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How desperate are you to see really small things?
If you're inescapably desperate to do it, the 3rd of March in 1986 was the happiest day of your life.
You guessed it. It was the day which saw the publication of the first paper that described the atomic force microscope!
I know. I was excited too!
Things were, possibly, not quite so thrilling in your local cinema but the month did see the release of such offerings as Highlander, The Care Bears Movie II and Police Academy 3.
On the UK singles chart, March began with the Bee Gees penned Diana Ross toe-tapper Chain Reaction at Number One. However, even the supreme Miss Ross cannot stand in the way of a determined Cliff. And so it was that the month ended with Cliff Richard and the Young Ones ruling supreme, thanks to their revival of Living Doll.
The British album chart, meanwhile, entered March with Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms in top spot before that was forced to make way for Hits 4 by the 1980s' hottest act Various Artists.
But what of the galaxy's greatest comic?
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15 comments:
Hard pass on everything mentioned in this post, except ‘Chain Reaction’ and ‘Halo Jones’.
That was me, sorry.
Diana Ross reached #1 in the UK with I'm Still Waiting and Chain Reaction but neither song made the Top 50 in her native USA. How strange!
Not necessarily strange, Mr Jones - apparently "I'm Still Waiting" wasn't scheduled to be released as a single, but after heavy airplay and much badgering by Tony Blackburn, it was released as such...whereupon it made the big time.
Released elsewhere, it only got to #69 in Australia according to Wikipedia, but I'm extremely dubious about their chart statistics (it was certainly a top 20 hit in my neck of the woods).
Perhaps it wasn't released in the US?
According to Wikipedia 'I'm Still Waiting' reached #63 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 'Chain Reaction' reached #66.
In Australia 'Chain Reaction' also hit #1 and was the best-selling single of 1986'
That Halo cover is one of my favourites. I remember hoping Titan would do a t-shirt featuring it, but they released the increased leasure one instead. Which I bought anyway but with a mild sense of disappointment.
DW
Leisure even…
DW
But Matthew, the post also mentioned Sláine - surely you didn't pass on everyone's favourite Celtic berserker finally facing down the nine dimensional dark god Grimnismal, drawn by Glenn Fabry?
Dredd wasn't too bad either at this point. I think prog 460 featured the first Democracy story, the first I remember reading anyway. Although it took a while for its significance to become apparent. John Wagner was good at the long form storyline thing.
You be interested to know the Art of Noise had a new single out this month. Admittedly it was the Peter Gunn theme though...
Still, on the plus side Yello's 'New Mix In One Go' came out, a remix collection of their stuff over the previous five years -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wwIpFo-Tj0
-sean
Steve, for a bit of context, the GLC was abolished at the end of March '86, after Red Ken annoyed Thatcher too many times. Fair play to someone who could do that, and fourteen years later piss off Sir Tony too, with his comeback as mayor.
I always liked Livingstone. Sad to hear he has been diagnosed with Alzheimers.
I think South Yorkshire county Council was closed down too...?
-sean
I have to be honest, I’ve only ever liked the McMahon Slaine.
I sort of liked Fabry’s busy, detailed art at the time but it was always a bit inert. And Bisley and all the Bisley clones that followed were at the point where I was tuning out on 2000AD, and then bailing.
I was actually excited by the Peter Gunn single at the time as I’d thought their previous (first major label release) Legs was really good. But it was the last single of theirs I bought, sadly.
No, tell a lie, I did buy Legacy (a reworking of Legs to cash in on the Tuborg ads they did) later in the year. But downhill from here. The Max Headroom single after this, wasn’t it?
I toyed with picking up that Yello album many times but didn’t get around to it. Took me a few years before I got into them (and it wasn’t with The Race, either).
Sean, South Yorkshire County Council did indeed bite the dust. As far as I'm aware, every metropolitan county council in the UK was abolished, just because Maggie didn't like Ken Livingstone.
Well, I expect South Yorkshire annoyed her too, Steve (;
And t' north generally.
Matthew, I know what you mean about Glenn Fabry's work. But I'd say he got really good a bit later, during the final b&w Sláine arc when he switched from using pens to a brush (or whatever it was he did when his line became more varied, and his work moved a lot more).
Bisley's stuff wasn't to my taste, although I could see why it was popular. But the imitators... yeah, I definitively bailed on the progs pretty soon after they went full colour too.
-sean
I heard Ken Livingstone say that Hitler had been elected which is incorrect as Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg, not elected.
But I admire Ken for introducing London's congestion charge without a referendum. Democracy is somewhat over-rated as the Brexit referendum proved!
WEIRD FACT: Ken Livingstone's parents were Tory voters!
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