The Guardian - Michael Holden's All Ears 29th January

I've still got the scars from my '80s teenage years (but have burned most of the photos!)

- wish I'd left the 'studioline' text off the illustration but I like to present it as printed - one of those cases of 'funny-at-the-time' (like mullets? Conceptual hey?)
Original article here
(Article by Michael Holden)
Walking down a side street I was suddenly overtaken by two young men making quickly toward the main road and kicking around a conversation of sufficient merit and volume that I found myself having to speed up in order to keep abreast of it.

Man 1 (pressing for an answer) "What do you call him, the guy with all the hair down the back?"

Man 2 "Gandhi?"

Man 1 (irked) "No – he's bald! The other one?"

Man 2 (getting the picture) "Him! He's out there – we don't even have a proper nickname for him. He's just 'him', innit?"

Man 1 "We said to him, you can't have hair like that!"

Man 2 "It's the proper mullet."

Man 1 "Nobody wants it!"

Man 2 "But he won't listen!"

Man 1 "He can't hear!"

Man 2 (making snipping motions) "I go up behind him and do the scissors thing – everyone laughs."

Man 1 "We said to him, 'What happened? Did your mum freeze you in the 80s?' Everyone laughs at him! Even the general manager's on to him about it, saying, 'I think it might be better if you didn't have that hair.' But he's all, 'No no no – it's my thing.'"

Man 2 (shaking his head in recognition of a lost cause) "And he's proper slim, innit?"

Man 1 (sad and angry – as though he had great plans for the man's hair that might never see the light of day) "It just doesn't suit – doesn't suit him!"

They laughed loudly though, as they reached the high street and jogged away into the crowd, who all looked much the same as them.

Guardian All Ears 3rd October

You just KNOW the guy's going to smell of Country Born hair gel, Hard Rock hair spray & Lynx! Sorry, but the mid '80s were RUBBISH...you can stuff your rosy tinted revisionism & your crappy Big Country albums where the sun don't shine...

(Article by Michael Holden)

I was hiding my face in a newspaper on a train when I heard a woman’s voice say, “I remember when you were conceived.” I looked up to see who was poised to deliver this revelation and saw a woman sat opposite her daughter who it transpired was around 25 years old.
Mother (visualizing) “ It was bloody freezing. Me and your dad had been to the cinema. He had to walk me home.”
Daughter (visualizing also-but presumably with some caution) “What film did you see?”
Mother (making claw shapes with her hand)“Oh God. That thing when his hands are like knives …”
The daughter shook her head.
Mother (annoyed with herself) “The Freddy thing…you know…”
She didn’t.
Mother (like she’d won a quiz) “Nightmare on Elm Street!”
Daughter “Never seen it.”
Mother “I hated it. Scared me. That’s why he had to take me home. Not ‘cos of the weather. I was jumpy.”
Daughter (smiling) “With good reason”
Mother (like 1984 was another era entirely) “That was why you went to the cinema back then.”
Daughter (laughing, incredulous) “To get pregnant?”
Mother “You know what I mean. We didn’t go as much when you was born. I know that.”
Daughter “Do you remember much about it?”
Mother “What do you mean?”
Daughter “Like, what you were wearing?”
Mother “I had a big coat.”
Daughter “What about dad?”
Mother “Well he would have had a coat as well.”
Daughter “That’s all you remember?”
Mother “The bloke in the film, he’s got a red and black jumper..”
Daughter (looking anxious to wrap things up) “Thanks for that.”