the dandy unperson, from the dead centre year of the Bad Music Era
both Mancunian, Burgess and Moz
is the book choice an early indication of right-wing tendencies?
(1985 being a proto-Thatcherite dystopia / cacotopia - published 1978 - of near-future UK dominated by trade unions - and featuring a gang of hooligan truants from comprehensives where all the classes are about labour history and the crimes of British imperialism, who are hungry for literary mindfood and who hire a fired teacher to school them in the classics - the bookish thug = Moz wet dream)
cf the similarly eve-of-Thatcher Tory-fantasy-of-bureaucratic-socialist-dystopia 1990 by Wilfred Greatorex (wot a name!)
Ah I only just noticed the playful twist - in his other hand, an image of Paul Weller reading 1984
as it happens, Burgess started out as a socialist, then reverted to his parents's conservatism.
Another eve of tatcher bureaucratic distopia: the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, first aired 1978, Vogons are the ultimate bureaucrats, they can take life out of galaxies just by asking for original and three copies of everything, politicians are useless, but private enterprise is so efficient they can even reconstruct planets.
ReplyDeleteyes that's very true!
ReplyDeletei listened to that show on the radio at the time, loved it - and also loved the theme song
imagine my shock to discover decades later it was by the Eagles!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/virginvschad/comments/8wtgca/the_smiths_virgin_vs_the_morrissey_chad/
ReplyDeleteI was surprised the theme song of Miami Vice was made by Glenn Frey of the Eagles, pretty cool song
ReplyDelete