I cried all the way to the chip shop

Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me
I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop
No hope, no harm, just another false alarm
When I came out there was Gordon standing at the bus stop

Now, like you, I reckon I can identify with both sets of lyrics. Personally, I am touched beyond reason that people as far apart and close together as Steven Morrissey and Jilted John could possibly share the same day of birth 50 years ago today. Thanks to Jilted John, I’d long thought that Graham Fellows was a one-off in our cultural milieu. Whereas the boy with the thorn in his side always knew that he had started something he couldn’t finish. Busy as I was, trying in vain to project the image of a serious funster on the world, I shouldn’t have been listening to Jilted John – such a punk parody, although John Peel was the first to champion it. Truth be told, punk was over long before Jilted John hit the airwaves in July 1978. But, very catchy it was. And, let’s face it, if you’ve ever been jilted, Gordon is a moron and it is so unfair. Yeah yeah. (Nobody has ever said this but, of course, Jilted John paved the way for The Undertones. Jimmy Jimmy. My Perfect Cousin. And we know whose favourite band they were!). After seemingly disappearing, the singer of this solitary song made things worse. You must remember Graham Fellows as Les Charlton in Coronation Street - a young biker chasing married Gail Tilsley! Gail didn’t fancy him any more than Julie had. He must have been so upset. But, Graham Fellows has tried very, very hard. More famous to most people as comedy character, John Shuttleworth, since as far back as 1986, a man who has shot TV documentaries aimed at discovering whether UK people are nicer the further north you go or softer the further south. Radio Shuttleworth. The fabled four-part TV series, 500 Bus Stops. In 2007, inspired by Jamie Oliver’s better food for schoolchildren campaign, Shuttleworth toured the UK with a stage show entitled With My Condiments. Later in the same year, he recorded 4 Rather Tasty Tracks in a wardrobe, which actually reached number 96 in the UK charts and number 29 in the indie charts. Apparently, he revived his Jilted John character in the 2008 Big Chill festival, where he joined a line-up including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Leonard Cohen. You couldn’t make it up. It goes on. After Jilted John and John Shuttleworth comes another character, rock musicologist, Brian Appleton, one of whose claims to fame is being responsible for the gap in Steve Harley’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) hit. Now, you’re going to have to visit the website (www.shuttleworths.co.uk/brian/index.html).
Back in 1985, Graham Fellows released an album under his own name, Love at the Hacienda. Apparently, it has a cult following in Japan. I’m not surprised. He’s a man who sounds like a cross between Mike Yarwood and Steve Coogan singing The Buzzcocks’ Greatest Hits. And that’s a greater reality than anything virtual to be found in the gadget shops of Akihabara. As for Mozza, well, there never was a man who could coin longer song titles and still be going strong at such a tender age. There is and remains a mystery to Morrissey, that not even Arthur Conan Doyle, born 150 years ago today, could solve. As there was around the late George Best, who also belongs to this day. Have you ever thought how alike they look…George and Steven? I don’t much care for the besuited gangster persona he’s adopted for the past decade…a love of boxing, references to sporting heroes and obsessions with young skinheads that would get Gary Glitter in trouble. Most of this doesn’t work with a man who claims to have the admirable trait of preferring the company of women to men. But he is allowed to change. His official website shows a man, well-worn, at 50. Yet we remember his words. Of his generation, only Ian Curtis and David Sylvian could compare. If these icons had anything in common, perhaps it was a certain diffidence. Shyness is nice. But shyness can stop you doing all the things in life you’d like to. In my case, it was the 80s that stopped me. Yet the wreck of my 80s would have been even more unbearable without The Smiths. The Smiths appeared in the spring of 1983, exactly at the time I decided that I was too old for pop music and took up cookery instead. We became acquainted with each other because I had made the logical decision that the best way to learn to cook was to become vegetarian. Whereas The Smiths’ first album had passed me by, their second hit me between the eyes. Meat Is Murder said it all in early 1985. I fell in love with Morrissey not so much through his music but through his vegetarianism and accompanying support for animal rights. It was The Smiths’ only album to reach number one in the UK charts. I saw Morrissey live only once. 5th November, 2002. Brixton Academy. Tonight, on his 50th birthday, he’s actually playing live at the Manchester Apollo. Good for him. And him. Steven Morrissey and Graham Fellows. 50 today. These men have touched your lives. Now my heart is full. And I just can’t explain. So, I won’t even try to.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk