Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
. Terrorist outrages were as much a thing in the 1970s as they are today, but the protagonists and their causes were often different and their method, if crude, was in many respects more audacious and daring. To some extent this was down to the fact that surveillance methods were less well developed and thus […]
Continue ReadingThere are so many things the 1970s will rightly be remembered for – glam rock, tank tops, flares and platforms, big hair, cold wars and cod wars, the fuel crisis, the unburied dead, power cuts, strikes, trades union militancy, the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust, the Goodies, the long hot summer of 1976 to name but a few. But of all the memories that those of us who are of a certain age refuse to lay to rest, one of the most precious must surely be that of the splendid Lord Toffingham.
Continue ReadingAs a birthday treat to myself I took me along to the O2 Arena in London to see Alice Cooper, 71 years young, performing the London stage of his Ol’ Black Eyes Is Back tour.
Continue Reading. As great sporting rivalries go, they don’t come any more tense or bitter than that which existed between British playboy racing car driver James Hunt and his steely Austrian competitor Niki Lauda. And nowhere did this stark contrast of style and character manifest itself more explosively than in the unforgettable Formula One World Championship […]
Continue Reading. 1976 was an Olympic year, and the choice of Montreal as the host city had, as has so often been the case in more recent years, been to some extent a political decision. It was the Cold War era and the Canadian city had staged its bid in competition with Los Angeles and Moscow. […]
Continue ReadingThere was something else about 1974, and thereabouts, which deserves a mention. Those who, like me, first discovered pop music when it was at its glammiest, in my case during the peak Slade-Sweet-Glitter era of 1972-73, felt just a twinge of disconcertment when the genre seemed to tweak itself in the direction of 1950s nostalgia a year or so later.
Continue Reading. Anybody who remembers the 1970s will recall the sense of stark fear that pervaded during the Cold War, when the West and the Soviet Union fought proxy battles around the world and faced off behind their respective formidable nuclear arsenals. Everyone knew that if the balloon went up there would be no winner, and […]
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