26 February 1989: Don't Stop Doggin' Me Around

1. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
2. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
3. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
4. Sam Brown: Stop!
5. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
6. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
7. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
8. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
9. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
10. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
11. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
12. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
13. Holly Johnson: Love Train
14. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
15. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
16. Tryee featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
17. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
18. Yazz: Fine Time
19. Def Leppard: Rocket
20. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
21. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
22. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
23. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
24. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
25. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
26. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
27. Roy Orbison: You Got It
28. WASP: Mean Man
29. The Style Council: Promised Land
30. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
31. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
32. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
33. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
34. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
35. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
36. Simply Red: It's Only Love
37. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
38. Sheen Easton: The Lover in Me
39. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
40. Vixen: Cryin'

~~~~~

I once had a friend who was absolutely crazy about Michael Jackson. He had many of his CD's and cassettes - even a few cassingles if I remember correctly - a couple posters up in his bedroom and a well-worn VHS tape of virtually all of his videos taped off of Much Music. I can't say as how it came up but he was once aghast by my claim that MJ was much more popular in Britain than in North America. He demanded I back up my assertion but I really couldn't and I'm sure I couldn't now. It was simply a feeling. He remained seminal for much longer: while my mum bought Thriller, only his commited fanbase bothered with Bad but his appeal among more general members of the public in the UK remained.  Growing up in Canada it seemed like there were always Michael Jackson jokes, in England he was still revered. I guess the tabloids were too busy with Princess Diana.

There are a lot of songs that attempt to take on critics and/or the press. A small number are quite good (Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man, The Beatles' The Ballad of John and Yoko - these are obviously throwbacks to a time when the term ballad didn't mean simply "slow song"), most are lousy (New Kids on the Block's Games, Eminem's Without Me and Stereophonics' Mr. Writer are all especially wan) and an awful lot are by people I've never heard of, which would indicate it's a growing trend of late since I have practically nothing to do with contemporary music. Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone is one of the more famous examples of this and while by no means terrible, it does leave a lot to be desired. The eighth (eighth?!?) single released off of Bad it gives scraping the bottom of the barrel a whole new meaning (and he wasn't even done there as we'll see in the summer). A riposte to the tabloid fodder that was building up around him, it was accompanied by an innovative video that bravely laid out all the whispers and innuendo that surrounded him at the time (well, most of them anyway). In the modern parlance, he was owning the rumour mongering and may be commended for sending up up all this absurdity.

A listen to the lyrics, however, and things get a bit more suspect. Opening with the line "I don't care what you talkin' 'bout baby" is an eyebrow raiser. Surely if he really didn't care what people say about him then he wouldn't have written a song about it, particularly with such a revealing video. That's what's called a tell. The words in fact seem to be about a relationship but it's impossible to divorce it from the paparazzi that were hounding him, particularly when he's taking us on a tour of his freakshow Neverland Ranch and dancing with the bones of John Merrick in the video. It's also hard to swallow given that Jackson courted the press just as much as he derided it. While the song itself isn't bad - aside from the awful and repetitive hammering drums - it's unlikable and a sign that things weren't right for the Peter Pan of pop.

If Leave Me Alone represents Jackson as jaded and fraught then My Prerogative is Bobby Brown embracing the spotlight, hungry for fame and with much more of a commitment to flipping the bird to the critics. Being in England at the time, it was a funny song with which to be introduced to the new solo star from the USA. He was relatively unknown so not too many people would have been talkin' all this stuff about him as he claims. Still, it works as a statement of intent as much as anything else. My Prerogative is effective in this respect but I didn't care for it at the time; it seemed far too confrontational to have appealed much to me but, given that I quite liked the hits the soon followed, it likely provided a good introduction. A shame, then, that Brown's career would end up nosediving within a year or so. It seemed like he was going to remain relevant for a while but he, too, soon fell victim to the tabloids and the status of being famous for being famous. A good thing, then, that My Prerogative maps out the course of his career warts and all. He's not playing the victim just living the life he chooses. Who can't respect that?

The Norwich City-Manchester United clash from last week's entry was just a part of our second weekend up in Norfolk. Former exchange teacher Janice and her husband David graciously invited us to stay with them at their beautiful home in the picturesque hamlet of Old Buckenham. It was pretty much a cliche of every North American's fantasy of an English village: Tudor houses, thatched roof cottages and a village green. Janice and David's friendly black Chow Chow Sophie immediately won the hearts of my sister and me. Sunday morning we joined David as he walked Sophie and I couldn't have been happier. Why couldn't we live here in this village, in this house, with this dog?

It was, therefore, particularly dispiriting to be back in Laindon in our cold, uninviting, dogless home. I've mentioned our uninspiring dwellings on a few occasions here but I've so far neglected to go into much detail. Part of the problem is reluctance. I'm happy to discuss music that I found poor and places we visited that were disappointing or nondescript but I haven't had much desire to go into detailed about where we lived. The other problem is that it doesn't stand out the way so many other remnants of our year do. It was the first place we saw after arriving and the last place before we left. It was a glorified flop house. But I'll do my best to provide a few images and feelings.

To be continued.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Help!

older Paul's retro pick: Looking for Linda

19 February 1989: The Turning Point of a Career in Korea Being Insincere

1. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
2. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
3. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
4. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
5. Sam Brown: Stop!
6. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
7. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
8. Holly Johnson: Love Train
9. Yazz: Fine Time
10. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
11. Roy Orbison: You Got It
12. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
13. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
14. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
15. Def Leppard: Rocket
16. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
17. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
18. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
19. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
20. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
21. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
22. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
23. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
24. Simply Red: It's Only Love
25. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
26. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
27. The Style Council: Promised Land
28. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
29. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
30. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
31. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
32. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
33. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
34. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
35. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
36. Erasure: Crackers International
37. Then Jerico: Big Area
38. Adeva: Respect
39. Pop Will Eat Itself: Can You Dig It?
40. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird

~~~~~

Living in Korea, I have been amazed at the sheer randomness of some of the music that has managed to break through over here. I've met a few people here who simple revere Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore (more than enough times to make me convinced that it's just a coincidence) and some friends of mine recently told me about how much they used to love Euro-pop duo The London Boys (who we'll be encountering on here soon enough); the latter was especially odd considering they'd just admitted to me that they'd never heard of Milli Vanilli before. 

Which brings us to Stop!, Sam Brown's Top 5 hit from February of '89. It's a song that's had legs over the years. It's been used in movies and soap operas and has been covered by singers all over the world. But here in Korea it has taken on a life of its own. It first began appearing in widely popular Korean dramas, sometimes as a soundtrack to a character's heartbreak but also in scenes depicting the blossoming of romance. Indeed, it has become such a cliche on TV screens here that it has more recently become a joke. Nowadays, you're more likely to encounter it on one of the ubiquitous sketch comedy shows (Gag Concert) or reality variety programs (Infinite Challenge, Running Man, 2 Days 1 Night) in order to farcically send up a love story.

It's an interesting choice of song. A standard almost from the get-go, Stop! has aged well (aside from the singer's bleached-blond hair clashing with her dark eyebrows, very much a throwback), although I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Many critics of the eighties charge that music from the period sounds dated, what with flashy sythns and huge drums being staples. But for those of us who value pop for its nostalgia, there's the danger that timeless music isn't as capable of sending the listener back. Perhaps it even indicates that if it isn't dated then it probably never really captured people to begin with. If we flash forward to the late-nineties we come across a lot of pleasant, still-appealing numbers (Semisonic's Closing Time, The New Radicals' You Get What You Give, Fatboy Slim's The Rockefeller Shank, Catatonia's Road Rage, The Spice Girls' Stop) that nevertheless failed to really make a big imprint on me the time and, as such, aren't quite capable of bringing memories back today. They've lasted - well, some of them have - but that's precisely the point: whereas a period piece triggers a memory, many timeless works exist only in the present.

I spent all this week looking forward to the weekend. (Yeah, that's an awfully trite way to begin a sentence; who doesn't begin getting excited about the following Saturday and Sunday as soon as Monday falls?) I was by now accustomed to going away from our uninspiring Laindon residence as soon as we were finished school on Friday afternoons but this particular weekend was one that got me counting down the days. We were going to a football match.

I think I imagined that football was going to be a much bigger part of my life than it actually was. I've already mentioned how I was hoping to get some pointers on how I might improve my soccer skills only for these hopes to be dashed by having Welsh P.E. instructors wanting to make men of us first years by putting us in a rugby scrum. Football was on the telly but I almost never watched it. Indeed, the part of the November '88 Spurs-Wednesday clash that I always remember stands out mostly because it constituted the bulk of my footie viewing that year. My TV time was filled with pop music, Aussie soaps and quaint sit coms about quirky losers lodging with anal retentive couples to bother with sport.

In any event, I was super excited about going to see a football match and we couldn't have picked a better club to have seen that year than Norwich City. They spent the first three or four months of the 1988-89 season at the top of the old First Division and were still within sight of Arsenal and Liverpool by the time we went to see them. Their opponents were Manchester United. If you'd told me at the time that one of these clubs was going to completely dominate English football for the next two decades I would have likely thought "well, good for Norwich!" Man U were a nothing special side at the time, the likes of Cantona, Giggs, Keane and Beckham being just a glint in the eyes of a pre-knighthood Alex Ferguson. Their's was an organization with a proud history and a very bright future but no present to speak of. Liverpool was the illustrious side of the age and I think I was a tiny bit disappointed we weren't seeing them instead.

Being part of an exchange teacher's group, we got VIP treatment that day at Carrow Road. Beers, cokes and snacks awaited us prior to kickoff in a plain room full of well-to-do Norfolkers. We were then escorted to our seats and I have an either real or invented memory of us taking a few steps on the pitch en route. The seats were choice as well. To my left behind the goalkeeper stood hundreds of fans. I scoffed at their obvious discomfort and piss-poor view of the game.

Gradually, however, I began to glance longingly at the standing room terrace. They didn't get complimentary crisps and peanuts and cups of tea at half time but these people were into the action while all I could do was observe it. Norwich supporters chanted in unison (it wasn't until that summer that I realised how much I hated singing and shouting in a group but at this point it still seemed cool) and they even seemed to move as one. My dad also began glancing their way. We took particular delight in the inflatable bananas and skeletons that dotted the crowd and before long we began to envy them. We would've traded our VIP seats for a place in the terrace. The game itself was good (Norwich won 2-1 in a score that I recall flattered United) but we were missing the experience of the real football supporters. Hopefully, we'd have that chance at some point. We're getting there.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Help!
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys

12 February 1989: I Will Decide When I Go or I Don't Go

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
3. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
4. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
5. Holly Johnson: Love Train
6. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
7. Roy Orbison: You Got It
8. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
9. Yazz: Fine Time
10. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
11. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
12. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
13. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
14. Simply Red: It's Only Love
15. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
16. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
17. Sam Brown: Stop
18. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
19. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
20. Def Leppard: Rocket
21. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
22. Then Jerico: Big Area
23. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
24. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
25. Adeva: Respect
26. Erasure: Crackers International
27. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
28. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
29. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
30. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
31. Raze: Break 4 Love
32. The Style Council: Promised Land
33. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
34. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
35. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
36. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
37. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
38. Pop Will Eat Itself: Can U Dig It?
39. Inner City: Good Life
40. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark

~~~~~

Oh, by the way, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11.

So, what did you think?

Well, it was all right. Pretty interesting but I didn't enjoy it all that much.

You're not supposed to enjoy it!

Huh. And there I was naively thinking that films are supposed to be enjoyable.

This week's highest new entry comes in all the way at number two and it illustrates the dangers of bringing serious issues into the realm of pop. Belfast Child has good intentions dealing as it does with The Troubles but it's a song that failed to leave much of an impression on the minds of kids at the time. The eighties - for all of its supposed narcissism - were something of a golden age for thoughtful pop that took on issues which, crucially, helped make young listeners aware of what was going on. Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, Ghost Town by The Specials, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman: all appealed to kids while tackling some heavy subject matter. Where Simple Minds falter isn't simply by their attempts at clumsily fusing half-baked folk with tired stadium rock - though they're certainly guilty on that count too - but in failing to enlighten. My eleven-year-old self kind of knew what it was about due to the title and the bleak Ulster industrial docks in the video but I nevertheless came away as unconcerned about the problems in Northern Ireland as I was unentertained by the song itself.

A more enjoyable hit that dealt with important issues at the time was Hue & Cry's Looking for Linda. A big favourite at the time of my sister's (she bought the single at some point in February), it tells the tale of an encounter with an alcoholic woman on a Scottish train and the protagonist who attempts to reach out to her. The gentle, appealing melody and Pat Kane's gorgeous, jazzy voice make this an easy song to fall for - and one that could easily be misunderstood, as I can attest. I knew it wasn't just a straight up love song - I figured it was about a neglected, battered housewife who's trying to escape her nasty, controlling husband - but the alcoholism and suicide attempt ("I will decide when I go or I don't go", hence this week's entry's title) were lost on me. Still, there was something of a story to Looking for Linda, it seemed important and it was - still is, in fact - an immensely enjoyable tune.

I always think that there were four major news stories that I remember from my year in England. Two - the Ben Johnson doping scandal and the Lockerbie disaster - have already been covered; the remaining pair will be dealt with in due course. But of course these aren't the only news items I can recall, just the ones that really stick out. They bring back where I was when I heard about them (even if I tend to dislike those "where were you when..." discussions, as the great Christopher Hitchens said about Princess Diana's death: "Where was I when I heard the ghastly news? Who cares.") and are the ones that immediately come to mind - even if one wasn't really all that significant at the time. As far as other headlines are concerned, Exxon Valdez was sad but I couldn't quite grasp just how catastrophic it was, Mrs Thatcher's Poll Tax experiment was decried by some pop stars I liked but was in its infancy and wasn't going to affect us prior to our return to Canada, the wrath of children falling down wells in the US was too absurd to be taken seriously - even if it was probably a forerunner to the freakshow coverage that dominated American news in the nineties - and the Clapham Junction disaster - I'm ashamed to say now - left me rather indifferent.

The second week of February brought a pair of memorable news stories which couldn't have been more different from one another. Returning from our brief trip to Ireland on the Sunday, we had Monday off and went on a day trip to Dedham in the pristine Constable country of northern Essex. Everyone lunched on gigantic jacket potatoes - fast becoming one of my favourite English pub dishes - and we all made a game attempt at not letting the rain spoil the fun. Back in Laindon, we switched on the telly and tuned into the Brit Awards. Nowadays the Brits are a slick, well-produced showcase of the UK's pop talent but they were anything but back in 1989. Smash Hits magazine had already heaped harsh criticism on the awards due to many of the questionable nominees - in the category of Best Male Solo Artist, the choice of Steve Winwood was met with a simple (?????????????????) - but this was merely the tip of the Titanic-felling iceberg. Hosts Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox were pitiful and they weren't helped by poor direction and planning. Performances were dull and the whole affair was rather thin on star power. The whole thing was so wretched that my sister and I couldn't even be bothered to unleash scathingly cruel jabs that we were typically more than happy to foist upon phony baloney awards shows. "What a Fiasco!" cried the next issue of Smash Hits.

The next day the papers must have been similarly shredding The Brits to pieces but there was already an even bigger story developing. I went to school that Tuesday happy that I didn't have to give out Valentine's cards to everyone in my class (as I would've been expected to do had I been back in Canada); in the UK, the most romantic day of the year was much more of an optional event and it didn't bother me in the least that I received precisely as many cards festooned with hearts and cupids as I gave. Meanwhile, Britain's literary elite began turning up for the memorial service for famed travel writer, novelist and noted Moleskine notebook enthusiast Bruce Chatwin. As Martin Amis tells it, however, most in attendance were already thinking about Salman Rushdie and the fatwa that Ayatollah Khomeini had just placed on him. Suddenly there were demonstrations all over the world and effigies of the writer were being torched. Bookshops were refusing to carry Rushdie's offending novel The Satanic Verses and the author quickly went into hiding.

It was a story that I found interesting - at least for a time - but one that I could only instinctively form an opinion on. I was too young too care one wit about the intricacies of freedom of speech (and I have to say my idealistic self hasn't changed much on that one: while I am fully aware of just how important free speech is, I wish we didn't have to constantly go on and on about it) but I knew that the Ayatollah was a scary looking guy and those mobs were out of control. Otherwise, it was something I was simply too young and too unaware to have much of an idea about. A pity there weren't any pop songs to enlighten me.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Love Train
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys

5 February 1989: I Can't Help Quoting You Cause Everything That You Said Rings True

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
3. Roy Orbison: You Got It
4. Holly Johnson: Love Train
5. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
6. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
7. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
8. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
9. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
10. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drive Me Crazy
11. Yazz: Fine Time
12. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
13. Simply Red: It's Only Love
14. Then Jerico: Big Area
15. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
16. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
17. Erasure: Crackers International
18. Adeva: Respect
19. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
20. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
21. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
22. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
23. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
24. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
25. Mica Paris & Will Downing: Where Is the Love?
26. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
27. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
28. Raze: Break 4 Love
29. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
30. Inner City: Good Life
31. Def Leppard: Rocket
32. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
33. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
34. Luther Vandross: She Won't Talk to Me
35. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
36. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
37. Sam Brown: Stop
38. Level 42: Tracie
39. Big Country: Peace in Our Time
40. Monie Love: I Can Do This

~~~~~

It may not have been the mid-sixties or the early seventies but the late eighties had its fair share of pop-rock giants. Of course I knew of the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, Prince, Bruce Springsteen and U2, even if I had mixed feelings towards all of them. I was less aware, however, of major figures on the periphery. Of course growing up in heavy metal-crazed Calgary it was difficult to escape Bon Jovi and Def Leppard but their harder-edged, harder-living compatriots Guns N' Roses and Metallica were slower to break through. The American alternative scene was in its infancy and it would be a long time before I would hear The Pixies and Sonic Youth. Rap was clearly becoming a thing but I was largely indifferent to my initial exposure to titans Public Enemy (while I never managed to hear N.W.A. at all and am not sure I ever have). And I was still a year or two away from seeing schoolmates sporting t-shirts of Britain's indie heroes: The Cure, Depeche Mode, Morrissey.

Morrissey. Of all the acts mentioned above he would make by far the biggest impact on me. They say that if Elvis hadn't existed then we would have had to invent him; had Morrissey never been conceived, however, no one would ever think to create such a person. Seemingly deliberately negative, opposed to absolutely everything, luxuriating in misery, he nevertheless penned incisive and funny lyrics. Some singers I'd aspire to be like. Others, I'd envy the lives they were living, even if their music meant nothing to me. Morrissey, however, was someone I didn't want to meet, didn't dream about seeing live, didn't make me want to be a similarly judgmental vegetarian and didn't point the way forward to me discovering new horizons. His music did, however, manage to help me find my way through this world and woke me up to my issues. Maybe not someone to love but someone to be deeply grateful for.

So, it must have been exciting to see Morrissey flouncing around the Top of the Pops stage with most of his erstwhile bandmates from The Smiths as they mimed this week's highest new entry The Last of the Famous International Playboys then? Well, no. I was on my way to Ireland for half-term break and missed that week's TOTP, thereby ruining my prior claim to having never missed an episode of Britain's seminal music show. The grinding, devastating paean to gangsters was something that managed to pass me by completely at the time but when I finally heard it a few years later I was floored. A year on from his first two solo singles, the equally sublime Suedehead and Everyday Is Like Sunday, Morrissey was on a roll and used his latest release as an excuse to begin self-mythologizing, a task he hasn't shied away from in the quarter century since. Looking back at the thugs he worshiped, he's also looking ahead to a time when he'll be similarly immortalized. Always one for iconography, The Last of the Famous International Playboys marks the beginning of Morrissey himself as the icon. It's a mixed blessing for while the record itself is nothing short of remarkable, it wasn't something he could simply move on from and his music from here on in begins to take a noticeable step down from which he would never recover.

In much the same way we spent the previous half-term break visiting Scotland with Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill, we had travel companions for our jaunt to Ireland. My aunt Cookie and cousin Meghan had arrived earlier in the week. Unfortunately, their luggage failed to turn up with them and my nine-year-old cousin was reduced to wearing some over-sized, none-too-flattering jogging suits which belonged to me. Their suitcases were eventually found but the contents of which failed to impress us. My mum had asked her sister-in-law to bring a few things that we were missing from home and she happily obliged with tiny, multi-coloured marshmallows and unsalted soda crackers. It was a disappointment at the time but now it seems kind of endearing that she managed to get everything we requested just a bit wrong.

I live in Korea where many people take laughably short holidays, which is what this trip to Ireland felt like, particularly considering that the bulk of both our first and last days were spent on trains and ferries. Luckily I had my trusty walkman and my ever growing collection of tapes to provide adequate entertainment for the boring train journey. (With the occasional lull courtesy of dead air on cassettes whose sides had uneven playing time; my dad had once told me that hitting the fast forward button would chew up precious battery power so I made a habit of patiently waiting as several minutes of empty, useless tape would spool to its end) The ferry from Holyhead to Dublin was where I discovered the wonders of a movie theatre on a ship but the Irish Sea's anger rather spoiled the otherwise hysterical A Fish Called Wanda.

Dublin looked very much as it did in the brilliant 1991 film The Commitments: hard, rough, a more depressed London. It did have a certain glamour among the grime and I found it half-thrilling, half-unsettling to wander down dark and empty, puddle-laden streets, past boarded up homes and decaying artifacts of industry. It didn't have that comfy, homey feel that we so enjoyed about Scotland and was a far cry from those orderly English cities and towns we'd been visiting but it had something. (Something that clearly needed more than just a couple days) 

The Irish capital's dark side - the dark side I saw, not some unseemly world of cock fights, pimps, hard drugs and petty crime - left an impression on me that tends to romanticize run down, decrepit districts that may have once thrived. Here in Korea, I enjoy wandering around horribly narrow streets lined with hardware stores, hair salons and repair shops that look like they haven't been a going concern since the seventies. It's a world that's dying as the Korean government plans to erect modern apartments and new towns. I'm probably waxing poetic about a world I never knew and never even existed. I probably sound like Morrissey.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Love Train
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys