Category Archives: journalism

2023 ➤ Join me recalling the heady days of Fleet Street’s newspaper industry

Posted on 1 Apr 2023 | Leave a comment

journalism history newspapers, press, library, Evening Standard, Shoe Lane, hot metal,

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]

❚ I’LL BE ONE OF FOUR PEOPLE discussing the heyday of Fleet Street newspapers when I worked at the Evening Standard in the 1970s and 80s – on Monday 6:15-7:45pm in the Shoe Lane Library, behind the former Daily Express building on Fleet Street. Remember my trendy column titled On The Line? All free, so do join us.

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

Journalism, Evening Standard, Shoe Lane, hot metal, library talk, Eloise Hawser, Vic Wilson, David Johnson

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

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➤ Hottest Shapers during 2022

Posted on 31 Dec 2022 | Leave a comment

Andrew Ridgeley , Wham Rap, video, Face magazine, Club Culture,

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)

➢ Why Bowie recruited Blitz Kids for his Ashes to Ashes video in 1980 from the club-night founded by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan

➢ 20 gay kisses in pop videos that made it past the censor

➢ First Blitz invasion of the US —
Spandau Ballet and the Axiom fashion collective take Manhattan by storm (1981)

NYC,Axiom,Melissa Caplan, Sade, Elms, Tony Hadley, Ollie O'Donnell

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)

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2022 ➤ Reunion with Martin Creed, the artist who might yet make me rich

Posted on 31 Dec 2022 | Leave a comment

Martin Creed, London Art Fair, living sculpture, concart,

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

The Sunday Times, Martin Creed, living sculpture, art, journalism

Martin Creed featured in The Sunday Times, 3 June 2001

➢ Visit Martin Creed’s website – with video discussion of the crumpled ball of paper

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➤ Captured in 1983: the Westwood-McLaren showdown

Posted on 30 Dec 2022 | 1 comment

Over two weeks I watched fashion gurus Westwood
and McLaren go their separate ways. Daggers-drawn,
they both talked exclusively to the Evening Standard…
Mine were the final pix of them together

Paris fashion, 1983, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, Worlds End, post-punk

Their last dance, Paris 1983… Westwood says: “Malcolm has one more chance to be good.” McLaren says: “I’m not incapable of designing the next collection myself.” Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s

➢ Click here to read my enhanced version about the day
the King and Queen of Outrage realised
the end was nigh, in 1983

First published in the Evening Standard, 4 Nov 1983

➢ Obituary for Dame Vivienne Westwood 1941-2022 at The Guardian

➢ BBC’s in-depth tribute to Vivienne – the godmother of punk

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Posted in BBC, Fashion, History, interviews, journalism, London, obituaries, Paris, Pop music, Swinging 80s, Tributes, Youth culture

Tagged Evening Standard, Malcolm McLaren, The Face, Vivienne Westwood, Worlds End

➤ Rusty Egan: next stop, St Leonards-on-Sea?

Posted on 5 Dec 2022 | 1 comment

Egan onstage at the Palladium in 2019: video grab by Willy Billiams

David Johnson, editor of Shapersofthe80s, writes:

❚ OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS the musician Rusty Egan has aimed a stream of potentially defamatory abuse against me publicly online and in emails, questioning my motives as a journalist, all fuelled by his imagination rather than fact.

In order to protect my professional reputation in the eyes of colleagues in the national media, I had, in correspondence with him and his manager David Japp of Lookbook Ltd, demanded Egan withdraw his accusations and apologise by midday today. A simple apology at Facebook would avoid consequent legal action via the courts, yet no such undertaking has been received. Both men have rejected my emails, while Egan has blocked me at Facebook.

Never mind… We’ve had a glorious bright autumn morning here in London with the trees finally stripped of their canopies and the grass bright green underfoot… So it would be a shame to spend another penny on this dismal dispute. Contrary to his recent observations, Egan’s contribution to the Eighties as a clubland innovator is well documented here on this website. As for recent years, let’s say that recollections differ, and you can gauge for yourself his progress on his page at Wikipedia.

Only the other day he was feeling wistful about taking a comfy retirement in St Leonards-on-Sea with a Rusty dog for company. Who knows…?

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 2013 – Visage: out of the 80s frying pan into the 21st-century fire

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 2019 – Ever wondered how Rusty Egan does what he does?

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Posted in dispute, journalism, Media, Pop music

Tagged David Japp, Facebook, LookbookLtd, Rusty Egan