There was me flicking through Kara's well thumbed copy of Gordon Legge's 'The Shoe' in search of a particular excerpt which could lead me into recommending Stuart's thoughtful post at the From Despair To Where blog, and I stumble across this nifty passage from the book that recounts Gordon's Archie's memories of Top of the Pops past:
"When there were good records in the charts, Top of the Pops could be the best programme in the world: the Pretty Vacant promo; Siouxsie's kicks on Hong Kong Garden, the great Madness videos, Alex Harvey's Delilah, PIL's Flowers of Romance with Johnny handing his fiddle to a member of the audience. Archie remembered Bolan's grin and Slade's boots, The Stylistics singing on top of a building and Barry White's girlfriends. Archie and Richard wanted to love every episode of Top of the Pops as if it was the best. But only when John Peel presented it did they pay special attention. They knew that if they were fourteen, watching The Smiths with their parents, their armpits sweating and unable to breathe, it would be special. Like taking a girlfriend home."
What a wonderful piece of writing. (And it puts my sawdust prose on the demise of the TOTP in its place.) That's why I wait for new writing from Gordon Legge in the same way that some fundamentalist christians are waiting for the second coming of Christ. Unfortunately, from what little I can glean from the internet, it looks like they've got a better chance of JC party crashing the 21st century, than I have of seeing a new Gordon Legge novel or collection of short stories in the near future.
1 comment:
I thought that might have been him. A good review, that I've already forwarded onto someone.
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