Bonzo Blog Blah Blah

Yet another friend of the sixties who still has his own hair is this gentleman, who's name escapes me. If anyone can help me out - he is Neil Innes, Roger Ruskin Spear, Rodney Slater, Sam Spoons, Vernon Dudley Bohay Nowell, Bob Kerr or "Legs" Larry Smith - collectively known as the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. I briefly worked with him in a children's home in North London. I remember he came to work on a bicycle and was quite reserved. I guess that was his day job!

If my appalling memory serves me rightly (unlikely, but stranger things have happened in the Band) they had already become quite well known by then and had certainly been on the telly, yet no one treated him as special. No one asked for an autograph or went into hero worship mode. I guess this was before the mass hysteria of fame fame fame which seems to haunt so many today. As I recall it, living in Hampstead, he had competition. As students we often went for a wander across Hampstead Heath and commented on the possibility that we might see some pop groups also going for a walk. And we did! I could never work out who was who but I daresay there were some pretty famous names in there.

Students in those days were quite snobbish about who was "in" and "cool" (a word resurrected) and I think Bonzo Dog was not "cool" at that stage. I remember liking them but keeping quiet about it. I had already wrecked what little street credibility I had by playing "I'm a Tiger" by Lulu at a Westfield College gig we did. Someone much more savvy rushed across and quickly changed the record. I was never allowed to be a DJ again! However, I did bump into Tony Blackburn in Kilburn one Sunday morning and I thought about asking for an autograph but all I had with me was a loaf of bread so I just said "Hi". No one was very impressed about that either. Sorry, Tony, and that was before The Goodies got their teeth into you.

Well Bonzo Dog are still on the touring circuit, almost as cheaply as the geriatric trips to the German Christmas markets. More info HERE. As for me, all this excitement has brought back a load more ALMOST FAMOUS memories which I will post another time. Perhaps I could re-write my life in the sixties around the bass guitar I played and finally gave as a present to another friend, Shastri (otherwise known as Mike Hall from Colwyn Bay, read medieval literature at North West London Poly) . Giving up the guitar was a huge symbolic gesture for me. I made my mind up that day that I was not going to be a pop star (a wise decision) and I knew how much Shastri wanted to be one - for all the right reasons - he was totally immersed in it. I hope he got what he wanted and I hope my donation helped along the way. Trouble is, we have all lost touch with him (yes, another one) so if anyone out there can find Shastri let me know.

Pierre

Tags: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band bicycle Hampstead pop cool Lulu Westfield College DJ Tony Blackburn Kilburn Goodies sixties ALMOST FAMOUS Shastri Mike Hall Colwyn Bay North West London Poly

Lord of the Sings

Just something to cheer away the weekend. It won't make Crowbarred's top 1000 tunes but it's good therapy for the terminally insane.

I have not had time to explore this strange web site properly yet but I think it shows promise as one of those wacky doos sites (Did I just invent a new word then?). Anyway, whatever. It was never like this at the Old Bull and Bush on a Saturday night! Enjoy.

Pierre

Link: http://www.compfused.com/directlink/3995/

Tags: Lord of the Rings therapy insane wacky

Brainwashing and Democracy

If anyone asked you what you thought of brainwashing and whether or not it had a place in a free society I expect you would have no problem or hesitation in your answer. Part of what we mean by freedom includes freedom of mind or choice as we would say.

It has long been accepted that our choices are limited by the necessity to have rules and, of course, the making and breaking of those rules constitutes a huge part of the character of our society. It is also accepted that a certain amount of "brainwashing" is required to train and socialise children. It is more commonly known as behavioural psychology. In my own diagnostic career I established very early on that all people can be divided into one of two groups. Generally, my first step, which I thought of as an orientation procedure, was to classify a patient/client into an over socialised or an under socialised person. Delinquent behaviour, for example, could be caused by lack of supervision in a child who has been allowed to run wild or rebellion by a child who has been surrounded by rules. These are neat opposites which, therefore, indicate a solution in the area of increasing or decreasing structure. Obviously, it is crucial that the therapist is clear about which is which.

As well as finding the right solution it is necessary to devise a little procedure which can be followed over and over again. Life is structured around big things and little things, nice things and chores, all with different levels of importance and appeal. The trick is to take something the child wants and make it conditional upon something you want the child to do. All this works much better if you put a positive spin on it. So, lets suppose the child wants to go out to play. Your answer might be "Yes, you can go out just as soon as you finish your tea". This is far preferable to threatening the child with "No, your'e not going out because you haven't finished your tea". The reason a positive spin works better is because it keeps the focus on what you both want to achieve instead of allowing the agenda to be hi-jacked by an argument about what neither of you wants.

So there it is. Once we nasty psycho-babblists came along we opened the door to all kinds of thought control. If only you knew!

First off the mark were the greedy money makers - sales and advertisers. The shocking statistic, which inspired this piece, is that on average, each of us is exposed to around 500 adverisements per day. Now, I don't care how much trite rubbish they dig out to defend the need to advertise in a capitalist society. My concern is quantity. Many, many television adverts are run over and over and over again at every commercial break. Why? There is only one sane and reasonable explanation. We are being bombarded by brainwashing techniques. And the scale of it is greater than most psychologists and most parents achieve in socialisinmg their children. Shock. Horror.

One of my pet mental procedures is to contemplate where a currently popular idea will be in 50 or 100 years time. I predict that at some time in the future there will be a mass revolt against what will be called psychological abuse, akin to child abuse, and that it will radically alter the world of advertising for ever. People will become very conscious of all forms of thought control and it will be akin to racism, sexism etc to attempt to enter someone's mind without permission. I think the idea of psychological rape is already understandable in our society and that is a huge leap forward.

In my next piece I will take a look at the economics of this hollow freedom to persuade. What would happen to society if we took out huge chunks of advertising making millions redundant. Would it cause a world recession? Would it affect climate change?

In the meantime, may I recommend that you do what I have done for a good long time and hit the MUTE button when the ads come on.

Pierre

Tags: brainwashing democracy freedom choice rules society behavioural psychology diagnosis delinquent supervision rebellion child structure solution conditional positive spin agenda hi-jack statistics advertisements capitalist television abuse economic mute

Paul Hillier, Friend

We don't know, at the time, which events in life will stand out like a beacon across the years. Sometimes it is the simplest and silliest of things that become a part of our personal treasure chest.

Until October 1967 I had grown up in a provincial northern town, Halifax, in what was then the West Riding of Yorkshire. Life was a challenge, both intellectually and personally. Intellectually, because I had become a born again pentecostal believer some years earlier and was now having doubts about the validity of that. I was about to take that particular strand into a whole new dimension as I embarked upon my degree course in Theology at Kings College, London. Personally, because less than a year earlier, I had said goodbye to my parents and brothers, Richard and Mark, as they emigrated to New Zealand on one of the last of the assisted passage schemes, for the princely sum of £10.

That day I was the best man at my older brother's wedding (Paul Rayner) and went straight from the reception to the train station, bound for London. I was not, at that time, comfortable with London and, although outspoken, actually quite terrified inside. Perhaps I should have been called Hornblower!

My life changed forever, that day. I never again lived in Halifax. It was the end of childhood, suddenly and irrevocably.

Like the curtain rising on a new act in a play I entered New College, Theological College and Hall of Residence, that evening not knowing what lay before me. Hearing the commotion, the student next door came out and introduced himself, Paul Hillier. He, too, was just starting out, but in a very different field. He was a singer at the Guildhall School of Music. He had milk, a precious commodity for a student and made me a very welcome cuppa.

I don't know who else I met that night. In the days that followed there were many others and we became quite a notorious gang. But that night was special. It was a rite of passage night. There could have been no one finer to share it with. Paul was always so unassuming, relaxed and yet passionate in an absorbing way about whatever he did. I think he saw life as like a garden full of beautiful things just waiting to be plucked. For me, also a man of passion, there is always an issue. For Paul, there is passion without either effort or issue. That's why he is so suited to music.

Inevitably, our destinies took us in different directions. I suppose I last saw him around 1970, maybe even 1969, when I moved out of New College. A few years ago, I started looking for old friends on the internet, and had some remarkable finds. At that time Paul was nowhere to be found. Now, I have a very peculiar disability. I forget people's names. I once, famously, forgot my French teacher's name for 3 days and she had been teaching me for four years. This disability is compounded by the fact that many of these old friends had nicknames, so we never used their real names anyway. Paul was called Will Thatcher (long before there was another famous Thatcher!) because of his West Country twang and homliness. This was further developed when 2 of us found a gravestone in Winchester Cathedral to one Will Thatcher who died of drinking hot toddy.

Anyway, I digress. My search for long lost friends continued today when I quite accidentally spotted the credits in a listing for a BBC TV programme about the notorious pirate, Blackbeard. Among the contributors/actors is one James Hillier. Ahh! said I. That's his name. Paul Hillier. From that to a search engine to Paul's web site was then quite simple. In fact there is a second one here.

Paul, it turns out, is not only famous and successful. He is at the very top of his profession with something like 80 recordings and associations all over the world. Moreover, he must be one of the few children of the 60s who still looks much the same, even down to the hair!

I was so pleased that Paul had fulfilled the potential that was always so clearly there from the outset and I can see in his pictures that he hasn't changed at all in his nature. I am proud to say that for me he was and I hope always will be, quite simply, my friend.

Pierre

Tags: Paul Hillier Halifax pentecostal theology Kings College London New Zealand assisted passage Hornblower New College Guildhall School of Music rite of passage singer passion music Winchester Will Thatcher Blackbeard friend