King Mob Echoes

Print from a copper engraving showing rioters 

setting fire to Newgate Prison in June 1780

 

 

I. 

 

Without wishing to echo those who, like Professor David Betz, predict that the UK is now almost certainly heading for civil war [1] - perhaps not in the old sense, but something widespread and very nasty all the same - I would certainly agree that the future isn't looking particularly rosy.  

 

Like many other European states, we seem to have created the perfect conditions for mass social unrest (at the very least). Falling living standards, ethno-religious tensions fuelled by unprecedented levels of immigration, and loss of faith in the authorities, all add up to a feeling that things can't go on as they are and that something has to change. 

 

As Yeats would say: things are threatening to fall apart; the centre cannot hold; anarchy is about to be loosed upon the world [2] - and not in the romantic and radically chic manner fantasised by some.  

 

 

II. 

 

Perhaps it is the last of these things mentioned above - loss of faith in the authorities - that should concern us most. For as Betz says, insurgency is always rooted in a crisis of legitimacy. If governments and judicial systems lose not only the support but the trust of the people, then that's an extremely serious matter.  

 

In brief, break the magic spell that holds a nation together and things get very real very quickly and citizens - who desire stability and a sense of justice - begin to take matters into their own hands.    

 

And this is why it's so profoundly stupid and politically dangerous for the present government to have effectively put themselves in opposition to the British public by openly declaring that the rights of asylum seekers take precedence over the concerns of the native population [3].

 

 

III. 

 

Funnily enough, the current state of affairs in the UK puts one in mind of the situation in 1780 when a week of rioting in London was triggered by anti-Catholic sentiment and security concerns following the passing of an Act which was intended to reduce discrimination, but perceived as privileging a religious minority over the Protestant majority [4]. 

 

Trouble began on June 2nd, when a huge crowd - estimated to be around 50,000 strong - assembled and marched on Parliament. Many carried flags and banners, as mobs are wont to do. Having failed to force their way into the House of Commons, people grew increasingly angry and the situation quickly got out of hand; members of the Lords were attacked as they arrived and a number of carriages were vandalised and destroyed. 

 

Although this crowd was eventually dispersed by soldiers without further violence, this was not the end of the matter; that same night, Roman Catholic chapels were attacked in several foreign embassies. When it was discovered that protestors who had been arrested were being held in Newgate Prison, this was stormed and largely destroyed, allowing a significant number of prisoners to escape.   

 

On June 7th, things reached a climax when the mob decided to target the Bank of England. Finally, the government called in the army to restore order using deadly force; having been ordered to fire upon groups of four or more rioters who refused to disperse resulted in hundreds of casualties. 

 

Of the 450 people who were arrested, some twenty or thirty were tried and executed. Lord George Gordon who led the original mass protest (and lent his name to the riots that followed) was charged with high treason, but acquitted. 

 

Those who would like to know more are encouraged to read Dickens's historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841), which provides a long and detailed (if fictionalised) account of the Gordon Riots and features Lord George in a prominent role [5]. 

 

IV. 

 

Whilst parallels between then and now can be drawn, they're limited in what they might teach us due to differing socio-historical contexts and circumstances. And Tommy Robinson is no Lord Gordon.  

 

However, we witnessed last year how rapidly situations can deteriorate and how quickly trouble can spread (especially in an age of social media) [6] and one suspects - fears - that if the political climate continues to heat up and the social fabric continues to come apart, then King Mob [7] may once more find its figurehead and assert its sovereignty.   

 

 

V. 

        

Having said all this, Betz may, of course, be mistaken in his analysis and anarchy in the UK may not be an inevitablity. There are those - including individuals in positions of power - who simply don't believe that prolonged and widescale mass violence (let alone civil war) is probable (or even possible); they have an unshakeable faith in the goodness and common sense of the British people. 

 

As one commentator notes:

 

"The UK Government's resilience website lists hazards ranging from severe weather to terrorism, but makes no mention of civil unrest [...] Perhaps politicians realise that any mention of civil war in an official publication would be a PR catastrophe. Or maybe they view Western citizens as simply too cosseted, too biddable. People raised amid relative plenty and security are simply not likely to erupt in significant numbers." [8] 

 

So perhaps we can continue to sleep tightly in our beds at night and wake up full of fresh hope in the morning. 

 

Or perhaps not: for after speaking with Betz, this same commentator concludes that even if the latter is only right in part, then still our lives will be transformed "utterly and for the worse", as we suddenly find ourselves living in a "smaller and more brutal world" [9].     

 

Notes

 

[1] Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World at King's College London: click here to visit his homepage. He has been in the news and all across social media for the last couple of years offering his expert analysis of current events and predictions about the future. See this recent interview, for example, on YouTube with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster of Triggernometry: click here. 

 

[2] I'm referring of course to Yeats's famous poem 'The Second Coming' (written in 1919). The poem was originally published in The Dial (November 1920), but included also in his collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). To read on the Poetry Foundation website, click here.  

 

[3] I'm referring to the case surrounding the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which has been at the centre of recent protests against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers at tax payers expense and without consulting the local people, following an alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old schoolgirl by one of the residents. 

      In brief, a temporary injunction granted earlier this month by a high court judge that would have blocked migrants from being housed at the above hotel was overturned on appeal after Home Office intervention (the argument being that there is an obligation for the government to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights). And this has only further raised tensions in the area. A full hearing of the case is expected in mid-October.

 

[4] It should be noted that there were other factors and grievances; political and economic rather than religious in nature. It has been suggested, for example, that many rioters were more concerned about falling wages and rising prices - or the UK's involvement in various foreign wars - than their Catholic neighbours and, as is often the case, these blended together into a general feeling of angry discontent.   

[5] See also Christopher Hibbert's King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780 (Longmans, 1958), which provides another colourful reading of the historical record.  

 

[6] I'm referring to the (allegedly far-right) anti-immigration protests and riots that occurred in England and Northern Ireland from 30 July to 5 August 2024, following the Southport stabbings in which three young girls were murdered. The large scale disorder resulted in over 1,800 arrests and many people being handed harsh prison sentences (famously including one woman, Lucy Connolly, for posting a tweet which she deleted soon afterwards). 

 

[7] According to Christopher Hibbert's book on the Gordon Riots, rioters daubed the slogan His Majesty King Mob on the walls of Newgate Prison, after gutting the building. 

      In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a radical group based in London - influenced by (but excluded from) the Situationist International - called itself King Mob. The group, consisting of six main members, published five issues of a journal entitled King Mob Echo as well as many posters and leaflets which mightily impressed a young art student by the name of Malcolm McLaren who, it's claimed, took part in an action at Selfridges in December 1968, that involved freely distributing toys from the store's toy department to children (one of the members - not McLaren - was dressed as father Christmas). 

      Several commentators on the Sex Pistols have asserted the influence of King Mob on the band and McLaren, fascinated by the Gordon Riots, included a punk reimagining of the latter as the opening sequence of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980).       

 

[8] Alexander Poots, 'Is civil war coming for Britain?', on the news and opinion website UnHerd (25 April 2025): click here. 

 

[9] Ibid.  

 

The Sex Pistols - Who the Dickens Were They?

Malcolm McLaren: Oliver Twist Manifesto (42 x 32 cm)

Double-sided flyer created for the Sex Pistols' final British show 

Christmas Day, 1977 [1]

Punk came out of this strange culture that had been repressed through the Victorian times ... 

The Sex Pistols were something more feral and more dark and native to the English psyche than rock 'n' roll 

and Malcolm saw them very much in a Dickensian way. - Julien Temple 

 

 

I. 

 

I spent a fair amount of time earlier in the year arguing that D. H. Lawrence can be thought of as a Sex Pistol: click here, for example. But to think of Lawrence as a proto-punk is not to suggest that we might think of the Sex Pistols as Lawrentian. 

 

In fact, if we are to think of the Sex Pistols in English literary terms at all, it makes far more sense to conceive of Johnny Rotten and company as neo-Dickensian characters. That's certainly how Malcolm McLaren attempted to portray them late on in their career, as the above flyer, written by him in December 1977, illustrates.

 

It begins:   

 

They are Dickensian-like urchins who with ragged clothes and pock marked faces roam the foggy streets of gas-lit London. Pillaging. Setting fire to buildings. Beating up old people with gold chains. Fucking the rich up the arse. Causing havoc wherever they go. Some of these ragamuffin gangs jump on tables amidst the charred debris and with burning torches play rock 'n' roll to the screaming delight of the frenzied pissing pogoing mob. Shouting and spitting 'anarchy' one of these gangs call themselves the Sex Pistols. [2]

 

It's obviously a fantasy vision of the band. But the question is: why does the fantasy take this particular form? Why reference ragamuffin gangs and pogoing mobs, etc? Is it just because McLaren's grandmother adored Fagin and made him read Dickens as a young child, or is there also a wider political context?

 

II. 

 

Before addressing these points, let's first give a bit more background to the production of the flyer ...  

 

By the end of 1977, life had never looked so good for the four Sex Pistols; three hit singles, a number 1 album, and about to commence on their first American tour. 

 

However, things were rapidly coming apart at the seams as relations amongst members of the band - never particularly good - had significantly worsened due to various factors including Sid's addiction to drugs (and to Nancy), Rotten's loathing of McLaren, and Malcolm's desire to ensure the band were remembered as a spectacular failure rather than a benign success.     

 

And so, in hindsight, it isn't all that surprising that the two shows played on Christmas day in Huddersfield - the first, in the afternoon, a benefit gig for the children of striking firemen and the second, in the evening, for fans of the band in and around West Yorkshire - would prove to be their final British performances.

 

Perhaps sensing that the end was nigh, Mclaren began to reimagine the Sex Pistols as so much more than merely another boring rock 'n' roll group. And so he wrote the above text for distribution at the events and illustrated with artwork by George Cruikshank from the original 1838 edition of Oliver Twist [3].

 

According to Paul Gorman, this flyer "acted less as a promotion for the Pistols than a commentary on both his Jewishness and his strange relationship with the group" [4]. But it also demonstrates McLaren's (somewhat bourgeois and overly-romanticised) understanding of working class culture as inherently rebellious, violent, and non-conforming and that returns us to the politics of this manifesto ...

 

 

III. 

      

It's often the case that when commentators discuss the Sex Pistols in terms of politics they immediately reach for their French dictionary and start talking about the Situationists and referencing Guy Debord's La société du spectacle (1967). 

 

That's not mistaken, but it does mean that less attention is given to the fact that the Sex Pistols are also very much part of an English history of insurrection to do with the so-called London mob and the Gordon Riots [5]. 

 

As the opening sequence of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) explicitly informs viewers, the roots of 'Anarchy in the UK' can be traced back to the 1780s [6]. That is to say, to a period fizzing with revolutionary and carnivalesque energies on both sides of the Channel and one that Charles Dickens wrote about in his (little read and rarely adapted) historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841) [7]. 

 

Wilfully conflating mob violence with punk rock, the cinematic re-enactment of the Gordon Riots makes clear that McLaren saw the Sex Pistols as first and foremost a rejection of authority - be it of parents, teachers, priests, policemen, or soldiers of the crown - and representative, as Julien Temple rightly says, of "something more feral and more dark and native to the English psyche than rock 'n' roll" [8].   

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The flyer was signed 'Oliver Twist' to emphasise McLaren's vision of the band as Dickensian urchins. It formed item 52 of the 71 item Stollper-Wilson Collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia auctioned by Sotheby's in October 2022: click here. 

      One of the most noticeable things about the flyer is the fact that Malcolm allowed corrections to the text to remain openly on display, just as they are on the Dickens manuscripts he saw as a child. As Paul Gorman reminds us, McLaren subscribed to the view that honest error is crucial to the creative process, rather than "'the icy perfections of the mere stylist'". 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 48, where Gorman quotes from an aphorism coined by the Victorian church architect J. D. Sedding (one often falsely attributed to Charles Rennie Mackintosh). 

 

[2] The rest of the text scawled by McLaren (with a wooden stick dipped in ink) reads:

 

This true and dirty tale has been continuing throughout 200 years of teenage anarchy and so in 1978 there still remains the Sex Pistols. Their active extremism is all they care about because that's what counts to jump right out of the 20th century as fast as you possibly can in order to create an environment that you can truthfully run wild in.

 

[3] The illustration by Cruikshank to which I refer depicts the first meeting between Oliver Twist and Fagin entitled 'Oliver introduced to the Respectable Old Gentleman'. It's an image which plays an important role in the mythologising of the Sex Pistols, paralleling as it does the first time that Malcolm and members of the band met with the nineteen-year-old who would become their singer and frontman: see the post 'On This Day ...' (22 August 2025): click here. 

      I am grateful for this clever insight to Michael E. Kitson, writing in 'The Sex Pistols and the London Mob', an unpublished doctoral thesis submitted to Western Sydney University (2008): click here to view the abstract and to download the work as a pdf. As this post makes clear, I agree with Kitson's central claim that the culture and semiotics of the London mob was fundamental to McLaren's (distinctly English) punk project and that the influence of Dickens on McLaren's thinking cannot be overestimated. 

 

[4] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren ... p. 381. 

      Interestingly, McLaren signs his manifesto with the name of Oliver Twist and not with Fagin, as one might have expected, as the latter was the explicitly Jewish character in Dickens's 1838 novel and the leader of a group of youngsters whom he grooms into a life of crime. 

      Still, whichever character McLaren ultimately identified with, the fact remains that Dickens's novel played a seminal role in his thinking. In 2000, he named the book as one of his favourites in a piece for The Guardian, describing it as an "unforgettable journey into criminal behaviour" that not only transported him back to his own childhood, but which justified his desire to - and here he paraphrases from his own Oliver Twist Manifesto - "create an environment " in which he could "truthfully run wild" whilst overseeing a generation of artful dodgers.  

      To read the list of Mclaren's top ten books in The Guardian (21 Feb 2000), click here.  

 

[5] The Gordon Riots of 1780 saw several days of violent disorder and destruction in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment and instigated by Lord George Gordon. After the mob - which had declared its own sovereignty on the wall of Newgate Prison - attempted to storm the Bank of England, the government finally sent in the army, resulting in several hundred fatalities.

 

[6] Funnily enough, the opening scene of the Swindle set in eighteenth-century London - featuring crowds cavorting in the streets as they joyously string up effigies of the Sex Pistols above a huge bonfire - is one that even Rotten admits to liking, conceding that it amusingly captures the spirit of punk. See John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (Hodder and Stoughton, 1994), p. 289.

 

[7] I don't know if McLaren read Barnaby Rudge, but it's possible and Dickens's novel remains the definitive literary work detailing the phenomenon of the London mob at its height. 

      It's also more than likely that McLaren would have been (at least vaguely) familiar with Christopher Hibbert's King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780 (Longmans, 1958), which provides a colourful reading of the historical record. 

      And finally, it should be pointed out that McLaren certainly knew of (and admired) the newsletter King Mob Echo produced by the British offshoot of the Situationist International, with whom he was acquainted whilst an art student in the 1960s (see Gorman 2020, pp. 95-98).

 

[8] Julien Temple, director of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), speaking in the audio commentary [2:13] provided as a bonus to the DVD release of the film in 2005: click here. Temple is speaking with the writer Chris Salewicz. Interestingly, while Malcolm sees the Sex Pistols as Dickensian, Temple prefers to think of them as a bit Chaucerian. 

 

 

On Three More Punk Graces: Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, and Helen of Troy

The Three Punk Graces II: Poly, Siouxsie & Helen of Troy

(SA/2025) 

 

 

I. 

 

The Greeks famously have had their Charites, but punk mythology has given us our very own version of the Three Graces: Jordan, Soo Catwoman, and Vivienne Westwood [1]. 

 

In fact, I would argue that those who came of age not in ancient Athens, but London in the mid-late 1970s, were doubly blessed. 

 

For I can easily name at least three other astonishing women who may not have personified Classical notions of charm, beauty, and elegance, but certainly embodied forms of radical alterity [2]: Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, and Helen of Troy ...   

 

 

II.

 

Not only was Siouxsie lead singer, lyricist and frontwoman of her own very successful band - Siouxsie and the Banshees - but she was a key member of that ultra-hip and ultra-loyal group of fans who followed the Sex Pistols in the very early days and became known as the Bromley Contingent [3].

 

In fact, having never really been much of a Banshees fan - I liked some of the early songs, but only ever bought one single and one album by them - it's Siouxsie's devotion to the Sex Pistols that really makes me feel a good deal of affection for her. 

 

Because of her later career as a performer who experimented with various styles of music - and her association with what is known as goth [4] - many commentators forget just how close she was to Rotten and company and how brilliantly she embodied the pervy punk aesthetic being promoted by McLaren and Westwood; quickly becoming notorious on the London club scene for her SEX inspired outfits (often wearing a cupless black bra, for example, with matching swastika armband).     

 

In September 1976, Siouxsie performed a short (mostly improvised) set on stage at the 100 Club Punk Special (an event organised by Malcolm McLaren); Marco Pirroni was on guitar, Steve Severin on bass, and Sid Vicious on drums.   

 

And then, in December '76, she and three other members of the Bromley Contingent accompanied the Sex Pistols to Thames TV where they were being interviewed by Bill Grundy for the Today programme .... and, well, everyone knows what happened (Go on - you've got another five seconds, say something outrageous ... etc.) [5]. 

 

Now, whilst Grundy was absolutely the cause of his own downfall, it has to be said that if Siouxsie hadn't pretended that she'd always wanted to meet him, then, well, who knows how things might have turned out. 

 

But she said what she said, and thus unwittingly instigated what became known as the Bill Grundy Incident which, in turn, triggered a full media meltdown and moral panic; the Daily Mirror famously putting a picture of her on the cover of one edition (Friday, December 3, 1976) along with the headline: Siouxsie's a punk shocker.    

 

Funnily enough, after all this tabloid fuss, Siouxsie began to distance herself from the scene and stopped following the Sex Pistols after the gig at Notre Dame Hall (London) at the end of December '76, preferring to focus her energy on her own career as a singer and songwriter, releasing her first single with the Banshees in August 1978 [6]. 

 

 

III. 

 

Punk was never really about the music and, to the extent that it was about the music, it was best suited to the singles format rather than the album. 

 

However, that's not to say there weren't great punk albums and one of these is Germ Free Adolescents (EMI, 1978) by X-Ray Spex; a group fronted by the uniquely talented singer-songwriter Poly Styrene.  

 

Poly was unarguably one of the most distinctive sounding and looking individuals to have come out of the punk movement [7] and is widely recognised (along with members of the Slits) as a seminal influence on the underground feminist movement known as riot grrrl in the 1990s.   

 

Funnily enough, whilst never a member of the Bromley Contingent, Poly was born in the town, but grew up in Brixton; the biracial child of a Scottish mother and a Somali father.    

 

At fifteen, she ran away from home and hit what remained of the hippie trail, hitch-hiking across the country from one music festival to another and trying to scrape a living as an alternative fashion designer and pop-reggae singer. 

 

But then, on her nineteenth birthday (3 July, 1976), she saw the Sex Pistols playing at the Pier Pavilion in Hastings and had her punk epiphany; forming her own punk band, X-Ray Spex, soon afterwards and taking the punk-sounding name Poly Styrene (one that reflected her obsession with the synthetic world of plastics and consumer culture that had boomed in the post-War era).   

 

The band released their debut single - 'Oh Bondage Up Yours!' - in September 1977 and although it was not a hit at the time (in part due to the fact that the BBC banned it), it is now (rightly) regarded as significant a punk anthem as 'Anarchy in the U. K.' by the Sex Pistols or 'White Riot' by the Clash. 

 

After this, no one ever again intoned the idea of little girls being seen and not heard (in the music business at least, if not wider society): click here to play [8]. 

 

Miss Styrene left the band in mid-1979 and whilst, to be honest, I was not interested in her later life and career, I was saddenned to hear that she died in April 2011 (aged 53) from metastatic breast cancer.  

 

 

IV.

 

Finally, we come to Helen Wellington Lloyd (née Mininberg), or, as she is better known by lovers of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), Helen of Troy; one of the most committed members of the Sex Pistols' entourage and very much part of the inner circle around the band, being a longtime friend (and, briefly, a lover) of Malcolm McLaren [9]. 

 

If anyone embodied what I termed earlier in this post radical alterity, then Helen was it; if only due to her achondroplasia - a rare inherited form of dwarfism - which obliged her to confront the ridicule and discrimination that came her way from those of regular stature [10]. 

 

Punk not only provided her with a more accepting community of creative like-minded individuals, but an identity that allowed her as a little person to openly declare her defiance of and contempt for normies (or those she called plebs) with their conventional notions of beauty, for example.  

     

Helen, a talented art student, was not just a pretty face, however; she it was who first came up with the idea of the Sex Pistols using the ransom note style typography for promotional materials (an idea enthusiastically taken up by Jamie Reid); and she it was who famously featured alongside McLaren in the Swindle, including the famous 'You Need Hands' dance sequence set in Highgate Cemetery - click here - surely one of the most touching scenes in British cinematic history.  

  

Again, as with Siouxsie and Poly Styrene, I'm not too interested in what happened to Helen post-punk; she sold her extensive collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia at Sotheby's (London) in 2001 - which included Rotten's 'Anarchy' shirt (as designed by McLaren and Westwood in 1976) - and then, it's believed, she returned home to South Africa. 

 

Obviously, one wishes her well (if she's still alive) - and obviously, dead or alive, she continues to play an active role in my own imagination.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post published on 25 August 2025 in which I discuss this trio of figures who were so central to the British punk revolution: click here.  

 

[2] By radical alterity I refer to Baudrillard's understanding of otherness as it appears throughout his work; i.e., something that is in danger of extinction today, but which might still possibly pose a challenge to the arrogance and narcissism of a closed culture when it is invested with force by a movement such as punk. 

      For me, the three figures discussed here are perfect examples of those Peter York once described as the Peculiars; individuals who are proud not to fit in or subscribe to a model of universal understanding, but to be alien and abnormal, as well as sexy, stylish and subversive. 

 

[3] The name was coined by the music journalist Caroline Coon in September 1976 and, despite the fact that several members of the Bromley Contingent weren't actually from this Greater London suburb (located ten miles southeast of the capital), the name was catchy and convenient enough to stick. 

      Core members included: Siouxsie, Steve Severin, Billy Idol, Simon Barker, Debbie Juvenile, Tracie O'Keefe, Simone Thomas, and Bertie Marshall (Soo Catwoman was often associated with them, but was never considered part of the group by other members or, indeed, by herself).    

      Siouxsie and Steve Severin first saw the Sex Pistols play in London in February 1976 and, after chatting to members of the band afterwards, they immediately became devotees.  

 

[4] Siouxsie often expressed her displeasure with this association and felt the term goth - like punk before it - was ultimately reductive and one used by journalists to oversimplify and categorise work they didn't understand.    

 

[5] For those readers who aren't familiar with the details of the Bill Grundy incident, let me briefly summarise: After Queen cancelled their appearance on the live television show Today show at the last minute, the Sex Pistols were offered the spot in order to promote their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.', and explain what punk rock was all about. 

      Things started badly and quickly got worse when it was clear that Grundy was hostile and dismissive of the band and that the latter - particularly guitarist Steve Jones - were not prepared to take his bullshit, nor listen to his creepy sexual innuendo when speaking to Siouxsie. Suggesting to her that they might 'meet afterwards' triggered Jones into calling him a 'dirty sod' and a 'dirty old man'. 

      Stupidly, Grundy then challenged Jones to 'say something outrageous' - which he did; calling Grundy a 'dirty bastard' and a 'dirty fucker'. Grundy responded, 'What a clever boy! to which Jones hilariously replied, 'What a fucking rotter!'

      Predictably, the phone lines to the Thames switchboard lit up and the national press had a field day. Grundy was suspended by Thames and his career effectively ended. The Sex Pistols were fired shortly afterwards by their record label EMI and were now branded as public enemies. The interview - click here - has become one of the most requested TV clips of all time. 

 

[6] Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Hong Kong Garden' (Polydor Records, 1978): click here. This debut single reached number 7 in the UK chart.  

 

[7] In many ways, Poly is as a uniquely-looking and uniquely-sounding character as Johnny Rotten and both must rank as amongst the most unconventional - but charismatic - performers in rock history. In order to appreciate this fact, here she is singing perhaps my favourite X-Ray Spex song, 'Identity', which was released as the band's third single (on EMI) in July 1978: click here. 

 

[8] It should be noted that the song is not simply a feminist rejection of male sexual oppression as some imagine; rather, as one critic points out, it's also 'an indictment of consumer culture, denouncing the blind impulses of the mainstream shopper', as the lines: Chain store, chain smoke, I consume you all / Chain gang, chain mail, I don't think at all! make clear. 

      See Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk: Girls' Gender Resistance in a Boys' Subculture (Rutgers University Press, 1999), pp. 45-46.    

[9] Helen met McLaren on enrolment day at Goldsmiths College, in 1969. Later, through her connection with Malcolm she became a regular on the early London punk scene, where she felt happy and secure surrounded by freaks like her who liked to dress up and mess up: 

      'For the first time I didn't try and merge into the background. I wanted people to look at me with my chains, safety-pins, foxtail and black eyes. For once being a dwarf didn't matter.' - Helen, quoted by Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan in Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001), and cited on the page dedicated to her on the Punk77 website: click here. 

 

[10] I'm conscious of the fact that one must be wary of going too far in this; that too often well-intentioned depictions of dwarfs in books or films, for example, suggest that they are not simply people of reduced stature, but individuals who have special (almost magical) powers and status due to their condition. Unfortunately, that's not the case and idealising little people is just as bad ultimately as devaluing, denigrating, or disparaging them due to their size.   

      Those interested in working to create a more inclusive society for those with dwarfism might like to visit the websites of Little People UK (co-founded by the actor Warwick Davis) - click here - and the Restricted Growth Association (RGA) - click here.         

On This Day ...

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook

Photo by John Gray (1975)

 

 

I. 

 

I know that English historians who specialise in the early modern period will be keen to inform everyone they meet that today is the 540th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field; i.e., the last major battle of the War of the Roses and the one in which Richard III bravely met his end (thereby bringing down the curtain on the Plantagenet dynasty and allowing the age of the Tudors to commence). 

 

And I know that English historians who prefer to get excited about the English Civil War will be reminding others that, on this day in 1642, Charles I raised his standard in Nottingham and effectively challenged the Parliamentarians to a fight (which, of course, did not end well for him and his fellow Royalists - losing not just his crown but his head seven years later). 

 

 

II. 

 

However, as a cultural critic more concerned with the art, fashion, and politics between 1870 and the present day, for me the most exciting event that happened on this date happened in 1975 at the Roebuck (354 King's Road) - namely, the first meeting between 19-year-old John Lydon and the other members of the band who were to become known as the Sex Pistols: Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock. 

 

As Paul Gorman notes, at the time Lydon "cut a remarkable figure visually [...] he had cropped and dyed his spiky fair hair [...] and wore distressed and customised clothing" [1], most notably a torn Pink Floyd T-shirt upon which he had scawled the words I HATE above the band's logo. 

 

Steve Jones - who christened Lydon 'Johnny Rotten' because of his green teeth - may have thought (rightly) that he was an arsehole, but he had also to admit Lydon had style, attitude, and intelligence. 

 

And Malcolm agreed: after Lydon auditioned to be the group's singer by miming to a self-chosen track by Alice Cooper that happened to be on the jukebox at SEX [2], McLaren instantly recognised the young man had star quality (the band members were not quite so convinced of this, but McLaren was insistent that they had found the perfect frontman - even if he couldn't sing). 

 

 

III. 

 

Nietzsche writes that he is the kind of philosopher who breaks history in two; that one day mankind will mark time before him and after him [3].   

 

Perhaps we might say the same of the Sex Pistols in relation to popular culture. 

 

Indeed, we might also say of the latter what Nietzsche further says of himself: one day, there will be associated with their name the recollection of something momentous; of a No-saying to everything that until they came along had been believed in as the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but which was dismissed in 1977 with but a single phrase: never mind the bollocks!  

 

They were, by far, the most terrible band there has ever been; but also the most necessary; anarcho-nihilists who knew joy in destruction and believed in the ruins. 

 

What a shame then, that, fifty years on, Jones, Cook, and Matlock are performing punk karaoke with Frank Carter fronting a kind of ersatz version of the Sex Pistols and Rotten ... well, don't get me started on the abject figure he has become ... [4]   

 

 

 

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook

Reworking John Gray's 1975 photo fifty years on (SA/2025) 

  

Notes

 

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 278.  

 

[2] The track in question was 'I'm Eighteen', released as a single in November 1970, it also featured on the album Love It to Death (Warner Bros., 1971). To listen to the song on YouTube, click here.

 

[3] See Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Pengin books, 1979), 'Why I Am a Destiny' (8), p. 133.    

 

[4] I make my views clear on Rotten in a number of posts written over the last 12 years: click here, here, and here, for example. 

 

 

In Praise of Hobble Skirts and Bondage Suits

Jordan and Vivienne having a fag break outside Seditionaries in 1977 

wearing bondage suits as a fashionable young Edwardian 

in a hobble skirt time hops from 1911  

 

 

I. 

 

It's funny, but one of the paradoxical lessons of fashion is that restricting the movement of the body can liberate the wearer. We see this, for example, in the Edwardian era (1901-1910) and in the even briefer punk period ruled by McLaren and Westwood (1974-80); the former giving us the hobble skirt and the latter the bondage suit ... 

 

 

II.

 

The English word hobble probably has a Dutch-German etymology. 

 

But whatever its origin, it means the same thing: you're not going to walk evenly, quickly, or very comfortably once you've been hobbled. In other words, hobbling is a technique for the production of artificial awkwardness; one that causes the individual to shuffle, sway, and - if not careful - lose balance and stumble.          

 

The hobble skirt, which came with an outrageously narrow hem circumference of less than 36 inches, was very popular with those fashionable few in the know. The design was so extreme that some hobble skirts impeded a woman's stride to a mere six inches (i.e., about four times less than normal). 

 

Now, I know that some feminist fashion historians interpret this in a purely negative light. But it might be argued that the hobble skirt was a way in which newly emancipated women experimented with their own freedom (their own bodies, their own clothing) and mocked the Victorian idea that they were vulnerable and in need of male protection and assistance by pushing it to a ludicrous extreme. 

 

Ultimately, whatever the politics of the hobble skirt, what cannot be denied is that a tight hemline and high waistline produces a marvellous silhouette.      

 

 

III.

 

Some people believe the hobble skirt to have been inspired by the Japanese kimono; others credit Mrs Edith Ogilby Berg - one of best dressed women of the period - with inspiring its creation ... 

 

In 1908, Mrs Berg attended a Wright Brothers demonstration in France and asked for a ride, becoming the first American woman to fly as a passenger in an aeroplane (even if the flight only lasted a little over two minutes). 

 

Not wanting her skirt to be billow in the wind during the flight, she had quickly fastened a rope around the hem of her ankle-length skirt. And when, with the rope still in place, she tottered from the aircraft after landing a fashion designer in the crowd of spectators had a moment of inspiration - et voila! the hobble skirt (or la jupe entravée as he termed it) was conceived [1]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Predictably, the gentlemen of the press had a field day, the hobble skirt causing a mixture of outrage and merriment. Numerous editorials were written condemning them; sometimes on the grounds of health and safety and sometimes in the name of public decency and common sense. Hundreds of cartoons and comic postcards were also produced, mocking the women who wore them. 

 

But of course, these fashionable women didn't care; they loved the fact the hobble skirt brought them attention and knew long before Adam Ant that ridicule is nothing to be scared of [2]. And if you stumbled while wearing one and fell in the canal, or in front of a runaway horse, well ... C'est la vie! 

 

Scorning the actions of those women who made alterations to their skirts to allow for greater movement - adding subtle slits, hidden pleats, and buttons at the skirt's hem - the hardcore hobble devotees would sometimes even tie their legs together at the knee; a point which brings us nicely on to the bondage suit designed by Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood over 65 years later and sold in their King's Road store Seditionaries.

 

 

V.

 

If obliged to choose just one outfit to epitomise the punk aesthetic, it would have to be the unisex bondage suit. 

 

The story goes that Malcolm had returned from a trip to the States with a pair of standard-issue green cotton army trousers which he instructed Vivienne to copy in shiny black sateen. McLaren then had the genius idea of a metal zip that went right up between the legs and, perhaps more crucially, a strap between the knees, restricting the wearer's movement and giving the trousers their name [3].   

 

After designing a matching jacket with straps, zips, snap fastenings, and D-rings [4], the couple had created one of the most iconic garments of punk style, which later came in tartan and with the addition of a detachable bum flap to give a primitive element to the outfit.

 

The tagline for Seditionaries was clothes for heroes - and that was exactly how the wearer would feel as they hobbled along going Nowhere in their bondage outfit; daring, defiant, and dandyish. They had, with their own irreverence, escaped the world of normality [5] - just like the hobble skirt wearing women had done all those decades earlier.        

 

 

 

Funny girl Fanny Brice in a hobble skirt (1910) and 

punk designer Vivienne Weswood in a bondage suit (1977)

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The French fashion designer may have been Paul Poiret; he it was who claimed credit for the hobble skirt (just as he did for wide-legged trousers in 1910), although it's not entirely clear whether the skirt was uniquely his creation. The fact is, skirts had been rapidly narrowing for several years already. 

      However, just as I'm happy to think of Mary Quant as the inventor of the miniskirt - even though that's not entirely true (again, the era-defining skirt of the 1960s was the result of a trend for rising hemlines and a wider cultural shift towards youthful informality and fun) - I'm happy also to think of Poiret as both the inventor of the hobble skirt and the man responsible for convincing women to throw away their corsets. As he never tired of boasting: I freed the bust, but shackled the legs!       

 

[2] Lyric by Adam Ant from the song 'Prince Charming', released as a single from the album of the same title by Adam and the Ants in 1981 (CBS Records): click here to play on YouTube. 

 

[3] To watch a short film on YouTube in which McLaren talks about making a pair of bondage trousers and dressing a generation who were bored, nihilistic, and in search of a new identity, please click here.    

 

[4] Paul Gorman informs us that the matching bondage top "was modelled on an oiled canvas jacket produced by the traditional British outwear brand Barbour". However, by the time McLaren and Westwood had finished transforming the piece with straps and whatnot, it "resembled a high fashion straightjacket". 

      Gorman also notes that the duo also designed a pair of bondage boots, "in canvas and soft leather", for those who wanted to complete the look. See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 318-319.  

 

[5] For my own experience of wearing bondage clothes inspired by McLaren and Westwood's original design, see the post published on 16 October 2015: click here. 

That Time I Met Mr Pickle ...

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite scenes in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) is the closing animated sequence in which McLaren and his motley crew are all aboard the good ship Venus and Johnny Rotten, having been found guilty of collaboration, is forced to walk the plank. 

 

Abandoned by his shipmates, the singer finds himself literally all at sea where he is soon swallowed by a great white shark with the Virgin logo clearly visible on its fin [1].    

 

This scene replayed itself in my mind when, in 1983, the Virgin Group acquired Charisma Records (although it wouldn't be until 1986 that the latter was fully digested by the former; still maintaining at least a measure of independence until then). 

 

So, let us say that I was not a fan of Richard Branson and would laugh at Malcolm's stories about this hippie entrepreneur whom he vehemently disliked and derisively called Mr Pickle (either intentionally or mistakenly confusing the surname with that of an English food brand made by Crosse & Blackwell since 1922) [2].  

 

 

II. 

 

I first met Mr Pickle when, as a Charisma employee, I was sent an invitation by him and the directors of the Virgin Group to attend a party at the Manor, in Oxfordshire, to celebrate the first anniversary of Virgin Atlantic.  

 

The Manor, for those who might not know, was a recording studio housed in a 17th century Grade II listed building that had been bought by Branson in 1971, for £30,000, when he was only twenty-one years of age. It was where Mike Oldfield famousy recorded his precious Tubular Bells (1973) [3].

 

As pretty much everyone from Charisma was going to go, I decided I'd also (somewhat begrudgingly) accept Branson's invitation. And here, for those who may be interested, is my memory of the day based on an entry in the Von Hell Diaries dated 22 June, 1985 ... 

 

 

III. 

 

Unsure what to wear, I decided to go with the pink check suit I bought two years ago and which I've kept hanging in my closet - unworn - ever since. After my friend Andy arrived, we went over to pick Lee Ellen up from her place in Chelsea. Then cabbed it over to Kensal House (i.e., Virgin HQ), from where coaches transported everyone to the Manor. 

      Those of us from the Famous Charisma Label were segregated from the Virgin staff and we were seated as a group at the back of the bus. As Robin had kindly brought along several bottles of wine, however, no one seemed to mind about that and, amusingly, we were soon making twice as much noise as the Virginians on board (to be fair, perhaps that's why we were placed at the back of the bus).  

       The Manor was an impressive country pile (provided you have the capacity to be impressed by an assemblage of bricks) and set in very beautiful grounds that included trees, lakes, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Mr Pickle was there to meet and greet us personally as we got off the bus. 

      There were three large tents erected and Branson had laid on copious amounts of food and drink as well as various entertainments that one could sign up for, including horse riding and helicopter flights. But I was more interested in Shelley's friend Claire to be honest. Unfortunately, I ruined my chances with her when I split my lip open swigging champagne straight from the bottle. Note to future self: spitting blood à la Sid Vicious is probably not the most attractive look. 

      Ultimately, it was a dull event - even with the odd pop star in attendance - and the weather didn't help (typical English summer's day - wet and chilly). Glad when the coaches turned up to take us back to London. Mr Pickle dutifully came over to say goodbye and shake everyone's hand for a second time: very much Lord of the Manor. And very much not to be trusted ... [4]    

  

 

 

Not to the manor born ... Andy Greenfield and myself 

The Manor Studio (22 June 1985)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene in a post published on 4 March 2024: click here. 

 

[2] Use of this nickname is confirmed by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355. 

      Gorman's assessment of Branson is one I fully endorse; essentially, a very clever businessman from a privileged background who knew a good opportunity when he saw one and had "cultivated a knack of appropriating aspects of youth culture to his commercial gain" (ibid., p. 356). 

 

[3] The idea of building a luxurious home recording studio was still novel at this time; the Manor was only the third such studio in the UK. Oldfield recorded his debut studio album at the Manor in 1972-73 and it was the first album released on the Virgin Records label (25 May 1973). 

      In April 1995, after the takeover of Virgin Records by EMI, the Manor was closed as a recording studio and the building, listed for sale in 2010 at £5.75 million, is now the country home of some toff or other.   

 

[4] Lee Ellen, Robin, and Shelley all worked at Charisma (in the press office, accounts, and A&R department respectively). The final line is my recalling McLaren's famous advice given to Helen in The Swindle: 'Never trust a hippie'.   

 

 

Why Growing Up is So Problematic for an Artist

@artstoheartsproject 

(Instagram 3 July 2025)

 

'The first half of life is learning to be an adult and the second half is learning to be a child.' [1] 

 

 

I. 

 

The above cartoon is funny, as Homer would say, because it's true. 

 

Or, at the very least, it touches upon an idea that might possibly be true; namely, that in order to be an artist one must retain some quality (or qualities) associated with childhood.   

 

It's an idea worth investigating further, I think ... 

 

 

II. 

 

I have always remembered an interview with Sid Vicious in which he adamantly insists that he doesn't want to be a grown up and that he and his bandmates are, essentially, just a bunch of kids. According to many people's favourite Sex Pistol: 

 

"When somebody stops being a kid, they stop being aware. It doesn't matter how old you are; you can be ninety-nine and still be a kid. And as long as you're a kid, you're aware and you know what's happening. But as soon as you grow up ... The definition of a grown up is someone who catches on to things when kids discard them." [2] 

 

That, as Jules would say, is an interesting point. 

 

And I suspect it was genuinely Sid's own view, though it also reflects the thinking of the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren, who encouraged his young charges to be everything this society hates and by which he primarily meant childish, irresponsible, and disrespectful. 

 

This countercultural philosophy, first conceived by McLaren at art school in the 1960s, was central to punk as it developed in the UK in the 1970s. 

 

For Malcolm, like Sid, being a grown up meant conformity, compromise, and complacency. Being a child, on the other hand, meant remaining open to new ideas and experiences and viewing the world with wonder and a certain innocence - traits that also define an artist (at least in the minds of those who think of art as being more than a matter of paint on canvas).         

 

 

III.

 

Innocence: it's a word that Nietzsche uses in relation to his concept of becoming-child [3]. But it's not one I usually associate with D. H. Lawrence. 

 

However, Lawrence does occasionally speak in favour of naïveté and of the need for an artist to be pure in spirit; which doesn't mean being good in a traditional moral sense of the term, but having a supremely delicate awareness of the world and dwelling in a state of delight [4]. 

 

And Lawrence does say that a combination of innocence + naïveté + modesty might return some young writers and painters not merely to childhood, but to a prenatal condition; i.e., ready to be born into a new golden age.

 

For regression to the foetal state must surely, says Lawrence, be a prelude to something positive:

 

"If the innocence and naïveté as regards artistic expression doesn't become merely idiotic, why shouldn't it become golden?" [5]  

 

 

IV. 

 

Astute readers will note Lawrence's concern in that last line quoted above: there is always the possibility that innocence and naïveté don't result in artistic greatness, but, rather, in idiocy and what Lawrence thinks of as arrested development. 

 

And let's be clear: push comes to shove, Lawrence - like Nietzsche, but unlike McLaren and Vicious - doesn't reject adulthood. 

 

On the contrary, he values it above childhood and whilst he may value the positive qualities associated with children, he loathes those adults who behave in a manner that he regards as immature or infantile and dearly wishes they would grow up and put away childish things (as Paul would say). 

 

Referring to novelists, for example, who, in his view, are overly self-conscious, Lawrence writes: 

 

"It really is childish, after a certain age, to be absorbedly self-conscious. One has to be self-conscious at seventeen: still a little self-conscious at twenty-seven; but if we are going at it strong at thirty-seven, then it is a sign of arrested development, nothing else. And if it is still continuing at forty-seven, it is obvious senile precocity." [6]    

 

Such people, says Lawrence - and in many ways I'm one of them - who "drag their adolescence on into their forties and their fifties and their sixties" [7] and either can't or won't grow up, need some kind of medical help [8].  

 

  

Notes

 

[1] This is one of several well-known quotes attributed to Picasso on the relationship between art and childhood. Others include: 'Every child is an artist: the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up' and 'It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.'

 

[2] Sid Vicious interviewed by Judy Vermorel in 1977 for The Sex Pistols, a book compiled and edited by Fred and Judy Vermorel, originally published in January 1978 by Universal Books. 

      To listen to Vicious sharing his views on this question, please click here. Sid also speaks frankly, honestly, and directly to his fans from 'Beyond the Grave' on Some Product: Carri On Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1979) and confidently asserts that just as you can be ninety-nine and still be a kid, so too can you be a grown up at sixteen: click here. 

 

[3] See, for example, 'Of the Three Metamorphoses' in part one of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the third and final stage of which is becoming-child and the entering into a second innocence. 

 

[4] See D. H. Lawrence 'Making Pictures', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 230-231.

 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to These Paintings', Late Essays and Articles, p. 217.

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Future of the Novel', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 152. Senile precocity is not a recognised medical condition and seems to have been coined as a term by Lawrence in this essay.  

 

[7] Ibid., p. 153.   

 

[8] This condition - increasingly widespread - is often referred to in popular psychology as Peter Pan Syndrome and is associated with the work of Dan Kiley; see his 1983 text, The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up. 

      Note that whilst Peter Pan Syndrome is not recognised by the World Health Organization - nor listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - it has a significant overlap with narcissistic personality disorder.