Anyway, in last Saturday’s final qualifying round of the FA cup, there were clubs representing 5 towns and cities mentioned in different HMHB songs. It would have been 6, but Notts County became the latest club to be eliminated from this season’s cup due to Covid-19.
Clearly it is too easy to identify which songs mention the 5 places. So all you need to do is look at the 5 picture collages and say which of the 5 clubs they represent and how one or more of the personages represented in the pictures are somehow associated with that place. I will accept just one person, ie one HMHB song connection, per collage and per club, as it is unlikely that you can identify all the personages and their vague connections to a HMHB song and (separately) to a place mentioned in a (different) HMHB song, and anyway each collage represents either 1, 2 or 4 people with connections to HMHB songs, so I only expect you to find one connection for each place/club.
Some blurring of the photos is deliberate to make their origins un-googleable.
1. Big shots?2. Knobheads?3. Sparkling comedy? 4. Fools & half-wits?5. Holiday reading … or holiday writing?
Ooh, oooh! A book review: our greatest lyricist makes a cameo appearance in Stuart Maconie’s passionately-argued, poignantly nostalgic and perfectly-timed new publication.
Many thanks to The Ebury Press (Penguin) for a review copy of Stuart Maconie’s richly entertaining, highly thought-provoking new book The Nanny State Made Me – out now, and very timely too. Thanks also to the wonderful Anita Sethi who we heard ‘in conversation’ with the author, on the eve of publication, at the Carriageworks theatre in Leeds last week. I am indebted to Anita for facilitating my attendance at the event, but it turns out that Mr. Maconie may have owed me a teeny favour anyway, as I was delighted to see that a couple of his facts for page 111 of the book have originated from my own comments on the HMHB Lyrics Project website (see the comments on that site for ‘Surging out of Convalescence‘), as well as the research of another erstwhile Project regular (hat tip to Ricardo – see the comments on the Lyrics Project for ‘Malayan Jelutong‘):
“There is considerable erudition in the lyrics of Half Man Half Biscuit … references to hymn tune conventions, the poetry of George Crabbe and in the song Malayan Jelutong, a glimpse of Nigel’s love of local history (knowledge of which has brought me to the Wirral on this lovely evening), with its quotation from an 1891 essay by Edward W. Cox in the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.”
This is not yet my actual proper review of this excellent and much-needed book, but this is the version specifically for all Half Man Half Biscuit fans, where I summarise Nigel Blackwell’s cameo appearance in a publication that they really ought to buy, if they can possibly afford it (at an eye-water(stone)ing initial hardback-only price of £20). [EDIT – just seen it’s available online from a mere £11.49 incl P&P – BARGAIN!].
Maconie delves entertainingly into the role of a benevolent state in shaping so many aspects of our post-war lives, with plenty of anecdotes of course from his own upbringing in the North-West. Inspired by David Copperfield, he styles his chapters as a life story: I am Born, I go to School, I Learn to Read, I Have Fun, I Sign On, I Get a Room of my Own, I Travel, I Turn on, Tune in and Log out, etc. Along the way, he more than achieves his aim of reclaiming the term ‘nanny state,’ rendering utterly ridiculous the libertarian jeers of right-wingers who have increasingly used the term as a stick to beat those who care more for the wellbeing of others. As you would imagine, Nigel Blackwell appears in the I Have Fun chapter, in a section focusing on ‘the park’ as a public institution.
“Like so much else in our public realm, ‘the park’ is under threat after a decade of savage cuts. In a HLF survey of 2014, 86% of park managers said their budgets had been cut,” writes Maconie, following several entertaining anecdotes about the various ways that his generation benefited from their local parks throughout their childhood and adolescence. He notes the increasing selling-off of sections of our parks by some cash-strapped councils, various forms of neglect by other local authorities, and increasing commercialisation of large swathes of our public open spaces, wherever they can be fenced off profitably for over-priced mainstream music festivals and other corporate events. He cites research into the health benefits of our parks, and summarises academic comments on their importance to ‘the character of Britain.’ Then, appropriately, he spends half a dozen or so pages wandering through “the first genuinely public park in the world,” with “Britain’s greatest living satirist,” our very own Mr. Blackwell.
Maconie describes being met by his eminent tour guide at Birkenhead Park station, on a Monday evening – the one evening when HMHB usually rehearse as it happens, but not that particular week. Maconie worries briefly that he is like Samuel T. Coleridge’s “person from Porlock,” interrupting HMHB’s creative flow, but he needn’t worry because these are apparently still the summer hols and HMHB are never famed for their dedication to hard graft over that period. Nor in most other periods, in fact.
For a couple of years I used to get off the train there every day myself and walk through Birkenhead Park to school, if you need any evidence of my credentials to comment on this section of the book. Later on, I would often run home through the park, and then down past and over the docks, sometimes jogging the four miles all the way home to Wallasey. It was a route through the stratification of our society and the beginnings of the economic decline of an area, which helped shape my views of British society and politics as I grew up, a contemporary and a namesake of Nigel Blackwell, in the 1970’s. But this is not about me of course, so more of that another time. Mr. B, who was in many ways very fortunate not to be a fellow inmate at that same school (he’s previously informed me that he only narrowly escaped), tells Maconie that:
“People talk a lot of shite about the 1970’s. It may have ben bad for stockbrokers and such, but if you lived round here and you were a working class family, we probably never had it so good. We had a decent holiday in Wales every year and my dad had a Ford Anglia. That seems quite a healthy state of affairs to me. Personally, I had a very enjoyable 1970’s.”
Maconie describes Blackwell as “a ferociously smart and talented auto-didact, educated by the BBC, the local library and a moderately benevolent benefits system,” who is not only “a testament to the brilliance of the post-war consensus,” but is well qualified to guide Maconie through the park (“it was my dad who got me into local history”) and to keep him out of trouble (“see those lads over there fishing, well, they may be otherwise engaged …”).
Nigel tells Stuart the story of how Central Park in New York came to be modelled on this very expanse of formerly boggy farmland in what is now fairly central Birkenhead. But that doesn’t make Birkonians as proud as the simple fact that this was the first, “the forerunner of what became a global parks movement.” As Blackwell puts it, “it wasn’t some rich guy’s pleasure ground that we plebs were allowed to use. This has never been privately owned. It was made with public money for the people of Birkenhead and we are very proud of that.”
Later, it’s Nigel’s ancestral Welsh pride that comes to the fore, as he tells Stuart the story of ‘The Eisteddfod of the Black Chair’:
‘Nigel indicates a stone pillar of Celtic design, by the side of the Italianate gates. “My favourite place in the park. They held the 1917 Eisteddfod here [as] … a lot of Welsh folk came here to work in the munitions factories. My family, for instance.”
For the dramatic way that Blackwell tells the rest of the story of his fellow bard, Hedd Wyn, who had joined the great fallen of 1917 by the time he was chosen as that year’s lyrical genius, you’ll have to acquire the book. Modesty of course forbids Blackwell from mentioning to Maconie that he himself has contributed to an Eisteddfod, with verse in his ancestral tongue, in a category for learners of Welsh.
Our bard touches on another of his passions (and together with cycling and family connections, one of the three main reasons he still spends so much time in Wales) as he takes Maconie ‘through some bracken …[where they] emerge at the back of a large, fine house. “This was the childhood home of Sandy Irvine, friend of Mallory. This could be the house of the first man who climbed Everest [Irvine disappeared with Mallory during an attempt on the summit in 1924, only 800 vertical feet short of the peak] No plaque. Nothing.”
I first heard about the premise of this book when Maconie trailed it on Twitter six months ago with promises of “a tour of Birkenhead [not just the park, I seem to remember – or was this a wilful misreading on my part?] with Nigel Blackwell,” so I guessed that our man would be passing comment too on the role in his own development of various other institutions of ‘the nanny state,’ such as the local public library, the local museums, the local public sports fields and the local public baths, all of which helped him become the widely-acknowledged (achtung! cliche alert!) national treasure that he is today. Not to mention, of course, the role of the ultimate state institution, the DHSS. Of course I might just have misremembered the tweet, so I’ll have to let him off, I suppose. Of course Maconie covers all those topics with aplomb, and with top-quality guest input by the likes of Caitlin Moran – who went to the public library “every single day. Sometimes twice.”
In order to link with the next topic, as he takes his leave of Nigel, Maconie confesses that he “can’t think of a Half Man Half Biscuit lyric about the phenomenon of the public baths.” Nigel could have helped him out there, filling in further details about “the fearsome hollow boom of the older boys in the deep end” at Woodchurch Leisure Centre, evoked in the wonderful HMHB song ‘Bad Review,’ or his memories of seeing Flipper the dolphin at Guinea Gap baths in Wallasey, recalled onstage at a gig a while back. In fact Maconie’s pages about public baths don’t seem to feature any such ‘celebrity’ anecdotes, so we have to be content with just the one specialist subject here from our lyrical mastermind. This book is not the only memoir ever published which features Nigel in Birkenhead Park – see also Kevin Sampson’s Extra Time (1998), where the author describes playing football in the park with ‘Blackie’, Peter Hooton (of The Farm) and friends – but it is, of course, the best (sorry, Kev)..
“I am a child of the state. You are too,” writes Maconie. “We were born into the stern but loving embrace of one of its hospitals, raised in one of its compact, sturdy little houses and educated in its solid, unshowy and decent schools. Our minds were opened and filled by its silent and magical libraries, its draughty museums and echoing galleries, places travelled to on trains and buses that were unsexy and asthmatic but ran on time and went to all the places we wanted to go.” Most of this is true for most Nigels born in 1963, except perhaps the fact that any two Nigels born in 1963 could (and did) have vastly unequal experiences of state-funded secondary education, which varied vastly in quality and in outcome. And the bit about being born in hospitals. Certainly on the Wirral there was a real fad for home births that year, so the stern but loving embrace perhaps came from one of the nanny state’s fine midwives, as it did for my namesake and myself. But of course this fine quote, showcased on the book’s back cover and accompanied by a classic image of 1960’s NHS nurse caring for a dotingly appreciative young lad, has never been more relevant than it is today in the spring of 2020, when so many of our vulnerable friends’ and relatives’ lives will come to depend even more on the creaking old nanny state.
It might be a significant while before Half Man Half Biscuit, or anyone else for that matter, are in our gig venues and theatres again, so I’m glad I spent one of my last nights out for some time in that audience numbering about 185, applauding as Stuart Maconie read from this fine book and answered our many questions, often ranting passionately and railing at the uncaring Cummingses and the comings-and-goings of the grinchy Graylings. A lot of us will be doing a bit more reading at home over the next few months, and so this timely publication is highly recommended.
Just £11.49 online including P&P, did you say? Worth it for so many reasons, but not least that you’ll see Maconie’s inspired guess at the possible future title of a future HMHB masterpiece. In fact that’s one of the few topics on pages 111-17 about which I’ve given you no spoilers! Enjoy, folks.
Well, a grand total of two whole entries were received to the monstrous Xmas quiz before today’s noon deadline. Nevertheless, my even more monstrous points scheme was vindicated entirely, because there was genuine jeopardy as to whether anyone would become the legendary “first person ever to score a thousand points in a HMHB quiz.”
Keith took an early lead over John (Dr. Des) in the opening round and, although that was the only round he won, he remained competitive until around half-way, when my daft mistake in setting one of Round Five’s simpler anagrams (which he still managed to get right) may have caused his morale to flag when it came to the harder ones in Round Eight (a challenge which he roundly ignored). From then on John frankly gave him a trouncing.
Meanwhile I myself must have allegedly flagged towards the end* of setting this marathon beast and made daft mistakes too in the wording of questions 42, 96 and 100. These have all now been amended.
Anyway, Keith (because I looked at his answers first) became the first person ever to score 700 points in a HMHB quiz … he says he didn’t google, and looking at some of his ‘passes’, I certainly believe him!
… but Doctor Desperate, after a recount, scored a mightily impressive 1,010 points! So even though we haven’t had the heating on here at Chateau Exford for several days during this mildest of mid-winters, I remove my woolly hat for the first time in 2020 to you John – Dr. Desperate – the King of High Quiz – a most worthy victor once more.
I have already emailed the official answers those two, but I’ll leave it a couple more days (say Saturday evening) before I put them up, just in case anyone else is still tempted to have a late bash at the thousand themselves.
For a while now, we’ve had an irregular Friday Quiz on Chris Rand’s HMHB Lyrics Project Site. Many themes have been chosen, from “moons in HMHB” to “the abums of 1973 in HMHB”. There is still endless potential – feel free to post your own questions for us one Friday. But I wanted to do a HMHB picture quiz for Christmas, so came back here to this old disused blog page of mine to host it – the first time I’d been here since I first set it up and wrote a couple of things on here five years ago, in fact. Then the quiz eventually evolved into this monstrosity – a hundred questions related to our favourite band, with the odd excursion into extraneous Xmas entertainments. Some questions are absolute gifts, worth twenty points each, and some others are worthless. Sorry I mean they are worth less – unless stated, they earn you five points each, and many of them require two things for the five points – for example a name/place/fact and a song title.
Round 1- The Xmas Cards Round
HMHB get sacks full of Christmas cards of course, not just from us fans but from the various lonely celebrities, neglected groups and companies who are grateful to Mr. Blackwell for remembering them so fondly in his lyrics – they realise that without Mr. B, they would be struggling. Geoff keeps the cards at Probe Towers, and here I can exclusively bring you pictures of just a few of the cards received and on display there this month.
Q1. The card is simply signed “from everybody in …….” Where? And which song?
Q2. A nativity scene on a card sent by whom, grateful for the plug in which song?Q3. This was a postcard received not from the tourist board of this city, but from the Campaign Against Cynicism at Christmas, who recently held their annual conference there. Like all good postcards from such destinations, they give an honest assessment of what they thought. Give me a few words of the relevant lyrics, to describe what they thought of the place. TWENTY POINTS.Q4. One of those ‘selfie’ Xmas cards where the sender threatens jokey seasonal violence (I get them all the time meself). Who is he and what does he threaten to do to Nigel Blackwell, because of which song?Q5. Who sent this e-card with the words “thinking of you, too”? Which song is he happy to have been mentioned in?Q6. They aren’t the real one that the lyrics mention, and they aren’t flattered by their oblique mention in one of HMHB’s angriest songs, but you wouldn’t know it from this smarmy card they sent – after all, any publicity is good publicity and this lot start about £1,500 an hour. Who are they and which song?Q7. No, it’s not a card from beyond the grave from Mr. Bowie – this one was sent by Eno himself, as a good-humoured hat-tip to our Nigel. But, for your points on this one, who has Brian collaborated with on more albums than with anyone else (either as producer or musician) ? (a) Bowie (b) Bono (c) Coldplay (d) FrippQ8. Which broadcaster sent this freebie, one of its range of nearly 30 different Xmas jumpers, in gratitude to Nigel for the mention in which song? This gift of a question is worth TWENTY POINTS.Q9. This is a card that an old mate of Geoff Davies’ grandad sent back from one of his trips, long before Geoff himself was born. Geoff keeps on the wall at Probe Towers for inspiration, and in turn it inspired lines in which song?And what was the exact date this holiday snap was taken?Q10. Who is this? She isn’t mentioned in HMHB (unlike nearly all of those above), but she thought she’d let HMHB know that she’s released an ENO collaboration this Christmas – what is the very worthy cause?
Round 2 – The Radio Times Quiz of the year
Questions 11-18 are these 8 (circled) questions in the Radio Times Festive double issue Quiz of the Year 2019. And BBC Publications can sue. Five of them have answers name-checked in HMHB lyrics (two of which are the same answer!), one of the other answers is a well-known HMHB fan in the media, one of them is a big influence on HMHB lyrical style and the other one relates to “fat kids with sausage rolls”, so it’s fair game. Let me know if you can’t read any of the questions. The final three of these (Q’s 32, 35 & 39) seem like absolute gifts, so they score TWENTY points each.No need for song titles in this round.
Round 3 – What’s on Telly this Xmas?
Q. 19, 20, 21 & 22 What’s on telly this Christmas & New Year? A great big steaming pile of shite, as usual. There are five or six HMHB references just on pages 6 &7 of this current Radio Times… which is not necessarily a good sign about the programmes. Here are four of them in adjacent blurbs. Which four HMHB songs? Like all the ‘gift’ questions in this quiz, they score TWENTY points for each answer.I suppose I should give you two five-point bonuses if you can give me two more HMHB songs with indirect Dracula references.Q23, 24 & 25. Some of the photos in this quiz may seem oddly cropped or of bad quality. This is to mostly to ensure that in most cases “search google for this image” won’t work. Anyway, two of the Christmas jumper wearers pictured here have been slagged off live on stage by Mr. B. this year, though they are not mentioned in the recorded version of the song in which they appeared live. This Radio Times feature article sees them playing with toy cars around the Xmas tree (alas not Scalextric). (Q.23 & 24) Who are they, and (Q.25) which opinion-dividing show (it’s shite) do they present?Q26. Nothing to do with HMHB really, but the BBC are heavily plugging this drama about real events that were in the news throughout the year of “peak Nigel” – 1963. Which event in this story took place when Nigel Blackwell himself was precisely 10 days old?Q27. Again not something mentioned in HMHB lyrics, but it’s good to see that just like they did for some memorable Christmases of our childhood, the Beeb have commissioned some fine actors to play in a drama based on a story by an author who’s on record as one of Nigel Blackwell’s favourites. Who’s the author of the original story?Q. 28 At a recent gig, Mr. B actually recommended this current TV series to the audience, so it’s good to see a heads-up from The Radio Times that episodes 1 & 2 will drop off the i-player on Sunday 22nd December. But who are the group in the photo, who of course did a famous version of a song which is much loved by HMHB fans?
Q. 29 Which film on BBC2 on Monday 30th December stars a HMHB reference, one which Nigel Blackwell has since shown that he regrets? TWENTY POINTS
Q.30 ITV3 are showing 15 films from one series over the Xmas period, most of them including another HMHB reference that Mr. B has said he now regrets. TWENTY POINTS
Q.31 Sky 1 are showing a HMHB-referenced film on Boxing Day that should see a little sunshine come our way. TWENTY POINTS.
Q.32 Channel 5 are showing which film with a HMHB-referenced title character on New Year’s Day? TWENTY POINTS.
Round 4 – This is Your Life
I see that a new nostalgia (cheap repeats) channel called “60s-70s-80s”* are showing re-runs of old episodes of This is your Life over the next fortnight. the following episodes are all about stars name-checked (or in one case obviously referenced) in HMHB.
Q. 33 Whose episode of This is your Life ends with a story of how he was knighted in an unusual way, followed by the reading of a personal letter from the Queen Mum and a band marching down through the audience?
Q.34 Whose This is your Life ends with him being told he has the gratitude of the Ethiopian people? Surprisingly, however, no thanks from the Austrian Tourist Board. TWENTY POINTS.
Q.35 Whose This is your Life begins on an open-top bus ride, with Jill Dando saying how good he is at his role? Later he is told by Brian Moore that “You were the star of the World Cup … a few of the critics don’t quite get how good you are, but we do.”
Q.36 Which 74 year-old Scouser was lifted up by a 76 year-old woman from Rochdale when they were re-united on his This is your Life? “She has flown in from her Italian villa to be with us tonight…“
Q.37 Whose This is your Life features mutual admiration between the star of the show and Eric Morley, heaps of praise from Big Daddy and Frank Bruno (the latter in full panto costume), and a speech from one of the organisations the star supported, saying very knowingly “most celebrities just give money, but you keep coming back and checking on your investment.” TWENTY POINT QUESTION.
*I suspect that my mince pies may have been spiked, so that I may have imagined the existence of this channel. In fact what I claim to see in my Xmas Radio Times from now on may not necessarily be there at all …
Round 5 – Anagrams for All
These are just straightforward, achievable anagrams of celebs, all name-checked very memorably in HMHB lyrics, with clues. They’re probably all getting repeat fees and royalties somewhere in the Xmas TV schedule (though some more than others, and with the exception of the dead one). Five of the seven are anagrams of the full names (first name and surname) as given in the lyrics. In two cases the anagram includes a first name which is not in the lyrics, as well as the surname, which is.
Q38. Kirk’s USA bias – CLUE: not much of a record breaker before he went on telly. TWENTY POINTER
Q39. Sad Lennon did – CLUE: Imagine Archer reading a tribute at your funeral!
Q40. Hang by rat man – CLUE: that’s life when you eat filth.
Q41. Online annex – CLUE: in the song, zero except utter admiration. TWENTY POINTER
Q42. Les’ sat-nav fez – CLUE: brings endless suffering in the song. TWENTY POINTER
Q43. A jelly mass – CLUE: in the song, her volume in pieces? TWENTY POINTER
Q44. Sack I, I’ve died – CLUE: I haven’t died, I’m 87. Not many people realise I’m from the Wirral, but I was last seen in public opening a shop down south, my famous vision still going strong. TWENTY POINTS
Round 6 – So-called ‘comedy’
Q. 45 & 46 Name any two sitcom characters referred to specifically in HMHB lyrics (the actors are not mentioned). Not just generic first names (so “Thelma”, for example, would not do). TWENTY POINTS… EACH!!
Q. 47 Which HMHB-referenced sitcom actor appeared in Dr. Who as an officer on an expedition to scout out planets for potential future colonisation by earth?
Q.48 Which utterly appalling, depressingly long-running so-called ‘comedy’ show of our youth, containing not one single even remotely funny moment in all its many tedious series, was brought to its end by which HMHB-referenced star suffering a heart attack? I’m not celebrating anyone’s tragic death, but there can be silver linings.
Q. 49 Who was apparently known in the business for often being drunk and stoned while working in his minor but regular roles on the comedy shows with which he was most associated? TWENTY POINTS.
Q. 50 Other than Nerys Hughes in The Liver Birds, name someone else mentioned in HMHB lyrics who has appeared in any Carla Lane sitcom.
Q.51 Which Carla Lane sitcom was set in beautiful, sparkling, healthy Bath spa? (That’s surely enough about Carla Lane now – ed.)
Q. 52 & 53 Live at the Apollo – this show has been referenced in HMHB lyrics and several of its performers have been slagged off in live performances. But nobody referenced in HMHB recordings has appeared on it for over 9 years now, So name the only two people referenced in the recordings who have ever appeared on it. TWENTY POINTS…. EACH!!
Round 7 – Knobheads on Quiz Shows
Q. 54 Which far-from-outstanding game-show performer mentioned by HMHB survived the sinking of the Titanic?
Q. 55 Which Welsh presenter, a former afternoon TV gameshow person, got their first break into the business thanks to being in a band with someone who would later become a celebrity HMHB fan, which led in turn to them being recommended for the job (which gave them their break) by another (related) celebrity who would also be a prominent HMHB fan?
Q.56 Which totally amazing HMHB-referenced excuse for a frickin’ ‘celebrity’ scored just 1 point – one single ruddy point – on general knowledge on Celebrity Mastermind five Christmases ago? Now I know we’re always told that “it’s not so easy once you’re in that chair,” and I know they do it for charity and I know it’s Christmas – fair play, etc … but don’t you think the Beeb should bloody sack them if they are that embarrassingly poor? Should have organised an online petition at the time, really. Would have done if I’d known how the day-time schedule change a year ago would come to blight our lives…
Round 8 – Miserable to Who?
These less straightforward anagrams are not for the faint-hearted and there are no clues. On the plus side, these are only worth 5 points each. Here each one features a HMHB-referenced celebrity mixed up with one of the TV programmes they are associated with, and in one or two cases it’s not even their most famous programme. The first one is actually just the programme title, as that includes the celeb’s first name, so that’s the shortest and easiest. If you don’t get that first one, you probably won’t want to bother with the rest, as the remainder are all anagrams of first name + surname + programme title, and in the final one (Q.62) another essential word from the lyrics has been added to the mix.
57. Hooray! Sleet puns!
58. Bleak tosh curbs sun.
59. How rectums randomly fog.
60. At Pubs. Frost. Aih! Leg breaks.
61. Coma glossing more chill rain.
62. Sick Ken licks fungoidy snow.
Round 9 – Bitter ex-soap stars, who thought they could go on and do …
63. Which HMHB-referenced buffoon appeared on Coronation Street as a mulleted rock star, featuring in twelve episodes about six years ago?
64. When Andy Kershaw asked who she was, Mr. B replied that this ex-soap star was probably on the cover of the Radio Times that week, because she was in pretty much everything.
65. Who is the soap character named in an HMHB song, who was played by an actor who was name-checked on stage in London a few years back in a version of A Country Practice? Five bonus points if you can tell me exactly which outstanding pub Nigel claimed to have met the actor at.
66. In Descent of the Stiperstones, what proportion of the lyrics (when you don’t count the two most often-repeated phrases) does the Lynette McMurrough/Crossroads saga occupy?
(a) 24% (b) 34% (c) 44% (d) 54%
[No, I have no idea myself why I wanted to work that out, but once I had, I had to ask you really, didn’t I?]
This round is a bit more random. Just generally some TV, film & music gubbins that mostly we’re pretty glad we don’t have to watch this Xmas, and some other stuff that we might stream instead if we get bored. I’d have called it the ‘quick-fire round’ or something, if only that were true.
68. Might watch this one – a film released within the last decade about someone mentioned in a HMHB song, which the blurb tells me has “a dynamic soundtrack by Philip Glass”.
69. But this one’s a swerve – Sex and the City on BBC2, followed by highlights from Glastonbury – but what’s the obscure and tenuous connection between the two? They’re both HMHB-referenced but it’s not a HMHB-related connection.
70. Ooh look – Star Trek‘s on – the first movie from 1979 – they even give us a link to the trailer (you may need to copy and paste the URL if it doesn’t work as a link, and may need to watch a Netflix ad before the trailer)
But what links that film (and the trailer) with what many believe to be HMHB’s greatest song?
71. Ooh look – a film with a John Barry soundtrack, which I haven’t seen since it first came out (when I saw it at the old Phoenix cinema in Wallasey village). HMHB haven’t mentioned the title specifically, but not too long ago they used the theme as their entrance music. Be miffed if I miss that one.Which film?
72. For which film, beloved of HMHB, was the soundtrack not released till 29 years after the movie?
73. I see they’re showing the musical which provides part of the tune for HMHB classic Four Skinny Indie Kids. But what is the original song in the musical called? YES, IT’S ANOTHER GIFT OF A QUESTION, SO YES, IT’S A TWENTY POINT QUESTION.
74. And another massive Hollywood musical here, this one released (as a long-running stage show that was then made into a movie) 13 years after Q.73 … and another one that won the Oscar for ‘best score,’ so inevitable that Nigel Blackwell will have nicked a line or two from the best-known tune. Which lines from which musical did Mr. B adapt?
75. Which rousing patriotic song is featured famously in two separate classic films, one film very prominently referenced in one of Mr. B’s spoken-word tracks, and one kind-of-referenced in another song, in the person of one of its historical characters?The song itself, which the two films have in common, is not referenced by HMHB.
76. Looks like another ‘swerve’ this one – an obscure TV horror film released this year, but based on a 1970’s TV programme, one element of which was referenced by HMHB in 2014.
77. Excellent – I can’t believe they are repeating this after all these years! The classic episode where a ten-year-old competitor fell into a ditch, and then, repeatedly, so did those who went to help. Unmissable entertainment! But what was the HMHB-referenced TV series?And (question 78) the name of the presenter who couldn’t stop laughing.
The Final Round – Blockbusters!
Looks like I got the colours slightly wrong, andalas no P, but at least you can, if you wish, say “Give me one, please Bob.”The clues for each hexagon are below. But no need to do them in numerical order of course – why not pick a hex and try to make a complete line? Or, taking alternate attempts, you can try to block yourself in the other direction!That way, you can’t lose. Most of the answers in this round are gifts worth 20 points, but the mere five-pointers are marked *. Question 79 is ‘H’, and so on, with 22 answers in this round, taking us up to the 100.
H – is for the h_____ d______ that Nigel Blackwell found so useful. I’ve asked for one of these devices for Xmas, as I don’t feel secure on the roads in winter. M – not HMHB-related, but this singer was born on Xmas Day – the ‘M’ surname please of one of two singers responsible for one of the great Xmas tunes of all time, though always overplayed to death on the wireless of course. H² – football club nickname – will this ‘H’ (these ‘H’?) sting the Rovers in the FA Cup after Xmas? B * – Striker who scored nine times one Boxing Day. Died on Christmas Day. I just ‘street-viewed’ his old house in Woodchurch Road, and amazingly there’s no plaque.
J * – Which ‘J’ is the artistic pseudonym of the brilliant HMHB sleeve designer, who was reportedly very influential on Nigel Blackwell’s musical tastes?
U – This ‘U’ is the smallest town HMHB are scheduled to play in 2020.
M² * – This ‘m’ was attempted by Nigel’s brother in the early 80’s. Good job he never succeeded!
B² * – This ‘B’ is ace guitarist Karl Benson’s highly accomplished punk covers band.
O – This ‘O’ was the last HMHB gig of 2019 – it even had a quiz all of its own to celebrate!
X * – “The X in Xmas is a substitute crucifix for Christ” is the opening line of my own personal favourite jolly Christmas song, by the Fall of course, but here the ‘X’ is a substitute crucifix for the Portuguese defender (not HMHB-referenced) who crossed the city, played in eight countries, found faith, lost all his money, and this year lost his job managing the country of his birth.
M³ * – this ‘M’ is the birthplace, on Christmas day 1957, of an average footballer & well below average pundit (not HMHB-referenced), who has just released a way, way below average album of Christmas songs.
A – Another singer born on Xmas Day – she will become eligible for her state pension on that day in 2020 – and they can’t say a thing, except utter admiration. Yes OK, she’s already been the answer to another question in the quiz.
S – Charlie is clichéd to be cynical at Xmas but his wife’s just a touch s……..
Q – in corners of your mind they lurk, even when the answers are obvious.
U² * – Nothing to do with HMHB really (though they have both covered the same song), but last year this ‘U’ played “vintage yuletide favourites” for a BBC 4 special, filmed at an ornate Victorian-period town hall, decorated in vintage Xmas style.
I * – We have often been told at HMHB gigs that this ‘I’ are to be seen with Kate Bush, but not on Christmas Day in the morning
Z – Name either of the Olympians mentioned in The Referee’s Alphabet. And for the only ten-point bonus in the whole quiz, what longed-for Christmas present would one of them not have needed, and why?
2 * (this is the amended Q.96) – The ‘2’ stands for the 2 gig venues that were new to HMHB in 2019. It was the actual venues that were new, not necessarily the town/city, but what do the two town/city names have in common? 0 – This zero is football … without whom? 1 – “Give me one please, Bob.” But where does one man in one HMHB song feel “the oneness”?
9 * – is for the 9 HMHB gigs scheduled so far in 2020 – but (Q.99*) how many different songs – whole HMHB tracks, not including covers – were played at the eleven HMHB gigs in 2019? Was it a grand total of (a) 55-69 songs? (b) 70-74 songs? (c) 75-89 songs? (d) 90 or more songs?
… and (this is Q.100*) how many songs were played at every single gig in 2019? (a) 5 songs, (b) 7 songs, (c) 9 songs, (d) 11 songs, or (e) 13 songs?
And that, folks, is the business that they call show.
Well played if you’ve made it to the end of the quiz with a fair few points in the bag. We’ll leave it about ten days, then on 30th December or thereabouts, you can let me how many points you got … if you like. Don’t post the answers, but send me what you think is your approximate points total as a comment to this blog, and then I’ll ask the leading contenders to send me their answers, which will not be published. Some time after the deadline of Thursday 2nd January at 12 noon I’ll give you the official answers (EDIT – it will now be early evening Saturday 4th).You might even become (probably) the first person to ever score a thousand points in a HMHB quiz!Like the BBC these days, it’s no prizes but plenty of glory to be had.
Enjoy the holidays and Ihope to see you all at one of those gigs in 2020.
N.S. 20/12/19
[EDIT] Why has nobody spotted these potential bonus points yet?
The late, great John Peel was so fond of Half Man Half Biscuit that he famously joked that he wanted “to have them buried with me,” as if they were the favourite court musicians of a mighty Pharaoh. It’s fortunate for us that Peel, although he reigned supreme over our taste in music, was not in fact our all-powerful emperor, so that The Biscuits were spared being bricked up as acolytes in the great DJ’s tomb. There have already been four whole HMHB albums that Peel never got to hear. It may not be a coincidence that the latest of these albums, ‘Urge For Offal’, was released in the week that marked the 10th anniversary of the Peel’s passing – and it is yet more proof that one ‘national treasure’ certainly knew another one when he heard it.
So all over the country for the last few days ‘pause’ and ‘rewind’ buttons have been tested beyond their usual limits by the devoted cult following who have patiently waited three years until this latest serving from the Crossley & Blackwell song-writing partnership was finally in the can. Would they be taking the band in new directions, we wondered? Perhaps (to borrow an earlier lyric or two) the new album would be less “song-based” because they’d “been travelling South America, recording different sounds”? Fortunately it only takes the album’s opening track, ‘Westward Ho! Massive Letdown’, to reassure us that they haven’t, and that it’s business as usual, as one of Neil Crossley’s finest Joy-Division influenced tunes frames Blackwell’s story of a jilted lover, set in a rusting English seaside resort which can’t live up to its famous exclamation mark. HMHB devotees all over the country are soon back into their accustomed routine, straining to tell whether final line of the song refers to a Graeco-Roman god or a French Caledonian golfer. I’ll try not to include too many spoilers here – but apparently it’s the former, and I was wrong about the golfing reference.
Second track ‘This One’s for Now’ is fantastically familiar territory too, as the protagonist laments his inability to write a proper break-up song without getting distracted by the urge to drop in at least five separate football references, amongst other trivia. I recall that after first hearing the band’s brilliant satire ‘Paintball’s Coming Home’, Peel remarked something along the lines that “it’s a collection of random jottings”, which that track patently wasn’t, being the best demolition of empty, materialistic 1990’s values penned by anyone, anywhere. This one would have fitted Peel’s description much better and as such is at least partly a song about the process of song-writing. If Blackwell reminds me of any other songwriter, it has to be Jonathan Richman above all – simply incapable of taking himself seriously, or for that matter of taking himself any one way at any one time. The voices of the protagonists and even the tunes themselves are parodied by their writer as he goes along. ‘This One’s for Now’ feels like a temporary title for this great little track, and I can’t help speculating that perhaps Blackwell feels that if he waits any longer to put some of these fantastic “random jottings” into a song, then he might well be six feet under, like John Peel, before it’s ever released. It’ll certainly do for now, Nigel (as Peel might have said).
Track 3, ‘Baguette Dilemma for the Booker Prize Guy’, couldn’t be more different, with its harsh, complex post-punk rhythms framing the rantings of a typically deranged Blackwellian character who can’t decide whether he should save some clueless civic dignitaries from quicksand, or have a ham roll instead. Along the way our lyricist becomes possibly the first English songwriter to borrow a pair of rhymes from a translation of ‘War and Peace’, while the final line may provoke outraged letters to editors by RNLI fund-raisers – but as ever, the opinions expressed are those of the characters in a complex, fragmented drama rather than of Blackwell himself.
There’s another complete change of tone and style for track 4, as Blackwell adopts the voice that has been used for a number of folk parodies on recent albums. These have included: ‘Lord Hereford’s Knob’, his unforgettable parody of the traditional ‘As I Walked out one Morning’ song, then ‘RSVP’, parodying the traditional jilted lover’s wedding lament, and ‘The Coroner’s Footnote,’ parodying the good old Victorian disaster song. This track, ‘My Outstretched Arms’, is like a folk interpretation of a story of long-distance dating gone wrong – so wrong that the anti-hero ends up stalking the object of desire. It features one of the finest lines Blackwell has ever written about the Catch-22 issues around mental health: “to sacrifice sanity thinking such things, I must have been mad from the start.”
Back to the more complex and opaque aspects of Blackwell’s imagination, and to another storming Neil Crossley tune for track 5, ‘The Bane of Constance’. At first we appear to be imagining an exasperated spouse on a science-fiction voyage round the mind of a delightfully eccentric partner; on later listens, trying to work out what the lyrics say about road-kill stew and Heswall Flower Club, we realise the track probably deals with the declining mental capacities of the elderly. There’s a myth among those who have only heard a few of their more famous choruses that HMHB songs are juvenile ditties about an obsession with sporting trivia and TV personalities, but deeper, darker themes have been there right from the start. Mental health themes in particular have always been a reference point in the songs, and mixed with the juvenile reminiscences, the HMHB songbook has long had an almost equal preoccupation with old age. Or if you prefer, you can just forget the less comfortable subject matter and join in with another irresistibly rousing football-chant-style chorus: “Come on! Midge Ure looks like a milk thief!”
After contemplating our own impending decrepitude during that track, timely relief is provided by ‘Theme Song for Something or Other’. HMHB’s largely ageing fan-base is probably now more than ready for a chance to put the kettle on. After a lifetime of TV references in their songs (on this album we have mentions for ‘Live at the Apollo’, ‘Cash in the Attic’ and Suranne Jones of ‘Coronation Street’, among others), it seems quite logical that writing a theme tune should have been a quiet ambition for Crossley and Blackwell. As if to emphasise that the telly is still one of HMHB’s most enduring reference points, the next track, ‘False Grit’, aims its expert marksmanship at clichéd TV dramas set in supposedly ‘gritty’ Northern towns. It’s the most straightforward piece of contemporary satire on the album, where Blackwell’s rhyming response to the channels’ dreary promise of “new drama for Spring” is a typically sardonic “thanks for the warning – I’m gonna be in Beijing.” Incidentally, this track also features the most spectacular example ever of the legendary ‘Curse of HMHB’, whereby the attrition rate for celebrities mentioned in their songs suggests that those referenced had better start making a will, and sharpish.
It seems unlikely of course that Nigel Blackwell will ever be anywhere near Beijing at all, having mentioned in some of his rare interviews that he has never flown and doesn’t drive a car. He seems more wrapped up than ever in his local rambles between the Dee and the Mersey estuaries, this album featuring more local Wirral references than all the other twelve albums put together. Half a dozen of these references are in the lyrics and accompanying sleeve-notes for one epic song – ‘The Unfortunate Gwatkin’ (fast forward to track 12). You do have to buy the actual CD or vinyl for this release to get the true benefit of all pieces of the jigsaw – a mere downloaded file will not tell you all you need to know about this wondrous track. The song builds up its tension with Blackwell delighting in parodying the prose styles of yesteryear with a mysterious story about an assault on the title character as he makes his way home from “The Pessimist Festival at Mollington”. He then explodes that tension with one of his most joyously daft sing-along choruses ever. A responsible reviewer would warn anyone whose kids like to sing along to HMHB in the car that this one may need the kind of parental control that you have perhaps previously exercised for the ‘Fred Titmus’ or ‘Vatican Broadside’ choruses. Or maybe not – this is 2014 after all and it’s up to your kids if they want to cuss. Oh and I was right about the golfing references this time.
There is an internet blog (here, in fact) where an admirable group of middle-aged HMHB fans have chronicled their quest to cycle around the many hundreds of places in the UK referenced in HMHB songs, from Wick to Westward Ho! and far, far beyond. With a new HMHB album every three years or so, their task seems likely to resemble Sisyphus painting the Forth Bridge with a fork during an endless soup storm, but at least this one track will enable them to tick off six or seven unique HMHB place references on just one short stretch of turnpike and towpath, somewhere north of Chester Zoo. The track ‘Baguette Dilemma’ will enable them to achieve 3 more inside a couple of miles at the other end of the peninsula, provided they can adapt their bikes for quicksand.
If both those last-mentioned tracks have their share of jeopardy and violence, HMHB aficionadoes will notice that far fewer characters on this album actually meet their doom. Indeed, it’s track 8 before anyone dies at all on this album and even then it’s only death by natural causes. ‘Old Age Killed My Teenage Bride’ is a hilarious and yet simultaneously quite moving tribute to those who reach their centenary year and pass away peacefully and contentedly, and may well be many fans’ favourite up-tempo number on the album. It has already become a live favourite for the middle-aged moshpit at their infrequent gigs. The album’s only other actual death is on track 9, the title track ‘Urge for Offal’. Blackwell is famous for his satirical songs about the pretensions of made-up bands and the vanities of the whole music industry, and in several of his songs the protagonists seem to threaten actual violence against those guilty of offending their/his musical tastes. Here by contrast, the suicide of a member of the song’s eponymous band Urge for Offal does evoke real pathos. We can’t help feeling genuine compassion as Blackwell chronicles the sad nostalgia of the band’s erstwhile bassist looking back on “the best days of our lives”, which consisted of little more than “two sh*t gigs supporting HARSH”. The song contains a couple of accomplished spoofs of the kind of clichéd, OTT guitar solos that a band like Urge for Offal would indulge in – but the spoofs are so catchy and full of pathos that, even when I’d only heard this song a few times, I found myself suddenly singing one of them out loud in public … just not the sort of thing I would normally do, but there was me, walking the dog, not even having the excuse of being lost in an iPod reverie, but just suddenly singing a daft overblown guitar solo, out loud.
There seems to be far less compassion for the title character of track 10, one Adam Boyle, who has “cast lad rock aside” and got so far into trendy folk music and so far up his own *rse that he is heading off to the west of Scotland to re-live scenes from ‘The Wicker Man’. A re-make of that classic film with Nicholas Cage was never going to work, but let’s hope that at least Adam Boyle gets his summer-is-a-comeuppance. While there will be plenty of online reviewers telling us that this HMHB album offers “few new departures musically”, this track and the album’s closer do indisputably sound particularly different from anything the band has done before. Fans who have followed the very sparse scraps of information from past interviews that shed any light on the HMHB song-writing partnership will probably conclude that some of the wonderful up-tempo Joy Division/Fall/Pixies/Magazine/post-punk-influenced tunes on this album will probably have been written largely by Neil Crossley, and that he deserves his place as the album’s unaccustomed cover star for that reason alone. They might be more surprised to discover that Crossley wrote this one, and conceived its haunting horn into/outro as well.
[After writing this review, I bumped into Mr. Blackwell at the match and he confirmed that for this album Neil wrote the tunes and played all the guitars in the studio for the following five tracks: ‘Westward Ho!’, ‘The Bane of Constance’, ‘Old Age Killed My Teenage Bride’, ‘Urge for Offal’ and ‘Adam Boyle’s Cast Lad Rock Aside’. It was the fact that he wrote the tune for ‘Adam Boyle’ and not ‘Mileage Chart’ that surprised me most.]
Occasionally when a fan mentions HMHB to someone who has just heard a few tracks, or even only heard of a few tracks, the band are wrongly dismissed a bit of a ‘pub rock’ band. They aren’t of course, but if they were they would probably do it better than any pub rock band, a fact proven by track 11, ‘Stuck up a Hornbeam’. Another elderly protagonist here, but this one seems to have climbed a tree with suicidal intentions and although we never find out the denouement of his attempts at tying a noose, we have plenty of good old-fashioned rock’n’roll laughs along the way.
HMHB’s classic 1993 album ‘This Leaden Pall’ opened with the thrashy, harassing motorway song ‘M-6-ster’. Twenty years on, we are invited on another trip down the same road to close this new album, but the musical accompaniment could hardly be more different. It’s a rare outing for HMHB into funky, relaxing rhythms, reminding us of 2008’s ‘Problem Chimp’, but this time with the instrumentation filled in far more amply. Warm, languid keyboards and a chunky guitar or two wash over us, as Blackwell’s lyrics take us past “The matrix sign near Arley Hall” and past Stoke, until “it starts to crawl”. We imagine Neil driving the band’s Birkenhead Van Hire vehicle down the motorway with Nigel in the passenger seat, as his bassline drives the frontman’s lyrics. This is when we realise that this song isn’t just a love song to the mileage chart in Nigel’s trusty road atlas. “Based upon those calculations, I stayed at home”, he tells the chart …”I think you changed the way I feel”. It’s about his attitude to the music charts, not just the mileage ones, and certainly about his attitude to the work-life balance:
“In limiting my aspirations, a quiet happiness ensues, I never tried to reach for the stars, I never had platform shoes… Armageddon notwithstanding, in Lower Nowhere I will stay; For Higher Calling and tomorrow I couldn’t give …”
We assume for a split second he’s about to say “I couldn’t give a f***. That is probably what he means – but it wouldn’t rhyme, would it? It turns out to be “I couldn’t give an ETA.” “Come what may” he adds, as if reminding anyone concerned of his famous indifference to self-promotion; they shouldn’t expect him to go anywhere, or do anything, as even a polite refusal can offend. So what is the one destination that the song specifically mentions? It’s “Deal”. Not just as in Deal, Kent, far away from home. But presumably as in ‘record deal’… or ‘no record deal’. Through all the myriad of voices and personas adopted by Blackwell in his songs, this may well be the nearest we ever get to a full-on statement of why he turned down the majors (when they dangled him their wages) and why he can never agree to regular gigs and promotional appearances up and down the country – he just can’t do the miles. He tasted the endless touring when the band first burst onto the scene in the mid-eighties, when HMHB sold tens of thousands of records as a result, but it seems that Blackwell hated it and pretty soon couldn’t do it any longer.
So for this latest album there has been the usual well-oiled HMHB promotional routine, i.e. none whatsoever. No promotion, no touring, no interviews, leading to zero reviews in the mainstream media. But this is simply such outstanding song-writing that John Peel’s heirs on 6 Music have eagerly picked up their copies and have been playing enough tracks to push it straight to ‘number 39 in the charts’, and ‘number 13 in the Indie charts’… whatever those numbers are worth these days. If you did compile a chart only for records which have been utterly un-promoted, because the front man simply can’t do it, this album would surely be a chart-topper for months.
For “Lower Nowhere” in that final song we must surely read “Lower Tranmere”. If the release date around Peel’s anniversary was no coincidence, then it was pure fate that the release occurred precisely when Crossley and Blackwell’s beloved Tranmere Rovers Football Club hit rock bottom, 92nd place in the Football League for the first time in nearly 30 years. You can’t change the team you follow, and they will often let you down. But you’re free to change the band you follow, and maybe – just maybe – they never will.
The Uffington Post 