13 November 1988: It's an Uncharted Sea, It's an Unopened Door

1. Robin Beck: First Time
2. Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
3. Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
4. INXS: Need You Tonight
5. Enya: Orinoco Flow
6. Brother Beyond: He Ain't No Competition
7. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
8. Chris de Burgh: Missing You
9. Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
10. Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
11. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
12. Salt 'n' Pepa: Twist and Shout
13. Iron Maiden: The Clairvoyant
14. Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together '88
15. The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones: Kiss
16. Barbara Streisand & Don Johnson: Till I Loved You
17. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
18. Royal House: Can You Party
19. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
20. Erasure: A Little Respect
21. Traveling Wilburys: Handle with Care
22. Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
23. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
24. Prince: I Wish U Heaven
25. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
26. The Christians: Harvest for the World
27. Wee Papa Girl Rappers: Wee Rule
28. Mica Paris: Breathe Life Into Me
29. All About Eve: What Kind of Fool
30. Bananarama: Nathan Jones
31. Sigue Sigue Sputnik: Success
32. Tiffany: Radio Romance
33. Womack & Womack: Life's Just a Ballgame
34. Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Jungle / Nightrain
35. Jolly Roger: Acid Man
36. Inner City: Big Fun
37. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
38. Hithouse: Jack to the Sound of the Underground
39. The Bangles: In Your Room
40. Womack & Womack: Teardrops

~~~~~

Be careful what you wish for. After three long weeks of holding Enya in contempt, the Irish songstress was finally dethroned. I'd been waiting to see Kylie wind up higher on the chart but slipping fewer spots was not exactly what I had in mind. And the new number one almost had me wishing for more Enya.

First Time by Robin Beck is one of those songs that gets to the top in spite of the fact that no one seemed to like it. It would be easy and understandable to dismiss it here in 2016 as "dated" or a "throwback to a different time" but those claims seem to imply that it had a standard of quality at the time. But it was the power ballad from hell, the kind of soft metal smoocher that is clearly a cynical cash-in. The fact that it was used in a Coke commercial only underscored how formulaic and cheesy it was. (The average  British music listener seems to have a soft spot for tunes that soundtrack adverts although at least they typically opt for reissues that have some merit; according to Freaky Trigger, this isn't even the first chart topper to be used in a commercial during our year; while largely mundane, there's something to The Joker and Should I Stay or Should I Go: and, afterall, pop and jeans just don't sell themselves, you know) Up to this point every number one had had its backers: one of my friends was really into Groovy Kind of Love by Phil Collins and another quite liked my bête noire Orinoco Flow - I was even kind of into Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time, a guilty pleasure if I ever believed such a concept to exist. But First Time was disliked by everyone: at school it was simply a matter of the extent, ranging from mild dislike to outright hostility. I fell somewhat closer to the latter. Most galling was seeing Robin Beck perform it on Top of the Pops: this was a song that was clearly meant for adults and yet here she was acting as if she could ham it up for the kids. It was a huge con and I could see right through it.

I was never much of a soccer player. Always tall for my age, I was never able to handle the ball with any competence, I ran awkwardly and my eyes and feet just couldn't find a groove. I improved enough in other sports to be reasonable (swimming), half-way decent (basketball) or just barely adequate (baseball) but soccer was something I could never make any progress in. I sucked something awful, as they say.

"Well, at least I might be able to improve in soccer," I said to my dad at some point during the build-up to our move to England. (My wife recently pointed out that I have a knack for looking at the bright side of a bad situation, something I never realised I do; given the above example, I wonder if it's something I've always done) I was looking forward to P.E. class and figured the British instructors would be able to offer me some tips.

"You've all played enough football," said Mr Pugh forcefully during one of our first P.E. lessons, "this term you're going to play rugby." I suppose the rugby kit we picked out the week before school started should have tipped me off. Had a been a few years older I might also have guessed based on the Welshness of Pugh and his colleague Mr Bassett. Improve at soccer? I'm edging close to forty and I'm still no bloody good.

We didn't start the term off with rugby, however. September and October were spent in one of Mayflower's auxiliary gyms doing various exercises and drills or in the pool swimming laps. (Another moment when I looked on the bright side of attending an English school was having a pool, something I boasted of in the rare letters I sent to Grandpa Bill and my old chums at Highwood Elementary back in Calgary; the constant laps in P.E. and in the swim club I joined kind of dulled my interest in swimming for a time - again, careful what you wish for) With November, though, it was time to put on our red rugby shirts and cleats and head outside.

Last week I mentioned taking a walk through York on a chilly day and these cooler temperatures were becoming the norm by now. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the cold when we reluctantly trudged outside for our first rugby lesson. My bare, toothpick-thin legs were struck by the cool morning air: they wanted to get moving and not stop for a second but first we had to line up and take instructions. Being tall, I typically was selected to line up with another tall boy and we effectively picked up one of the shorter lads, their legs dangling below. We formed a scrum and the ball went elsewhere. Some boys seemed completely at ease, aware of the exact point of what we were doing; I was not one of them. I don't recall being given tips on how to improve nor any information on rugby strategy (assuming, of course, that there is any). That's not to say I didn't enjoy the lessons: the frosty ground turned into a warm and inviting bath of mud once our boots began digging into it, the chaotic nature of the game made it fun and I never got hurt, which is something of a triumph for someone as clumsy and accident prone as myself.

Jerry Seinfeld once did a bit about how every day in which you had gym was an especially weird day: you're sitting in class learning and then, suddenly, it's like Lord of the Flies, you're running around in skimpy clothes and then you go back to your normal day. But no Friday was especially normal after playing rugby outside. Having tried our best to avoid showering at all costs, we were now more than happy to rinse away the mud from our skin and hair. But a bit of that rugby pitch seemed to cling to us throughout the day. We had science class following P.E. and it was always rather awkward showing up with matted, damp hair, blackened finger nails and a vague dirtiness while the girls looked perfectly normal. Maths followed and while my hair had by then dried off I still felt unclean. It probably didn't help that I was dragging my rugby kit around with me all day. Only with lunchtime did a certain normalcy set in. 

Looking back, though, I wonder if playing rugby was just the sort of thing I needed to shake up an otherwise humdrum Friday. I was never much of a science student and I found our teacher Mr McLean a bit hard to take at first (once, we were boiling water in beakers and he told us to write down our observations: for some reason he didn't appreciate my prosaic attempts at describing the boiling point). Maths was all right but by Friday it was our fourth lesson of the week and I was completely sick of it. Following lunch there was French which I could have taught and then Library which might have been okay had it not been for (a) the utter pointlessness of having such a class right on the cusp of the weekend and (b) the librarian Mr Pountney who perpetually seemed cheesed off about something (perhaps, on reflection, he was looking forward to the end of the week as much as we were). Maybe we needed a bit of rugger to get us going. You know, just as I needed Robin Beck in order to appreciate Enya. Yeah, just like that...

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: She Makes My Day
older Paul's retro pick: Need You Tonight

6 November 1988: So Slide Over Here and Give Me a Moment

1. Enya: Orinoco Flow
2. Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
3. Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
4. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
5. Robin Beck: First Time
6. Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
7. The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones: Kiss
8. Brother Beyond: He Ain't No Competition
9. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
10. Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
11. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
12. Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together '88
13. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
14. Erasure: A Little Respect
15. Chris de Burgh: Missing You
16. The Christians: Harvest for the World
17. Royal House: Can You Party
18. INXS: Need You Tonight
19. Wee Papa Girl Rappers: Wee Rule
20. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
21. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
22. Salt 'n' Pepa: Twist and Shout
23. Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
24. Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Jungle / Nightrain
25. Jolly Roger: Acid Man
26. Prince: I Wish U Heaven
27. The Beatmasters with P.P. Arnold: Burn It Up
28. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
29. Inner City: Big Fun
30. Rick Astley: She Wants to Dance with Me
31. Womack & Womack: Teardrops
32. Barbara Streisand & Don Johnson: Till I Loved You
33. Kraze: The Party
34. All About Eve: What Kind of Fool
35. Level 42: Take a Look
36. Mica Paris: Breathe Life Into Me
37. Traveling Wilburys: Handle with Care
38. Simon Harris: Here Comes That Sound
39. Jason Donovan: Nothing Can Divide Us
40. Marc Almond: Bitter Sweet

~~~~~

Several months prior to our departure for England, my sister did a student exchange to Kelowna, B.C. She wasn't away for long, probably just three or four days - long enough for me to remember her being away but not so long that her absence around the house was all that notable. I don't recall a great deal about her being away but I vividly remember her coming back. We were sitting in the TV room in the basement and she was telling me about her experience. At one point she scoffed at the music tastes of junior high students in the interior of B.C. "Everything that's popular is so old," she sniffed, "They're all still listening to Tiffany and they haven't heard Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car." I was aghast. How on earth did those kids cope not knowing about Billy Ocean's latest hit?

Fast forward to 2012. I was working at an exhausting English Summer Camp for kids at my Korean university when one of my co-workers mentioned a Korean music video that was getting hundreds of thousands of likes on youtube. By the time the camp crawled to its conclusion, Gangnam Style was a worldwide sensation, the like button having passed the million mark several times over. A couple months later I was dancing to it at a wedding in England with some little kids. Has there ever been a more obvious example of the instantaneousness of pop?

These two anecdotes illustrate just how much music has changed over the years. Of course it's radically different in terms of content, presentation, style and production but nowhere has pop transformed more than in terms of technology. A song is a hit in one part of the world and has every opportunity to do so all around the globe just as quickly. The days of hit singles taking their sweet old time trying to break in other territories is long gone.

INXS were superstars in some parts of the world in 1988 and bit players at best elsewhere.. In Canada - even prior to the ascension of Billy Ocean's last major hit in Alberta (I have no further information as to if it ever managed to take off in B.C.) - they were massive. Their blockbuster album Kick seemed to lodge itself at the top of the charts for months on end (it seemed like it and John Cougar Mellancamp's The Lonesome Jubilee were lodged in the Top 5 for so long they'd become part of the chart's security council) and almost every track seemed to be a hit. In England, on the other hand, their influence was at a minimum. Their run of unbeatable mega hits on the other side of the Atlantic barely troubled the UK charts (Devil Inside, my own personal favourite of their's, was complete flop; New Sensation, Never Tear Us Apart and the like didn't fare much better). Then, suddenly, Need You Tonight was released - it went nowhere the first time round - and INXS had arrived - a year or so late but they arrived nonetheless.

"This is so old," my sister and I shrieked. We weren't impressed. Now, this wasn't a slight on the record: Need You Tonight was (and still is) a fabulous record, sexy but not overly sleazy, unsettling in the best possible sense and, above all, catchy as all hell. Michael Hutchence's vocal is a that of a frontman we'd all been waiting for: confident, in control and just begging for stardom. Yet why did it take so long for it to become a hit? We weren't aware of it but pop's global immediacy was something we all assumed existed, there just wasn't a youtube with which to launch it. Need You Tonight was hardly alone in this regard: the likes of Gloria Estefan and Guns N' Roses were similarly having hits with numbers that were several months old. (We weren't to know it, of course, but the reverse was also occuring: the current hits by Enya, Erasure and poor, old Milli Vanilli wouldn't chart back in Canada for quite some time, no doubt garnering similar complaints from British expat kids)

Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill's visit to England was drawing to a close. As if we'd completely run out of ideas at this late stage, we spent our last Sunday with them in Southend. Grandpa Bill was always an enthusiastic walker - something I like to think I've inherited, albeit in a much less disciplined fashion - and so we marched the entirety of Southend Pier. Said to be the world's longest pleasure pier, the walk was a painful mile and a bit, not least due to the monorail that glided effortlessly by us every couple or minutes or so. Only the enticing smell of fish 'n' chip vats and the chance of catching a glimpse of Kent across a misty, soupy Thames gave me much interest. I did, however, enjoy the monorail ride back to Southend's shabby beach.

A night later and we at my grandparents' hotel dining room having a farewell dinner. It was bad enough that my beloved grandma and grandpa were on their way back to Calgary the next day but for our goodbye meal to be a bland and rubbery steak was almost too much to take: the gods couldn't have made me more homesick at that moment if a TV screen suddenly started showing nothing but hockey games, Four on the Floor sketches and those classic Hinterland Who's Who nature shorts.

But you get over such things, especially when you're an eleven-year-old boy. Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill's visit was kind of a turning point in our year: I began missing home far less and started making the most of my time in England. Crucially, it was also the point where we began taking more and more weekend trips, typically further a field as well. That following Saturday we went up to York, the first in a long line of mid-sized British towns and cities - Lincoln, Norwich, Torquay, Bath, Inverness, Durham, St Albans - that I would have a fondness for. Whereas trudging down Southend Pier on a pleasant enough Autumn day was something of an ordeal, I was suddenly more than happy to embark on a lengthy city walking tour on a much chillier day in an ancient northern town. And it certainly helped that we were visiting a city with more than its fair share of spots worth exploring. The Jorvic Viking Centre was an enjoyable and informative trek through the city's Norse past. Even the York Minster was a highlight: a few weeks earlier, Blue Peter had reported on renovations to the cathedral that had taken place following a lightning strike several years earlier and the viewers who had chosen to design its new bosses. I was keen to see them for myself. (We liked the Minster so much that we were back the next day to climb its two hundred and seventy-five narrow steps so as to get a glimpse of the city from on high)

The walking tour concluded with a visit to one of York's many pubs. We left and I began to notice Christmas lights among the lovely Shambles district. While plenty may resent the sight holiday decorations in early November, it provided me with something to look forward to. There were also rumblings that my folks were toying with us taking a trip to Greece for Easter. They may have been behind when it came to some killer music and they clearly hadn't mastered the art of cooking a half-decent steak but there was something to this place.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: She Makes My Day
older Paul's retro pick: Need You Tonight

30 October 1988: She Thinks with Her Chin Up

1. Enya: Orinoco Flow
2. Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
3. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
4. Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
5. The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones: Kiss
6. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
7. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
8. Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
9. Wee Papa Girl Rappers: Wee Rule
10. Erasure: A Little Respect
11. The Christians: Harvest for the World
12. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
13. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
14. Royal House: Can You Party
15. Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
16. The Beatmasters with P.P. Arnold: Burn It Up
17. Robin Beck: First Time
18. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
19. Womack & Womack: Teardrops
20. Rick Astley: She Wants to Dance with Me
21. Jason Donovan: Nothing Can Divide Us
22. Inner City: Big Fun
23. Jolly Roger: Acid Man
24. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
25. Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Jungle / Nightrain
26. Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
27. The Jungle Brothers: I'll House You
28. Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together '88
29. Kraze: The Party
30. Brother Beyond: He Ain't No Competition
31. Prince: I Wish U Heaven
32. Level 42: Take a Look
33. Sinitta: I Don't Believe in Miracles
34. The Pasadenas: Riding on a Train
35. T'Pau: Secret Garden
36. The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
37. U2: Desire
38. Sabrina: All of My (Boy Oh Boy)
39. Chris de Burgh: Missing You
40. Simon Harris: Here Comes That Sound

~~~~~

Sunday marked the end of our nine-day trip to Scotland. That morning we checked out of The Buchan to not a small amount of disappointment; tears began to well up as our cab left for Waverley station. The train from the Scottish capital back to London was equally sad. While I hadn't paid much attention to the scenery on the way up a week earlier, I spent much of the trip glancing out the window and wishing I'd chosen to do so on the way up: as the Scottish Lowlands turned into the north of England and then into the Midlands and down into the London periphery, it became clear I was experiencing all this in reverse aesthetic geographical order. To then return to our cold, uninviting abode in Laindon was just the natural conclusion to one of those dreaded end of vacation days.

We got home and I was able to catch most of the Radio 1 Top 40 rundown with Bruno Brookes. Having had my hopes dashed a week earlier, I was certain that Kylie would dethrone Enya. But, just to finish off a day of disappointment, there was no change in the Top 2. It hardly mattered that I was already beginning to tire of Je ne sais pas pourquoi (I was really starting to get into Robert Palmer's She Makes My Day instead); it was the tune I was backing and I wasn't about to give up.

The Top 3 was rounded out this week by Milli Vanilli's Girl You Know It's True, one of the year's most memorable and infamous hits. It would be two years before revelations that they didn't sing on this and other records came to light but it's interesting looking back now at their early success and trying to foresee what would happen. There was nothing about them that seemed remarkable, they had a catchy but disposable hit and it didn't seem like they'd amount to much afterwards. They wouldn't enjoy another hit for a few months and it was much more middling and derivative. And they seemed like the sort of act that would be destined to be a British - or European - curio. Sometimes a promising group or singer prematurely comes a cropper and sometimes the least likely to succeed manages to go far. Somehow or other, Milli Vanilli ended up being both.

I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework. It may have been the pathetically sad sketch of a sunflower I did for Mrs Templeton's art class ("What lovely paper" was the only nice thing she had to say about it; indeed, the sketchbook I received from our family friend Judy as a going away present was nice but I think it succeeded in making my efforts only look more laughable than they already were; old Templeton seemed offended that I'd deface such a beautiful book with my clumsy attempts at art) or the private creed I had to pen for religious studies (I believe this to be the worst class in the history of the universe). In any case, as I sat the doorbell rang. My dad answered.

"Trick or treat!" a group of three or four kids hollered. Oh yeah, it's Halloween, I thought to myself. (Actually, this part doesn't feel quite right. I'm sure that it hadn't occured to me through most of the day but it feels like I must have thought about it at some point. The hosts of Blue Peter may have brought it up but it wasn't the focal point of the show: according to the BBC TV archives, the late Caron Keating was swimming with sharks that day. Nevertheless, Halloween was an afterthought for us) The last day of October had come and almost completely passed without us noticing. Mayflower didn't mark the occasion by allowing us to dress up (unless, of course, all two thousand of us decided to wear our school uniforms as our costume) and I didn't even think about going out.

Of all the things I missed from back home - my grandparents, having a bedroom to myself, Slurpees, the spectacularly good season the Calgary Flames were having, kindly teachers who weren't constantly pissed off - down at the absolute bottom of the list would have been Halloween. While I liked candy as much as any kid, I hated wandering around asking for it, never possessed any kind of imagination for costumes, resented greedy high school students who felt they still had the right to go trick-or-treating (we had a no going door-to-door after the age of twelve rule in my family) and never liked the miniaturized versions of my favourite chocolate bars. (Seriously, how can they be called 'fun-sized'? I'd have much more fun eating a normal size Mars bar or box of Smarties) It was never as fun as billed and it was never one of those days I looked forward to, unlike the last day of school or Christmas Eve.

"I'm sorry", Dad said regretfully, "We didn't know anyone went out on Halloween here."

"You American?" one boy inquired.

"Yeah", my dad replied as if he was fed up with hearing that question and had become resigned to just going along with it. I looked up from my homework. "Well, actually we're from Canada." Maybe he knew one of us was right about to correct him as to our nationality. He apologised to the kids again then shut the door. He and Mum talked about giving something like 50p to any other urchins who came knocking. None did. It was nice to be in a country with as apathetic an attitude to Halloween as we did.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Je ne sais pas pourquoi

older Paul's retro pick: Real Gone Kid

23 October 1988: I'll Play You Old 45's That Now Mean Nothing to Me

1. Enya: Orinoco Flow
2. Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
3. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
4. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
5. Erasure: A Little Respect
6. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
7. Wee Papa Girl Rappers:  Wee Rule
8. The Christians: Harvest for the World
9. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
10. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
11. Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
12. Womack & Womack: Teardrops
13. Rick Astley: She Wants to Dance with Me
14. The Beatmasters featuring P.P. Arnold: Burn It Up
15. Inner City: Big Fun
16. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
17. Royal House: Can You Party
18. Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
19. The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones: Kiss
20. Jason Donovan: Nothing Can Divide Us
21. Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
22. The Jungle Brothers: I'll House You
23. T'Pau: Secret Garden
24. The Pasadenas: Riding on a Train
25. Sinitta: I Don't Believe in Miracles
26. The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
27. Sabrina: All of Me (Boy Oh Boy)
28. Jolly Roger: Acid Man
29. Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
30. U2: Desire
31. Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Jungle / Nightrain
32. Bananarama: Love, Truth and Honesty
33. Pet Shop Boys: Domino Dancing
34. Level 42: Take a Look
35. Kraze: The Party
36. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: 1-2-3
37. Bill Withers: Lovely Day [sunshine mix]
38. Heart: Nothin' at All
39. Robin Beck: First Time
40. Hazell Dean: Turn It Into Love

~~~~~

This week establishes my obsession with pop music from which there would be no looking back. The charts were now something to pay attention to, to listen intently to and to care about. I had become fully invested in the Top 40 and it was all because of a chart battle for the number one spot: Kylie vs. Enya.

No, this wasn't Blur-Oasis '95. It didn't garner headlines, wasn't being talked about on school playgrounds and in office break rooms and wasn't forcing the public to choose sides. Looking back at it now, it seems laughable that an Aussie soap star and an Irish new age folk singer would be duking it out for the top spot. The protagonists had nothing negative to say about each other (and even if they did would it have merited media coverage?) and for most people it was just another chart.  But to me this was as big as any rivalry before or since - even if it was all in my mind.

The task of following this chart battle proved to be difficult since we were spending the week in Scotland for halfterm break. This being long before the internet and smart phones, I was accustomed to taking trips with an embargo placed on the rest of my life. (Travel experts often advise people to "take a trip from yourself" a prospect that was much easier accomplished back when travel necessitated putting one's life on hold for a few weeks) Nevertheless, when I finally did discover the news, I was aghast to discover that Enya had come out ahead: how could a sweet, heartfelt, catchy number from the biggest star of the year come in runner up to this turgid and creepy nonsense? It goes without saying I hated Orinoco Flow - and I despised it and loathed it, just to hammer the point home further - but I was certain it would be promptly dethroned, Je ne sais pas pourquoi getting the revenge it so deserved. In the meantime I had Scotland to take me mind off it.

As I mentioned last week, I was immediately taken with Edinburgh - and I wasn't alone; my whole family liked it right from the get go as well. But our memories of that week would never have been so fond had it not been for the bed and breakfast that we checked into that Sunday. Judging a town or city based on one's accommodation is rarely fair and accurate, though the dump I once stayed at in King's Lynn was a pretty reflection on the town itself. Having spent much of my adult travel life staying at rundown, no-frills Southeast Asian guesthouses, I'm well-aware that it's best to spend as much time as possible outside the shitholes of Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. But The Buchan in Edinburgh is the exception. The rooms were spacious and comfy and it was within walking distance of the centre of Edinburgh - but the real highlight was the spread that greeted us every morning for breakfast. First offered a choice of juice - orange, apple, grapefruit and tomato - and coffee or tea, we were presented with a full English breakfast, as well as a choice of cereal or porridge. In addition, our table was laid out with fruit, yogurt, toast, buns and oatcakes. We happily and greedily stuffed ourselves and ended up skipping lunch every day we were in Scotland.

Well-nourished, we had ample energy to burn and we wasted no time getting familiar with Edinburgh. Prince's St., Holyrood, Edinburgh Castle and a crystal centre were among the many sights we took in, even if my grandpa and I were bitterly disappointed that the Walter Scott Monument that we'd been planning to climb was closed the entire time we were there. (A nice hike up the dead volcano known as Arthur's Seat towards the end of the week made up for that though). Some of our nights - although no doubt not as many as my faulty memory would have me believe - were spent dining at a pub across the street from our B & B. While other members of my family were happy doing the rounds of the menu, I immediately took the bangers, beans and chips to my heart and spurned other offerings.

By mid week we began embarking on some day trips. Glasgow on Tuesday was all right in spite of the rain but the place seemed mired in not being Edinburgh. Though the People's Palace museum was nice enough - even if my eleven-year-old self didn't appreciate it as much as this thirty-nine-year-old would today - the city had a grime and toughness to it that contrasted with the capital's elegance. I found myself judging Glasgow based not on what it was but what it wasn't. (I'm sure I was also siding with the trio of Hearts supporters we witnessed on our first night in Scotland; confronting a busload of Celtic fans, the Edinburgers taunted the Glaswegians, with one pulling down his trousers in order to expose his bare backside - yes, I'm aware this contradicts what I was just saying about Edinburgh's elegance)

The next day we were off to Dundee. It was a nice day, probably the only time we saw blue sky during the entire time we were in Scotland, but I don't recall much about it and I don't even know why we went there in the first place. There was little that was remarkable about it, though we did manage to get a picture of a sign honouring Alexander Graham Bell, the great inventor of the telephone who is somehow claimed to be Scottish, Canadian and American.

And then, finally, we were off to Oban. A port town on the west of Scotland, it would be our gateway to the other Calgary. I'd always known that my hometown was named after a Scottish town - though I always figured it must be larger than a hamlet - and now it appeared to be our chance to see it for ourselves. I can't say whether this was an actual plan of my parents and/or grandparents or something I'd just imagined to myself at some point on what was to be a very long day, though I have no other idea why we were heading there. In any event, plans real or imagined were thwarted by rail delays. Long, painful delays. We stood on a platform on the outskirts of Glasgow and watched a train approach before it halted not a hundred meters from where we stood. And it stayed there. And stayed there. By now the morning had all been eaten up by our journey from Edinburgh and our train to Oban seemed intent on using up the entire afternoon. It finally did crawl to our platform and then it took its time getting to our destination. By the time we got to Oban we had just an hour until our train back, which gave us just enough time to consume a bland dinner and take a quick look at the bay. "Calgary's that way," pointed Grandma Ella in the direction of pure darkness. It hardly mattered anymore. 

The train back was free of the stresses of earlier and I began to chat. A lot. I talked to my sister, to my mum, to my dad, to my grandma and to my grandpa. I scarcely noticed that they were all tuning me out. Having enough of his loudmouth, mile-a-minute grandson, Grandpa Bill challenged me to contest to see who could keep quiet the longest. I took him up on it and spent the remainder of our journey in silence. (One of my parents snapped a terrific photo of the two of us in the middle of our contest, he looking at me with a smirk, me sporting one of those forced, lips-pressed smiles that never look genuine)

The day trips were well and truly out of our system and it was back to what we all loved, Edinburgh. We had to make the most of the rest of our time in the capital, to enjoy those vast Buchan breakfasts, to take in as much of this grand old city, to make the absolute most of it - a lesson, perhaps, from our nightmare trip to Oban - and finish things off with some bangers, beans and chips at the basement pub. Yeah, Edinburgh was all right.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
older Paul's retro pick: Real Gone Kid

The Lost in Laindon SAQ: I...I...I'm Wondering Why

We're now a few posts in and it occurs to me that I never provided much of an introduction to this blog. A couple of people have asked me questions about it so I thought I'd provide this handy SAQ - Seldomly Asked Questions. Other pages have FAQ's but I had to settle for a different adverb of frequency since I haven't been asked all that many questions.

What is Lost in Laindon?

It is a blog devoted to the the year my family and I spent in England and my thoughts about the music scene at the time. I post every Sunday. It was a very important year for me: it got me into travel, music and not wanting to live my life just like everyone else. It also gave me my weakness for greasy English food and a soft spot for dreary British towns. I became something of an Anglophile as a result, something which I've never completely been able to vanquish from my system.

Where is Laindon?

Laindon is an area of the town of Basildon in Essex, just east of London. It used to be its own separate town or municipality before it got swallowed up by Basildon. I seem to recall that we usually thought of ourselves as living in Laindon rather than Basildon and I wonder if it was because it softened the blow of being stuck in such a place.

Why is it called Lost in Laindon?

Pretty much because I couldn't think of anything better. I wracked my brain trying to come up with a clever name, preferably one which referenced a line from a song that was popular but I came up with nothing. Lost in Laindon was always the working title so it basically won by default. It refers to the day after we arrived when we decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood and couldn't find our way home for the longest time. I was going to write about the experience in one of the first posts but didn't bother; it was a bit too much of a guess-you-had-to-be-there anecdote - and this blog has more than enough of those as it is. 

What do the titles of each entry refer to?

Each post begins with the date from twenty-eight years ago and a line from a song that happened to be on the charts that same week. I was hoping that readers would try to guess each entry's lyric but so far everyone has demurred. I guessing that either the lyrics are too obscure, people aren't interested or because there have been problems with the comments section but you'd have to ask them. You know, assuming they answer you.

I like to think that each title bears some connection to its accompanying blog entry but really only in some cases. More often than not it's whatever lyric I could think of that sounded okay or happens to have a funny connotation. Either that or it's a line that's too stupid not to use for this blog.

When will this blog end?

My stars, I've only just begun and you're already wondering when it will be finished. Well, I'm planning to wrap it up in August, 2017. There will likely be a few follow-up entries just to finish it off but the end is already in sight. I imagine that recreating the year I spent in England will go a whole lot faster than living the year I spent in England.

What's all that stuff in the background image?
It's all stuff I acquired and managed to hang on to from that year. Just prior to setting this blog up I took a picture of it all on my coffee table. You may not be able to see everything but this is the list in full:

• three cassettes: Kylie by Kylie Minogue, Paradise by Inner City and Now That's What I Call Music 13
• three CD's: The Greatest Hits Collection by Bananarama, When the World Knows Your Name by Deacon Blue and Introspective by Pet Shop Boys (I must admit these are a bit of a cheat since I wouldn't own my first CD - which happened to be Auberge by Chris Rea, which I chose over The KLF's The White Room for some reason - until two years after we came back from the UK; still, I did have these albums at the time on tape which I later ended up buying in the different format so I think they're close enough)
• Tottenham Hotspur and Norwich City football scarves
• a frisbee from Jersey in the Channel Islands
• the Smarties mug I got for Easter
• my class picture
• the Mayflower badge that had been stitched on my school blazer ("that bit of wool on your tit," as Malcolm McDowell's character Mick so memorably described it in the unforgettable film If....)

Where did you go to school?

I went to Mayflower Comprehensive in Billercay. I believe it is now known as Mayflower High School. I was a first year student but that, too, has been changed to year six or year seven. I daresay those aren't the only changes that have taken place since. I imagine there's been a complete turnover of the faculty and, judging by the menu I saw on their webpage, it looks like a slice of pizza with chips and an iced bun is no longer a meal option. Pity.

Why did you spend a year in England?

My dad applied for a teacher's exchange which was accepted. In effect, he swapped jobs, houses and cars with a British teacher. (Kind of like that turd of a movie The Holiday only with a far less comfy and attractive place to live - but without Jack Black around so it wasn't all bad) Trouble was, she got our reasonably-sized house and we got her, well, more fun-sized dwelling. Still, our tiny abode gave us ample reason to get out and visit as much of the country as possible.

Why do you post the Top 40 with each entry?
Basically it just seemed like a nice way to commence each entry. I briefly considered using just the Top 10 but I knew it didn't provide the whole picture. I've always liked the lower ends of the charts and its been cool to rediscover those depths over the past several weeks. It probably goes back to the CBC radio show Finkleman's 45s in which the ever-dyspeptic host Danny Finkleman would introduce a no.34 from March, 1962 by The Cookies. If I'm ever asked to host a Saturday night radio show I'll guarantee that chart bottom-feeders will be the backbone of my playlist.

Where do you get the Top 40 listings from?
While I go have a pretty good memory for trivia and uselessness, it would be a struggle to tell you exactly which single happened to reach no.23 on the third week in February (we'll have to wait and see but it had better be something good). No, I rely on the internet for all my '88 chart info. I'd share the links I've been using but (a) they aren't all that difficult to find (particularly considering that I managed to find them) and (b) I'd rather not spoil the surprise. You know, the surprise of revealing a chart that was already announced twenty-eight years ago.

So, that's about all I can come up with. If you happen to have another questions you'd like to ask then feel free to post in the comments section below. Any other seldom asked questions that occur to me will be added to a re-post of this at some point in the future.

16 October 1988: I Really Mean That Much to You?

1. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
2. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
3. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
4. Erasure: A Little Respect
5. Enya: Orinoco Flow
6. Wee Papa Girl Rappers: Wee Rule
7. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
8. Rick Astley: She Wants to Dance with Me
9. The Christians: Harvest for the World
10. Womack & Womack: Teardrops
11. Kylie Minogue: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
12. Jason Donovan: Nothing Can Divide Us
13. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
14. The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
15. The Beatmasters featuring P.P. Arnold: Burn It Up
16. Inner City: Big Fun
17. U2: Desire
18. T'Pau: Secret Garden
19. The Pasadenas: Riding on a Train
20. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
21. Pet Shop Boys: Domino Dancing
22. Sinitta: I Don't Believe in Miracles
23. Bananarama: Love, Truth and Honesty
24. Bill Withers: Lovely Day [sunshine mix]
25. Sabrina: All of Me (Boy Oh Boy)
26. Alexander O'Neal: Fake '88
27. Hazell Dean: Turn It Into Love
28. Duran Duran: I Don't Want Your Love
29. Deacon Blue: Real Gone Kid
30. Royal House: Can You Party
31. Luther Vandross: Any Love
32. The Jungle Brothers: I'll House You
33. The Proclaimers: I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
34. Yello: The Race
35. Julian Cope: Charlotte Anne
36. Tanita Tikaram: Twist in My Sobriety
37. Jolly Roger: Acid Man
38. Robert Palmer: She Makes My Day
39. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Anything for You
40. Bon Jovi: Bad Medicine

~~~~~

There's no accounting for taste.

These words have been uttered over the years by my dad on countless occasions. I always inferred a certain amount of derision in this comment, particularly the way he'd say it. And there is something about it that makes you feel your own (bad) taste is being apologized for and dismissed at the same time. It's impossible to imagine anyone with objectively impeccable taste - assuming such a thing is even possible - receiving a similar brush off, even though it's just as logical and fair to do so. There's no accounting for bad taste and just as much for good taste.

Which brings us to this week's new entries. To me, they represent a veritable wealth of riches: Kylie Minogue's charmingly sweet Je ne sais pas pourquoi was a big favourite of mine at the time and I stand by it to this day; Deacon Blue's Real Gone Kid is just as thrilling as it was twenty-eight years ago, all yodels, stadium rock melancholy and drunken Scots wisdom; Royal House's Can You Party is an addictive tour-de-force of sampling (though considerably undermined by the nearly identical I'll House You by The Jungle Brothers); and, finally, Robert Palmer's She Makes My Day, another big fave from way back when, is a sauve, sophisticated number that serves as a helpful reminder of what an underrated vocalist he was. Yet I don't suppose many will agree: I would fully expect most to scratch their heads at all four of these selections. I could try to hammer the point home by saying, oh, that Je ne sais pas pourquoi still brings back memories of religiously following its chart progress (more on that in the next week or two) or that Real Gone Kid is the single biggest reason I love pop music or that Can You Party was great as background music but became astonishing when I finally began to listen to it properly or that She Makes My Day was the song I always aspired in vain to sing along with but there's no point. There's no accounting for taste, so why even bother? (Even if I just spent a lengthy paragraph trying to do exactly that)

The middle of October brought our first visitors over from Canada. Having said farewell to them at Calgary International Airport just under two months earlier, it was beyond surreal to have Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill paying us a visit in Laindon.

While we were all excited to have them join us for a few weeks, no one was happier than my Mum. With my Dad, sister and me at school all week, Mum was left alone in our dreary and increasingly chilly house. Having a smaller place to live doubtless meant having a smaller place to clean which must have only perpetuated the aimlessness. She did sign up for a class on tracing her family history - which resulted in her being taken under the wing of Sherry, a kind and lovely woman who will likely crop up in this blog again at some point - but Mum's daily life was still supplied with an over abundance of alone time. Thus, when her parents-in-law showed up she was delighted. Now she could head out and show them around and they wasted no time by visiting London the day after they arrived. That first week I didn't see them a whole lot but Mum was with them practically the entire time.

Happily the first midterm break of the year was upon us. Having a week off from school in the middle of October was a new experience for me but a welcome one. While my friends were to spend the break playing on their computers or watching the lunchtime episode of Neighbours (and doubtless catching the 5.35 repeat for good measure), we'd be heading up to Scotland for our first big trip.

Spurning the view of London becoming Greater London becoming the midlands becoming northern England becoming Scotland in favour of our Smash Hits magazines (with a stroll to the first class train car to say hi to Grandma and Grandpa thrown in), it came as quite a shock to be greeted by Edinburgh. London at that point still seemed sleazy (or, more accurately, I was still disgusted by its sleaze rather than attracted to it) while the Scottish capital felt friendly and inviting. Probably romanticizing our Scots heritage a bit too much, I later claimed that it felt very familiar; in truth, I was just happy to be in such a beautiful city. It was a place I fell in love with immediately and I must have reckoned it was to be a big part of my future. I haven't been back since.

Showing up at our hotel, we were promptly informed that we only had two rooms waiting for us rather than the three Grandpa Bill had booked. In all the time I knew him I never saw him so furious. The hotel eventually sent us to another establishment, one of those large, anonymous hotels on the outskirts of town that draws in package tourists. For my part, I couldn't have been happier: the room I share with my sister had a nice, big TV and I raided their supply of instant coffee packets. Having been introduced to the supposedly lovely whipped with extra sugar machine coffee at school by a classmate, I was keen to take up consuming cups of joe though without any concern for quality. Our hotel's stock of Café Hag was much appreciated, even if I managed to spill much of it on my sheets. Dad, on the other hand, wasn't too pleased and he set about finding us somewhere else to stay the next night. He wanted someplace more centrally located and better value. The appeal of Café Hag was lost on him: yeah, there's no accounting for taste.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Je ne sais pas pourquoi
older Paul's retro pick: Real Gone Kid

9 October 1988: We've Been Broken Down to the Lowest Turn

1. Whitney Houston: One Moment in Time
2. U2: Desire
3. Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry Be Happy
4. Womack & Womack: Teardrops
5. The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother
6. Rick Astley: She Wants to Dance with Me
7. Erasure: A Little Respect
8. Wee Papa Girl Rappers: Wee Rule
9. Jason Donovan: Nothing Can Divide Us
10. Phil Collins: Groovy Kind of Love
11. Inner City: Big Fun
12. Pet Shop Boys: Domino Dancing
13. The Pasadenas: Riding on a Train
14. Bill Withers: Lovely Day [sunshine mix]
15. Kim Wilde: Never Trust a Stranger
16. The Beatmasters featuring P.P. Arnold: Burn It Up
17. Alexander O'Neal: Fake '88
18. Duran Duran: I Don't Want Your Love
19. T'Pau: Secret Garden
20. D Mob featuring Gary Haisman: We Call It Acieed
21. The Christians: Harvest for the World
22. Hazell Dean: Turn It Into Love
23. Bananarama: Love, Truth and Honesty
24. The Proclaimers: I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
25. Sinitta: I Don't Believe in Miracles
26. Yello: The Race
27. Bon Jovi: Bad Medicine
28. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Anything for You
29. Enya: Orinoco Flow
30. Yazz & The Plastic Population: The Only Way Is Up
31. Sabrina: All of Me (Boy Oh Boy)
32. Salt 'n' Pepa: Shake Your Thang (It's Your Thing)
33. Bros: I Quit
34. Bomb the Bass: Megablast / Don't Make Me Wait
35. Julian Cope: Charlotte Anne
36. Luther Vandross: Any Love
37. Spear of Destiny: So in Love with You
38. The Commodores: Easy
39. Brother Beyond: The Harder I Try
40. Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True

~~~~~

Five years after our year in England ended I was back for a visit. Not a whole lot had changed. The neighbourhoods looked very much the same, the pubs were basically identical, Mayflower looked very much as I'd left it, the London Underground had some newer, flashier cars but was still as crowded and as rickety as ever. Only two things seemed much different: everything was a lot more expensive - although it wasn't as if  prices were especially reasonable to begin with - and Essex had become a dirty word.

We might have seen this coming, mind you. For every charmingly quaint village in the north of the county - Snape Maltings, Finchingfield, Saffron Walden, Dedham - with their picturesque parish churches and village greens and centuries old cream tea shops, there were sad, go nowhere London feeder towns in the south - and no place was more nowhere than Basildon. Though we tended to refer to ourselves as living in Laindon and this held wherever we were in Essex, the farther we got from the southeast the more we began to say we were from Basildon. (If this Laindon-Basildon situation is confusing then consider the following: (a) you're not wrong and (b) Laindon was a town that was swallowed up by the Basildon New Town; it was more than simply a community but not quite a town in its own right - or that's how I understood it to be) But this New Town horror show - so perfectly summed up by The Style Council in their 1985 hit Come to Milton Keynes - almost seemed to be our little secret, one that failed to make others blush. Family friends The Torbetts and The Dicks paid us visits and had nothing but good things to say about where we lived - though they admitted much later that they were just trying to be polite. As our year was beginning to wind its way down, I began to get to know a few kids that lived nearby and they, too, didn't seem to dislike the area. If Essex was the butt of everyone's jokes then everyone was doing a great job of delicately keeping these gags from our sensitive ears.

It's likely, however, that the county became an eighties laughingstock only in retrospect. Essex and its New Town/London satellite city mentality represented Britain in that decade of Mrs Thatcher, The Sun and football hooligans; only with New Labour and Britpop and Cool Britannia and all that malarkey did it become something decidedly unsavoury. But there's the rub: we all knew perfectly well how Basildon was drab and awful, how Southend was sad and clinging to a former glory (that probably wasn't even all that glorious), how Braintree was trashy  and a bit sinister, how Brentwood was so utterly unmemorable and without merit: it just wasn't official. The stand up comedians still had Mrs Thatcher and Edwina Currie to deal with; cracks about girls called Sharon and the fathers of their children would have to wait.

Having spent the previous day in Colchester, a day which has largely been consigned to memory's compost heap, we again headed up that way on the 9th to attend a Medieval Experience just across the border in Linton, Cambridgeshire. Much like our trip to Brighton a couple weeks earlier, this was highlighted by meeting some fellow exchangees. Kelly and Andy were from California and they were so nice and fun to be around that they probably gave my sister and me a completely false impression of the many obnoxious and/or annoying American kids we'd encounter in the months to come. While the kids in Brighton were a handy source for trading aren't-we-hard-done-by sob stories, the easygoing Kelly and the happy-go-lucky Andy were a welcome antidote to the self-pity that I was certainly delving into from time to time. Being at a Medieval Experience, it was nice to have other kids to make us less self-conscious about getting all decked out in Arthurian dress - and with Andy and I each getting replica swords to complete our kit we automatically had each other to duel with. (For the next day or so I fancied myself a potential fencer, an ambition which was quickly shelved in the missed-opportunities-and-that's-fine-by-me file) As with the Brighton crew, however, our friendship with Andy and Kelly proved all too infrequent: it would be quite some time later before we met up again.

As we were hitting it off with Andy and Kelly, my parents were getting to know John and Debbie. I wasn't to know it then but they, along with their sweet little daughter Aimee, were the exchange family we would see the most over our year in England - and, indeed, I would have the pleasure of meeting them subsequently, most recently at the wedding party my parents threw for me and my wife. We'll get into more about them in the weeks and months ahead.

The Medieval Experience itself was a hoot and not just because Andy and I had the chance to catch up on our duelling chops. Never an especially well-mannered and tidy eater, I was more than happy to be informed that we'd be dining with our hands. I can't say just how authentic the whole thing was but this was an era just prior to the Nineties travel boom and such considerations were not of much importance. I'm sure the organizers and performers were trying their best to be as accurate as possible but it didn't particularly matter to those of us experiencing it; we weren't there with guidebook in hand, tips from online research and fellow travellers floating around in our minds, making sure that the jousting display was as authentic as humanly possible. It all looked very impressive and very well organized.  

Then again, we weren't aware of Essex girl jokes: what did rubes like us know anyway?

young Paul's favourite: Domino Dancing
older Paul's retro pick: Burn It Up