) and that fizzy powder. You can still get that in the US. Also a candy called 'Crunchers', which looked like Polo holes but coloured in pastel colours that sort of melted on your tongue if you didn't bite them.
The Eagle - I had all the Eagle Annuals to read at my grannie's house. Actually, my dad has them now, so I can look at them again. I was pleased that the TV show looked very accurate to the original strip, but no kids would want to watch it and all the allusions to the Mekons being Nazis or whatever were lost or pointless.
I liked the Thirteenth Floor, though, and the scary skeleton head that told the stories.
I got ST Format - they often had game demos or games. I didn't get much pirated software, so when I was bought a game it was still a big deal to me - I had Starglider, and a shoot'em up by Hewson. The demo I liked was a game called Archipelagos, but I only really liked the music.
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