It Was Meant to Be Great But It's Horrible: Christmas with Uncle Malcolm and the King Mob

Malcolm Mclaren dressed as Santa Claus re-enacting the King Mob 

intervention at Selfridges in The Ghosts of Oxford Street (1991) 

 

 

I. 

 

King Mob was a radical group based in London during the late-1960s and early-70s, very much influenced by - but not officially affiliated with - the Situationist International [1]. 

 

The group's name was derived from a slogan said to have been daubed on the wall of Newgate Prison by rioters in 1780, after having destroyed the building and released the prisoners; one that declared the sovereignty of the people: His Majesty King Mob.    

 

As well as staging a number of interventions - i.e., public events intended to spark anti-capitalist riots, one of which we shall discuss in detail below - the group also published five issues of a journal entitled King Mob Echo (notorious for exalting murderers like Jack the Ripper) and a large number of posters and leaflets.  

 

 

II. 

 

Inspired by an action taken by a radical group in New York called Black Mask [2], in December 1968 two dozen King Mob members and affiliates - including a 22-year-old art student by the name of Malcolm McLaren - entered Selfridges [3] and made ther way to the toy department ... 

 

Here a member dressed as Santa Claus - Ben Trueman - not Mclaren - led the free distribution of the store's toys to eager children and their rather bemused parents, hoping to rekindle the true spirit of Christmas, based on gift-giving (not shopping).  

 

As well as the presents, a one-page manifesto was also handed out, the title of which read: Christmas: it was meant to be great but it's horrible. The manifesto called for the clearing away of the all the bullshit around the annual festival and encouraged people to light up Oxford Street and dance around the fires [4].      

 

Eventually, the Selfridges intervention would become an established part of punk rock prehistory. Speaking to Jon Savage, McLaren recalled the event: 

 

"'We were all handing out the toys and the kids were running off. The store detectives and the police started to pounce: I ran off into the lift. There's just me and this old lady: the doors start to open and I can just see all these police. I grab the old lady really tight and walk through like I'm helping her. As soon as I got out of the store, I belted out of there.'" [5]        

 

McLaren also re-enacted the scene in his (otherwise pretty dire) Channel 4 film The Ghosts of Oxford Street (1991) [6]. 

 

 

III. 

 

It would be nice to think something like the Selfridges intervention - a genuinely fun event - could happen again this festive season. 

 

But it's unlikely: the only kind of event that might cause a temporary glitch in the Xmas matrix is terroristic in nature and not even Ebenezer Scrooge would wish for that ...       

  

 

Notes

 

[1] In a seasonal nutshell, the Situationist International was a group of social and cultural revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, some of whom identified as libertarian Marxists, others as anarcho-surrealists. It was active in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. 

      The SI's primary concern was to develop a comprehensive critique of consumer capitalism and the role played by the media in this (what it termed the society of spectacle). Via the staging of provocative situations, they hoped to counteract the spectacle and liberate the masses (what it termed the revolution of everyday life). Many of their ideas and slogans were utilised by those taking part in the May '68 protests in Paris. 

      Timothy Clark, Christopher Gray and Donald Nicholson-Smith - three of the founding members of King Mob - had been excluded from the SI in December 1967. Charles Radcliffe, another founding member, had resigned from the SI a couple of months prior to this. Twin brothers David and Stuart Wise, who had recently arrived in London from Newcastle, were the two other founding members of King Mob. 

 

[2] Black Mask (formed 1966) - who changed their name in 1968 to Up Against the Walll Motherfuckers - was another group affiliated with the SI promoting a form of revolutionary art and activism. Valerie Solanas was associated with them.  

 

[3] Selfridges - for those readers who may not know - is a British department store founded by American retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1909, and located at 400 Oxford Street in an iconic building designed by Daniel Burnham. After Harrods, in Knightsbridge, it is the UK's largest shop. 

 

[4] This flyer or handbill - printed in black on Victor Bond watermarked paper (25 x 33 cm) and illustrated with Christmas-style motifs - can be seen on (and purchased from) the Peter Harrington website: click here. 

      The text opens with the lines: "It's lights out on Oxford Street this year. No more midnight neon. No more conspicuous glitter for compulsive sightseers to gawp at the wonders of capitalism. Even the affluent society can no longer keep up with its electricity bill." 

      It then goes on to suggest that Christmas always was a drag, involving a duty to be cheerful and nice to your family: "Don't let on that you're cold and tired, sick [...] of all the trash they try to sell you, sick of the kids who are trained to sing in chorus a whole lot of lies about love and mercy mild."

 

[5]  Jon Savage, England's Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (Faber and Faber, 1991), p. 34. 

 

[6] See the post entitled 'Magic's Back: Evoking the Ghosts of Malcolm McLaren's Oxford Street' (25 October 2024) - click here. 

 

 

A Cheap Holiday ...

Sex Pistols: 'Holidays in the Sun' 

(Virgin Records, 1977) [1]
 

 

I. 

 

I don't know why - perhaps because I'm a little naive and trusting of his lyrical ability - but I always believed that Rotten had penned the memorable opening line of the Sex Pistols' fourth single: A cheap holiday in other people's misery.

 

It turns out, however, that it's borrowed from the Situationists who used the line during the events of May '68 to attack mass tourism, taking particular aim at Club Med; a French travel and tourism operator headquartered in Paris, who specialise in all-inclusive holidays. Founded in 1950, Club Med today owns or operates nearly eighty resort villages in locations around the world (although the company itself is now owned by a Chinese conglomerate).  

 

 

II.

 

The Situationists, led by the brilliant (but troubled) figure of Guy Debord, viewed mass tourism not as an opportunity for working-class people to travel to foreign lands, but as a manifestation of the Society of the Spectacle (i.e., a sociey in which authentic experience and real events are replaced by mere representation and one's relationships are increasingly mediated by images).

 

A package holiday is - as the name suggests - perfectly commodified and serves only to reinforce capitalist control and intensify the holidaymaker's alienation via the illusion of happiness; you think you're having fun, but actually you're having your soul sucked out of you and being prevented from actively engaging with your environment or knowing real pleasure.

 

What's more, mass tourism forces the local population to prostitute themselves and make their towns, cities, even whole countries attractive for visitors over and above their own needs. At first, everyone thinks it's great and tourism is a huge boost to the economy, but then, one day, they wake up inside a theme park and their traditional way of life has been rendered null and void.

 

Recently, in European cities including Barcelona and Venice, there have been anti-tourism protests; local residents finally deciding to try and resist their homeland and culture being turned into a consumable product by the Spectacle. One suspects, however, that these protests are in vain; too little, too late when the whole world has been Disneyfied and we are all tourists now [2].    

 

 

III.

 

Jean Baudrillard - who was a bit of a situationist himself - didn't quite say that tourism and terrorism are one and the the same thing, but he did argue that they are inextricably linked phenomena arising from the process of globalisation and that tourism is itself a form of terror as an avatar of colonisation and a viral infiltration of traditional cultures by foreign capital and alien values [3]. 

 

Like it or not, as you sit at the airport waiting to fly off for some winter sun, tourism imposes a universal and commodified experience upon the world and incites (sometimes violent and symbolic) acts of resistance from those who don't wish to see their singular experience Disneyfied and consumed by tourists; who understand that any culture that loses its singularity dies.     

 

Like it or not, no matter how much you paid for your trip and how much you love the locals and try to respect their way of life, you are still just enjoying:

 

 

 

Notes

 

 [1] 'Holidays in the Sun' was released on 14 October 1977 as the fourth single by the Sex Pistols. It reached number 8 in the UK charts. It also serves as the opening track to the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols which was released two weeks later (Virgin Records, 1977). To play the track and watch the official video on YouTube, click here. 

      Jamie Reid's artwork hijacked images from a Belgian holiday brochure and added speech bubbles with lyrics from the song. Unfortunately, the tourist company sued and the record sleeve (along with promotional materials that made use of the artwork) had to be withdrawn. Over 50,000 singles were recalled and re-issued in plain sleeves, although not before an estimated 5,000 had already been sold (one of which I bought). 

      Anyone with £2000 to spare can buy a 'Holidays in the Sun' poster from the London-based bookseller Peter Harrington: click here for details.  

  

[2] See the post titled 'Travels in Hyperculture with Byung Chul-Han 1: We Are All Tourists Now' (30 Jan 2022): click here.  

[3] I'm paraphrasing what Baudrillard writes in 'Where Good Grows', an essay written in 2005, which can be found in The Agony of Power, trans. Ames Hodges (Semiotext(e), 2010), p.102.