—Julien Temple, interview with John May, NME, October 1979
“We’ve lost a battle, but we haven’t lost the War.” Petulantly, Miss Brunner switched off the equipment. Her face was smeared with soot. The dogs lay dead around her, bleeding from the ears.
Through a pair of battered binoculars Frank surveyed the ruins. “They got the palace before they sank.”
“Did they all make it into the airship?”
“I think so.”
Bishop Beesley finished the last of his toasted marshmallows. “They’re a lot further forward,” he said. “Aren’t they?”
Miss Brunner glared at him.
Smoke from the gutted Houses of Parliament drifted towards them.
“It’s a state of emergency all right” said Frank.
“Somebody’s got to teach the Sex Pistols a lesson.” Miss Brunner’s lips were prim as, with a fastidious toe, she pushed aside a wolfhound.
“They have a lot of power now,” said Bishop Beesley.
She dismissed this. “The secret there, bishop, is that childishly they don’t want it. They’ll give it up. They don’t want it—but we do. Half the time all we have to do is wait.”
“I suppose so. They’re not fond of responsibility, these young hooligans.” Bishop Beesley took off his dirty surplice. “It makes you sick.”
Miss Brunner looked with horror at his paisley boxer shorts.
Hello, Julie
“You weren’t breaking any icons,” said Nestor Makhno. “You were just drawing bits of graffiti over them. And helping the establishment make profits. You went about as far as Gilbert and Sullivan.”
It was a somewhat sour evening at the Café Hendrix.
“You have to go solo,” said Marc Bolan. “It’s the only way.”
“Don’t give me any of your Stirnerist rationalisations.” The old anarchist poured himself another large shot of absinthe. “The Ego and his Own, eh?”
“My anarchists were always romantic leaders,” said Jules Verne, who had dropped over from The Mechaniste in the hope of finding his friend Meinhoff.
“Which is why they were never proper anarchists.” Makhno had had this argument before. He turned his back on the Frenchman. “It’s all substitutes for religion, when you come down to it. I give up.”
“If you want my opinion, they should never have put a woman in charge.” Saint Paul, as usual, was lost in his own little world.
Big Money
Having failed to find what he needed at The Jolly Englishman public house, Mo put his disguise back on and went to Kings Cross, heading for The Hotel Dramamine.
He was sure, now that a few things had been settled along the embankment, Jerry would want to explain.
The lady at the door recognised him. “Go up to Room 12, dear,” she said. “There’ll be someone there in a minute.”
He didn’t tell her what he was really after.
He got to the first landing and went directly to the cage room. This was where Mr Bug had kept his special clients. It was empty apart from a miserable Record Company executive, who whined at him for a moment or two before he left. No information.
Other doors were locked. The ones which yielded showed him nothing he didn’t already know. It was obvious, however, that Mr Bug wasn’t here.
Room 12 had been prepared for him. He suspected a trap. On the other hand the lady on the waterbed looked as if she could take his mind off his problems. He decided to risk it.
“You don’t know where Mr Bug is, I suppose,” he said, as he stripped.
She opened her oriental lips.
“Love me,” she said, “you’re so wonderful.”
He flung himself onto the heaving rubber.
The door opened. One of Mr Bug’s representatives stood there. He had a wounded Alsatian with him. From beyond the window a car began to hoot.
Mo scrambled out of the bed. As he made for the window he was certain he heard the dog speak. It was better than nothing. He plunged from the window and into Jerry’s car. “Let’s rock.”
I Need Your Tender Touch
“Monarchy’s only a symbol,” said Mr Bug’s representative to Mitzi as the car moved slowly through what remained of St James’s Park, “but then so are the Sex Pistols.”
Near the pond, groups of homeless civil servants were jollying each other along as they erected temporary shelters, prefabs and tents.
“I don’t think anyone meant it to go this far.” Mitzi frowned. “Could you hurry it up a bit? I’ve got a train to catch.”
“Jerry did. A bit of chaos allows him more freedom of movement.”
“Malcolm has the same idea. Keep ’em fazed.”
Mr Bug’s representative placed a rubber hand on her little knee. “Instant gratification” he said. “Where are we going?”
“To rock.”
Mr Bug’s representative tapped the chauffeur with his whip. “Did you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The car bumped up the path through the park towards Piccadilly. All the roads around the Palace were ruined.
“It’s peaceful now, isn’t it?” Mitzi wound down the window. “I love the smell of smoke, don’t you?”
“I can’t smell a thing in this exoskeleton. My usual senses are cut off, you see.”
“I suppose that’s the point of it.”
“It does allow one a certain kind of objectivity.”
“Like being a child?”
“Well, no. Like being an ant, really.”
Anarchy Dropped Out of the Top Twenty
Mo and Jerry panted on the platform, watching the train as it pulled away.
“I saw him.” Jerry scratched. “Jimi.”
“Or someone like him.” Mo rubbed his nose. “Should we find out where the train’s going?”
“He could get off anywhere.”
“You spent too long in that bloody hotel,” said Jerry.
“You could have arrived a couple of minutes earlier.” Mo was bitter.
“This is pointless. Let’s give it up.”
“I want my wages.”
“He hasn’t got them, though has he? Or if he has, we’re not going to get them now. What are you really after, Mo?”
“I need some answers, I told you.”
“Don’t we all? But you never got them, did you?”
Slow Train through the Occident
Miss Brunner settled herself in the first class compartment. “We’re going to have to deal with them.”
“I tried to get into the next carriage,” said Frank, “but it seems to have been locked. I think there’s some trouble going on.”
“It’s locked at the other end as well.” Bishop Beesley wiped the sweet sweat from his cheeks. “I think it could be part of the emergency regulations.”
He relished the phrase. It was like coming home.
The regular rhythm of the train was soothing them all.
“What are you going to offer him?” Frank asked her. “I mean, what have we actually got?”
“Experience” she said. “Ambition. A sense of right and wrong. Everything you need to put things into proper order. Sooner or later the balloon will burst.”
“It seems to have burst already.”
“A pinprick. It’ll be patched in no time.”
“I admire your resilience, Miss Brunner.” Bishop Beesley was feeling in his pockets for the remains of his chocolate digestives. “I suppose you didn’t notice if there was a buffet?”
“Not in this carriage,” Frank told him.
“They always come back to us.” Miss Brunner looked out at the windows. “Cows,” she said.
Change Your Masques
The last of the Musician-Assassins put his vibra-gun into its holster. “They’ll be wanting a martyr,” he told Mo. “A proper martyr to the seventies.”
“Well it isn’t going to be poor old me. All I’m after is my wages and maybe a chance to do the odd gig. I should never have got mixed up with you, Mr C.”<
br />
“You summoned me, remember?”
Mo shrugged. He sat hunched over his Bacon Burger in the Peckham Wimpy, watching the dirty rain on the windows. “I’ve got a feeling I’m being used. Has it after all come down to Peckham?”
“You keep saying that. I’m only doing what you said you wanted me to do.”
“There’s always a snag about making deals. Particularly with old hippy demons.”
“Do you mind? I was around long before that.”
“Maybe that’s your trouble. Are you trying to recapture your lost youth?”
Jerry dipped into his Tastee-Freeze. His whole attitude was self-pitying. “Maybe. But probably I’m trying to recapture those few moments when I felt grown-up. Know what I mean? In charge of myself.”
“How did you lose it?”
“Equating action with inspiration, maybe. Or ‘energy,’ whatever that is.”
“You’ve done quite a lot. You’re just feeling tired, probably.” Mo wondered how he came to be comforting his old boss.
The Assassin gave a deep sigh. “Bands begin breaking up when they’re faced with the implications of what they’ve started. When it threatens to turn into art, or something like it. Look at the problems the Dadaists had. Successful revolutions bring their own problems.”
Mo’s attention was wavering. “You really can be a boring old fart sometimes, can’t you? Hippy or not.”
Jerry seemed chastened. “It comes with analysing too much. But what else can I do these days? Imposition hasn’t worked very well, has it? Analysis is all you’re left with. Am I right or am I wrong?”
“Suit yourself.” Mo swivelled his red plastic seat round. “You should do what you feel like doing.”
The Assassin toyed with his Tastee-Freeze.
“Look where that’s got me.” He cast a miserable eye around him. “The bloody Peckham Wimpy.”
Every Room Was a Dead End
“Isn’t the train ever going to stop?” Miss Brunner couldn’t recognise the countryside. “Whose idea was this, anyway?”
“Yours,” said Frank. “Or mine. I forget.” He was beginning to fugue a bit. “Tra la la. Hi diddle de de. Ta ra a boom de ay.”
Bishop Beesley was of no use at all. He desperately needed a fix. His fat was turning a funny colour and the flesh was loosening even as she watched.
“We’re out of control,” she said, “and I don’t like it.”
“I thought you said we knew what we were doing?” Frank wiped drool from his lips. “Hic.”
“We do. But I didn’t expect the corridors to be blocked. That little bastard has outmanoeuvred us.”
“But only for the moment, eh?” said Frank. He was being dutiful. “What do you want me to say?”
“You’re bloody useless!”
He winced.
“I have to do everything myself.”
Bishop Beesley mewled. “A Milky Way would be all right.”
It became dark. The train had entered a tunnel. It stopped.
Miss Brunner thought she saw a white face press itself against the window for a second, but she was losing faith in her own judgement.
This realization made her very angry.
She kicked Frank in the shin.
Frank began to giggle.
Holidays in the Sun
Mrs Cornelius had her sleeves rolled up. She was doling out soup from the specially erected canteen in Trafalgar Square.
“Hello, mum.” Jerry held his tin cup to be filled.
“Oxtail” she said, “or Mulligatawny?”
“Oxtail, please.”
“You’ve done it this time,” she said. “There’s a lot of people pissed off wiv you. I told ’em it was just your way of celebratin’. But look wot you’ve caused. Pore ole Nelson’s got ’alf ’is bleedin’ body missin’. It’s gonna take ages ter clear up ther mess.”
“Sorry, mum.”
“No use bein’ sorry now. You’d better keep yer ’ead down for a while. I thought you’d bloody learned yer lesson.”
“Lesson?”
“You ‘eard me.”
“Can I have the key to the flat?”
“Oh, so ya fuckin’ wanna come ’ome ter mum now, do yer? Littel sod.” She softened. “’Ere y’are. Now move on. There’s a lot more people waitin’.”
She watched him shuffle off, sipping at his soup. “They just fuckin’ use yer when they need yer. An’ then they’re fuckin’ off again.”
But the crowd had recognised him. They were beginning to converge.
With a yelp of terror, Jerry scuttled towards the National Gallery.
Mrs Cornelius watched impassively. “E’ll be okay,” she said to herself. “Unless they actually tear ’im ter pieces.”
She ladled Mulligatawny into the next outstretched cup.
When she looked again, the crowd was rushing through the doors of the Gallery.
Ten minutes later they were all coming out again, like spectators whose team had lost.
She grinned to herself. “Shifty littel bastard,” she said. “At least ’e knows when ter scarper.”
I Shot the Sheriff
The train had begun to move again, but by now Bishop Beesley was catatonic and Frank Cornelius was completely ga-ga, dribbling and whistling to himself. Miss Brunner went into the corridor and tugged at the door. It wouldn’t open. All the windows were jammed.
She ran along the corridor, looking for help. All the other compartments were filled with old rubber suits, as if Mr Bug’s representatives had dematerialised.
“What’s going on?” she cried. “What’s going on?”
The train groaned and clattered in unison with her voice.
She clawed at the connecting door. It wouldn’t budge.
“Somebody’s going to pay for it.” She was livid. “I’m not used to treatment of this kind. Who’s in charge? Who’s in charge?”
The train grunted.
“Who’s in charge?” Now her voice became pathetic. A tear appeared in her right eye. She adjusted her blouse. She whimpered.
The train was moving faster. It swayed wildly from side to side.
Miss Brunner began to scream.
CLAIM EIGHT: A PROPERLY OWNED DEMOCRACY
JULIAN TEMPLE (DIRECTOR): Went to Cambridge University “For the same reasons as one applies for an American Express Card”. Attended National Film School “so that I didn’t have to wait 20 years to be able to do something”. The Great Rock ’N’ Roll Swindle was his graduation film. Since then he has made Punk Can Take It, featuring the UK Subs and narrated by John Snagge, who once declared the end of World War II on BBC Radio and ghosted for Churchill’s speeches while it was still on.
—Virgin Publicity, 1980
The last of the Musician-Assassins was crawling along rooftops overlooking Portobello Road.
He was looking for his airship. He was certain he’d left it in the vicinity of Vernon’s Yard.
“Bugger,” he muttered. “Oh, bugger.”
He was not feeling at one with himself.
Every so often a demonic grin, a memory, crossed his poor, ravaged face.
“Why am I always getting mixed up with bloody bands? What’s happened to my complicated vocabulary of ideas? Why do I prefer rock and roll?”
It was familiar stuff to him.
Flies clustered around a faded chimney stack, rising as he groped.
“Monica?” His mind cast about for any anchor. “Mum? Colonel? David M?”
His cuban heels scraped slate. Something fell away from him and smashed in the street. The sun was rising.
He drew a scratched single from the pocket of his black car coat and put it close to his eyes, studying it as if it were a map.
He was crying.
The flies hissed rhythmically. A stuck needle. He held on to the chimney, pulling himself up, his feet slipping.
There had to be something better than this.
The Uncertain Ego
“Passion feeds passion
and then we are left with a small death.” Mr Bug’s representative was trying to comfort Miss Brunner.
She stared at the strangled corpse.
A young man in a trenchcoat and a trilby stepped backwards.
“Is anyone really dying?” she asked. “Or are we all just very tired?”
“Some of you are really dying, I’m afraid.” Mr Bug’s representative plucked at his mouth-tube. “Time is Time, no matter how much you struggle against it.”
“Then we’re done for.”
“I haven’t come to any conclusions about that.” He was apologetic. “I’m honestly only an observer.”
“You’ve interfered.”
“I’ve taken an interest. It’s the best I can offer.”
Miss Brunner shrugged him away.
A whistle blew.
“I’m getting off this train,” she said.
Mr Bug’s representative made a peculiar gesture with his right glove.
“There’ll be another one along in a minute.”
Difficult Love
Very sluggishly, the airship was lifting.
The last of the Musician-Assassins lay spreadeagled on the floor of the gondola. A faint tape was playing “Silly Thing.”
“It’s what the public wanted,” murmured Jerry. “Or at least some of them. I did my best. It was good while it lasted.”
The ship gently bumped against a church steeple. He pulled himself to a window. He recognised Powys Square. There was a bonfire.
Something bit at his groin.
He scratched.
Framed against the flames, a tartan-clad figure and a dwarf were dancing.
“I think I’m missing all the fun again.” The Assassin switched on his engine.
It faltered. It was apologetic.
He tried again.
Something clicked.
The Laughing Policeman
Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! Page 20