Thanks to Dr D, Ben C, Rich P, Keith S, John A, Chris R, Peter T-M and Dave T for their transcription contributions. This page originally published on 8 March 2022.
Only three or four lines where our contributors differed, and none of them seriously. I predict this could be one of the long-running live favourites from the album…
8 March 2022
Janet from aCcounts
So he finally caught up with that continuity announcer from way back on Breaking News…
8 March 2022
transit full of keith
The shoutalong potential at gigs is massive for this one. “Kelvin Mackenzie in a second hand hessian sack”. Cathartic, isn’t it.
8 March 2022
John Anderson
My absolute favourite on the album; classic HMHB with Nigel eloquently venting his spleen at things which any right-minded human being would find abhorrent.
I too have an absolute hatred of continuity announcers, especially BBC ones trying to sound down with the kids. The other day someone cued into Match Of The Day by saying “and now, mission goals”. Sadly sports reporters on TV news now affect the same kind of horrible, chummy, smartarse delivery; it’s obviously what passes as house-style these days.
Nicholas Witchell is another of my absolute bugbears; the man with the easiest job in the media. He travels the world covering complete non-stories about the Royal Family like some sort of lickspittle troubadour. There’s no criticism, no insight, no interviews, no starling revelations, just paint-by-numbers dispatches. Plane landing – royalty waving – beauty shot of location – people in national costume singing and dancing – walkabout – child offering flowers – banal royal welcome speech – sycophantic piece to camera – shots of presidential palace – royals in evening wear – sunset over beach/mosque/mountain and back to the studio. Absolutely any broadcaster worth their salt could peddle this sort of guff. The only thing I like about the royals is that they seem to hate him as much as I do.
Musically the song’s great too, the intro really reminds me of Arctic Monkeys’ first album and there are also shades of New York Dolls. At times Nigel sounds uncannily like Richard Butler of Psychedelic Furs in his intonation and delivery, most notably in the Kelvin McKenzie and illegal/bible lines.
This one should be an absolute tour de force live.
8 March 2022
Christie malry
When I was a kid Nicholas Witchell presented the Six O’clock News with Sue Lawley and was a proper journalist, but then he became Royal Correspondent and seemed to loose all of his critical faculties. I fear the same thing happening to Jonny Dymond.
On another topic I can understand our homicidal narrator drawing on Augustine and just war theory to justify acts of violence against his enemies, but then why he is a grass? And where does Timothy (mate of the Apostle Paul?) fit in? Something to do with New Testament debates on whether to submit to earthly powers and Roman rule or to resist?
8 March 2022
dr Desperate
We’re obviously into the area of justifiable homicide here, for which the Biblical precedent is mainly Old Testament (eg 1 Samuel 15:3 “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”) Not sure where Augustine and Timothy come into it – both give their names to types of grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum and Phleum pratense respectively) but noted more for their saintliness than their bloodthirstiness.
Other quotes from JFK, Plautus and The Clash. Are the paintings by Dylan (q v)? Do the seven coats belong to Snow White’s co-habitees?
I’d be inclined to put an exclamation mark after Kelvin MacKenzie, if only because that’s how we’re likely to be singing it.
8 March 2022
Geraldine
The seven coats on the newel post happens in a lot of houses. Five’s the limit on mine.
8 March 2022
That chiseller, idris
Echoes of Kevin Ayers’ Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes in the outro which is surely coincidental given that song’s subject matter and Nigel’s reported disdain for marijuana bores.
8 March 2022
Rob R
Think it’s “kind-a like a neighbourhood watch” instead of “kind of”.
8 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I’m not sure Timothy has any particular significance. A quick skim of the two letters in the bible doesn’t turn up anything I can connect to this… It’s a bit weird as a biblical reference as there is no book called Timothy, which you could reference as Timothy chapter 2, as there’s the two letters to choose from.
I think it’s just a biblical name that scans well.
8 March 2022
duke of westminster
Timothy too or 2 Timothy has St Paul beg-friending Timothy to “come to me quickly” (4:9). So the narrator is perhaps associating himself with St Paul’s fate (unjust imprisonment of the righteous man who has done no more than St Augustine permitted by way of just war) but as he is less saintly he just assumes his Timothy equivalent has grassed him up.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Of all HMHB’s punky numbers this is the one that is closest to the sound of the Pistols, and Karl (who used to front a Pistols tribute band) is surely going to love playing it live. Guessing it won’t be a set opener, though in theory it would be an ace one, but it is usually the track I begin ‘Voltarol’ by listening to. I agree with every word of your rant there, John, but I would add the special ‘royal story’ tone of voice that Witchell does even more sycophantically than anyone else.
As for the continuity announcers, where to start? Well I’ll be boring and start with MOTD too (or MOTD2). For ages recently they insisted on asking us “how did your team do?” as if everyone’s team are on ninety thousand a week, and even worse “Now it’s time to find out how your team did” as if we didn’t already f*cking know.
Wonderful above all to hear some imaginary justice meeted out to the former editor of that evil rag.
8 March 2022
Alice van der meer
I’m intrigued as to why the coats are hanging from a newel post, seeing as you get them in stairwells (especially spiral stairs). Might just be a phrase NB10 liked, of course.
8 March 2022
EXXO
As the Doc suggests, the St. Augustine/Timothy thing is just a wonderful joke as both are types of grass and both also happen to have written about acts of violence being justified if done for righteous reasons, plus “so and so is a grass” is fairly common graffito on Merseyside (indeed there is a classic one in downtown Birkenhead that Mr. B once showed me on his phone).
First time I listened though I was hoping it was “St Augustine of hippo, Crass, Timothy too ;-D”
8 March 2022
EXXO
When I say “both have written about…” soz of course Paul wrote the epistles to Timothy but you get me gist. I think it’s the first chapter of the first epistle that contains some of the most relevant stuff on violence in justice.
8 March 2022
EXXO
You get them at the corners and bottom of your bannisters. On my three newel posts I currently have at least 11 coats and jackets. (Plus like other stuff in the “V” between post and bannisters) Who fuckin cares but I love it that Mr. B does. CDO and all that.
8 March 2022
EXXO
On the newel post at the top, ironically perhaps, the layers of coats is a great buffer against loft-ladder-related injuries.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Now that I look, it’s just justice-themed in general in chapter 1 of Timothy 1, but I’m glad I looked ‘cos I certainly didn’t remember verse 6 – brilliant stuff about swerving and vain jangling.
8 March 2022
Mrs Trellis, North Wales
This is nowt to do with Voltarol [which I already love]. May I join you all? I was stricken to the heart by the reference to Thora Hird in God Gave Us Life, and have had [belatedly] to acquire everything else, with no further trauma. Favourite gig to date-Wylam Brewery. Worst-Hebden Bridge Trades Club, when despite having a ticket, I couldn’t even get through the door…..
8 March 2022
Third rate les
Must confess I had no idea Nicholas Witchell was still around. I don’t watch tv much.
A (pause) song-based version of Breaking News. A bit sour, but the “it’s kinda like the neighbourhood watch” bit lightens it a little along with the singer’s paintings and the newel post.
8 March 2022
John Anderson
@exxo The whole BBC News “turn away now if you don’t want to know the results” is patently absurd and drives me mad. In this age of social media it would be virtually impossible to get to 10.15pm without knowing the results even if you wanted to, which no-one does. It basically means that the BBC hardly ever covers the lead sports story on a Saturday night.
I know one presenter who agrees that this is utterly ridiculous and anachronistic and has said so to management but has been told it can’t and won’t be changed.
Alas, I fear I won’t be finding out how my team got on by watching MOTD next season. Unfortunately it looks as if I’ll be back to watching the Football League Show on Quest.
I didn’t know about St Augustine and Timothy being types of grass, that’s brilliant. Similarly I didn’t realise those things are called newel posts. Now that my two daughters have left home, ours have been returned to their former glory.
8 March 2022
Cream CHEESE AND chives
I too thought he had gone to GB News or retired but Nicholas Witchell resurfaced when the Queen was ill recently. I jumped behind the settee. He looks very much like Lord Voldermort from Harry Potter.
8 March 2022
JaneT from accounts
My parents used to go spare at us for hanging coats on the newel post, so that line resonated with me.
The St Augustine / Timothy grass joke is brilliant. Love that. Thanks for explaining.
8 March 2022
Karl
Just by way of a small correction regarding comment #12, I have never fronted a Sex Pistols tribute band. I did however play guitar in one around 20+ years ago, strictly a ‘just for fun’ affair with people more usually found playing in their own bands – our actual frontman “Johnny Forgotten” was (and indeed is) guitarist with longstanding punks MDM.
8 March 2022
Exxo
‘kin pedant. Next you’ll be telling us you’re dreading playing this one. 🙂
9 March 2022
Roxanne
‘The odd-job man who never got flak’? As in not very good but nobody minds?
9 March 2022
dr Desperate
“Never got back” (as in promised to be in touch to fix a date to mend that blown-down fence, but never).
9 March 2022
Slow dempsey
Both Chambers and Collins give odd-jobman rather than odd-job man.
One of those words where the ‘correct’ version is not the natural formulation and therefore looks ugly.
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
In A Suffolk Ditch
By Terrence Oblong
Laurence Fanborn died. A lorry knocked him off his Boardman bike and into a ditch, killing him instantly. The bike, his pride and joy, was equally squashed and squished beyond repair.
While his body lay in the ditch, his crumpled bike beside him, Laurence saw a figure in front of him cloaked in black, carrying a scythe, inside the cloak Laurence could just make out a skeletal figure, which approached him, seemingly without moving.
“Are you here for me or for the bike?” He said.
FOR YOU. I CARE NOTHING FOR YOUR MORTAL BRIC A BRAC.
Laurence Fanborn becomes Laurence Fanborne with an extra “e” possibly representative of the drugs prevalent in cycling?
9 March 2022
EXXO
@N. Shinpads
Sorry if you already realise this, but other readers will be confused. Just to clarify, Terence Oblong, taking his name from a TV character, is a HMHB fan who writes surreal short stories and sketches on his blog inspired by the song titles, during the annoying interval between those titles being published and the real subject matter of the songs being revealed. I like the one he did for ‘Big Man Up Front.’
I am not sure whether the fact that people searching for clarification of the HMHB songs will have their efforts obfuscated is part of why he does it.
9 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I can’t wait until this site returns to one or two posts a day.
9 March 2022
Mick Macve
“Finger” painting?
9 March 2022
JEFF Dreadnought
“I blathered over his privations” – I know it’s a reference to blathering continuity announcers, but why “over his privations”?
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
Probably obvious, but it’s not just any continuity announcer offence being singled out, but the specific sin of talking over the closing credits. Hence the poetic justice meted out as he “blathered over his privations”.
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
@Jeff – we crossed posts there. Whatever privations the narrator inflicted on him in his final moments, as his “credits rolled”, I guess …
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
Pretty unpleasant, when you think about it.
9 March 2022
dr Desperate
Pretty unpleasant indeed, but then so’s the whole mise en scène. I do like the hi-jacking of the Clash titles to indicate the ultimate application of the Mute button.
9 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
@Keith I see, thanks. It is a particularly vicious song, this one.
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
@Exxo….apologies wasn’t aware. I did think it all seemed a bit too relevant. It was sent by one of my brothers knowing I was a HMHB fan and knowing the depth of knowledge on here should have checked the source.
And thanks to you/’CtSO for amending my post to give credit where it is due.
Am still concerned re that added “e” though…
9 March 2022
EXXO
No apologies needed, N.S. – just wanted people to know about the oblong-shaped google trap.
9 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
Loving the Augustine/Timothy/grass explanation – I scoured Timothy (so to speak) to try and find any possible link to the whole vigilante justice angle, but drew a blank, but aside from leaving a speculative ‘too/2’ after Timothy and putting ‘ukulele’s outside SD’ with an apostrophe, this has probably been my most accurate transcription in relation to the published lyrics… Why the ire with ukuleles specifically outside SD? I kept wanting it to be ‘ukulelists’ and imagined a group of buskers strumming their way through ‘Wonderwall’ or something equally horrific, but I suppose that still works just with the reference to the instruments…
9 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
As regards the ukeleles, Hosepipe Ban reckons it could have been based on a real life event…
9 March 2022
John Anderson
The appearance of Kelvin McKenzie in this song got me thinking about how many surnames of real people had been used more than once in HMHB lyrics.
McKenzie – Precious/Kelvin Ball – Ernie/Michael Brown – Chubby/Dan (not sure Incapability counts) Jones – Jim/Suranne Barlow – Lou/Ken Edward – I/IV
9 March 2022
A FACTORY COMPLETIST
I think it could well be Timothy 2, ie Paul’s second letter to him. It talks about all the evils that people get up to, eg “…blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, …” etc. It also has the self-justifying line “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Epistle_to_Timothy
@Exxo #25. Come on, surely pedantry is the watchword of this site. Karl’s only doing his best to fit in.
9 March 2022
EXXO
OK I admit I spoke too soon without checking when I said that Paul to Timothy advocated righteous violence (as Augustine did). He just talks about the righteousness of the law, ie retribution in 1 Timothy 1, and about who deserves it at various points throughout 1 & 2 Timothy.
Maybe the most vengeful thing in Timothy is when Paul hopes Alex the coppersmith gets what’s coming to him (2 Timothy 4, 14).
9 March 2022
EXXO
@the giraffe in the room. Yep, that’s I meant.
In your song though, you are very much the giraffe in the room. If Sean is rather ‘different’, then what about Keith Muldoon?
9 March 2022
Murderous giraffe
That’s what I was thinking. Who’s going to unravel the reference to a murderous giraffe? It’s not awkward or contrary, it’s downright exotic!
9 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I still don’t see the link to anything in either of the letters to Timothy. I think it’s just the grass joke. Given Nigel’s pedantry as regards proper naming of books of the Bible (see Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo) I don’t think he’d hold with calling the letter Timothy 2.
9 March 2022
EXXO
Oh I agree – there’s no way it’s ‘Timothy two.’ Timothy (is a grass) too. But it’s no coincidence that they are books about aspects of justice.
9 March 2022
A FACTORY COMPLETIST
Admittedly, it is usually abbreviated to 2 Timothy, rather than the other way around (according to Wikipedia – my lapsed Catholic status means my knowledge of such things is in the distant past)
9 March 2022
Mick Macve
I hesitate to offer a contribution because I’m useless at hearing lyrics and rely on the expertise on show on this site. On the other hand, surely it’s “Finger Paintings” that should be consigned to a Suffolk ditch.
11 March 2022
dr Desperate
Sorry, @Mick, I can only hear “singer’s”. Definitely an ‘s’ at the end, which wouldn’t make sense with “finger”.
11 March 2022
John Anderson
@MickMacve I’m sure it’s “the singer’s paintings”. I agree it sounds like “the finger’s paintings” but that wouldn’t make much sense. It’s clearly a dig at musicians who use their status to promote their artworks, despite not being very talented.
Finger paintings, which are largely the preserve of nursery school children, wouldn’t really be at all relevant or amusing.
11 March 2022
Mick Macve
Fair enough. As I said I’m useless at this and rely on everyone else’s expertise. I assumed he was having a dig at finger paintings.
11 March 2022
transit full of keith
The odd job man who never got back, never got back.
23 March 2022
duke of westminster
They’ll have to get dredge them up from East Anglian waterways first.
I tell you what, though, I forgot I’d already criticised continuity announcers in Breaking News (from Cammell Laird Social Club). I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known that, but it’s alright – there’s no harm in criticising them twice, because they are twats!
With “privations” there’s a bit of double entendre going on, as in “privates” – I could be torturing him, perhaps. I’m not saying I am, though.
Then there are the people in charge of rolling the credits, who squeeze them so there is space to advertise another programme while the credits are rolling – making them too small to read. That’s why I don’t watch Coronation Street anymore – I can’t.
It could be argued by the way that, written out, the bit about the two Clash songs should be “Complete/Remote Control!”
I didn’t have any particular rich singers in mind when I wrote that line about “the singer’s paintings” because there are quite a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong, because there are probably quite a few musicians who are great artists. But it’s just that cliche of those musicians who get successful and suddenly think “I’ll become a great painter now”.
The lines “It’s not illegal/It’s in the Bible/St Augustine is a grass/Timothy too” – that’s just two jokes for the price of one, regarding the names, and St Augustine and Timothy being types of grass. It’s purely a coincidence that Saint Augustine and St Timothy are connected to stories of justice. I wouldn’t have known that at all.
For years, on Birkenhead Library, there was the graffiti “Natalie Carson is a grass” – and I always wanted to write underneath it “See also Marram and Rye”. I had those two in my head for ages. But they aren’t easy to say or sing, so I looked up other grasses. Timothy is what you feed rabbits, I think, and St Augustine I’d never heard of until I did the research – you see, this is the unseen research that goes into writing some of the songs! But the only reason I did this particular research was because I used to see that graffiti on Birkenhead Library.
“The ukuleles outside Sports Direct”… Hosepipe Ban wrote: “I bumped into him (Nigel) in Liverpool One about three years ago while he was with his family, had a quick chat and got a photo with him. Anyway, it was National Ukulele Day and I was performing with a band.”
I do remember that. He was a nice lad. I wasn’t bothered or pissed off by him – no way. I don’t remember him being outside Sports Direct. The ukulele thing could have been outside Sports Direct but I think I met him a bit further up outside John Lewis, in Liverpool One. In my head it’s the Sports Direct in Birkenhead – opposite, funnily enough, Millets! I don’t dislike the ukuleles – it’s a gentle chiding.
You want to put them in a ditch!
He’s half-right in that that would have been the time I started to roll my eyes at ukulele orchestras. Forty years ago, I was listening to George Formby – when only a few other people were – but then all of a sudden it becomes de rigueur on the High Street, and there are loads of ukulele orchestras suddenly being formed. I’m just rolling my eyes at ukulele orchestras – I don’t hate them. I wasn’t specifically thinking about the person who calls himself Hosepipe Ban (hello, Hosepipe Ban!) because I’d see a ukulele orchestra every Saturday in Birkenhead – but they weren’t outside Sports Direct, funnily enough, although I put them there (outside Sports Direct in Birkenhead) in my mind. But the one I actually used to see all the time was in St John’s Square in Birkenhead precinct.
Chris The Siteowner
Only three or four lines where our contributors differed, and none of them seriously. I predict this could be one of the long-running live favourites from the album…
8 March 2022
Janet from aCcounts
So he finally caught up with that continuity announcer from way back on Breaking News…
8 March 2022
transit full of keith
The shoutalong potential at gigs is massive for this one. “Kelvin Mackenzie in a second hand hessian sack”. Cathartic, isn’t it.
8 March 2022
John Anderson
My absolute favourite on the album; classic HMHB with Nigel eloquently venting his spleen at things which any right-minded human being would find abhorrent.
I too have an absolute hatred of continuity announcers, especially BBC ones trying to sound down with the kids. The other day someone cued into Match Of The Day by saying “and now, mission goals”. Sadly sports reporters on TV news now affect the same kind of horrible, chummy, smartarse delivery; it’s obviously what passes as house-style these days.
Nicholas Witchell is another of my absolute bugbears; the man with the easiest job in the media. He travels the world covering complete non-stories about the Royal Family like some sort of lickspittle troubadour. There’s no criticism, no insight, no interviews, no starling revelations, just paint-by-numbers dispatches. Plane landing – royalty waving – beauty shot of location – people in national costume singing and dancing – walkabout – child offering flowers – banal royal welcome speech – sycophantic piece to camera – shots of presidential palace – royals in evening wear – sunset over beach/mosque/mountain and back to the studio. Absolutely any broadcaster worth their salt could peddle this sort of guff. The only thing I like about the royals is that they seem to hate him as much as I do.
Musically the song’s great too, the intro really reminds me of Arctic Monkeys’ first album and there are also shades of New York Dolls. At times Nigel sounds uncannily like Richard Butler of Psychedelic Furs in his intonation and delivery, most notably in the Kelvin McKenzie and illegal/bible lines.
This one should be an absolute tour de force live.
8 March 2022
Christie malry
When I was a kid Nicholas Witchell presented the Six O’clock News with Sue Lawley and was a proper journalist, but then he became Royal Correspondent and seemed to loose all of his critical faculties. I fear the same thing happening to Jonny Dymond.
On another topic I can understand our homicidal narrator drawing on Augustine and just war theory to justify acts of violence against his enemies, but then why he is a grass? And where does Timothy (mate of the Apostle Paul?) fit in? Something to do with New Testament debates on whether to submit to earthly powers and Roman rule or to resist?
8 March 2022
dr Desperate
We’re obviously into the area of justifiable homicide here, for which the Biblical precedent is mainly Old Testament (eg 1 Samuel 15:3 “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”)
Not sure where Augustine and Timothy come into it – both give their names to types of grass (Stenotaphrum secundatum and Phleum pratense respectively) but noted more for their saintliness than their bloodthirstiness.
Other quotes from JFK, Plautus and The Clash.
Are the paintings by Dylan (q v)?
Do the seven coats belong to Snow White’s co-habitees?
I’d be inclined to put an exclamation mark after Kelvin MacKenzie, if only because that’s how we’re likely to be singing it.
8 March 2022
Geraldine
The seven coats on the newel post happens in a lot of houses.
Five’s the limit on mine.
8 March 2022
That chiseller, idris
Echoes of Kevin Ayers’ Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes in the outro which is surely coincidental given that song’s subject matter and Nigel’s reported disdain for marijuana bores.
8 March 2022
Rob R
Think it’s “kind-a like a neighbourhood watch” instead of “kind of”.
8 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I’m not sure Timothy has any particular significance. A quick skim of the two letters in the bible doesn’t turn up anything I can connect to this… It’s a bit weird as a biblical reference as there is no book called Timothy, which you could reference as Timothy chapter 2, as there’s the two letters to choose from.
I think it’s just a biblical name that scans well.
8 March 2022
duke of westminster
Timothy too or 2 Timothy has St Paul beg-friending Timothy to “come to me quickly” (4:9). So the narrator is perhaps associating himself with St Paul’s fate (unjust imprisonment of the righteous man who has done no more than St Augustine permitted by way of just war) but as he is less saintly he just assumes his Timothy equivalent has grassed him up.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Of all HMHB’s punky numbers this is the one that is closest to the sound of the Pistols, and Karl (who used to front a Pistols tribute band) is surely going to love playing it live. Guessing it won’t be a set opener, though in theory it would be an ace one, but it is usually the track I begin ‘Voltarol’ by listening to. I agree with every word of your rant there, John, but I would add the special ‘royal story’ tone of voice that Witchell does even more sycophantically than anyone else.
As for the continuity announcers, where to start? Well I’ll be boring and start with MOTD too (or MOTD2). For ages recently they insisted on asking us “how did your team do?” as if everyone’s team are on ninety thousand a week, and even worse “Now it’s time to find out how your team did” as if we didn’t already f*cking know.
Wonderful above all to hear some imaginary justice meeted out to the former editor of that evil rag.
8 March 2022
Alice van der meer
I’m intrigued as to why the coats are hanging from a newel post, seeing as you get them in stairwells (especially spiral stairs). Might just be a phrase NB10 liked, of course.
8 March 2022
EXXO
As the Doc suggests, the St. Augustine/Timothy thing is just a wonderful joke as both are types of grass and both also happen to have written about acts of violence being justified if done for righteous reasons, plus “so and so is a grass” is fairly common graffito on Merseyside (indeed there is a classic one in downtown Birkenhead that Mr. B once showed me on his phone).
First time I listened though I was hoping it was “St Augustine of hippo, Crass, Timothy too ;-D”
8 March 2022
EXXO
When I say “both have written about…” soz of course Paul wrote the epistles to Timothy but you get me gist. I think it’s the first chapter of the first epistle that contains some of the most relevant stuff on violence in justice.
8 March 2022
EXXO
You get them at the corners and bottom of your bannisters. On my three newel posts I currently have at least 11 coats and jackets. (Plus like other stuff in the “V” between post and bannisters) Who fuckin cares but I love it that Mr. B does. CDO and all that.
8 March 2022
EXXO
On the newel post at the top, ironically perhaps, the layers of coats is a great buffer against loft-ladder-related injuries.
8 March 2022
EXXO
Now that I look, it’s just justice-themed in general in chapter 1 of Timothy 1, but I’m glad I looked ‘cos I certainly didn’t remember verse 6 – brilliant stuff about swerving and vain jangling.
8 March 2022
Mrs Trellis, North Wales
This is nowt to do with Voltarol [which I already love]. May I join you all? I was stricken to the heart by the reference to Thora Hird in God Gave Us Life, and have had [belatedly] to acquire everything else, with no further trauma. Favourite gig to date-Wylam Brewery. Worst-Hebden Bridge Trades Club, when despite having a ticket, I couldn’t even get through the door…..
8 March 2022
Third rate les
Must confess I had no idea Nicholas Witchell was still around. I don’t watch tv much.
A (pause) song-based version of Breaking News. A bit sour, but the “it’s kinda like the neighbourhood watch” bit lightens it a little along with the singer’s paintings and the newel post.
8 March 2022
John Anderson
@exxo The whole BBC News “turn away now if you don’t want to know the results” is patently absurd and drives me mad. In this age of social media it would be virtually impossible to get to 10.15pm without knowing the results even if you wanted to, which no-one does. It basically means that the BBC hardly ever covers the lead sports story on a Saturday night.
I know one presenter who agrees that this is utterly ridiculous and anachronistic and has said so to management but has been told it can’t and won’t be changed.
Alas, I fear I won’t be finding out how my team got on by watching MOTD next season. Unfortunately it looks as if I’ll be back to watching the Football League Show on Quest.
I didn’t know about St Augustine and Timothy being types of grass, that’s brilliant. Similarly I didn’t realise those things are called newel posts. Now that my two daughters have left home, ours have been returned to their former glory.
8 March 2022
Cream CHEESE AND chives
I too thought he had gone to GB News or retired but Nicholas Witchell resurfaced when the Queen was ill recently. I jumped behind the settee. He looks very much like Lord Voldermort from Harry Potter.
8 March 2022
JaneT from accounts
My parents used to go spare at us for hanging coats on the newel post, so that line resonated with me.
The St Augustine / Timothy grass joke is brilliant. Love that. Thanks for explaining.
8 March 2022
Karl
8 March 2022
Exxo
‘kin pedant. Next you’ll be telling us you’re dreading playing this one. 🙂
9 March 2022
Roxanne
‘The odd-job man who never got flak’? As in not very good but nobody minds?
9 March 2022
dr Desperate
“Never got back” (as in promised to be in touch to fix a date to mend that blown-down fence, but never).
9 March 2022
Slow dempsey
Both Chambers and Collins give odd-jobman rather than odd-job man.
One of those words where the ‘correct’ version is not the natural formulation and therefore looks ugly.
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
In A Suffolk Ditch
By Terrence Oblong
Laurence Fanborn died. A lorry knocked him off his Boardman bike and into a ditch, killing him instantly. The bike, his pride and joy, was equally squashed and squished beyond repair.
While his body lay in the ditch, his crumpled bike beside him, Laurence saw a figure in front of him cloaked in black, carrying a scythe, inside the cloak Laurence could just make out a skeletal figure, which approached him, seemingly without moving.
“Are you here for me or for the bike?” He said.
FOR YOU. I CARE NOTHING FOR YOUR MORTAL BRIC A BRAC.
Read the full story here.
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
Is Laurence Fanborn of any significance?
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
Sorry submitted too early…
Laurence Fanborn becomes Laurence Fanborne with an extra “e” possibly representative of the drugs prevalent in cycling?
9 March 2022
EXXO
@N. Shinpads
Sorry if you already realise this, but other readers will be confused. Just to clarify, Terence Oblong, taking his name from a TV character, is a HMHB fan who writes surreal short stories and sketches on his blog inspired by the song titles, during the annoying interval between those titles being published and the real subject matter of the songs being revealed. I like the one he did for ‘Big Man Up Front.’
I am not sure whether the fact that people searching for clarification of the HMHB songs will have their efforts obfuscated is part of why he does it.
9 March 2022
BOBBY SVARC
I can’t wait until this site returns to one or two posts a day.
9 March 2022
Mick Macve
“Finger” painting?
9 March 2022
JEFF Dreadnought
“I blathered over his privations” – I know it’s a reference to blathering continuity announcers, but why “over his privations”?
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
Probably obvious, but it’s not just any continuity announcer offence being singled out, but the specific sin of talking over the closing credits. Hence the poetic justice meted out as he “blathered over his privations”.
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
@Jeff – we crossed posts there. Whatever privations the narrator inflicted on him in his final moments, as his “credits rolled”, I guess …
9 March 2022
transit full of keith
Pretty unpleasant, when you think about it.
9 March 2022
dr Desperate
Pretty unpleasant indeed, but then so’s the whole mise en scène. I do like the hi-jacking of the Clash titles to indicate the ultimate application of the Mute button.
9 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
@Keith I see, thanks. It is a particularly vicious song, this one.
9 March 2022
Nagasaki Shinpads
@Exxo….apologies wasn’t aware. I did think it all seemed a bit too relevant. It was sent by one of my brothers knowing I was a HMHB fan and knowing the depth of knowledge on here should have checked the source.
And thanks to you/’CtSO for amending my post to give credit where it is due.
Am still concerned re that added “e” though…
9 March 2022
EXXO
No apologies needed, N.S. – just wanted people to know about the oblong-shaped google trap.
9 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
Loving the Augustine/Timothy/grass explanation – I scoured Timothy (so to speak) to try and find any possible link to the whole vigilante justice angle, but drew a blank, but aside from leaving a speculative ‘too/2’ after Timothy and putting ‘ukulele’s outside SD’ with an apostrophe, this has probably been my most accurate transcription in relation to the published lyrics…
Why the ire with ukuleles specifically outside SD? I kept wanting it to be ‘ukulelists’ and imagined a group of buskers strumming their way through ‘Wonderwall’ or something equally horrific, but I suppose that still works just with the reference to the instruments…
9 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
As regards the ukeleles, Hosepipe Ban reckons it could have been based on a real life event…
9 March 2022
John Anderson
The appearance of Kelvin McKenzie in this song got me thinking about how many surnames of real people had been used more than once in HMHB lyrics.
McKenzie – Precious/Kelvin
Ball – Ernie/Michael
Brown – Chubby/Dan (not sure Incapability counts)
Jones – Jim/Suranne
Barlow – Lou/Ken
Edward – I/IV
9 March 2022
A FACTORY COMPLETIST
I think it could well be Timothy 2, ie Paul’s second letter to him. It talks about all the evils that people get up to, eg “…blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, …” etc.
It also has the self-justifying line “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Epistle_to_Timothy
Full text here: https://www.kingjamesbible.me/2-Timothy-Chapter-1/
9 March 2022
Murderous giraffe
@Exxo #25. Come on, surely pedantry is the watchword of this site. Karl’s only doing his best to fit in.
9 March 2022
EXXO
OK I admit I spoke too soon without checking when I said that Paul to Timothy advocated righteous violence (as Augustine did). He just talks about the righteousness of the law, ie retribution in 1 Timothy 1, and about who deserves it at various points throughout 1 & 2 Timothy.
Maybe the most vengeful thing in Timothy is when Paul hopes Alex the coppersmith gets what’s coming to him (2 Timothy 4, 14).
9 March 2022
EXXO
@the giraffe in the room. Yep, that’s I meant.
In your song though, you are very much the giraffe in the room. If Sean is rather ‘different’, then what about Keith Muldoon?
9 March 2022
Murderous giraffe
That’s what I was thinking. Who’s going to unravel the reference to a murderous giraffe? It’s not awkward or contrary, it’s downright exotic!
9 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I still don’t see the link to anything in either of the letters to Timothy. I think it’s just the grass joke. Given Nigel’s pedantry as regards proper naming of books of the Bible (see Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo) I don’t think he’d hold with calling the letter Timothy 2.
9 March 2022
EXXO
Oh I agree – there’s no way it’s ‘Timothy two.’ Timothy (is a grass) too. But it’s no coincidence that they are books about aspects of justice.
9 March 2022
A FACTORY COMPLETIST
Admittedly, it is usually abbreviated to 2 Timothy, rather than the other way around (according to Wikipedia – my lapsed Catholic status means my knowledge of such things is in the distant past)
9 March 2022
Mick Macve
I hesitate to offer a contribution because I’m useless at hearing lyrics and rely on the expertise on show on this site. On the other hand, surely it’s “Finger Paintings” that should be consigned to a Suffolk ditch.
11 March 2022
dr Desperate
Sorry, @Mick, I can only hear “singer’s”. Definitely an ‘s’ at the end, which wouldn’t make sense with “finger”.
11 March 2022
John Anderson
@MickMacve I’m sure it’s “the singer’s paintings”. I agree it sounds like “the finger’s paintings” but that wouldn’t make much sense. It’s clearly a dig at musicians who use their status to promote their artworks, despite not being very talented.
Finger paintings, which are largely the preserve of nursery school children, wouldn’t really be at all relevant or amusing.
11 March 2022
Mick Macve
Fair enough. As I said I’m useless at this and rely on everyone else’s expertise. I assumed he was having a dig at finger paintings.
11 March 2022
transit full of keith
The odd job man who never got back, never got back.
23 March 2022
duke of westminster
They’ll have to get dredge them up from East Anglian waterways first.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/20/robbie-williams-ed-godrich-exhibit-paintings-for-first-time
20 April 2022
Dwight Stones
My uncle was the mastermind of a late 70’s cable TV show that was broadcast from Sheffield. It was called “Hullabaloo”. Not sure if NB57 ever saw it.
29 April 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Notes from Paddy Shennan’s interview with NB10:
A “get it off your chest” song.
I tell you what, though, I forgot I’d already criticised continuity announcers in Breaking News (from Cammell Laird Social Club). I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known that, but it’s alright – there’s no harm in criticising them twice, because they are twats!
With “privations” there’s a bit of double entendre going on, as in “privates” – I could be torturing him, perhaps. I’m not saying I am, though.
Then there are the people in charge of rolling the credits, who squeeze them so there is space to advertise another programme while the credits are rolling – making them too small to read. That’s why I don’t watch Coronation Street anymore – I can’t.
It could be argued by the way that, written out, the bit about the two Clash songs should be “Complete/Remote Control!”
I didn’t have any particular rich singers in mind when I wrote that line about “the singer’s paintings” because there are quite a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong, because there are probably quite a few musicians who are great artists. But it’s just that cliche of those musicians who get successful and suddenly think “I’ll become a great painter now”.
The lines “It’s not illegal/It’s in the Bible/St Augustine is a grass/Timothy too” – that’s just two jokes for the price of one, regarding the names, and St Augustine and Timothy being types of grass. It’s purely a coincidence that Saint Augustine and St Timothy are connected to stories of justice. I wouldn’t have known that at all.
For years, on Birkenhead Library, there was the graffiti “Natalie Carson is a grass” – and I always wanted to write underneath it “See also Marram and Rye”. I had those two in my head for ages. But they aren’t easy to say or sing, so I looked up other grasses. Timothy is what you feed rabbits, I think, and St Augustine I’d never heard of until I did the research – you see, this is the unseen research that goes into writing some of the songs! But the only reason I did this particular research was because I used to see that graffiti on Birkenhead Library.
“The ukuleles outside Sports Direct”… Hosepipe Ban wrote: “I bumped into him (Nigel) in Liverpool One about three years ago while he was with his family, had a quick chat and got a photo with him. Anyway, it was National Ukulele Day and I was performing with a band.”
I do remember that. He was a nice lad. I wasn’t bothered or pissed off by him – no way. I don’t remember him being outside Sports Direct. The ukulele thing could have been outside Sports Direct but I think I met him a bit further up outside John Lewis, in Liverpool One. In my head it’s the Sports Direct in Birkenhead – opposite, funnily enough, Millets! I don’t dislike the ukuleles – it’s a gentle chiding.
You want to put them in a ditch!
He’s half-right in that that would have been the time I started to roll my eyes at ukulele orchestras. Forty years ago, I was listening to George Formby – when only a few other people were – but then all of a sudden it becomes de rigueur on the High Street, and there are loads of ukulele orchestras suddenly being formed. I’m just rolling my eyes at ukulele orchestras – I don’t hate them. I wasn’t specifically thinking about the person who calls himself Hosepipe Ban (hello, Hosepipe Ban!) because I’d see a ukulele orchestra every Saturday in Birkenhead – but they weren’t outside Sports Direct, funnily enough, although I put them there (outside Sports Direct in Birkenhead) in my mind. But the one I actually used to see all the time was in St John’s Square in Birkenhead precinct.
4 May 2022