#flashbacks #nostalgia #music #writing: Eddie & The Hot Rods, Joy Division, Halcyon Days, Screenwriting, London, Madrid, & more ...
I WAS THERE …
My first gig, at the age of 15, was on the 27th of February 1978, when I saw Eddie and The Hot Rods/ Radio Stars/ Squeeze at Hartlepool Borough Hall …
I went to a lot of gigs over the following few years, mostly in Middlesbrough, Redcar and Newcastle. And so it came to pass that, on the 25th of May 1978 , I headed off to ‘the big city’ to see my first gig outside Hartlepool, at Middlesbrough Town Hall. I’d previously enjoyed Eddie and The Hot Rods/ Radio Stars/ Squeeze gig but this was a big one since Buzzcocks (‘there is no ‘THE!’) and local-ish support band Penetration were very much MY bands.
And they didn’t disappoint - Buzzcocks’ arch, smart. tinnitus -inducing racket was a joy, and Penetration easily matched the headliners with Pauline Murray’s soaring vocals filling the hall. (Like many 16 year olds at that time, I had a hell of a crush on Pauline!)
On the 2nd of July 1978 I saw Magazine at Redcar Coatham Bowl. Still sweet 16, I can’t remember the support band but may have had 2 full pints of shandy. They were remarkable and I even shuffled backstage after the gig to get autographs. Dave Formula was really funny.
On the 17th of November 1978, I saw The Clash at Middlesbrough Town Hall. - The Slits were the support band. The centre of the floor was covered with chairs, in an inevitably failed attempt to stop people pogoing. There was a fear that they may crash trough to the Town Hall Crypt below. Although this didn’t happen, there was a brief riot and fans tried to rip off the Town Hall doors!
And it appears that it was on the 7th of May 1979 - just before my 17th birthday - that I went to Middlesbrough Rock Garden to see the acoustic punk troubadour Patrick Fitzgerald supported by The Wall, from Sunderland, and The Teardrop Explodes, from Liverpool. As I remember, it was a bright sunny day outside the dingy music venue and quite appropriately, it was the bottom of the bill The Teardrop Explodes who stood out. I saw them again later that year at the Leeds Futurama, and they really were terrific. And I saw at least once more, when they were well on their way to deserved commercial success.
I Was There ... Leeds Futurama 1979/ 1980
What could be gloomier than Leeds on a cold and rainy weekend in September? Maybe watching Joy Division, too? Ah, well …
And so it came to pass … it was 1979, at the age of 17, when I first visited Leeds to attend the Futurama Festival (nothing to do with the cracking telly show) at the Queen’s Hall. Organised by local boy John Keenan, the festival was billed as ‘The World’s First Science Fiction Music Festival’ – even though there seemed to be little sci-fi to the experience, apart from a couple of people dressed as robots.
Mind you, sleeping in a municipal building’s drafty hall, on a grubby and sticky floor, with a bunch of other waifs and strays (who had travelled the country – and further afield – to see some of the hippest, most cutting edge, post- punk bands around) did have a touch of the dystopian future about it, when I come to think of it.
But the sci-fi angle wasn’t important. It was all about music. And what a line-up of ‘hot’ bands it was.
Yes, of course, the now legendary Joy Division were among the odds and sods of bands playing over the Festival’s two days, along with their fellow Factory Records glum chums A Certain Ratio and, electro-pop superstars in the making, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.
But, there was also The Teardrop Explodes (who were beaut and performed a cracking version of Aretha Franklin’s Save Me), Scritti Pollitti, Cabaret Voltaire, The Monochrome Set, Spizz Energy, Echo and The Bunnymen (complete with drum machine, Echo), The Only Ones, and more.
And there was also one of the first performances of former Sex Pistol John Lydon’s Public Image Limited (I slept through a bit of them but bought a Bowie bootleg from Lydon’s brother Jimmy.)
And, of course, The Fall who, for my money, were the best band of the whole two days. I still have fond memories of Mark E Smith hassling the Hawkwind fans about their ‘cosmic crap.’ Hawkwind, along with other sixties psychedelic types, such as Nik Turner, seemed prehistorically out of place but their stoned fans seemed happy enough to wander around and take abuse from the younger punks and long-mac wearers.
Joy Division, by the way, were damn fine.
At the time, they were on the crest of a creative wave, just after Unknown Pleasures and Transmission, and before the synthesizers softened their sound. They were, for most people, the stars of the show. The bees’ knees, the cat’s whiskers, the dog’s bollocks. And other animals’ anatomy.
As was the Futurama Festival.
More than a few of those bands went on to make something of a name for themselves and when Keenan organised another Futurama Festival in 1980. Acts then, included Siouxsie and The Banshees, who were promoting their mega selling Kaleidoscope album, The Psychedelic Furs, Altered Images, Soft Cell (who, I remember, did a pretty tasty version of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in front of projections of hard core porn) and, ahem, Gary Glitter.
The Bunnymen were back, too, complete with a real drummer, and seemed to be on their way to a bombastic psychedelic form of what became known as stadium rock. Speaking of which, there was also a newish band from Ireland, who were being raved about by Sounds’ Garry Bushell – the ill-fated U2.
I actually thought they were alright, on the night, what with their Television-lite pop rock, although I –along with my mate Ronnie Burke – did spend most of their set shouting Nanu Nanu at the singer because of his remarkable resemblance to Mork From Ork.
The annual Futurama Festival carried on for a few more years after that but I didn’t go again or, indeed, go to another music festival.(Apart from Dock Rock in Hartlepool, my home town.) It could never be bettered.
Killing Rock and Roll?
The Monochrome Set were probably one of the first, and certainly on of the best, of that pick n mix bunch that are now known as postpunk bands. I bought their first single- Alphaville/ He’s Frank, in 1979 and saw them perform at Leeds's Futurama festival later that year. A big part of The Monochrome Set’s arch and angular charm is the quixotic guitar playing of Lester Square.
Last year, Lester announced that he was putting together a new LP. An instrument/ spoken word affair called Taps, with music from Lester and spoken word performances from respected writers such as Lucy O’ Brian, Nicholas Blincoe, Toby Litt, and, shockingly, me!
My yarn is entitled Killing Rock and Roll, and below is the text, if you fancy. I personally hate the sound of my own voice- I always think that I sound like James Mason when I’m more like Sue Pollard.
Anyroads, you can listen to Taps at Spotify or purchase it from Bandcamp. there’s a lot of it about!
London Calling?
My first trip to London was on a coach trip to see Teesside post-punk heroes Basczax play at The Nashville rooms. I also bought a Siouxsie and the Banshees bootleg and drank Guinness for the first time. Other trips followed when my school friend Jeff Luke moved to London to study art. I eventually moved to London in 1991 left in 2001. Jaunts to Toulouse, New York and Madrid ensued before I crash landed in Poland …
Flashbacks to London include walking down Abbey Road, across the famous Beatles zebra crossing, and seeing Dave Vanian – the vampire- esque singer with The Damned – driving a hearse. Shortly after, I was in a warehouse which had a room full of sump oil and a shark floating in formaldehyde. … a drunken Bert Kwok playing air-piano in a Soho private members club … a tall man carrying a massive white cross down Kensington High Street … The Buena Vista Social Club in Hyde Park, the beer tent only sold Pimms or champagne … eating a chocolate covered scorpion … Astrid Gilberto at The Jazz Café and Ennio Morricone at the Barbican … a woman named Dora Gray who had been born in an orphanage and whose name on her birth certificate was just the number 13 … Tracey Emin dancing to Stuck In The Middle with you at my friend’s memorial … and lots and lots of time travelling on the tube or on the bus … All seen through a shot glass darkly, of course.
Halcyon Days and other musical mishaps.
‘I can remember the halcyon days/ We leapt on stage though we couldn’t play/ And furthermore, we had nothing to say.’
The above lyrics are from the song Satellite City, by the splendid ‘80s band Orange Juice, but they do have some relevance to this post since I was once in a band called Halcyon Days who couldn’t play and had nothing to say. None of that leaping onstage nonsense. mind you.
And so it came to pass … as per usual it all pretty much revolved around Richard Sanderson. In 77/78 Richard was the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of the band Drop who were bloody good- and were even touted by Julian Cope before he became a cartoon character. Richard had been in experimental bands for many years – starting with Solaris in 1975, I think, and he was also partial to doing ‘projects.’ One such project was with the marvellous local band Tick Tick. Another was with me, which was far from marvellous. The name of this project as ‘The Frozen Wastelands of The North.’ And it involved Richard making weird noises with found instruments and objects, and me talking cobblers over it. It wasn’t as good as it sounds. No, really.
And on … Richard became, and still remains, a very good friend but we didn’t get involved in music together for a while. Which was a very good thing indeed.
Of course, I had other chums who were partial to getting some sort of band together – this was the early ‘80s and that sort of thing happened - and, as usual, our reach exceeded our grasp in ways that would have had Robert Browning spinning in this grave. The band were Coronet Blue- named after a TV series about a PI with amnesia. Coronet Blue consisted of Ronnie Burke on drums, David Theasby on an acoustic guitar that was covered in Elvis stickers, and me on a three string bass that I borrowed from my mate Peter Ord. And yes, we were shite. We even played a gig upstairs at Middlesbrough Empire. David Theasby made weird noises on a synthesizer borrowed from Tick Tick’s Jeff Spence and Richard Sanderson sang on one, ahem, song.
In the meantime, Richard had disbanded Drop and was no longer playing with Tick Tick. So, one night at The Empire, fuelled by halves of lager and lime, Ronnie and I asked him if he’d like to form a band with us. And very politely, he said yes. I remember visiting his house and hearing the 2 song repertoire- French Windows, an old Drop song later covered by Freight Train, Julian Cope’s brothers band, and a new song, I Talk. And we rehearsed and played gigs and wrote new songs and even the multi-talented Peter Ord joined.
Indeed, thing seemed to be moving forward- with the support of Billy Oblivion and Basczax- until some dickhead- ME!- decided that we should replace the drummer with a drum machine and add two young girls to sing backing vocals. We also changed our name to Oceans 11 and played a handful of gigs before mercifully fizzling out. My only venture into music since then is being on Lester Square’s recent TAPS LP and I reckon I wasn’t much cop then. But the days of being part of the Teesside Music Scene were some of the best times of my life and I met some of the best people I ever met. So, Sic Transit Gloria Bloody Estefan!
In Praise Of Billy Oblivion …
And so, it came to pass … In 1978, The Hartlepool Contingent (THC) started going to The Teessider pub in Stockton, mainly to see Basczax but also to catch the other bands that were playing. One of these bands was Billy Oblivion and The Obvious.
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The leader singer was, of course, Billy Oblivion and what a top turn he was! He was tall, tall, tall- as big as a wall- with bright red dyed hair, mascara and a bright red suit. He looked more like someone from New York’s CBGBs than a bloke from Stockton. Stand out songs were one about James Mason lying in the snow (he’s so cool) and Here Comes The Ocean. Some singers sang and others performed. Billy did all of that and more.
When I played bass in the band Halcyon Days, we supported Billy’s later band- Paradance- quite a few times and he was always helpful, supportive and bloody good company. Billy has continued to make music over the years, as Billy Oblivion and The Legendary DNA Cowboys, and others.
Robert Smith’s Set List.
And on … By the 3rd of March 1979, I’d been going to Middlesbrough Rock Garden quite regularly – usually getting a bus from Hartlepool to Port Clarence, taking the Transporter Bridge across the River Tees. and then running the gauntlet across the border to the Rock Garden.
The band on the 3rd of March were The Cure. They had just released their first single, Killing An Arab - a cracking tune inspired by Albert Camus’ novel The Outsider. The B-side was even better, a moody noir, torch song called 10.15 on a Saturday Night. My friends and I all liked the record and were really looking forward to the gig. I remember nothing of the support band and in many ways The Cure were also unremarkable- though that was the point of them at the time. Three anonymous young men wearing sweaters and jeans, their look was only enlivened by Robert Smith’s Buzzcocks badge. They were a far cry from the panto-Goth band they eventually became and they basically just stood there nervously performing their songs, including a new song called Boys Don’t Cry. But they were good because the songs were good. At the end of the gig, I pilfered Robert Smith’s set list as a souvenir. Many years later, I sent it to a schoolfriend who had moved to London to study art. He eventually turned it into a Robert Rauschenberg style collage and later still he daubed the phrase On Letters Of Gold across it in reference to The Associates’ version of the 60s song Kites and as a tribute to his then girlfriend. Alas, when the relationship dissolved he destroyed the painting. Sic Transit Gloria Gaynor.
The Day I Went Down To Nashville …
And so, it came to pass … Well, I started going to Middlesbrough Rock Garden in 1978- to see the brilliant Ultravox! – and stopped going in 1981 – New Order, 17th Feb 1981. In that short time, I saw lots of top bands there- The Fall, Spizz Energy, The Undertones, Psychedelic Furs, The Teardrop Explodes, The Raincoats, Echo and The Bunnymen, more and more – but the two bands I remember seeing most often were the UK Subs and The Damned.
The Damned were apparently once nicknamed The Scabs due to their propensity to jump to the top of the bill and play when headliners like the Sex Pistols were banned by the local council. They were also a top showbiz turn with their mixture of panto punk- oh no it isn’t!- prog rock, speed metal and, well, just pissing around- sometimes literally.
One of those times, there was a local group supporting. Some local groups that we’d seen were good, some were okay, but this band were really good. Basczax were like an urban-rather than urbane- Roxy Music. Like if Bryan Ferry had stayed in Hartlepool after Art College. They had similarities to Ultravox! But their mixture of Bowiesque- alienation and punk punch made them stand apart from and above most other local groups.
And so it came to pass … I saw Basczax a few times in Middlesbrough and became friends with them. I also found out that they hosted a weekly local bands spot at The Teessider pub in Stockton. This became a regular pilgrimage for The Hartlepool Contingent (THC). I saw plenty of really good local bands at The Teessider- Savage Passion, Drop, Shoot The Lights Out – and even played there a couple of times when I played bass in the band Halcyon Days. But that’s a story for another time …
Basczax quickly started to do really well and eventually recorded a couple of songs for Fast Records, alongside Joy Division no less.
And in July 1979, they were booked to play The Nashville Rooms in West London, supporting the pop-rock band Shake. This really was a big deal for the band, their first in the big city, and was probably an even bigger deal for The Hartlepool Contingent as the band organised a coach trip to take their loyal local supporters to the gig. Safety In Numbers, as The Adverts had said.
Now, I can’t say I remember much about the trip to London- I’d barely been out of the North East of England so I was probably as stressed as I was excited. But I do remember THC’s Gary Lister getting us to practice a Cockney accent for fear of getting attacked by the allegedly psychotic football hooligans the Chelsea Headhunters. Indeed, part of the trip involved calling into a shop for a can of Coke and asking for it like some sort of mangled Dick Van Dyke/ Ian Dury mash up. The trip also meant walking down Chelsea’s The King’s Road which seemed like the coolest street in the world at the time, which it probably was.
THC were also on a mission. One of our favourite bands were Siouxsie And The Banshees. We’d seen them live a couple of times at least and had recorder their John Peel Session from the radio but they had yet to have a record contract. Their were rumours of a bootleg EP- Love In A Void- but there was little chance of that turning up in the frozen wastelands of the North- so THC scurried around Chelsea on a scorching hot day feeling more than somewhat grubby and, well, poor. We eventually shuffled into a record shop that advertised in the back pages of the music rag Sounds - I can’t recall the shops name, unfortunately. It was rumoured to sell the Banshees Bootleg and we went into the shop expecting all manner of clandestine carryings on- whispers, brown paper bags, under the counter merch. What we found was a buzzing and lively place playing reggae and with copies of the Banshees Bootleg proudly on display over the counter!
So, with copies of the record bought we eventually retreated to the pub next to the Nashville Rooms, waiting for the Basczax gig to start. Again, it’s all a bit of a blur but I do remember drinking Guinness for the first time- I may even have drunk more than a pint of the stuff- and promptly throwing up in the Nashville toilets. Gary Lister developed a taste for Guinness and eventually penned an ode to it with his band The Vulgar Monkeys. To my mind, the gig went well- I think it was well reviewed in the music papers - though the band may have a different perspective! And all I can really remember of the journey back up North is wanting to go to the toilet. A lot! I’ve never been very ‘rock n’ roll …
And so it came to pass … ‘Languid ambient improvisation (excerpt) recorded in Richard Sanderson’s bedroom, Middlesbrough Spring 81. Paul Brazill - piano, Peter Ord, Keyboard, Richard Sanderson - percussion, guitar, clarinet, Ste Weatherall, bass.’
And it’s up at Soundcloud.
‘I can remember the halcyon days/ We leapt on stage though we couldn’t play/ And furthermore, we had nothing to say.’
The above lyrics are from the song Satellite City, by the splendid ‘80s band Orange Juice, but they do have some relevance to this post since I was once in a band called Halcyon Days who couldn’t play and had nothing to say. None of that leaping onstage nonsense. mind you.
And so it came to pass … as per usual it all pretty much revolved around Richard Sanderson. In 77/78 Richard was the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of the band Drop who were bloody good- and were even touted by Julian Cope before he became a cartoon character. Richard had been in experimental bands for many years – starting with Solaris in 1975, I think, and he was also partial to doing ‘projects.’ One such project was with the marvellous local band Tick Tick. Another was with me, which was far from marvellous. The name of this project as ‘The Frozen Wastelands of The North.’ And it involved Richard making weird noises with found instruments and objects, and me talking cobblers over it. It wasn’t as good as it sounds. No, really.
And on … Richard became, and still remains, a very good friend but we didn’t get involved in music together for a while. Which was a very good thing indeed.
Of course, I had other chums who were partial to getting some sort of band together – this was the early ‘80s and that sort of thing happened - and, as usual, our reach exceeded our grasp in ways that would have had Robert Browning spinning in this grave. The band were Coronet Blue- named after a TV series about a PI with amnesia. Coronet Blue consisted of Ronnie Burke on drums, David Theasby on an acoustic guitar that was covered in Elvis stickers, and me on a three string bass that I borrowed from my mate Peter Ord. And yes, we were shite. We even played a gig upstairs at Middlesbrough Empire. David Theasby made weird noises on a synthesizer borrowed from Tick Tick’s Jeff Spence and Richard Sanderson sang on one, ahem, song.
In the meantime, Richard had disbanded Drop and was no longer playing with Tick Tick. So, one night at The Empire, fuelled by halves of lager and lime, Ronnie and I asked him if he’d like to form a band with us. And very politely, he said yes. I remember visiting his house and hearing the 2 song repertoire- French Windows, an old Drop song later covered by Freight Train, Julian Cope’s brothers band, and a new song, I Talk. And we rehearsed and played gigs and wrote new songs and even the multi-talented Peter Ord joined.
Indeed, thing seemed to be moving forward- with the support of Billy Oblivion and Basczax- until some dickhead- ME!- decided that we should replace the drummer with a drum machine and add two young girls to sing backing vocals. We also changed our name to Oceans 11 and played a handful of gigs before mercifully fizzling out. Around that time,Julian Cope did contact Richard about signing to his proposed DanceMong Records but nothing came from that …
My only venture into music since then is being on Lester Square’s recent TAPS LP. But the days of being part of the Teesside Music Scene were some of the best times of my life and I met some of the best people I ever met. So, Sic Transit Gloria Bloody Estefan!
And so it came to pass …
I eventually left my hometown of Hartlepool in 1991 and moved to London. Rather than being an angry young man in search of truth, at almost 30, I was teetering on the cusp of middle-age, bemused and confused. Although I’d known that I wanted to move to The Big Smoke for half of my life, I most certainly didn’t have a clue what I was going to do when I got there. Any of my musical aspirations had long since died on the vine. So, I got a job I didn’t like and drank in pubs I did. Any contact with the artistic life was usually via my school friend Jeff Luke’s association with the Brit Art world – I remember Dame Tracey Emin pretending to play cricket as she danced to Booker T & The MGs in a South London pub, arguing with Jeremy Deller about music - and trips to Camden’s Jazz Café, where my then-girlfriend worked and where I saw Astrud Gilberto perform, and hanging around Maxim Jakubowski’s Murder One bookshop, where I discovered the likes of Joe L Lansdale and Kinky Friedman …
Any creative endeavours from myself were pretty much dampened by pints of lager. So it went. But early in the 1990s, I had another revelation. American Indie cinema via Tintin Quarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and various others. This was a great time for a certain kind of film – my kind of film - which had been foreshadowed by the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple – Dead in the Heart of Texas – neo noir, dialogue heavy ensembles pieces, shooting, swearing, top tunes ...
I first saw Reservoir Dogs at the Richmond Filmhouse, a venue more suited to twee frocksploitation films, where people walked out. I thought it was great, of course. After it was banned in the UK as part of some scaremongering or other, I bought a dodgy VHS copy of the film, with Swedish subtitles, on a visit to France.
Anyway, around this time being a screenwriter become quite cool, rather than being the film director’s ugly sister, and I even considered having a go myself. I bought books by William Goldman and Sid Field, a book by a bloke that wrote for Cheers, screenplays, Rebel Without a Crew, and all manner of screenwriting carryings on.
I never actually wrote anything, mind you …
But somehow, some way, I saw an advert for a screenwriting course that was to be held at the London School of Business (School). It was helmed by a ‘professional screenwriter’ - the brilliantly named Randall Flynn. So, I enrolled, and I actually did the course. The other attendees were a nice and mixed bunch, a few from the advertising and media world, and a few waifs and strays such as me.
I enjoyed the course. We watched clips from Bad Timing, Witness, and Silence of the Lambs, and leant about pitching and some other stuff which I’ve forgotten about. And I even wrote an actual screenplay -after a fashion.
The screenplay was called Rain City Moon and was a faux neo noir crime thriller, with, as far as I remember, no discernible story. Somewhere on the way, I sent enquiry letters to various agents and film companied most of whom ignored me but a real-life American called Aaron something or other who worked for Scala Productions asked for a copy of my script. And I sent it off with ideas way, way above my station. I tried to contact the septic a few weeks later and was told that he was no longer working at Scala. And nobody there had a bloody clue about my script. And, of course, I’d sent him my only copy …
As for Randall Flynn, well, he eventually published a short-lived screenwriting magazine that interviewed the bloke that wrote Pretty Woman, and although I kept an eye out for a bit, I never saw him credited as having written a produced screenplay. So, it went.
And so it came to pass … I moved to London, from Hartlepool, in 1991 and left in 2001. It was an experiment, for sure, and at least a handful of adventures ensued, but it wasn’t quit the smorgasbord of earthly delights that were cluttered in the back of my mind- and the back of my mind always was, and still is, very cluttered indeed. So, I arrived in the very lovely Chiswick in West London, unemployed. Thanks to the kindness of friends and near- strangers I just about got by, but this codswallop carried on until 2001 when- thanks to a very sensible person’s very sensible decision- I was given the option to go. But what to do? To paraphrase The Lurkers, I dint ‘ave a bloody clue.
So, I went to Toulouse in the south of France for a couple of weeks- I been there before- to get my head together and I had a really nice time, but returned to Blighty with no more of an idea about my next step than I had before. Then, I had another genius idea- since the only way up after London would be New York, that’s where I’d go until the money ran out, I’d write a great novel and be some sort of literary legend, and maybe die on Broadway. Not that I’d written a novel before of even had enough money to live for more than a couple of weeks but so it went anyway, after seeing Ennio Morricone perfprm at the Barbican I had a sort of pilgrimage itinerary set out- CBGS, The Algonquin, The Chelsea Hotel, Myers of Keswick- and didn’t go to any of them. I met Eric Idle on a traffic island near Times Square, and I did, spend a lot of time in The Collins Bar- a pub with a great jukebox that played LPs- playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with the barman. Yea, I got drunk between the moon and New York City, I know it’s crazy but it’s true. Oh, and a friend even offered me to chance to stay at her Atlantic City home. but of course I chickened out and returned to England with my dwindling tadger between my legs…
Now, I was on sabbatical from work and really only needed to find somewhere to live but my booze addled mind wouldn’t accept such a sensible solution, so I hot-tailed it back to Hartlepool. This was actually a nice time but I was itching for something and it was suggested that I take a TEFL (Teaching English as A Foreign Language) course and blag a job abroad.
It seemed a mental idea, but I tried it. I tried to get on a course in Prague but it was full so I accepted Madrid in Spain. This proved to be a great idea and a great summer- except for the 42c heat- and I even, passed the course. I returned to Hartlepool full of vim and vinegar. After a fashion.
Now was that hard part, finding a bloody job in somewhere I wanted to go to. Slumming it in a disease ridden third-world county seemed horrible. Anyway, I’d been told in Madrid that ‘Thailand is for perverts and Poland is for drunks’. Sooooo …. it seemed clear to me … I did turn down a job in Bratislava( ‘Fly to Vienna and take the night train across th Danube’ …) and it really was appealing However in September 2002 I landed in Warsaw airport – via Amsterdam- and that, of course, is another story …
? Paul D. Brazill.