{ title: 'The Spectrum (Buffalo, N.Y.) 1955-current, January 22, 1979, Page 11, Image 11', download_links: [ { link: 'http://www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml', label: 'application/rss+xml', meta: 'News about NYS Historic Newspapers - RSS Feed', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-01-22/ed-1/seq-11/png/', label: 'image/png', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-01-22/ed-1/seq-11.pdf', label: 'application/pdf', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-01-22/ed-1/seq-11/ocr.xml', label: 'application/xml', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/np00130006/1979-01-22/ed-1/seq-11/ocr.txt', label: 'text/plain', meta: '', }, ] }
Image provided by: University at Buffalo
London just as ’owns around Saturday nieht draw amazed and lousy photos only from the tourists. The English have seen it all. Of course, the relationship between the dress and the music is dubious and as foggy as some of the brain cells on stage and in the audience, but a direction or definitive lack of direction must have existed at some point. The music is good though. One bar on Portobello called the Earl of Lonsdale or something like that has a solid new wave punk jukebox, including “Sheena is a PunkrockeC 1 - by the Ramones (shades of Dimitri) and “Funky, but Chic” by David Johansen (shades of Komansky). It is filled on a Saturday afternoon with scruffy English locals on their regular beat and foreigners young and old checking out the world famous market. By midday, elbows are the way. Everybody smokes cigarettes and drinks brown beer, thick and delicious and served slightly cooler than room temperature, bwt nobody excepting a few freaks gathered at the juke pays much attention to the music. every jukebox and ten times a day on Radio Luxembourg, Radio France-lnter, Radio Monte Carlo, BBC 1, BBC 2 and on all the rest. The song is called “YMCA” by the Village People. It is pitiful. One explains to the French person how the YMCA really is the hippest place in town, how the wildest people make the scene there, how if one knows where the action is in the States, one must disco down to the YMCA and check out the show. much tighter by the French than by the English. In fact, the French wear everything tight — everything. which makes Americans look like bozos. Dover and Calais was running on January 2. Normally the trip takes one and a half hours. This time it took five because of rough seas and because the French dockers were on strike. The boat rocked outside the port for hours. For some it was a sickening affair; they hung out by the toilets. Others drank beer and chatted. But luck struck the next day: one ride on ice and snow through bleak northern France, around Paris and down the autoroute to Lyon, close to 700 kilometers in one car. Two quick rides later, alpine rocks and cliffs appeared- and Gre- _« nolbe and the be- * —* H ■y n was special in J st of -hes, even up to th, the air got s got hard and Une vague de froid This article was originally meant to focus on how certain Londoners are surviving without the London Times. whose management finally suspended operations over one month ago after not resolving a labor dispute with journalists’ and printers' unions. The dispute, involving modem computer imputting technology and the loss of jobs, resembles the New York Times d the people, in ally unreserved \*t. In between t, they rave teious puddir st “Iree/e u newspaper Well, the French person shrugs his elbows and says, lls racontent des betises; alors (they’re talking bullshit), and he keeps on dancing. But the English, they supposedly understand. They, too, keep on glancing. and abet t mng front high drift nd flooding e ad: “Bii//a d. Londo temporary shutdown of last summer and difference is, of course, that while New York City’s three major dailies all closed at the same time, London’s other dailies, full of banalities as they are, are still tunning. However, what is striking Britain and the ginning second sem- hannel | ester were V»-1 Mr- “t Delicious w a i ting. V acation * jk is party did Anyway drivel. As enough of this music this article has no 'n tented. So d o beer was over specific goal and no pressing points about comparative culture to make, it wanders here and there and touches on everyone and everything it can. knows wl mhOA ■E^aSHiS ul occasion the dirty str continent the hardest at the II down ag 'g stage began London is a big city and not much of it can be seen in one week. The British Museum, the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery are full of treasures. So is the Jewel Room at the Tower of London. So are some of the local pubs (pronounced poobs, as in boobs). But while the beer is superb, the shishkabab and donnakabab are not, not on Portobello, nor in Picadilly Square, nor in the Notting Hill Gate Section. And the pizza is just okay, -but not Bqcce’s or Leonardi’s, nor like Sam’s on 6th Avenue and 2nd Street. What is most distressing, however, is the lack of tacos in England and France. Anything, anything for a taco. m o m e n t has aside to resume nothing to do with the London Times. Furope has been Sfil and falling Great fun, oh Sex, drugs and rock V roll Continuing in a musical vein ■mashing. wave of ice and seized by a cold continued. The cords, that is) is i London and comparisons between one country and the next are almost never valid but are usually interesting. Grease was the number one selling disc in England and France for a long time, the hottest thing since Saturday Night Fever, which broke records everywhere. John Travolta is on every schoolgirl’s lapel and every magazine cover. (One can explain the pun on Travolta and revolta-ing to the French, but they don’t laugh.) But now Rod Stewart with Blondes Have More Fun and the single “If you like money and you think I’m sexy” has taken over in England, and Michel Sardou (a sort of Tom Jones crooner-type character) in France with “Comme D’Habitude ’ One snow, bunging hardship and even WHW death everywhere. Heat has been cut off, villages isolated, national routes shut down, trains u delayed or 'Way A cancelled, and every day several more I deaths are announced on J French television. Needless to say, the French in general arc much more interested in the weather than Ml i '\ul' * rock and new well as albums Jgulars on |y States. Groups ft'- Wt >\ )ury and the • A Costello, The oly Styreen and Modern Lovers, AM \m % It'S:' v r . o Talking Heads »» * •evo and more r m m turn on the Fortunately, an English Christmas is a close family affair and centers around the kitchen. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and almost every day in between were filled with delicious turkey and pork and sauces and puddings and wines. One can’t eat like a student the whole year. m It is that the in the balmy conference of the big four — Carter, Giscard, Callaghan and Schmitt — in Guadaloupe. •W' * ivorites of one [A/.l-- bpi> f e weirdos of ks who flock to >ad Flea Market moon in black ■V % p ms particularly obnoxious single has nf-f 'Ptf* :r jackets, safety verywhere, wild 1 blue, yellow, short slkkout fight the Teds ) in the Kings Road on no excuse. Has it made it on AM radio Another important fact is that the leather or leather looking pants currently in vogue among some high school and university-aged ladies are worn Salut Fortunately the ferry across the English Channel between and in the bars in the States? In France and England it is in every disco, in H s M 1! * * 7 , *#] >v '.jB A ' * M £ M I k# mi UllM. bi *1 m '■ V h iv: A w v»..
