Lord Bonkers' Diary: it would be a pity if anything happened to them

Christmas week ends on a downbeat note. I've never been convinced that it was a good idea for F&F (that's Freddie and Fiona – the old boy has taken to using abbreviations in his diary, but then why shouldn't he?) to buy a weekend cottage in Rutland; they were always likely to upset the locals. 

And as Lord Bonkers has often remarked of the Elves of Rockingham Forest, "you don't want to get on the wrong side of these fellows".

Sunday

Back to St Asquith’s – I ought to get a season ticket what? – and then, after sherry with the Revd Hughes, to the Bonkers Arms for a pre-lunch stiffener. I find the talk is all of Freddie and Fiona and what they were saying at my Christmas Day party. Word has got about that they were talking about “privatising health” and it has Not Gone Down Well – we happen to be very proud of our cottage hospital. 

Worse than that, a garbled version of the story has reached Rockingham Forest in which they want to “privatise elf”, and you can just imagine how that was received by the local elves. So F&F would be well advised to lie low for a bit. As my old friend Violent BC might have put it, it would be a pity if anything happened to them.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• The Duke of Buccleuch is pretty chuffed too
• I hurry to book the rather singed Kwarteng for next year
• At a signal box outside Sherburn in Elmet
• He loves to get his dibber out
• Flags and empty cans of Dahrendorf lager
• Lowered head first through a skylight

The Charlatans: The Only One I Know

"It’s an unusual song construction. I’m still not sure which bit is the chorus. The title and main hook is in the verse, but the intro – before the main song crashes in – gives people just enough time to get on the dancefloor."

That's what the Charlatans' singer and the songs co-writer Tim Burgess told the Guardian in 2021.

He also explained one of the influences on its writing:

"I was 21 or 22, but still had those powerful emotions. I was a big Byrds fan so the line 'Everyone’s been burned before, everyone knows the pain' is a nod to their song Everybody’s Been Burned. I was ecstatic when the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn said he loved us."

The bass player and co-writer Martin Blunt explained another:

"To give The Only One I Know a bit more urgency, Jon Baker added a stream of repetitive guitar notes similar to part of the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On. I remember telling him, ;Try to make it sound like morse code', which he did. After the second chorus, we dropped it down to the bass, like all the best old Stax and funk tunes."

The Only One I Know reached no. 9 in the UK singles chart in September 1990, even though the band refused to appear on Top of the Pops.

I also like what Brunt said about the Charlatans' development:

We’d been influenced by the Stranglers, Stax Records, Joy Division and the Doors, but when everything came together in the summer of 89 acid house was in full swing. The repetitive beats rubbed off on what we were doing, so we suddenly sounded like the Spencer Davis Group on E.