Photo by Kate Garner
❚ A LAVISHLY DESIGNED OBITUARY of Stephen Linard written by me appears in today’s Evening Standard online and stands as a well-deserved memoir for one of my best friends…
➢ The life of Stephen Linard – A flamboyant Canvey Island boy who went on to shape the Blitz Kids silhouette in the 1980s
Posted in biography, death, fashion illustrations, journalism, London, New Romantics, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, zeitgeist
Tagged Blitz Kids, fashion, Stephen Linard
❚ ONE OF THE GREATEST post-war crusading journalists has died after a lifetime of championing frank journalism and regularly criticising the mainstream media. In 2002, John Pilger said that “many journalists now are no more than channellers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth”.
Though aged only 28 when named in the British Press Awards as Journalist of the Year 1967, Pilger became the backbone of the Daily Mirror’s revolutionary investigative Mirrorscope sections – four-pagers twice a week – when the tabloid respected for its humanity was selling 5million copies a day (long before The Sun posed any kind of threat), the world’s highest English-language circulation.
Pilger was already a mentor for me in 1969 when the paper created its glossy mid-week Mirror Magazine and I joined in my first Fleet Street job, surrounded by the giants of the day.
Pilger spent 23 years with the Mirror, through what proved a golden age for British journalism. It was not to last. In a landmark New Statesman column in December 1991 he reflected on how popular journalism had been hijacked by both “the monster” Robert Maxwell, who lucked into buying the Mirror after a management cock-up and reduced its sales to an all-time low, and by Rupert Murdoch whose Sun had overtaken its rival’s sales by creating an agenda of sexism, racism and voyeurism. Pilger savaged the journalists in both camps for their cynicism.
His later career included more than 60 hard-hitting ITV documentaries which won Bafta and Emmy awards. The activist Noam Chomsky said of him: “John Pilger’s work has been a beacon of light in often dark times.” Playwright Harold Pinter described him as “fearless”. Pilger’s is a voice we still need to hear.
❏ John Pilger, 9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023
➢ Pilger’s own informative website
➢ Heroes Paperback – 1 Feb 2001 – John Pilger’s autobiography
Posted in journalism, obituaries
Tagged Daily Mirror, John Pilger, Mirrorscope, Murdoch, Robert Maxwell, Rupert
The Evening Standard newsroom in 1969: viewed from the features desk where Yrs Truly worked… Editor Charles Wintour is just visible on the back bench before the far windows at about two-o’clock [© Shoe Lane archive]
The day titled Information is Close at Hand is organised by artist Eloise Hawser and it starts 12:30pm with a local walk informed by the working lives of newspaper distributors on Shoe Lane.
From 3:30-5pm there’s Hot Mettle, a hands-on session in the library using 1970s hot-metal printing objects and paraphernalia to create newspaper collages.
Shoe Lane is a back-street deeply connected to the industries producing printed news, the one-time home to the headquarters of the Daily Sketch, the Evening Standard, and the International Press centre. It was also a base for the various allied trades involved in printing and distribution.
❏ Shoe Lane Library is at 1 Little New Street, London, EC4A 3JR. Nearest stations Blackfriars, Chancery Lane and City Thameslink
Update – Shoe Lane Library talk, L-R: Vic Wilson (Standard distribution veteran), journalist David Johnson and event organiser Eloise Hawser, with the Standard newsroom onscreen
➢ All about the event Information is Close at Hand
Posted in History, journalism, London, newspapers
Tagged Eloise Hawser, Evening Standard, Fleet Street, hot metal, Mental Fight Club, Shoe Lane
Click pic to open the Wham Rap! video in another window … “Man or mouse” Andrew Ridgeley establishes his group’s clubbing credentials in the opening shots of the Wham video by reading my cover story on Club Culture first published in The Face in 1983 and in recent years the No 1 read at Shapers of the 80s!
❚ OVER THE PAST 14 YEARS Shapers of the 80s has received 2.2 million views, according to year-ending stats measured by our host, WordPress. Our 850+ published items total half-a-million words, which is several times more than most books, so it pays to explore the various navigation buttons. Here are the half dozen posts which remained among the most popular with readers during 2022…
➢ Photos inside the Blitz Club, exclusive to Shapers of the 80s
➢ 69 Dean Street and the making of UK club culture – evolution of the once-weekly party night (1983)
➢ 20 gay kisses in pop videos that made it past the censor
At the Underground club in NYC 1981: Melissa Caplan rehearses Bob Elms, Mandy d’Wit and Sade Adu for the Axiom runway show. Right, Ollie “the snip” O’Donnell goes to work on singer Tony Hadley’s hair. Photographed by © Shapersofthe80s
➢ Posing with a purpose at the Camden Palace — power play among the new non-working class (1983)
Posted in Blitz Kids, Clubbing, Fashion, journalism, London, New Romantics, nightlife, photography, Pop music, readership stats, Swinging 80s, zeitgeist
Tagged 69 Dean Street, Andrew Ridgeley, Ashes to Ashes, Axiom fashion, Blitz club, Bob Elms, Camden Palace, David Bowie, gay kisses, Mandy d’Wit, Melissa Caplan, Ollie O'Donnell, Rusty Egan, Sade Adu, Spandau Ballet, Steve Strange, The Face, Tony Hadley, Wham!
Martin Creed meets Your Truly: at the London Art Fair last January (© selfie)
❚ THIS YEAR I ENJOYED a madcap chance meeting at the London Art Fair with Martin Creed, artist, musician and multimedia performer noted for his wayward dress sense as a living sculpture. Our paths first crossed in 2001 just before he won the annual Turner Prize for what some described as Creed’s “most notorious work” – Work No. 227: The lights going on and off – in an empty gallery. I had stumbled across his gentle but subversive wit in Paris in 1996 at an identical light display, and then back in London found his Work No. 140: A sheet of A4 paper torn up in the shop at the Institute of Contemporary Art. It cost me a tenner. A surefire investment.
Coincidentally, when Creed was nominated for the Turner Prize in June 2001, a similar piece titled A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball was reported being sold for £2,000. My boss at The Sunday Times, who knew I was a collector, insisted I interview him for News Review and ask him whether my piece was also worth £2,000. Here below you can read the feature that resulted…
Creed subsequently won that Turner Prize, and the years since then have been fertile for the audacious artist. Creed’s website lists his latest work during lockdown as No. 3725 Live at home, though he has also been actively touring the world this year. Heaven knows how the current economic dramas must be corroding the value of my torn-up £10 masterpiece.
Click on the image below to read in a new window
Martin Creed featured in The Sunday Times, 3 June 2001
➢ Visit Martin Creed’s website – with video discussion of the crumpled ball of paper
Posted in art, collecting, journalism
Tagged investment, London Art Fair, Martin Creed, Sunday Times, Turner Prize
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
➢ Search for all on Bowie here
at Shapers of the 80s
✱ “I’m not a rock star” Bowie often said – No, David, you were a messiah – Obituaries and key videos on the godlike one
✱ Prince Rogers Nelson RIP: ‘A funny cat’ and ‘sole authentic genius’ of the 1980s
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 