Betty's Utility Room

It's autumn so it therefore follows that the television schedules are ripe to bursting with Autumn Television Gold For All The Family. Or bits of The Family, at least.

Great or good comedy - The Thick Of It (well, for three weeks only), Spoons and another series of Kath & Kim.

As it's autumn, it also follows that there is a weekly documentary series analysing pop music in a slightly pompous way. Step forward 2005's effort, Girls And Boys - Sex And British Pop.

There is a thoughtful weekly review here. Ben admits that he's watching while concurrently reading Jon Savage's excellent but lengthy tome England's Dreaming. Good luck, and keep taking the Pro-Plus, Ben. The programme is also reviewed, complete with unhappy memories, here. Yeah, I know, another shameless plug for the husband's blog. I'm a smarmy, two faced and opportunistic old witch.

This week we reached the 1970's. It's a reasonably enjoyable watch, despite the usual ragbag of pop cliches running riot, and the predictable selection of talking heads making an appearance. Yes, dear old Robert Elms was on hand to tell us what The Working Classes were doing during his youth. I am reluctant to slag off Elmsey as he is one of the funniest people to appear on the box. I can remember him being interviewed by Terry Wogan years ago, bragging that, having just bought a house, it was completely empty apart from one chair - the only thing to have met the rigorous Elms standard of good taste. I should imagine his autobiography is a real hoot, and intend to buy it if it's ever in the HMV sale for a couple of quid.

The bottom line with Elms, and with his old mucker Gary Kemp, was that working clarrss lads like themselves were soul boys, NOT punks (...well, only for about a month. June, 1976. Just before anyone else had heard of it. But they are reluctant to admit that here ...).

From what I can remember, punk was indeed a grammar school boys' fad at the time. Look, I was in the grammar stream at school and can remember punk catching on just past its sell-by date in my provincial comprehensive, but the punks were still outnumbered by lank haired prog rock fans. Not exactly the musical revolution that the makers of Girls And Boys would have preferred to think was really happening.

Of course, as an old duffer, it is always nice to reminisce about the fashions worn in our youth. Seeing Northern Soul girls in their long flippy skirts, ankle socks and granny sandals put me in mind of the trends for ridiculously frumpy shoes in the mid to late 1970's for your teen girl on the street. Jelly shoes! Disgusting plastic sandals! Nurses shoes with ghastly crepe soles! Those Clarke's Nature Trek things which looked like Cornish pasties! I can remember one summer - was it 1976 or 1977? - everybody wearing Jesus sandals. Only a few years before, we would have been laughed out of the classroom, such are the vagaries of fashion. No doubt Robert Elms is already in the process of writing Best Foot Forward - Working Class Shoe Choices As A Cultural Signifier, so I'll say no more no this subject.

So the next programme looks at the 1980's. Which means we'll be seeing

1. Bloody bastard Duran Duran, Spandau and Elmsey frothing at the mouth about the beautiful Working Clarrss ex-soulboy peacocks in their finery at the Blitz club.

2. A clip of Morrissey with the Hanging Gardens Of Babylon in his back pocket "challenging pre-conceived gender classifications". Again.

3. How the bland corporate mid 1980's are given a kick up the arse by the arrival of Housey Housey music. Nationwide, grandmothers wave their biros in the air like they just don't care, shouting "Eee Arr!", gleeful to have won the 50 quid bonus prize.

... speaking of which, one of the best bits of dialogue from Coronation Street emerged circa 1989, when Percy Sugden mulled over Brian Tilsley's recent murder outside a nightclub.

"I blame all this music, you know, this acid drop, this boogie woogie. You go in to one of those clubs, it's like walking into an engine room"

Of course I've not quoted that properly, although that's about the size of it. A shame that Percy isn't one of the talking heads on Girls And Boys.