Keris Stainton

Bucks Fizz week: So many Bucks Fizzes...

I couldn't finish Bucks Fizz week without featuring the abomination that is The Land of Make Believe. This was the first single I remember buying myself (in Woolies), but it - and that video - is ... not good.

Of course, they were never the same after the accident and eventually they split, but, much like a worm*, instead of dying, they formed two new Bucks Fizzes.

I lost the thread around this time. I think I was at university or getting married or something, but there ended up being a Bobby Bucks Fizz and a Mike and David Van Day out of Dollar Bucks Fizz.

Bobby's is The Official Bucks Fizz and features Bobby (obviously) who is now about 55, and a lad and two girls whose combined age probably isn't 55 (one of whom I think he's married to - the girls, not the lad).

There was a documentary about the David Van Day farrago and he appeared to be a complete and utter git. (I thought that $ sign in the logo referred to him being a mercenary sod, but then I remembered  he was in Dollar. Even so.)

Thankfully that's over too (at least I think so) and Mike, Cheryl and Shelley are touring as the original Bucks Fizz. Bobby was meant to be joining them for one of those 80s revival shows, but it didn't happen, sadly.

There's also been some talk of the original four plus Shelley getting together as Buck5Fizz, but I don't know if that's going to happen. They did all appear in the Peter Kay 500 Miles video though (but I haven't seen it, must look it up...).

I hope you've enjoyed Bucks Fizz week. I've loved it. I've still got more to say (no, really) so I think I might have to instigate "Fizzing Fridays" or something...

*This isn't actually true. I saw it on QI.

Bucks Fizz week: meeting the Fizz

Generally there are only two things people remember about Bucks Fizz. 1) The skirt pulling off thing. 2) The coach crash. I was devastated by the coach crash. If you read about it, it actually was an appalling accident. Cheryl was thrown through the windscreen. Mike suffered a brain injury that almost killed him and permanently changed his personality. I can remember being at rehearsals in the Town Hall for the school carol concert and people laughing about the accident because they knew I was a fan and that it would wind me up. I was outraged! Mike almost died!

After the accident and after Jay had left, Bobby, Mike, Cheryl and Jay's replacement Shelley* came back to the Floral Pavilion. This time I was older, savvier. I waited at the stage door with a stack of LPs. I've never quite come to terms with the fact that celebrities are never as excited to meet you as you are them. "I saw you here in 82!" I said, giddily. "That's nice," they said. Bobby didn't mention the pen.

Where to begin? Well, horizontal stripes were not my friend. That jumper had a matching knitted skirt (plain, not striped, thankfully). A knitted skirt? Jeez. Also, that's not a perm; that's my real hair. But look how happy I am on the Mike picture. In fact, I think we make quite a cute, chubby, slightly dopey-looking couple. Bless.

* I remember so clearly the episode of Wogan on YouTube, on which they introduced Shelley to a very excited public (um, not). I love the way Shelley's looking at Wogan, like "Back off, Uncle Disgusting!" And Mike's leather trews. And Cheryl's leather skirt (and - oh my god - her hair!). And I actually still really love this song. Really. And I'm sorry to say I still actually fancy Bobby a little bit.

Bucks Fizz week: If you can't stand the heat... get out from under the chair

One of the great things about listening to the Bucks Fizz album is doing the dance routines in my seat.

Me and my sister learned them all and would perform them regularly for our own entertainment in the good front room (our parents were in the back room watching the telly). We made a "dressing room" by tipping the armchairs up against the wall (it was a pretty cramped dressing room) and wore torn up rags out of the rag back tied around our arms and legs to do If You Can't Stand the
Heat (see the chamois leather "outfits" above).

Fortunately, there are no photos...

[Stella, I mentioned to Leanne how terrible the girls' singing was on yesterday's video and she remembered reading that, in the performance after winning, Cheryl was so excited that she started in the wrong key and couldn't get it back! So that explains that then. It doesn't, however, explain Mike's haystack hair...]

Bucks Fizz week: La Det Swinge* etc.

Me and my sister were both mad about the Eurovision. We used to tape it on a tape record held up to the TV (remember those days?) and once learned all the songs in their own languages, well, as good an approximation as we could manage anyway. I don't actually remember first seeing Bucks Fizz, but I do remember our parents taking us to a record shop in Birkenhead to buy Makin' Your Mind Up on 7".

My first ever concert (before they were called "gigs") was Bucks Fizz at the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton. We were on the front row. I was 11 (this was 1982). The curtains opened, dry ice filled the stage, the strains of Are You Ready (the title track of their second album) began and Bobby, Mike, Cheryl and Jay appeared through the fog, singing, "  Some believe in a life of leisure,   Letting your body down / Take a chance on moment’s pleasure, Putting yourself around." (?!?) It was at the time the most thrilling moment of my life and it remains a pretty exciting memory.

I loved Bobby and since his birthday was coming up (at, if memory serves, 29, he was the oldest of the four) I'd bought him a present: a biro with a rubber on the end. Yes, a pen you could rub out! How could he not be bowled over by that? Towards the end of the show the audience stormed the stage (a few girls ran down the front) and I managed to throw it at his feet. I knew he'd be delighted with it and would think of me everytime he made a mistake and was able to correct it.

The following year our parents took us to Southport to see Bucks Fizz again (I think we saw them there twice and I'm not sure which memories apply to which visit, but I doubt it matters now). A while ago I met a friend of a friend (Hi, Steph!) who had also been a Bucks Fizz fan. "I saw them at the New Southport Theatre in about 83," I said. "Me too," she said. "Was it the one when Cheryl said 'shit'?" It was.

I remember we went in an arcade and there was a machine that you had to roll a 50p piece onto a circle and you won £1. It wasn't working properly and we won every time, whether or not we'd got our coins in the circle. Happy days. We also went to McDonalds for the first time. Mum wasn't impressed, for those prices, she expected a plate at least. (It wasn't the 59p-fest it is today.) Leanne and I saved our straw wrappers and plastic stirring spoons for, ooh, ages.

And, yes, I agree that my hair"do" demands a closer look...

Why, parents, why?

And while I appreciate that the smart vs pretty sister thing has always been around and wasn't created just for me, allowing the supposedly "smart" sister to wear her hair like Art Garfunkel and buying her a blue blouson while the other one's pretty in pink is just plain mean. 

And white socks with our first grown up "court" shoes? Kids just don't get dressed up like that anymore...

* Remember Bobbysocks?

Let's get fizzical!*

I went to my sister's at the weekend and came home with a pile of CDs to, erm, listen to. I've got Take That, Five Star, Spandau Ballet, Bros, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Erasure and more. Yep, her music tastes are even more stuck in the 80s than mine. At least I've moved on to current acts who just sound like they're from the decade that taste forgot. (Or was that the 70s? I forget. You know what they say: if you can remember the 70s you weren't there. Or is that the... never mind.)

So I'm listening to the Bucks Fizz Greatest Hits as it's uploading I'm working and it's great! I've just sung along lustily with One of Those Nights, which includes one of the worst lyrics of all time:

  Some nights when I’m alone
  I get up from a dream
  I light a cigarette
  I lie there in the dark
  And think why we're apart
  I just can't figure it

Cigarette/figure it? Genius.

Anyway, as I danced in my seat to Can't Stand the Heat (I remember the full routine, of course), I wondered whether I'd shared my total Bucks Fizz obsession with my loyal blog readers (who, funnily enough, I can hear groaning at the prospect!). I know I've mentioned Bros. And Take That. And perhaps I've touched on the Fizz, but I'm not sure if the full story has been revealed.

Holy crap! As I'm writing When We Were Young has just come on. Jeez. What was that all about, eh?

Anyhoo. I think this could be Bucks Fizz week, what do you think? No? Well, tough.

(For the benefit of foreigners and youngsters, you can learn all about Bucks Fizz here.)

*Seriously, that was the headline for tons of articles about Bucks Fizz