Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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And that's why I was so excited, this week, in 1980.
That's because it was the week in which the Moscow Olympics got underway.
It was a controversial event, with several countries, including the United States, pulling out in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Despite pressure from the similarly-minded UK government, British athletes went ahead and took part, picking up 5 gold medals, 7 silver and 9 bronze.
But it wasn't all celebration for the people of Britain, as UK unemployment hit a 44-year high of almost 1.9 million people.
Over on the Pop charts, Odyssey suddenly ruled the roost, thanks to their single Use it up and Wear it Out.
And, on the album chart, Queen held firm at Number One with their platter that mattered The Game.
The Fourth Doctor's still involved in the intrigue of the Dragon's Claw.
In the Daleks' strip, a strange craft has landed on Skaro.
In a Lee/Heck masterpiece, a businessman bullies a scientist into giving him a device that can grant humans the longevity of a redwood tree.
I think we can all guess what happens next.
And we finish off with a two-part Alan Moore tale in which a spy investigates a company called Galaxy Plastics.
Given the name of that company, I'll make a guess that Autons are involved, though I confess that it is just a guess.
And only Spider-Man can save her!
Needless to say, this causes panic amongst the watching Germans.
In the present day, it seems the American military is out to get ROM.
In Shang-Chi's strip, there's some intrigue about the location of a stolen statuette called The Golden Dragon.
The Rawhide Kid's under attack by a posse of townspeople and is low on bullets.
Wulf the Briton's still laying siege to Cartamandua's fortress.
Kull and his apemen allies are battling a tentacular horror.
And Machine Man's hunting down the villain known as Kublai Khan, thanks to said criminal having given him a headache.
I know little of this week's issue, other than that Marvel's adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back continues - seemingly, with the Millennium Falcon's flight into an asteroid field.
I am assuming we get another tale of the Watcher, and that Gullivar Jones' adventures on Mars are also still ongoing.
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28 comments:
A 44-year high of 1.9 million unemployed? Margaret Thatcher's government would do much better than that over the next few years Steve, and Boris Johnson looks set to beat even her record.
Its a bit baffling why the English keep voting for them really.
Anyhow, I see you didn't mention precisely how Dazzler was hooked up to Lightmaster's machine. Your readers - well, at least Charlie and dangermash - will be disappointed.
That Machine Man story - from the Ditko issues - was titled "Xanadu", because the villain Kublai Khan did a stately pleasure ...er, blimp decree.
(Thats what he called his airship)
-sean
Is the machine that Dazzler is hooked up to "THE" machine? (wink, wink???)
That's a nice cover on the Star Wars! Quite so!
Help UK gents!
As long as we are talking about the UK, over the past month or so, on Talk Sport Radio and Sky News Live (stuff I can hear driving to/from work or watch on the PC at work) I hear the expression "Fair Play" frequently now.
I wish I had a sentence but they are escaping me b/c I am always caught by surprise when the term is used b/c it is entirely unexpected.
Is this a new expression or am I just suddenly noticing it? Also, what does it mean? I approximate it to "good job?" I actually can't figure out how what it means exactly.
Charlie, the phrase, "Fair play," depends on its context.
If used in the context, "Fair play to him, he did score 25 goals last season," it just means giving someone their due credit, sometimes reluctantly. As far as I'm aware, its a usage that's been around quite a few years.
If used in the context, "UEFA found Manchester City in breach of the Fair Play regulations," it's a reference to rules that limit how much a sporting club can spend, relative to its income.
If used in the context, "The referee's there to ensure fair play," it just means he's there to enforce the rules of the game.
And, yes, the Dazzler's contraption is that machine.
Sean, we should always remember that 60% of the public keep voting against them. First Past the Post is such a wonderful system for making sure the majority always get their wishes ignored.
I take your point Steve, but all the same even under the Westminster system its noticeable that the Scots and Welsh manage to avoid giving them a majority quite regularly.
-sean
Steve! All I can say is "wow!" You nailed it for me on "Fair Play" particularly the first example! I have seen the light!
Also, the context for you answers suggests you are a Talk Sport / Football (soccer) fan to some degree? I mean, you absolutely nailed the 3 ways that "Fair Play" is used on the shows!
I guess I could google "First past the post." But my daughter and I went to a Syrian restaurant last night and they were adamant about us accepting (and drinking!) their free offer "turkish" coffees and teas. Point is I barely slept a wink and it's all i can do to type this out, much less google, lol!
But based on the context above FPTP sounds as quaint and dysfunctional as our antiquated electoral college, which is the only reason a Republican has been elected President since the Berlin Wall came down.
Laugh at my reference, but in the very near future "The Berlin Wall coming down" will be captured in one of Steve's "31 years ago today" blogs!
Steve, I love your descriptions of the pop charts with phrases like "ruled the roost" and "platter that mattered" - you sound like Alan "Fluff" Freeman at his best...nor' arf' pop pickers!
On the subject of the English and the Tory Party, I think the Tories are seen as an English version of the SNP by a section of the English public - that explains why there's no official English National Party - the Tories already fill that role. I recall Shirley Williams saying "The Tory Party is more like a way of life than a party" which sounds strange but maybe explains the Tories' appeal. As Steve mentioned, the Tories also benefit from the First Past The Post system which makes them seem more popular than they really are - that's why they fear a proportional voting system. But the vast bulk of Tory support nowadays comes from the over-50s and especially the over-60s - the Tories represent old people but old people go out and vote while young people can't be bothered to get off their backsides or their phones.
Colin, I remember that, in his later days, Alan Freeman used to do his radio show from the old people's home he lived in. I have a horrible feeling that's going to end up being me, one day, posting this blog from an old folk's home.
Charlie, I wouldn't say I was a TalkSport fan but I do listen to it from time to time. Also, football is a major part of British culture, so it's hard not to know what's going on with it.
First Past the Post is a system where the candidate who gets the highest number of votes in his/her constituency is sent to Parliament as its representative, regardless of how many votes he or she got.
This can make sense in a country that only has two parties but, in a country like Britain which has a whole mountain of parties, the whole thing breaks down and produces massive distortions.
For instance, say you had a constituency with 100,000 candidates standing in it and one of them got 2 votes and the other 99,999 got 1 vote each, that candidate would become the area's Member of Parliament, even though he'd only picked up 2 votes out of the 100,001 that were cast. If that was replicated in every area of the country, you'd have a party in power that had got just 1,300 votes nationally, while the 65 million people who'd voted against it would get no representation.
That is, of course, an exaggeration of what happens in the real world but it sums up how distorted First Past the Post can become when there are more than two candidates in each constituency.
Steve - we basically end up with the same scenario here in the USA.
As you described so well, the "winner take all" approach disenfranchises the majority of the population at each election.
You can't have a system where a party / individual gets 49.9% of the votes they/ their supporters have zero voice in the government. But we do and it has created a crisis of sorts.
Colin - as you say, the young don't and never have voted in large percent. Too naive, busy, whatever. But in the USA, we have ensured that the older, wealthier white guys dominate the polls by voting on Tuesdays during business hours between 6 AM and 6 PM. Why not just vote like France, over two days, on a weekend? Ahhh... but that would help ensure the working poor (read: non-whites) get to the polls.
Too naive? Personally Charlie, I think not voting is a perfectly reasonable response to the sort of choice generally on offer. If my Labour MP wasn't a left-winger I'd probably not bother either.
-sean
"First past the post" is a terrible choice of words to describe the system where whoever gets the most votes is the winner. There's no post that anybody needs to get past and there's nothing that anybody needs to be the first one to do if they want to win.
On the other hand, if we had a single transferable vote system, it would make sense to describe that as first past the post. Everybody as to and all the candidates in order, You have the first round of votes. If nobody has got more than 50% of the votes, you eliminate whoever has fewest votes and everybody that voted for him gets their votes reallocated to their next preferred candidate. If nobody has made it to 50%, you eliminate the lowest scorer, reallocate their votes, add up again,..... and keep going until someone is the first to get past the 50% finishing line. Now that's a system that deserves to be called first past the post. There is a post and the first person past it really does win.
Charlie, in the UK we vote on Thursdays which is just as stupid - all other European countries vote at the weekend.
I must disagree with Steve that it's hard to ignore football as it's a major part of the culture - I find it very easy to ignore football and I don't have a clue who any of the players are. I'd never even heard of Marcus Rashford before his free school meals campaign a few weeks ago.
Let's not forget that in 2011 we had a referendum on whether to change the voting system to the one Dangermash describes but 69% of our moronic fellow citizens decided to keep the present rotten FPTP method.
I can't remember who it was, but somebody once said democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other ones.
I look forward to the time when robots take over.
And I would like to take this moment to assure our future mechanical overlords that I am available to inform and spy on any of my fellow fleshlings, including everybody who visits this blog.
Hail Skynet!
M.P.
As Fundkadelic told us 50 years ago... "Free your mind... and you ass will follow... the kingdom of heaven is within!!!"
I suspect that's what's happened in the UK and USA during the last election national election.
(I suspect that with the Funkadelic reference KD will put the hammer down tonight, lol, and we'll wake up to a barrage.)
Re Funkadelic - surely "Super Stupid" is a much more prescient anticipation of recent Anglo-American electoral choices Charlie?
-sean
We're gonna get through this, Sean. We'll throw them bums out.
Villainy may have it's day, but after that...uh, hopefully less villainy.
M.P.
MP, I think it was Churchill who said it.
Sean,
Nice link between Kublai Khan & last week's Xanadu topic! Do you remember Kublai Khan's henchman, Tong? He really gave Machine Man & Gears Garvin a run for their money! Tong could have been the basis for Robert Carlyle's character (a henchman who feels no pain) in one of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies.
M.P. - As regards Skynet, long before Arnie ever fought Skynet, Iron Man was there first!
In Iron Man # 5, 'Frenzy in a Far Flung Future', Iron Man battles the computer,
Cerebrus (sic), a Skynet-type villain, who runs the world with robots, all because
of the consequences of an invention of Tony Stark's, back in the present day!
Re: last week's discussion of Leeds. In 1980, Leeds had an amazing comics shop on Boar Lane. This comics shop was situated below street level, like 'Cheers' (a rathskellar?) My brother and I got some fantastic comics there. Unfortunately, it closed soon afterwards. In the late 70s/early 80s, Leeds also had a great fish & chip restaurant, called 'Youngmans.' 'Youngmans' was situated on Briggate, the main shopping street in Leeds; but what made it special was you had to go upstairs to eat your fish & chips, where you could gaze down on the other shoppers walking up Briggate, like ants below! Youngmans was full of old aged pensioners, having fish & chips, with kids reading comics being the exception. You collected your fish & chips on a tray, served with a cup of tea, some bread & butter, and a choice of chocolate biscuit (Kit Kat or Breakaway.) Unfortunately, Youngmans didn't last much longer. Still Leeds was always a great outing/day out, when you were a kid.
For comics, Sheffield had the Space Centre on the Wicker, but I remember that more for getting Elric books after dropping out of university (first time)!
Phillip Beadham
P.S. The question before publishing my comment "I'm not a robot" fits nicely with Skynet/Cerebrus!
Phil, that day in Leeds sounds like a good time to me. Good food and comics are always a winning combo.
When you're talking about Elric, are you talking about the books or the comics? I'm a fan of both. When I was in grad school (a rather pointless exercise) I found out the college library had Moorcock's stuff in paperback. Isn't that weird? I don't remember how I found that out, I must've been looking for it on a goof, but I spent a good month or so blowing off or just skimming my assigned reading and instead read a couple of those paperbacks.
My earlier introduction to the character and the writer was through P. Craig Russell's illustrated version. I still dig 'em . It was an Elric story drawn by him in the late great Marvel magazine Epic.
Anybody remember that? That and Heavy Metal.
M.P.
As it happens M.P., we're not that far off from Epic #3 - the first appearance of Russell's Elric - maybe turning up here in the 40 year Lucky Bag feature if Steve decides to include it.
Michael Moorcock was big here in the 70s, and I read loads of books as a kid. He was really prolific, so that as you got a bit older and lost interest in the sword and sorcery, you could move on to his weirdo science-fiction and whatnot, which was a kind of way into William Burroughs and stuff like that.
-sean
Well, Sean, if Steve decides to showcase that here, I would look forward to it.
I confess I'm not familiar with Moorcock's other stuff.
M.P.
I think Colin's comment that "young people can't be bothered to get off their backsides or their phones" is a bit of an oversimplification and typical of the things us old people say:-) There's definitely been an increase of political awareness in younger people recently ( e.g the BLM protests ) and I'm cautiously optimistic that the next generation of voters can change things. The majority of them may seem oblivious to anything but their own interests but I think the balance is tipping and the current government's hideously bungled handling of the pandemic will surely go against them. I'm glad to say both my kids voted last time - my son ( 21 ) is very political and my daughter ( 24 ) was spurred on to vote for the first time by Bojo's incompetence. Okay, we lost in that particular vote but, as I say, I think there's hope for the future.
M.P.,
As regards Elric, it was the books for me - to start with. I began with 'The Sailor on the Seas of Fate', followed by 'Stormbringer' - both from the Space Centre in Sheffield. Then I read all the other Elric books - in completely the wrong order! Later, I got one of the Elric graphic novels, by P.Craig Russell. I can't remember the title, but the story started with Earl Aubec, then got round to Elric later on. It's in a box somewhere in the garage! It's interesting grad school was when you got into Elric; it's as if the character is suited for university age (19,20,21?) Alienation? Self-absorption? (Speaking for myself, at that age!) Sean, I've explored some of Moorcock's other heroes - Hawkmoon, Corum, & others - but all had less depth, as characters, compared with Elric. I read Kerouac, but not William Burroughs. Maybe I could give him a shot - but is he a writer more suited for when you are younger(like Moorcock, perhaps?), rather than middle-aged? Both Adam Warlock & the Black Knight borrowed from Elric in a big way. The scene where Adam Warlock brings a girl back from the dead to interrogate her, is similar to the scene at the start of 'Stormbringer', when Elric brings a demon back from the dead, to discover where Zarozinia has been taken. More obviously, Warlock's soul gem & Stormbringer both steal souls. Plus, Pip & Moonglum as sidekicks.
Oh, I forgot to mention last week, when Charlie was talking about 3 Dog Night, I remember (decades ago) Gil Gerard, on Buck Rogers, mentioning 3 Dog Night and, at the time, I had no idea who he was talking about. So they were much less well known, this side of the pond. More recently, Shambala was featured on American Dad (along with another 3 Dog Night song), in that episode in which Stan's son, Steve, discovered his friend Barry's parents were swingers.
Phillip Beadham
Steve, the UK is a union of countries. It's in the name. I know the BBC uses UK to mean England now but Wales and Scotland have devolved governments and up here, just as a reminder, we have our own education and legal systems, languages and banks notes. Thanks to EVEL, we don't participate in English decision-making. It's a one-sided union and we're no more a single country than the EU.
This is indeed true, Dougie.
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