Dear Mr Kershaw, page 18
May the corporation also take this opportunity to extend the heartiest of congratulations to you and your good wife Jean on your recent wedding anniversary. I think buying her flora that can only be described as ‘Flowers of Romance’ was a particularly good and fitting idea. It seems that Jean is a remarkable woman and is clearly the backbone of the Philpott household. She must have remarkable patience and fortitude to stand by you as you spend countless hours hunched over your electronic device tapping out witty retorts to various (fading) rock stars.
So, with the pleasantries duly dispensed with, let us turn to the points you raised most eloquently in your letter. I must say the letter was written with some remarkable aplomb; the many references to the corporation’s work was (as many people have expressed that you should be) particularly well executed. Bravo!
The commercial success of the song in question is well documented, reaching – as it did in many other territories – the upper echelons of the UK pop charts. It remains a popular tune to this day, receiving regular airplay on what you may know as ‘the wireless’ and other media outlets that may be less familiar to a gentleman of your years. The song in fact still remains a contributor to my meagre musician’s royalty income, not bad for half a day’s work 33 years ago! You will know of course through your own due diligence that no other PiL releases before or since have reached the same giddy heights of chart success.
As to the specific lyrical content of the said song; ‘TV behind the curtain’ is clearly, by today’s programme listings that are full of poor quality programmes, the best place to put it… pure genius!
And ‘grabbing the candle’ is very sound advice in my honest opinion (you may abbreviate this to IMHO in today’s common on-line parlance if you wish). Candles should always be held quite firmly as any looseness of grip may find the candle falling from the hand and causing at worst a fire, or at best a nasty burn. Particularly good advice for the elderly! Wax spillages are also terribly difficult to remove from expensive Wilton carpets or those Draylon furniture covers favoured by pensioners.
Another line from the song, ‘Big business is very wise’, is one of the key phrases that Mr Lydon warbles in the song, and should be a reminder to fans and casual commentators such as yourselves that ‘we know better than you’. As Mr Lydon continues to whine, ‘better to have, not to have not’… sagacious advice indeed.
We do all hope that Mr Nagle remains successful, as he sounds just as remarkable a leader as our own beloved CEO, though I am sure he no longer frequents The Baker’s Arms as it is now part of an awful gastropub chain, some reviews of which are, alas, unfavourable. The pub, rather like Public Image Limited, appears a former shadow of its 1983 self, despite the current employees and clientele.
I do hope I have dealt with your correspondence in an appropriate and decorous manner and all that remains is on behalf of the 45 or so employees of the corporation (41 of whom sadly have been made redundant over the years) to wish you well for 2015 and hope you manage to enjoy the little time you have left. Should you come into personal contact with dear Mr Lydon, do please pass on my gratitude and thanks for all he has done for my career over the years and at the same time, please ask ‘When can I expect to get paid?’
Warmest regards,
Pete Jones
Chief bass operator, Department S
Dear Tenpole Tudor. It appears from your ‘’promotional video’’ that there are only ten of you, which, by my reckoning, adds up to 100 swords per person. I fear that such an excess of heavy weaponry each (especially considering that the enemy is by your own admission a mile away), combined with your already having imbibed a barrel or much, much more, adds up to a battle strategy that is not ‘’Wunderbar’’ at all!
Dear Metallica,
In your ''doom classic''' Wherever I May Roam you confusingly claim that the road becomes your bride, so in her you do confide. I am intrigued as to how one may both speak with candour and become matrimonially connected to an elongated tarmac strip, Sirs. Personally speaking, even were such boulevard bonding to be possible, which is admittedly doubtful, I am not sure that I would be too comfortable with the concept of other vehicles (such as the Austin Rover, Audi Wanderer, Frazer Vagabond and Chevrolet Nomad to which you refer in the first person) or pedestrians traversing 'my' arterial spouse after a wedding ceremony, given that said journeyings could be construed as acts of infidelity. One may be inclined to blockade one's thoroughfare spouse as soon as it is possible after vows have been exchanged, to prevent such asphalt duplicities
Dear The Members,
Re: Sound of The Suburbs
As much as my wife Jean and I enjoy doing the washing up to your ‘angsty anthem’, which we found last night in the attic featured on a ‘compilation CD’ of the same name, one fears that the hubbub referenced therein may be atypical of most conventional city outskirt brouhaha.
It is to be conceded, The Members, that an old man washing his car, your mum in the kitchen cooking Sunday dinner, and a woman next door just sitting and staring outside are not abnormal peripheral metropolitan activities as exercised by ‘Normal People’ per se. One does struggle, however, unless he is using a particularly noisy hose and both ladies and their immediate environs are, to use a technical term no doubt familiar to you pop stars, ‘heavily mic’d up’, to comprehend how said perpetrations may in any way be provincially audible.
Furthermore, unless of course you are referring to a Crowthorne-based woman known to lure nearby sailors to their deaths, one finds it difficult to conceive as to how it may be possible to be individually pestered by mechanical warning circuitry. Are you absolutely certain that a Broadmoor siren won’t leave you alone?
On a marginally non-germane note, I am slightly confused that you ask Johnny, who stands at his window at the night, what he is listening to, when to visually observe does not necessarily require stimuli discernible to the human ear.
All told, sirs, your humble correspondent, representing, I am confident, ‘We The People’, feels justified in declaring that until a full explanatory reply is forthcoming, ‘These Are The Unresolved Issues Of The Suburbs’.
I remain yours sincerely,
Derek Philpott
PS Jean wonders, with regard to your erstwhile ‘lead singer’ Nicky Tesco, if he has any children, and if so, does he refer to any of the little ones as Tesco Express?
Dear Mr Philpott,
Re: These Are The Unresolved Issues Of The Suburbs
Looking at the lyrics to Sound of the Suburbs and seeing your analysis sent me spinning back in a vortex to 1978 when the original idea for the song entered my head. I shall address your concerns as to the ‘flawed logic’ of the lyrical content of the song later on in my communication but first I must ‘set the scene’ as it were for this song…
At the time the artistic movement called punk rock was in its infancy and there was a popular misconception that it was an urban movement that was the property of a small coterie of inner city ‘cool kids’, art students, fashionistas and the like. However, I noticed at the time that lots of youngsters from the outskirts of London began to attend our concerts. I saw in these fans two things: hunger for something different and the urgent desire to escape from what all teenagers see as a mundane life at home with their parents. These same teenagers had of course been brought up watching television where the frequent message was city = glamour and excitement; suburbs = boring. Some of them even wore their suburban dullness with pride and fashioned badges with the names of the depressing little hamlets they came from: ‘Hampton Crew’ (Mike Lacey, Neville Topping), ‘Edgware Crew’, etc. If I may paraphrase the late great Whitney Houston, I too believe that children are our future and at the time believed that these kids were actually in the ascendancy – they bought records and it was them who represented the majority of the UK as opposed to the aforementioned inner city cool kids. Ergo, I set about the task of writing them an anthem, a hymn to the mundanity they came from.
I was well suited to this task as my formative years were spent in a hamlet called Lightwater in Surrey, a place so impossibly unremarkable it made nearby Camberley seem like a metropolitan centre of the highest sophistication. Now I have set the scene, I will address your concerns as to the lyrical content of this song.
I take your point that washing a car and cooking dinner are not particularly noisy occupations. This nascent grammar schoolboy poet was trying to convey the impression that the ‘sound of the suburbs’ was the sound of ‘nothing’ because there was nothing happening. In short I tried to set a quiet scene so the punk rock electric guitar could explode through the monotony, complete with Heathrow jets roaring overhead and the ubiquitous Broadmoor siren.
I am sad to say that although I did for a short time have a girlfriend in nearby Sandhurst, the siren was not the Crowthorne femme fatale you allude to but a mechanical device similar to an air raid siren used to warn the people of Crowthorne and Camberley that an inmate had escaped from what a less politically correct world called a maximum security prison for the criminally insane, aka Broadmoor Hospital. This siren was tested without fail every Monday morning; its sound was clearly audible and impossible to block out and during my growing up years provided me with a regular and inescapable reminder of where I lived.
So there we are. In my defence I submit that these ‘unresolved issues of the suburbs’ are in part schoolboy poetic licence and the complicated mixing of ‘sound’ with metaphors.
All this artistic endeavour would have been impossible without the charismatic leadership and songwriting skill of Mr Nick Tesco and the dogged enthusiasm of other Members, to wit Mr Chris Payne, Mr Nigel Bennett and the (many are called but few are chosen) drummers that have honoured The Members’ drum seat which is currently occupied by Mr Nick Cash (his real name and whose name was in part inspiration for the lead singer’s re-christening as Nick Tesco). And to answer your good wife Jean, Nick Tesco does have children, though he is more inclined to refer to them as Tesco Excess than Express.
I hope this communication finds you as it leaves me in Excellent Rude Health.
JC Carroll
West Byfleet
Dear Anvil,
My wife Jean runs a small cottage industry called Philpottery from our home, making clay pop star animal fridge magnets such as Lady BudgeriGaGa, James HetField Mouse, Lion Tatler, ChimpanZZTop, Piggy Stardust, Nine Inch Snails, Swanny Rotten, Sharc Bolan, Axolotl Rose, Sheep Trick and Cheetah Gabriel.
Up until yesterday she was running the business from a dining tray on her lap on our sofa. However, after Moose Dickinson’s antlers came off when she got up quickly to answer the phone and, inspired by listening to you at that very moment on Spotify, we resolved to invest in a self assembly IKEA stainless steel work table. Our decision was primarily based on listening to one of your ‘pre-thrash crowd pleasers’, on the assumption that a ‘Metal On Metal’ nuts, bolts and alloy construct would be both light and sturdy and help ‘stop me’ putting my back out when lifting.
Sadly, far from being what I craved, many difficulties were encountered when putting it together. The legs were uneven, which, instead of achieving stability, made it keep on rocking, keep on rocking, and I distinctly remember getting quite angry when trying to manually screw a wingnut into a fiddly right angle to hear you correctly observe that thumbs will twist.
In the end, we had no option but to return the half-finished item to the retailer and exchange it for a more practical (if less aesthetically pleasing) alternative, of which there were many.
With this in mind, and in order that others may not feel the grind that Jean and I have experienced, we would be most grateful to hear a re-recorded version as soon as possible, entitled possibly ‘Timber on Timber’, ‘MDF on MDF’ or ‘Hardboard on Plywood’, as soon as possible.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
Dear Derek,
Great to hear from you.
Sorry to hear you have had difficulties with your Ikea decision....
‘WHEN CHAINS OF DEATH HAVE BEEN UNLEASHED’.. with furniture assembly tasks, make sure you don’t cut yourself leaving ‘BLOOD ON THE ICE’....and always remember buying at Ikea you always ‘PAY THE TOLL’ along with you ‘GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR’......‘DON’T YOU WORRY, DON’T YOU SWEAT......I HAVE A METHOD THEY HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF YET’.....‘WHEN DAMN NATION HAS BEGUN’.....
Read the ****ing instructions or you ain’t got a ‘HOPE IN HELL’!
Best,
Anvil
Dear The Alabama 3,
I write as a matter of urgency.
It is my normal custom upon rising after a good night’s sleep to start the day with a bowl of Bran Flakes and a cup of Earl Grey. Today, however, I was dismayed to find upon opening the cupboard that the carton was fourteen days past its sell-by date, the exceeded high-fibre consumption deadline going some way to solving the mystery of nigh on a week’s worth of soggy breakfasts. Deciding against the only other option in the house, namely my wife Jean’s rather staid (in my opinion) Quaker Oats So Simple, I opted to turn the irksome situation to my advantage by popping into Café Riva on Overcliff Road and treating myself to a read of the Daily Express, a double espresso and a toasted teacake.
Imagine therefore my considerable alarm and discountenance upon settling my bill and turning to hear your ‘Country Rave Offering’ at the start of a programme on the television behind the counter about an opera singer driving to work. Not only had you (through means unknown) been somehow tracking my movements since I roused, which is unsettling enough, but your lead singer, The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love, was now without my permission incorrectly proclaiming your covert findings for all to hear. Most distressing of all, his gravelly misenunciation was extremely likely to result in our living room, which my wife Jean is particularly rigorous in keeping tidy, being severely disarrayed in the near future.
This is hardly the standard of behaviour expected of a man of the cloth.
To be perfectly clear, The Alabama 3, I woke up this morning and got myself a bun. I must therefore insist that if you must pursue your directive of advertising my daily errands to all and sundry, and in order that a warrant to search Philpott Place is not issued on the grounds of suspected contravention of Section 1 of The Firearms Act 1968, your ‘propulsive hip-hop staple’ be removed from the public domain or veraciously re-recorded immediately upon receipt of this missive.
Although I am less concerned with regard to a further oversight vis-à-vis your assumption that I was born under a bad sign (I am in actual fact a Libran; intuitive and fair, according to Russell Grant), I can fully understand how one may be cursed, being put in mind of a young lady whose waters broke beneath a tattoo parlour in Bournemouth recently, which bore the placard ‘Ears Pearced While U Wait’.
I look forward to your prompt action in resolving the sorry matter above-mentioned and sincerely hope that this can be achieved amicably without recourse to a civil action.
Yours,
Derek Philpott
PS With regard to your pop group name, I was intrigued to discover through the perusal of a renowned ‘online information tool’ that you are neither Alabamian nor have the stated number of musicians in your ‘lineup’, and wonder whether, as a harmonious counterpoint, there exists in the relevant southeastern region of the United States a similar combo meeting both criteria known as The Brixton Nine. Also, given that your billing is often abbreviated to ‘A3’, whether this has at any time caused confusion when ordering posters at Prontaprint to publicise your ‘Acid Hoedowns’.
Dear Mr Philpott,
It is with great concern that I reply to this missive. You are obviously labouring under delusions that a teacake is a bun.
According to The Health Food and Safety Regulation Act 1973, a teacake does not have self-raising flour in it.
A bun, according to the Act, is characterized by a self-raising flour constituent. It is so very disappointing in this day and age, to hear again another tragic story so indicative of the neglect into which we allow our older members to fall.
You have obviously been bereft of the appropriate legal advice and consequently, your heart-wrenching letter has elicited this response.
Your concern for out of date high-fibre content, and your wife’s dependence on Oats So Simple, says so much about the issues that concern Alabama 3 vis-à-vis the staple diet of the elderly, and the failure of successive governments to address their breakfast issues adequately.
We hope that your abandonment of your wife Jean did not necessitate a visit from the social services, based on your absence… it is quite common that men of your age come home after a long teacake session, to find that their vulnerable wives have run off with the local orthopedic gym instructor.
Further to your enquiries whether there is a doppelgänger group of musicians called Brixton 9… certainly hope so.
And furthermore, your reference to Prontaprint and the relevant sizes of paper being A1, A2, A3 or A4… I suggest if you still have the use of your mobility scooter, let’s keep it that way… we suggest maybe not waking up and getting yourself a bun, but making sure that your cupboards are stocked with fresh porridge oats, in which you’ll find fibre, and which will keep you and your long suffering wife regular.
Love, Larry Love
PS Have you got any contact in Dignitas, where we can maybe work out a group discount?
Dear The Inspiral Carpets,
Re: Dragging Me Down
Within the above ‘baggy smash’ you state that you would search the world for me even though I can’t imagine, add that you want to take me to China and, alarmingly, kiss me in Rome, and state that you would use rocket ships, mine sweepers and transistor radio receivers.
