Alex

Who?

Everyone likes a little bit of cheese now and again.

They got the Grammy for best vocal performance or something didn’t they?

Aye. That rings a bell. I think it was one of the little fact tidbits on TOTP 1970-whatever. The singer was white but they had the one in the group miming so they were an all black act, which suited their image more. Absolutely mad really given how famous they were that all he did was mime in dodgy disco outfits

Her real name was Carmen Biarritz. But when her parents saw her talent, beauty and charisma, they changed her name to Maureen Nolan.

From that era I remember Boney M being fucking massive. What a weird act thinking back

Laura Kuenssberg, for example. Holding him to account afterwards is bad enough / far too late. But it’s like she expects everyone to have no recollection of her enabling Johnson when he was wrecking everything he touched

Aye but Cummings thinks he’s some sort of genius being held back by those around him. When he was just another narcissistic cunt running around creating factions and adding to the chaos

Aye. The only way the analogy actually works is if the manager is indulged but doesn’t know what he is doing.

Watched the first one last night. Fucking hell

Tits a pleasure

The one on the right’s laughing at the one on the left. The one on the left has a look of resignation, seeing what’s coming

Eliminate The Beatles and Ken Dodd had the best selling UK single of the 60s

I was talking to my lass about the 90s the other night, possibly inspired by old TOTP clips on bbc4. You reminded me with that album list that there was a period when loads of knackers went round thinking they were Liam Gallagher. Not just trying to look like him but walking around with the imaginary stone in their shoe and bad case of rickets. Usually with an invisible roll of carpet under each arm. In one case at university there was a lad who spoke with a manc accent and claimed to be from Hulme. It was later discovered he was actually from (I shit thee not) Sunderland

I guess grouping an entire decade together is a bit daft too though

Even in the 60s there was loads of stuff that was gash. But comparing the best selling from the 60s to later decades is a bit like comparing apples to oranges imo. As there was a lot of groundbreaking stuff in the mainstream / pop chart back then. Whereas later there’s much more diversity as ‘the popular music scene’, to go all Tony Blackburn, split in ever increasing genres and sub genres with loads of different underground scenes.

Aye there’ll be one year from your youth and you’ll think ‘this should be good’ and it’s invariably about 90% cheesy shite. Which I also quite like to watch often did you know there’s virtually no copies (I think there’s the odd rare one in private ownership) of TOTP show before the mid-70s? As they used to routinely wipe / reuse the tapes. And virtually no video recorders back then of course. Loads of lost performances from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and others. Seems crazy in retrospect

Aye, I mentioned that earlier. I can only remember ‘Can You Dig It?’ by them tbh

I saw her in Tilley’s once many years ago. Think she was doing a play or panto at the Tyne Theatre. Like a dead heat in a zeppelin race

Also shared a jaw with David Coulthard

Went out with Matt Le Tissier didn’t she?

I read that as McCann at first

Aye, that’s what I meant. The other, other brother. But I think the one you mean was after Clarkson (briefly) edit: just checked and it was in between Clarkson’s two stints as presenter.

If you can remember the 90s you weren’t there. Or something.

I thought TOTP was on a Thursday. Did it move to a Friday? Also, I’m of an age where I would’ve usually been out in a Friday night in the mid/late 90s. I do remember The Word and Eurotrash though. TFI and Fantasy Football were a bit different to anything that had been on tv back then. Although the former has been done to death now by the likes of Ant and Dec. The latter benefited from the massive boom in football. Btw, the other Coogan brother was the singer in The Mock Turtles iirc. And I saw Steve Coogan live at the City Hall about 15 years ago. I still like Partridge but it was so bad I didn’t even see him do that bit of the act and left at the interval and went for a curry