Everybody's happy nowadays

When The Buzzcocks released the single by this name 30 years ago today theirs was an oblique strategy. As far as they were concerned, everybody was far from happy at all. But they were damned if they were going to have it like that. Admittedly, back then, I just wanted a lover like any other (but what did I get?). Today, 30 years on, I’m a strong critic of doom mongers, particularly the gleeful BBC News tendency to see the cup not only as three quarters empty, but cracked and full of bacteria probably picked up in a NHS hospital stuffed full with suicidal bankers and the terminally obese. I’m glad that Mandelson had a go at the Starbucks CEO for talking down the UK marketplace last week. We don’t need Americans to do that for us. We’re pretty good at it ourselves. Well, Pete Shelley refused to be part of it 30 years ago and I refuse to be part of it now. Certainly not on the second day of March. A day when I saw my first ever gig at Trentham Gardens in Stoke. Status Quo. A day when D H Lawrence died, but Lou Reed was born and is 67 years strong. Life’s an illusion, love’s a dream? Everybody’s saying things to me, but I know it’s OK, OK.

Mark Griffiths www.idealconsulting.co.uk