She’s In Broadstairs just about completes Cammell Laird Social Club* but there are a couple of lines which are big queries, so all suggestions gratefully appreciated in the comments below. It’s not often Nigel’s references go south-east of London (Kent, Rye and the South Downs are the only other ones on Stuart’s map), so it’s a rarity. Thanks to gNick, Sarah, Max, Steve and Neil.
See lyrics to She’s In Broadstairs
Ben
She prized it rather highly
It saved her once in Filey
Thanks for that, I’d been struggling with the first 4 words in each line for years.
I thought it was something “Civic Emulator” whatever one of those is.
Broadstairs Facts
The running on the beach shot in Chariots of Fire was filmed there. Although strangely this isn’t recorded on an extensive list of filming around Broadstairs on it’s wikipedia site – perhaps I’m wrong, though I’m sure I’ve read that a few times.
The most nervous person I’ve ever met came from Broadstairs, girl with big mop of blonde hair, can’t remember her name – I worked with her in a call centre for a couple of years – I have no recollection of her conversing with anyone except to whipser to a colleague who started on the same day as her.
21 May 2009
Daryl
One of my all time favourites, for what it’s worth. It rocks mightily.
Unfortunately I can offer no help on the missing lines, although when I first heard the chorus I thought it went:
Broadstairs
She’s in Broadstairs
She’s in Broadstairs
Eva Braun-stairs.
Which I still think is pretty good…
21 May 2009
Alex
I hear ‘civic regulator’, though I can’t be certain. It’s been bothering me for a some time.
22 May 2009
Alex
By which I of course meant ‘for some time’. Amateur.
22 May 2009
Charles Exford
I always assumed he sang:
Apparently she’s seeing
A bloke who used to be an
(he’s deliberately twisted it virtually to ‘in’ to rhyme]
An acidity regulator
[cos that’d be a good joke – financial, energy, telecoms regulators, etc]
From nearer the equator [= quite an amusing way of saying down South, e.g. Kent]
However, it clearly isn’t ‘acidity’, it sounds more like ‘acidic’.
Acidic regulator ? I think so.
But is it a joke about a daft job title, after ‘an’, or a band nam, after ‘in’ ?
I dunno.
22 May 2009
Fredorrarci
I’m hearing “defibrillator”. Actually, I’m hearing “defribulator”, which I think is a common mispronunciation (common enough that if you search Wikipedia for “Defribulator”, as I just did, it brings you to the entry for “Defibrillation”). I don’t know what the bit before it would be, if this is the case, or how it would fit in with “From nearer the equator”.
22 May 2009
Blue Badge Abuser
The comment above about Broadstairs is incorrect.
The scene from Chariots of Fire was captioned “Broadstairs, Kent” but was filmed at St Andrews in Scotland.
Are we allowed to be pedantic about other pedants’ pedantry?
22 May 2009
Paul F
Allowed? I would have thought it was compulsory.
22 May 2009
Charles Exford
Yes please BBA, since the film had 2 locations within a couple of miles of Prenton ! Some of us were in the Stade Colombes crowd scenes, filmed at Bebington Oval. The cross-Channel ferry in the film departed from Woodside (Birkenhead Ferry).
Nice apostrophe work by the way – a lot of people get St. Andrews wrong. As a top pedant yourself, what do you think of “goalkeepers’ gloves” in “Paradise Lost” ?
22 May 2009
Mr Larrington
@Charles Exford:
You are right. Surely the subject of the song would only have been tossed the gloves of a single goalkeeper?
And whilewe’re at it, how would Mr Whatisname’s on!ons have fared better if he’d spent a fortnight in Dorset than if he’d spent the same length of time in Cuba?
22 May 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Hmmm, I’m not so sure. These are the type of gloves which all goalkeepers use, therefore “goalkeepers’ gloves”, surely? Of course, the song could be referring to the gloves (of any kind) belonging to one particular goalkeeper, in which case it would be the “goalkeeper’s gloves”, but to me it sounds like the object of the song is being tossed any old pair of “goalkeepers’ gloves”.
And how did we start talking about a totally different song on this page anyway? 🙂
22 May 2009
Blue Badge Abuser
I think if it were any old pair of gloves it still wouldn’t be “goalkeepers’ gloves”. That specifically means the gloves belonging to multiple goalkeepers. I think it would be singular.
I remember a very good debate in Private Eye wondering whether it should be called “Pedant’s Corner”, “Pedants’ Corner” or “Pedants Corner”. Not as obvious as you’d think.
While we’re talking about Broadstairs and Chariots of Fire, the red brick building into which they run is actually Hamilton Hall, one of the university’s halls of residence. And that’s about the moment where the film’s executive director is listed on the credits, one Dodi Fayed. And famously, the scene in Trinity College Cambridge was actually filmed at Eton after Trinity refused them permission.
Interesting points about the Stade de Colombes and the ferry – thanks!
22 May 2009
Charles Exford
Pedantically speaking, how can I be right if I only asked the question ?
Anyway, I only half changed the subject. Larrington did it twice, Sir, it was him Sir.
And I suspect his Mr. Galbraith reference is a deliberate reminder to me of my most shameful act of pedantry ever, when I actually interrupted the gig to ask NB that very question…. Never again.
22 May 2009
Chris The Siteowner
The outcome of the Private Eye debate (until it was amusingly closed with the declaration that “Ped’ants Corner” was correct) seemed to be that “Pedants’ Corner” was the safest option. The only persuasive argument against this seemed to be that as the corner did not belong to the pedants, there should be no apostrophe. And in this case, it could be argued that “goalkeepers gloves” are a type of glove, rather than belonging to either a single goalkeeper, or the whole species. So I’d accept the argument for “goalkeepers gloves” over “goalkeepers’ gloves”, but I’d put “goalkeeper’s gloves” a distant third. Unless – as I’ve said – the song is referring to the gloves of a particular goalkeeper. Which it may well be.
If someone wants to write me a WordPress plugin which will rotate the possibilities on an hourly basis, that’d be great.
23 May 2009
DAVE G
Has anyone else noticed the similarity between Broadstairs and Squeeze’s “Up The Junction”? Try singing the lyrics of Up The Junction to Broadstairs – or the other way round, even – and they fit perfectly (apart from Junction having an extra syllable in the first two lines). It’s almost as if verses from Up The Junction were used as the template to Broadstairs……
25 May 2009
Blue Badge Abuser
I still think it’s “goalkeeper’s gloves” meaning “the gloves of an (unspecified) goalkeeper”.
“Goalkeepers’ gloves” is a distant third for me, meaning specifically “the gloves of several goalkeepers” and therefore not a meaning that would crop up except in an unlikely scenario where both goalies threw their gloves to the same spot.
It’s an interesting comparison to “Pedants’ Corner” but in that case it was indeed “the corner belonging to more than one pedant”.
Still, the referee’s decision is final.
Or is that “referees’ decision”? Does “the referee’s decision” refer to the main referee or does it include the other officials? Heh heh.
26 May 2009
Chris H
For ‘She’s in Broadstairs’ I was hearing ‘Senior Regulator’. Senior Regulators work for the International Atomic Energy Agency – what do you reckon?
27 May 2009
Chris The Siteowner
That’s the best suggestion yet, but I still don’t think it’s right, especially as it seems to follow “A bloke who used to be in“…
27 May 2009
Charles Exford
What sounds like “in” may well be “in”, but knowing how much NB likes a challenge and/or a laugh rhyme-wise it could easily be “an”.
For example keep saying something like “I used to be an acrobat” very fast, and /bi:jin/ is certainly one way to pronounce “be an”.
Anyway, it’s more or less exactly the same thing he’s done to make “listen” rhyme with “kissing”, making both sounds into /in/.
Whatever the former job, band, etc is, the word before the word which seems to be ‘regulator’ doesn’t end in a vowel sound like ‘senior’, and seems to end in a hard /k/ …or just possibly a /g/ or /ŋ / pronounced with less ‘voice’, as they sometimes are in a final position.
And shouldn’t the ‘best suggestion’ for whatever it is be … a bit, well.. potentially …._funny_ ?
@ BBA – as I have a correction to make to ‘Paradise Lost’, shall we take this elsewhere ?
27 May 2009
a_p
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/may/31/isle-of-thanet-holiday-margate
“…Thanet’s three neighbouring towns are satisfyingly different, too: Broadstairs, with its curving bay and cute jetty, is the classic seaside haunt…”
‘haunt’ being the operative word I fear, but that’s another story…
1 June 2009
Tom F
I agree with Dave G about the Squeeze similarity.
3 December 2009
garisson
one of my favourite HMHB songs the desperation and obsessiveness of it all just blow me away
20 December 2009
Ben
Was listening to this for the first time for a while last night. It’s just so quintessentially Biscuits.
In that it’s under the radar, like them (not one that gets mentioned much, or played live etc)
A cracking toe-tapping tune.
Middle of nowhere hum-drum British locations name checked.
Nods to other tunes Only Ones, VU (I’m not alone in thinking ‘She’s in Parties’ here am I, or is that blindingly obvious?)
And genius couplets, “Led out/A to Z out” etc.
Put it all together and you’ve got what we love.
Forgive my Pseuds Corner entry.
19 March 2010
Charles Exford
Not at all Ben, you’re spot on.
By the way this was confirmed to me as
“a bloke who used to be in
Acidic Regulator [i.e a band of that name]
From near the equator.”
19 March 2010
Ben
Good work Charles, another crossed off.
20 March 2010
TWO FAT FEET
Should it be Pseud’s Corner? Or Pseuds’? Haven’t seen it for a few years.
6 April 2010
Chris The Siteowner
…or “Pseuds Corner”. Private Eye ran correspondence on this for years, and no conclusion was ever reached. I bet they can spell “weird” right though.
6 April 2010
MIKE IN COV
As well as Squeeze (good spot that), how about:
I’d rendezvous with Janet
Quite near the Isle of Thanet
She looked more like a gannet
She wasn’t half a prannet
Her mother tried to ban it
Her father helped me plan it
And when I captured Janet
She bruised her pomegranate.
Billericay Dickie. RIP Ian Dury (1942-2000).
6 July 2012
John Burscough
See the comments string on ‘Rod Hull Is Alive – Why?’ (Nos 8 + 10) for another possible Squeezalike.
6 July 2012
littlegrafter
The thing that always gets me about this song is what part of it came first. To me I’m on another planet, she’s on the isle of Thanet, is such a good line, that it HAD to be the genesis of the whole song. Otherwise, imagine the scene writing a song about Broadstairs and then suddenly realising that you could Squeeze in the Only Ones nod too. To be honest there’s probably loads of similar cases, but I cant think of any just now.
10 July 2012
MIKE IN COV
@Littlegrafter. Chapeau! Space travel’s in my blood, but your connection had never occurred to me before.
As for the creative process, who knows? I’ve heard musicians say, in effect, OMG we’re going on tour, or, the record company’s hustling us for our overdue album, I’ve got to start writing some songs. I don’t think NB works, or ever could work, like that. It seems to me more likely that, a lyric forces its way into his conscious mind, taking its own time, dragging all sorts of allusions and quotations with it; and then the band transmogrifies it (sorry, couldn’t resist the opportunity to use that word) musically in the way we all love. I couldn’t play such stuff live, even if I had any musical ability, without completely cracking up on stage. Mucho respecto.
10 July 2012
Chigley Skin
Regarding creative process: while browsing through the page of unreleased and unrecorded tracks on Gez’s HMHB site a while back, I was struck by how many of the live songs from the early Nineties read like “proving grounds” for new lyrics. Some of the lines ended up being used in various songs on This Leaden Pall and Godcore, while some were never used at all (to my knowledge).
If you click the link above and scroll down towards the bottom you can see the songs in question, but here’s a quick list of the relevant lines from each song, and where they eventually ended up, albeit with minor alterations in some cases:
LAKELAND FELL WALK
“I saw Dutch veterans Alquin fooling around
On pleasure craft at Chester, no word of a lie” (Doreen)
“Walking up Scafell swinging a chain
Along comes a Wainwright fan, I asked him his name
When he said he was Malcolm of Aramathea
I said ‘I hope you die soon, get off, you cabaret twat’.” (Doreen)
“Why is it when there’s bobsleigh on the television
Everyone says ‘I’d love to have a go at that’?” (Malayan Jelutong)
“Your original Breton shirt’s in the bin
Stromsgodset under fives have found an offy to do
Over there, over there, over there, over there” (Malayan Jelutong)
IT’S A CLEAR DAY (BUT I CAN’T SEE THE POINT)
“It’s a clear day, but I can’t see the point
And anyway, I’m a bit Rachel Heyhoe” (£24.99 From Argos)
“It doesn’t matter what you say, I’m not going to go through
The Armoury Show’s entire back catalogue with you” (Hair Like Brian May Blues)
13 EUROGOTHS FLOATING IN THE DEAD SEA
“Had the loft converted back into a loft” (Friday Night & The Gates Are Low)
“Like the front of an Anglia, you look surprised” (Doreen)
“Wearing leopardskin lipstick and carrying a flask
She follows Alvin Schockemohle where’er he roams” (Doreen)
“We stand in our bus queues, and we die in midweek” (£24.99 From Argos)
“You feel a dead good sneeze coming, and then it goes away” (arguably morphed into the “when a sneeze doesn’t come” line in Tonight Matthew, I’m Going To Be With Jesus)
THE PRICE OF FISH REMAINS THE SAME
“It’s easy being the genius elect” (£24.99 From Argos)
“I brought the baby
It’s changed me life mate” (used in ‘updated’ versions of Paintball’s Coming Home)
11 July 2012
MIKE IN COV
@Chigley Skin, much appreciated. I’d failed to discover that bit of Gez’s site. Note the change from “Wainwright” to “hosteller”, in what was to become Doreen, in the context of the recent conversation in the “David Wainwright’s Feet” thread.
Being something of an old buffer, I wish I’d chosen Acidic Regulator as my nom de poteau.
11 July 2012
Chigley Skin
Yeah, there’s obviously a lot of chopping and changing that happened, and lines that got dropped. Seems to me like Nigel comes up with these individual lines and plays around with them until he can find them a decent home. These days, it’s live versions of 24 Hour Garage People that often seem to act like a proving ground for new one-liners!
11 July 2012
littlegrafter
But we’ve still never heard ‘foot up in Europe” on vinyl/CD unless I’ve missed something. Will check out Jez’s site again as I was just thinking about Charlie Goth which I was priveleged to hear in Edinburgh back in 97 along with a pre-released version of You’re Hard, which I believe made us all chuckle.
11 July 2012
Chigley Skin
Do you mean “you can’t put your foot up in Europe, you can’t show your studs on the ‘nent” – the final verse of I Went To A Wedding? That’s readily available on CD.
11 July 2012
Miesha
That’s fine,but i have no clue to that, but yes i love to hear this lyrics, it sounds so rhythmic.
6 December 2012
Ian
Re Broadstairs in “Chariots of Fire” film.
As I understand it the real athletes did train on the beach at Broadstairs in final preparation for 1924 Paris Olympics before catching ferry across (its only 15 miles from Dover.)
But when the film was made they used West Sands at St Andrews in Scotland.
Hey late convert to HMHB – aren’t they great
26 August 2014
Dr Desperate
Indeed they are, Ian. Indeed they are. Incidentally, now that I’ve read this page for the first time in living memory, isn’t it ‘nearer the equator’?
4 March 2015
Von Paz
Aside from Dickie Davis Eyes (which was featured on an Indie Top 20 cassette back in the day) this was the song which alerted me to HMHB – brilliant!
With regards to ‘planet’ and ‘Thanet’ though, that is what that particular part of Kent is regularly referred to as by the rest of us in East Kent (and possibly also them west of the Medway too).
Planet Thanet – from Reculver to Pegwell Bay.
11 October 2015
dr desperate
Phyllis Pearsall originally published her street atlas in 1936 as the ‘A to Z’, and it’s now spelt ‘A-Z’. I don’t think anybody’s ever spelt it ‘A-to-Z’.
(Incidentally, why no ‘A-Z’ entry in the A to Z? Too meta?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographers'_A%E2%80%93Z_Street_Atlas
5 February 2017
Simon C
There’s an ‘And’ missing at the start of the line “Maybe she could tell her”.
In line with Dr Desperate above, I’ve always thought that it’s “nearer the Equator” too. I think it has to be. With the “Maybe” line fixed, “Equator” – as it stands – is the only verse line in the entire song without seven syllables.
8 February 2019
Comrie
I’ve always heard “nearer the equator” as well.
25 September 2019
dr desperate
“From nearer the equator” (ie more southern) would fit with a recently propounded theory that the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend has emigrated from Filey to Broadstairs to be with her new swain.
See also post 5 above.
4 October 2019