Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Don't Leave Me This Way

Rain or Shine

Thorn In My Side

Is it really 25 years to the month that the following two copies of the Socialist Standard - with a copy of the SPGB's 1978 pamphlet, Questions of the Day, thrown in for good measure - landed on the doormat?

What was I thinking buying that particular issue of the NME?

5 comments:

ajohnstone said...

Why haven't you transcribed them , you lazy sod!

Imposs1904 said...

*Cough*. I think you'll find that I did transcribe a couple of pieces from the August 1986 Socialist Standard a few years back:

Jewish Anarchists

Bar Room Rebels

Enjoy!

Imposs1904 said...

PS - The Jewish Anarchists article/review received over a thousand views on the MySpace Socialist Standard page.

Damn, whatever happened to MySpace?

daggi bodenberg said...

That design would be quite fashionable these days. Why the SPGB have just gone an updated their website, when ASCII is expected to be the next new (old) big thing in about 2016, is beyond me.

Of course, the old-style issues of Workers' Liberty from the late 1980s top both on the design stakes, as I'm sure you'll agree.

I answered one of those NME ads, on more than one occasion in fact. Were you the only person ever to join as a result (or did you live in Clapham at the time)?

Imposs1904 said...

"That design would be quite fashionable these days. Why the SPGB have just gone an updated their website, when ASCII is expected to be the next new (old) big thing in about 2016, is beyond me."

'fraid that's tech speak which is over my head.

I vaguely remember some old issue of AWL from the late 80s but I don't remember them being that particularly striking. For me, the design classic when it comes to left lit was the issues of Solidarity published in the 80s. I'm a sucker for pastel colours.

The NME ads and recruitment? No idea. I'm sure they were popular at the time.

The full story is that I first heard about the SPGB via the NME ads but carried on with my Labour Party membership, and even contemplated joined Independent Labour Publications at one point. (Another fine looking magazine in its day.) However, I was drawn back to finding out about the SPGB via stumbling across Barltrop's biography of Jack London in my college library, and there on the inside back page of the dust jacket was mention of another book he wrote, The Monument.

The rest is misery . . .