Bow Wow Wasn't: On Two French Masterpieces That Didn't Quite Fit the Bill for McLaren and Egan

Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Le Verrou (1777) [1]

Eugène Delacroix: La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830 / restored 2024) [2]

 

 

I.

 

Having recently viewed the extended remix of Peter Pahor's documentary about the life and work of Nick Egan - Creative Vandal (2024) [3] - I was left thinking about the design decision taken with regard to the cover of Bow Wow Wow's debut studio album. 

 

As everybody knows, See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (1981) features a brilliant photographic recreation of Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) [4].

 

But what a lot of people - including me - didn't realise before hearing Nick discuss this work was that Manet's painting was not the first or only choice: that at least two other famous French masterpieces were also considered, including Fragonard's Le Verrou (1777) and Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830) ...   

 

 

II.  

 

Le Verrou is one of Fragonard's most famous works. It depicts what is known as a galant scene [5]. 

 

Whether the male libertine is locking the door with consent so that he and his elegantly dressed mistress are not disturbed, or whether he is bolting the door so as to prevent her escape and what we are witnessing is an attempted rape is open to interpretation [6]. 

 

Either way, it's slightly risqué and one can see why it would appeal to Malcolm McLaren and Nick Egan, although, in my view, it would have made a much better cover for the Bow Wow Wow single 'Louis Quatorze' - which famously contains the lines: Louis, Louis's locking my door / Louis's serious, I'm delirious [7] - than for the album, so they were right to reject it.     

 

 

III.

 

La Liberté guidant le peuple is a very well-known Romantic painting by Delacroix that many people - including Egan - mistakenly believe to be a depiction of the 1789 Revolution, when, actually, it commemorates the uprising of July 1830 that toppled the short reign of King Charles X [8].    

 

Everyone loves a bare-footed, bare-breasted woman wearing a Phrygian cap while waving the tricolour and brandishing a bayonetted musket. Malcolm McLaren and his cohorts certainly did - one might recall, for example, that Jamie Reid later incorporated this Marianne image for the cover of his 1987 book Up They Rise [9]. 

 

But, again, I think McLaren and Egan wisely decided not to use this image for the cover of See Jungle! It's a bit too punk and political and doesn't quite fit with the aesthetics and ideology behind Bow Wow Wow - which was more about going wild in the country and teenage kicks than it was anarchy and bloody revolution.  

 

Delacroix's picture would have been fine for the Sex Pistols - the young boy storming the barricades is even holding two pistols - but, in relation to Bow Wow Wow, it's probably not even as strong an option as Fragonard's work. 

 

And neither match up to Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, which is the perfect choice: très moderne and still capable of causing scandal and outrage - particularly when the nude female figure is replaced by a fourteen-year-old girl.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Known in English either as The Bolt or The Lock, this painting by Fragonard is an oil on canvas measuring 73.5 x 93.5 cm. It can be viewed at the Louvre.

 

[2] Known in English as Liberty Leading the People, this painting by Delacroix is an oil on canvas measuring 260 x 325 cm. It too - of course - can be viewed at the Louvre. 

 

[3] I was fortunate enough to be invited to an evening with Nick Egan, hosted by Catalina Guirado at Karma Sanctum Hotel, in Soho, earlier this week, and there was a screening of Peter Pahor's film - as well as an exhibition of Nick's latest paintings. See the TTA post 'Live Forever / Fuck Forever' (11 October, 2026) which anticipates this event. 

 

[4] Whilst as art director Egan was responsible for the overall sleeve design and staging the photo shoot, the actual photograph was by Andy Earl. It is now part of the National Portrait Gallery collection. See the TTA post: 'Why I Love Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (27 April 2017). 

 

[5] A galant scene [fête galante] is a genre of art that was particularly popular in 18th-century France, blending reality with Rococo fantasy. 

      Such scenes depicted aristocratic figures engaged in lighthearted conversation, music-making, or gentle courtship activities. While most often set in outdoor locations, such as idyllic gardens, some artists ventured into the bedroom or boudoir and works like Fragonard's Le Verrou were rather more suggestive of amorous games and illicit affairs. 

 

[6] Of course, it could be that the man is attempting to leave (perhaps post-coitally) and the woman is holding him back and trying to prevent him unbolting the door. 

 

[7] Lyrics (written by McLaren) from the Bow Wow Wow track 'Louis Quatorze' which featured on the cassette-only mini-album Your Cassette Pet (EMI, 1980), and told the story of a young girl being sexually assaulted at gunpoint (or perhaps of a teenage girl's fantasy of such). It was released in Europe as a 7" single by EMI in 1981 and then re-recorded and released in the same format for the UK market by RCA in 1982. 

 

[8] Speaking to camera in Creative Vandal, Egan twice says that Delacroix's 1830 picture depicts the French Revolution. It's a common error - one that I often made until fairly recently, probably like most people with only a vague knowledge of French history. 

      See Egan discussing his work with Bow Wow Wow at 8:28 - 11:22. His claim that nobody saw the reworking of Manet as having anything to do with sexuality whatsoever is either naive or disingenuous - either way, I could only smile when I heard this. McLaren's projects have always been stylish and subversive - always been attempts to capture the look of music and the sound of fashion - but, above all, they have always been about confronting the English public with sex.  

 

[9] See Jamie Reid and Jon Savage, Up They Rise: The Incomplete Works of Jamie Reid (Faber and Faber, 1987). A signed and numbered six-coloured silkscreen print of this work produced by Reid in 2007 can be viewed at (and purchased from) fairart.com 

 

 

This post is for Nick Egan and Catalina Guirado.

 

 

Very Ordinary People

Two very ordinary people 

 

 

I. 

 

I was irritated to recently hear a Hollywood type who, having relocated to a village in Ireland in 2024, spoke of her joy in being able to go about her daily business in peace and quiet and mingle with the locals whom she termed very ordinary people.    

 

I immediately thought of a famous song by Pulp - you know the one [1]. 

 

And I immediately noted the use of an intensifier: the locals were not just ordinary people, they were very ordinary people. Which is, I suppose, just about as ordinary as you can be; almost extraordinarily ordinary in the manner that W. H. Auden once noted [2].  

 

If she had just said ordinary people, I might have overlooked her remark as a slightly ill-judged attempt to say down-to-earth or interpreted it as a clumsy search for authenticity: a kind of faux pas rather than an example of toxic privilege. But adding very makes the phrase feel doubly insulting.

 

I was only thankful that they didn't speak of simple folk, which would have made things even more triggering.   

 

 

II.  

 

  

The word ordinary comes from the Latin for regular or orderly. So an ordinary person is one who might be termed straight - one who follows the rules and conventions without fuss; one who subscribes to common sense and likes to keep up with the news.

 

Someone very much like the hard-working family man identified by the Bureau of Statistics as JS/07M378, about whom no official complaint had ever been lodged [3]. 

 

 

III. 

 

Somehow, the fact that this person is a filmmaker who speaks a lot about the sensitivity needed to be an artist, deepens the irony. 

 

Do they not see that rather than sounding grounded and approachable, their phrasing makes them sound self-important and patronising; someone who mingles only in order to observe and perhaps find inspiration from very ordinary people and their charming (somewhat tragic) little lives? 

 

In other words, even if their intent was to express (or perform) humility in order to virtue signal and gain moral credit, their language is inherently exclusionary and problematic.    

 

 

IV. 

 

Having said that, as a Nietzschean, I accept that there's an order of rank in this life and that some individuals are more important, more influential, more interesting, or more intelligent than others. But I'm not sure they should be accorded special rights or priority treatment.      

 

In fact, the truly extraordinary individual has no need to announce their superiority by asserting VIP status and patronising those they deem beneath them. The performative humility of a Hollywood expat is not a sign of higher rank, but of a deeply internalised bourgeois anxiety - a desperate need to look down from a self-constructed pedestal while pretending to stand on common ground. 

 

There is something pathetic about an artist who travels thousands of miles just to find people they consider ordinary enough to validate their own sense of exceptionalism. It suggests that without a backdrop of simple village life to contrast themselves against, their own brilliance would quickly evaporate [4]. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring to a single by Pulp titled 'Common People', released from the album Different Class (Island Records, 1995). 

      But one might also recall this track by the Kinks, 'Ordinary People', which featured on the album Soap Opera (RCA, 1975). Or, indeed, this song by Flanagan & Allen (pictured above) - 'Two Very Ordinary People' - found on the album Songs from the Pavement (Decca Records, 1931). 

 

[2] I'm referring to a poem by Auden titled 'The Unknown Citizen' (1939). 

 

[3] Ibid. 

 

[4] See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), particularly Chapter IX, 'What is Noble', where he details the self-sufficiency of the noble soul - they have no need to mingle or act the tourist.  

  

 

The Clash: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

 

 'Clash City Rockers' - single release (1978)   

 

'This Is Radio Clash' - single release (1981) 

 

'We Are The Clash' - album track on Cut the Crap (1985) [1]

  

I. 

 

One of the things that The Clash had a penchant for doing throughout their recording career was affirming their own identity, producing three tracks that directly reference the band's name: 'Clash City Rockers' (1978), 'This Is Radio Clash' (1981) and 'We Are The Clash' (1985). 

 

Of course, this kind of thing is not unprecedented: many bands across different genres write self-referential songs to celebrate their identity, legacy, or status. The practice is popular among metalheads, for example, but both punk rockers and hip-hoppers also like to establish credibility amongst a tightknit community of fans by self-proclaiming their greatness and authenticity [2].  

 

In other words, it's not just vanity - incorporating one's own name into one's body of work serves actual strategic and artistic purposes. By writing songs like the trio mentioned above, The Clash are actively participating in their own myth-making. 

 

Or, if you prefer, they are brand-building - letting fans know they are not just another punk group, but, in fact, the Only Band That Matters. The Clash were obsessed with posing as a gang of outlaws and declaring that it was them (and their fans) against the world - particularly the big corporations who controlled the record industry. 

 

It was all bullshit of course - The Clash signed a multi-album record deal with CBS in January 1977 - but let's discuss the three tracks in turn ...

 

 

II. 

 

And I wanna move the town to the Clash City Rockers 

Ya need a little jump of electrical shockers 

Better leave town if you only want to knock us 

Nothing stands the pressure of the Clash City Rockers [3]

  

'Clash City Rockers' was released as a single in February 1978, four days after my fifteenth birthday. 

 

I liked it then and I like it now: it's a good song, and represents the band at their punk peak - showcasing exactly what it was that made them such an exciting group, even if it was already moving away from the sound of their eponymous debut album released the year before. 

 

One of the things I liked about it was the fact that it attacked those who simply complain about their useless employment but lack the courage to jack it in, and it took a pop at David Bowie (for being old and stuck in a rut) and Gary Glitter (for being unfit) [4].     

 

 

III. 

Interrupting all programmes

This is Radio Clash on pirate satellite [5]

 

'This Is Radio Clash' was released as a single in November 1981. It received mixed reviews and although my friend Kirk Field liked it, I did not. 

 

In fact, I thought it was a bad attempt at a rap-funk combination designed for the US market; six months later they'd release the album Combat Rock, which was greeted far more enthusiastically by the American critics than the British critics.     

 

Ultimately, if I wanted to listen to a song about piracy then I'd go play Bow Wow Wow's fantastic debut single from the year before: I didn't need to tune into Radio Clash [6]. 

 

 

IV.

 

We ain't gonna be treated like trash 

We got one thing: we are The Clash! [7]

 

Having described 'Clash City Rockers' as a good song and 'This Is Radio Clash' as a bad song, I suppose I'm obliged to characterise 'We Are The Clash' as il brutto (the ugly).

 

Only, the more I listen to this song, the more I like it and start, like Ron and Russell Mael, to see the beauty in it. There's something touchingly bonkers about this final cry of defiance from Strummer and the lyrics also generously invite everyone to sing along - not just punk rockers, but hip hoppers, pill poppers, and show stoppers. 

 

And I like that: just as anyone can be a Sex Pistol during The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle period, so too anyone can be part of the Last Gang in Town ...     

 

Could it be that if this track were only given a decent remix, it might yet be recognised as the stand out number on the much-despised and much-derided album Cut the Crap (1985)? [8] 

 

   

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, the band themselves didn't release this track as a single. But a cover version by Sparks was released as a digital single in 2022: see the post 'Strike a Match! It's Sparks vs The Clash: Ron and Russell Show Joe and Bernie How to Cut the Crap' (9 Oct 2026). 

 

[2] It should be pointed out also that The Clash were heavily influenced by Jamaican music and that it was standard practice for reggae artists and dub DJs to self-promote by calling out their own names. 

 

[3] Lyrics from the song 'Clash City Rockers' written by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, released as a single by The Clash in February 1978 (CBS Records). The b-side featured a song from Strummer's pub rock days - 'Jail Guitar Doors' - that was heavily reworked by Mick Jones who not only provided new lyrics and music but performed the lead vocals on the track. 

 

[4] Bowie had turned 30 in 1977. However, it was hardly the case that he was creatively at a standstill and did not need The Clash to show him the way forward. As for Gary Glitter, I suspect Strummer is suggesting he was fat and out of shape - that this was not a comment on his moral unfitness as his sex crimes against children were not revealed until twenty years later (1997). 

 

[5] Lyrics from the song 'This Is Radio Clash' written by The Clash (Mick Jones / Joe Strummer / Paul Simonon / Topper Headon), released as a single in November 1981 (CBS Records). The b-side was an alternative version and remix of the track simply called 'Radio Clash'. 

 

[6] It might be noted that the last single I'd bought by The Clash was 'London Calling' in December 1979 (and I wasn't a great fan of that either). The Bow Wow Wow single I refer to is of course  'C30 C60 C90 Go' (EMI, 1980). The contrast between The Clash's pirate radio station fantasy and Bow Wow Wow's provocative celebration of home-taping culture - which actually terrified the record industry at the time - is stark.

 

[7] Lyrics from the song 'We Are The Clash', written by Joe Strummer and Bernie Rhodes. Never released as a single by the band, this track featured on the sixth and final studio album, Cut the Crap (CBS Records, 1985). 

 

[8] Actually, the song - along with the rest of Cut the Crap - was given a decent remix/reboot by German punk musician Gerald Manns, who, in 2021, isolated Strummer's vocals from the original audio recording, re-recorded the music, and eliminated unnecessary overdubs and drum machines. 

      The result can be found on a limited-edition (unofficial) vinyl album titled Cut the Crap Rebooted (2021), by Mohawk Revenge with The Clash Mark II. The project received a positive response from fans and figures in the punk community - including Clash guitarist Nick Sheppard, who said the album came remarkably close to how he and the band had originally envisioned it sounding.

      Fortunately, the album is freely available on YouTube - and so, here's 'We Are The Clash' in its rebooted form (still not as amusing as the version by Sparks, but good fun nevertheless).   

 

 

Live Forever / Fuck Forever (Nick Egan Contra Jamie Reid)

Nick Egan: Live Forever (2026) [1]

Jamie Reid: Fuck Forever (1986) [2]

 

 

I. 

 

I'm pleased to say that I've been invited to an event in London next week [3] featuring a new work by English artist and self-styled creative vandal Nick Egan [4].   

 

The piece, named after an Oasis song released back in the mid-1990s, explores questions around mortality and memory and why it is that certain figures retain their place in the pop cultural imagination, becoming both iconic and immortal.  

 

Sadly, I can't afford to buy the original piece - and I'm not sure I'll even be coughing up the readies for one of the limited edition signed prints being sold on the night - but there is something undeniably compelling about the way Egan acts as a visual archivist for punk and Britpop, capturing the specific energy of these different eras.

 

And it's always good to see Sid Vicious memorialised alongside Elvis and various other pop cultural icons, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan and, erm, Bobby Moore. 

 

 

II. 

 

However - and in this life it seems as if there's always a conjunctive adverb on the horizon - I do have problems with the title of the painting and the philosophy which it seems to endorse. And, if push comes to shove, then I'm still going to privilege Jamie Reid's Fuck Forever over Egan's Live Forever. 

 

For while Egan beautifully captures our obsession with cultural immortality and remembering the past, my own sensibilities still gravitate towards the nihilistic innocence of Jamie Reid’s work originally produced for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980). 

 

The two artworks thus sit in fascinating tension and represent opposing impulses: Egan reminds us how icons endure and he seems to suggest (somewhat optimistically) that the creative spirit never dies; Reid, meanwhile, reminds us of the fleeting beauty of the present - the very nowness of the moment, and his Fuck Forever image is ultimately a heroic refusal to care about tomorrow. 

 

You pays your money ... and you takes your choice: memorialise the past; or forget the future. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Live Forever is a contemporary painting and exhibition piece created by Nick Egan. The work takes its title and inspiration from the Oasis single 'Live Forever' (1994), for which Egan directed one of the two official videos produced (the US version). As well as the original painting, Egan is issuing a limited number of individually signed and numbered A3 prints. The work is being shown at an event in London next week (see note 3 below). 

 

[2] Jamie Reid: Fuck Forever - this vintage folded screen print was one of a limited number produced for a 1986 exhibition at Hamiltons Gallery (London).

 

[3] The event - Sartorial Correctness - takes place at the Karma Sanctum Hotel, in Soho, on the 12th and 13th of October, curated and hosted by Catalina Guirado. The evening includes a screening of an extended cut of the award-winning documentary Creative Vandal (dir. Peter Pahor, 2024), followed by Egan in conversation with Catalina Guirado, an audience Q&A, drinks, and an exhibition viewing.

      The first night is strictly by invitation only and, unfortunately, I don't have VIP status. Nevertheless, my name is on the guest list for the second (and final) night, so at least I've avoided the humiliation of having to buy a ticket on Eventbrite. 

 

[4] The last time I saw Nick was over forty years ago, during the Duck Rock period, when he helped me land a job in the Charisma Records press office. I'm primarily attending the event to renew an old acquaintance and to express my gratitude to him (that - and the free drinks).  

 

Strike a Match! It's Sparks vs The Clash (Ron and Russell Show Joe and Bernie How to Cut the Crap)

Fig. 1 Cover of The Clash album Cut the Crap (1985) [1]

Fig. 2 Image from the official video (2022) to 'We Are The Clash' by Sparks (2005) [2]

 

We ain't gonna be treated like trash / We got one thing: we are The Clash!

 

 

I. 

 

Although I loved their eponymous debut album - apart from 'Police and Thieves' - and have all the singles from 'White Riot' through to 'London Calling', I was never a great Clash fan: like Sebastian Horsley, I was a Sex Pistol at heart and more Soho punk dandy than Notting Hill punk phoney [2].

 

Having said that - and despite everything - it's hard not having some affection for Joe and the boys and, for some reason, I've been reading about their final days and listening to their final studio album. Released in November 1985, Cut the Crap features some truly bizarre numbers written by Strummer and Bernie Rhodes.   

 

And it's one of these tracks - 'We Are The Clash' - which I've been humming all week, that I'd like to discuss here ...

 

 

II. 

 

There are many fans of The Clash - mostly dumb Americans who don't know better - who still faithfully parrot the tagline created as a marketing slogan by the band's record label proclaiming them as The Only Band That Matters [4]. 

 

But even some of these fans tend to keep quiet and look away when the album Cut the Crap is mentioned, or desperately try to return the conversation to London Calling (1979). They want to remember The Clash as a quasi-mythical band and punk as defined by The Clash as something noble, cohesive, and heroic. But the truth is far messier and, actually, far more interesting ... 

 

For the story of The Clash doesn't end with Mick Jones's departure in September 1983 (as much as many fans and critics wish it had). The band continued playing and recording with a new lineup; one still with Strummer up front and Paul Simonon on bass, but now including Pete Howard on drums [5], Nick Sheppard on lead guitar, and Vince White on rhythm guitar. 

 

This five-piece lineup, sometimes called Clash Mk II [6], toured extensively throughout 1984 and were credited as working on Cut the Crap - although this was very much a Strummer-Rhodes production and relied heavily on the contribution of outside musicians and the latest studio technology [7]. 

 

 

III.

 

Under pressure from manager Bernie Rhodes, the man who knows more and knows better than anyone else about popular culture - as The Specials testified back in 1979 - Joe Strummer made the fateful (and extraordinarily stupid) move of sacking band co-founder and his songwriting partner Mick Jones in 1983 and attempting to return The Clash to their more aggressive punk roots [8].

Unfortunately, the album that resulted - Cut the Crap - failed to convince and Strummer dissolved the band almost immediately afterwards. He continued to describe 'This Is England' as the last great Clash song, but he disowned the rest of the album and songs from it have been almost entirely erased from official box sets and the band's musical history.   

And yet, arguably, Cut the Crap serves a similar role as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979); it exposes all parties involved as creatively exhausted and surviving only on ego and past glory as they head towards a spectacular public implosion. And perhaps this failure teaches us more than the commercially successful Combat Rock (1982) that preceded it.  

 

And, funnily enough, whilst I might not agree with Bernie that Cut the Crap is a genre-defying masterpiece that paved the way for the synth pop and electro hip hop that followed, I do genuinely prefer 'We Are The Clash' to 'Rock the Casbah' - and it seems that Ron and Russell Mael might possibly agree ... 

 

 

IV.

 

Released originally in 2006, Hello Young Lovers was the twentieth studio album by genius American pop duo Sparks [9]. It was then remastered and reissued in 2022 on vinyl, CD, and as a digital release as part of the five album 21st Century Sparks collection. 

 

The CD and digital formats contain two bonus tracks: one of which (released as a digital single) is an amusing cover of 'We Are The Clash' that was recorded for an Uncut magazine compilation CD in 2003, titled White Riot Volume 2: A Tribute to The Clash. 

 

What are we to make of this? 

 

Is it just a piss take - or is it a genuine attempt to pay tribute to the punk band by taking one of their lesser-known songs from an almost universally maligned album and invest it with their own kind of magic, transforming a guitar-driven punk track into a theatrical piece of art pop with string arrangements and a piano? 

 

To be honest, I'm not sure. 

 

And the music critics seem uncertain also whether it's perverse, fearless, or perverse and fearless. Readers can open the link in note two below and decide for themselves. Personally, I think it's rather lovely and, strangely, it reminds me of another song by The Clash, 'Hitsville U.K.' [10]. 

 

Po-faced punks and militant Clash City Rockers who hate on Ron and Russell or question why they bothered excavating this track from the forbidden zone - who fail to delight in the ability of the Mael brothers to cut the crap and turn a fairly shitty song into genuine pop gold - can go fuck themselves.     

 

Notes 

 

[1] Cut the Crap was the sixth and final studio album released by The Clash (CBS Records, 1985). 'We Are The Clash' was the third track on side one - and, arguably, one of the catchier songs written by Joe Strummer and Bernie Rhodes (although it was the drab and depressing 'This Is England' that was released as the only single from the album). 

 

[2] 'We Are The Clash' is a rarely heard tribute to the punk band by Sparks from 2005 released as a bonus track on CD + digital on the new edition of Hello Young Lovers (BMG, 2006). Click on the link to watch the official visualizer on YouTube created and designed by Dean Eastment (2022). 

 

[3] See the post 'Why I'm a Sex Pistol Rather Than a Clash City Rocker' (2 August 2018).

 

[4] This ridiculous tagline is a good example of the kind of commercial hype and corporate hubris that the Sex Pistols had encouraged us to disregard with the title of their album: Never Mind the Bollocks ... 

 

[5] Main Clash drummer Topper Headon had been sacked from the band due to his increasingly problematic heroin and cocaine addiction in May 1982 (i.e., shortly before the release of Combat Rock). 

 

[6] Strummer himself would speak of the new line-up as 'The Clash, Round Two'. Mick Jones was less than pleased and thought about taking legal action to prevent the group recording under the name of The Clash - he even playfully toyed with the idea of touring with Topper Headon as 'The Real Clash'. It's hard not to see the lyrics for 'We Are The Clash' as - in part at least - a defiant response to Jones.

 

[7] Paul Simonon has since claimed he didn't play a note on the final recording and that the bass parts were actually by Norman Watt-Roy - a member of Ian Dury's Blockheads and a highly regarded session musician. 

      I think Cut the Crap can fairly be described as Bernie's album (just as The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979) should really be attributed to McLaren rather than the band known as the Sex Pistols). Rhodes not only co-wrote most of the songs with Strummer, he produced the album; taking charge of the arrangements, track sequencing, and final mix. He even chose the album's title. The fact that Rhodes, credited on the sleeve under the pseudonym Jose Unidos, had no previous experience with either songwriting or record production wasn't going to deter him from giving both these things a go (in true punk spirit) - though one might have expected a bit more resistance from Strummer (and Simonon).    

 

[8] With its simple three-chord structure, 'Dirty Punk' is the song on Cut the Crap that best represents Strummer and Rhodes's attempt at returning the band to some kind of zero point. It's not absolutely awful, but it is a bit lame and unconvincing - is being a punk rocker really all about getting a "big, big, big, big, big car" and annoying your neighbours with loud music? How disappointing.  

 

[9] Sparks is an American pop and art-rock duo consisting of brothers Ron (on keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals). They are noted for their avant-garde approach to songwriting, a theatrical stage presence, and for staying ahead of the game for over fifty years. Their glam masterpiece - 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us' (1974) - remains high up in my top 40 favourite pop singles. 

 

[10] The Clash, 'Hitsville U.K.', single release (CBS, 1981) from the album Sandinista! (CBS, 1980), featuring Mick Jones and Helen Foley on vocals. 

 

 

Kicking for Kicks: On The 48 Laws of Power (1998) by Robert Greene

Cover of the paperback edition 

(Profile Books, 2000) 

 

 

I. 

 

Until last night [1], I had never heard of Robert Greene - the American author who has written bestselling books on power and seduction whilst, ironically, understanding nothing of either concept in anything other than a conventional and old-fashioned manner that appeals to the type of reader who is naively looking to take back control.  

 

His most famous work is The 48 Laws of Power (1998), which has sold over 1.2 million copies in the US alone and been translated into 24 languages. 

 

It's very popular, apparently, with Hollywood celebrities, prison inmates, and business leaders who share an equally simplistic view of the world as the author and don't really care about formulating a philosophically sophisticated and radical model of power as it operates today. 

 

It will also appeal to the kind of idiot who asserts that what Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1651 was true then, is true now, and will always be forever true as power and human nature are unchanging, essential realities.    

 

Foucault will be spinning in his grave and Baudrillard laughing his head off in a virtual heaven ... 

 

 

II.  

 

What do I mean by this?  

 

I mean that Greene’s cratology is based on an archaic, 17th-century model that conceives of power as a kind of commodity - some sort of magical force - that sovereign individuals can capture, hoard, and wield over others. 

 

Between them, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard blow this metaphysical fallacy apart and render it obsolete. Each argues that it's delusional to assume a subject or player who stands outside the matrix of power and somehow manipulates it.  

 

For Foucault, power is fundamentally relational and discursive - not a thing in itself. He demonstrates how it is never possessed; it is exercised. Operating through institutions, modern power is woven into the very fabric of society and produces subjects - shaping their bodies, behaviours, and pleasures. 

 

Greene's master strategist - whether they choose to conceal intentions or court attention - is manipulating nothing; they are just as much a function born of the system of neoliberal capitalism as everyone else. Just as we are spoken by language, so are we played by the game.   

 

Baudrillard, meanwhile, goes even further than this - instructing us not only to forget Hobbes, but forget Foucault as well ...

 

For Baudrillard, power is not merely decentralised, it has been dissolved into hyperreality. The 21st century is not the same as the 17th century or even the 19th and early-mid 20th century. We have entered the era of simulacra and simulation in which signs, symbols, and media representations have replaced physical reality and power in the traditional sense - just like sex - no longer exists. 

 

In sum: the laws of power - much like the hypervisible signs of sex in a pornified culture - exist purely to disguise the fact that both power and sex have disappeared even as anchorage points. 

 

That's doubtless why Greene - who is not a fool - attempts to offer no definition of power in his work; he knows he'd be attempting to describe an absence or void - that the laws possess no signified to refer back to and are essentially themselves empty of meaning. In a very literal sense, Greene's book is nonsense - and a form of nostalgia.           

 

In other words, his 48 laws - which are really just historical observations mixed with anecdote - simulate a lost world where individual actions still have deterministic weight and value. In reality, the systems of global finance, algorithms, and media networks are so vast and chaotic that no individual player can direct or understand them. 

 

The person who boasts of being empowered is really just a roleplaying fantasist in a virtual environment. And, arguably, AI simply serves to sustain them in this fantasy.  

 

 

III. 

 

Now, some of you will be thinking that if Foucault and/or Baudrillard are right, then why do so many people rave about The 48 Laws of Power and why is Greene hailed as this great guru? 

 

I could simply say it's because the majority of people are unintelligent - and yes, that includes the famous artists and public personalities known to have read, referenced, or been influenced by the book [2] - but I'll resist the urge to do so and suggest, rather, that it's because Greene offers a comforting, regressive fantasy in a world that is increasingly complex. 

 

He informs his readers that the world isn't an anonymous, inhuman network, but a competitive arena - part royal court, part corporate boardroom - in which, if you follow his 48 rules, you too can be a winner ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This post was inspired - if that's the right word - by a talk at Christian Michel's 6/20 Club by Dr Jennifer Davis Taylor (6 October 2026) on Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power (1998). Neither a straight reading of the text nor a critical review as such, the talk was a kind of strategic interpretation in relation to Dr Taylor's experiments with AI and her prolonged battles with the IRS. 

 

[2] Such figures include: hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, who has frequently referenced and praised the book's strategic principles; music producer and fashion designer Kanye West, who has cited the book as a major influence on how he views fame, power, and industry dynamics; and the American rapper 50 Cent, who loved The 48 Laws of Power so much that he collaborated directly with Robert Greene to write The 50th Law (2009).

 

 

Musical bonus: nothing to do with the book, but whenever I hear the number 48 I always think of this song by The Clash (taken from their eponymous debut album (CBS, 1977): '48 Hours' and was humming it most of the train journey home after the 6/20. 

 

 

A Tale of Two Caped Figures

 

In the absence of bats, a caped Kirk Field 

feeds the pigeons in Trafalgar Square (1981)

 

Meanwhile, a caped Larry David (alongside Jerry Stiller) 

features in an episode of Seinfeld (1994)

 

 

I.

 

One of the things best loved about the season six episode of Seinfeld titled 'The Chinese Woman' [1] is the uncredited guest appearance by series co-creator Larry David as Frank Costanza's eccentric divorce lawyer - a man with a penchant for wearing a cape ...

 

II.

 

The history of the sleevless cape in men's fashion is a journey from an essential piece of outerwear worn by the everyman in the ancient world for protection from the elements to an elite status symbol and indicator of class, before being largely relegated to ceremonial dress and an item favoured only by vampires and superheroes. 

 

Although the Ancient Romans loved their capes, it wasn't until the early-modern period that the cape reached its fashionable apex, frequently integrated into outfits along with doublets and breeches. Whilst the majority of men made do with short, heavy wool capes, the wealthy and privileged would wear capes of various length and style made of velvet and other fine materials, secured at the shoulder with jewelled brooches.   

 

There was nothing a nobleman loved doing more than sweeping aside his cape to reveal a sword or pistol at his side [2].

 

However, fashions change and as Roland Barthes would tell you, in the 18th and 19th centuries there came a cultural turning point known as the Great Renunciation when men increasingly abandoned ostentatious, colourful and theatrical clothing in favour of sober, functional, and uniform attire [3] - say goodbye to the swish cloak and cape [4] and say hello to the heavy overcoat.

 

By the early 20th century, the triumph of modern tailored overcoats meant that the cape was no longer seen as romantic and dashing but archaic and cumbersome. The cultural perception of the man's cape was further altered by Bela Lugosi's 1931 portrayal of Dracula and the 1938 debut of Superman, forever linking the garment to gothic horror, theatrical villains, and comic book characters.

 

With the cape firmly relegated to the margins of modern society, we can now return to the streets of Manhattan ...

  

III. 

 

When out picking up some groceries one day, Jerry and Elaine spot George's dad, Frank, with a mysterious figure wearing a cape. 

 

Elaine asks: 'Why is Mr Costanza with a man in a cape?' 

 

To which Jerry replies (in typical Jerry manner): 'Well it is good cape weather - cool, breezy ...'

 

Elaine is still troubled, however: 'Why a cape? Who wears a cape? Where d'you even get a cape?' 

 

Eventually, Jerry is forced to concede: 'You're right - it is strange', and he suggests they cross to the other side of the street to avoid a potentially embarrassing situation.  

 

Later, at Jerry's apartment, they tell George that they saw his father and Elaine mentions he was with a man in a cape. 

 

George asks: 'Why was he wearing a cape? Was my father wearing a cape?

 

Jerry replies: 'No, jacket and tie - no cape.' 

 

George is perplexed: 'Hmm. What was a man with a cape doing with my father? What was my father doing with a man in a cape? Why a cape?'

Later, when confronted on it, Frank reveals to his son that the man in a cape was his lawyer, casually explaining that he's 'very independent: he doesn't follow the trends'. 

 

IV. 

 

What motivated my friend and fellow punk Kirk Field to start wearing a cape back in the early 1980s, I don't know. Perhaps he too might be described as independent-minded and as someone who doesn't follow trends ... 

 

Only, of course, by 1981 the punk movement had already splintered into so-called post-punk and whereas some punks transformed into colourfully dressed new romantics, others sought out the darker, moodier look and sound of what became known as gothic rock (or goth for short). 

 

Thanks to Bauhaus, Bela Lugosi had risen from the dead [5] ... and would-be vampires like nineteen-year-old Mr Field were putting on their eye-liner and wearing their capes, before venues like the Batcave had even opened their doors [6]. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Seinfeld, 'The Chinese Woman' [S6/E4], dir. Andy Ackerman, written by Peter Mehlman (Oct 1994). Frank Costanza was played by Jerry Stiller. Click on the link to watch the relevant scenes discussed in this post. 

 

[2] Perhaps the last echo of this is to be seen in a Fistful of Dollars (dir. Sergio Leone, 1964) when the Clint Eastwood character flips back the right side of his poncho over his left shoulder exposing the holster on his hip and thus providing a clear visual cue that he is about to draw his pistol. This gesture serves as a signature dramatic signal immediately before a gunfight - as in the early scene from the movie linked to.  

 

[3] See Roland Barthes, 'Language and Clothing' and ' Dandyism and Fashion', in The Language of Fashion, trans. Andy Stafford, ed. Andy Stafford and Michael carter (Berg, 2006).

 

[4] Is there a clear distinction between a cloak and a cape? Well, in fashion, the word cape usually refers to a shorter garment and cloak to a longer (and technically different) type of garment, though the two terms are often used synonymously for full-length coverings.

 

[5] Recorded live in the studio in one take in January 1979 and released in August of that year, Bauhaus's astonishing debut single 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' (Small Wonder Records) laid the blueprint for goth with its slow, sepulchral bassline, dub-inflected drums, and vampire-themed theatricality. 

 

[6] The Batcave was a weekly club-night launched in Soho in 1982. It is considered to be the birthplace of the goth subculture in London and the south east of England. As Kirk and I were Leeds based in 1981-84, this was not our regular haunt - we danced the nights away at Le Phonographique. 

 

   

Eight Diary Fragments from 1981 with Reference to Malcolm McLaren and My Teenage Politics

Malcolm Mclaren holding Vol. II (1981)

of The Von Hell Diaries (1980-89)

 

 

1981 was a big year for me: I turned eighteen (13 Feb); I left school (22 May); I started college in Leeds (29 Sept). 

 

But it was also the year - having become enfranchised - that I began to form a political perspective informed by situationism and that I openly declared loyalty to team Malcolm over team Johnny ... 

Sat 3 January 1981

 

Listened to Malcolm being interviewed on the radio. He was yapping on about the importance of youth grasping the opportunities offered by so-called 'high pleasure technology' and explaining how being able to have music blaring out from under your skirt wherever you went was terribly sexy and exciting. Not entirely convinced, but 'Radio G String' is a fantastic track [1].      

 

 

Sat 17 January 1981 

 

McLaren on the radio again - this time interviewed by John Walters. He insisted that punk had destroyed the star system and that kids of 13 would now rather watch Deep Throat on their home video recorders than worship a pop idol. Again, not entirely convinced about this and certainly don't think Adam Ant would agree. Pretty sure Malcolm doesn't believe it either. Ultimately, it's just a projection of fantasy in the hope that it might one day be realised [2].  

 

 

Fri 27 February 1981

 

Malcolm on Round Table. He says some clever and amusing things, but mostly just laughs a lot. Claimed that he sold all the ideas to do with pirates and Red Indians to Adam for £2000. Slagged off Richard Branson and Virgin, but was surprisingly full of praise for Joe Dolce's 'Shaddap You Face' which is presently number one in the charts [3].    

 

 

Thursday 7 May 1981

 

Having turned 18 in February, today was my first opportunity to vote [4]: so off I went with my friend Andy to the local polling station set up in a nearby school. I decided not to give my X to any of the parties - hate them all! Instead, I wrote 'Anarchy is the key - do it yourself the melody' on the ballot paper [5] - so Malcolm should be proud (even if this is merely a gesture). Disappointingly, Andy told me after that he voted for the Liberals ...!   

 

 

Saturday 1 August 1981 

 

Ultimately, I think I am more like Malcolm in spirit than Rotten. Lydon is a bit of a bore and thinks in a smaller, more selfish and more spiteful manner than McLaren who unfolds his schemes on a much larger stage and invites everyone to join in. Whenever I read an interview with Malcolm, it makes me smile - and that's not always the case with Rotten.    

 

 

Friday 14 August 1981

 

Reading two books at the moment borrowed from Romford library: The Student Revolt (1968) and Revolution (1970). Have also ordered a copy of Christopher Gray's book on situationism - Leaving the 20th Century (1974) [6]. 

      Copied out various lines including this one: 'It is better to fail disastrously through taking an uncompromising stand, than to achieve some of one's aims through taking part in the conventional process.' And this one: "Through the excitement of deep emotions, principally the emotions of hatred, one can manipulate the passions that are essential to Situationism.'

     Can now see where Malcolm got a lot of his ideas from - the 'politics of boredom', the 'comedy of outrage', 'unlicensed pleasure' as the only goal, etc.   

 

 

Saturday 7 November 1981 

 

A day in London with Kirk [7] ... First stop Carnaby Street where he bought a pair of trousers and I bought some pink spray-on hair colour. Couldn't find the bat earring that Kirk was after, however. Some skinheads gave us looks - the fact that Kirk was wearing a cape probably had something to do with it.   

      From Soho, we went to Chelsea on the bus. I bought a T-shirt with a print of Rotten's face on it from Boy on which was written: 'They're all wankers and wallies'. From Boy we went to what was once Seditionaries but is now called Worlds End. Loved the 13-hour clock with hands spinning backwards and the sloping wooden floor, but these design elements were the only interesting thing: did not think much of the clothes - not sure I want to be a pirate, Malcolm! [8]    

 

 

Saturday 14 November 1981

 

Having expressed reservations about wanting to be a pirate just last week after a visit to Worlds End, ironically went to see Bow Wow Wow playing at Leeds University [9] with my little gang - Kirk, August, Gillian, and Gaelle [10] - and I have to admit the band looked (and sounded) fantastic; particularly Annabella who, at just fourteen, is incredible [11]. If anyone can make you want to hoist the Jolly Roger it's her!

      Kirk made his way to the front of the stage: August annoyed me a little by wanting to stand way back. I stayed with Gill and Gaelle somewhere in the middle. I'm not a fan of encores, but was glad they returned to play some of the old favourites: 'Sexy Eiffel Towers', 'Radio G String', 'Louis Quatorze' - and, of course, 'C30'. It was a great evening - even if I was disappointed that Malcolm wasn't anywhere to be seen [12].        

 

 

Editorial Notes

 

[1] 'Radio G String' is a track by Bow Wow Wow (with lyrics written by McLaren) which features on Your Cassette Pet (EMI 1980). It has also appeared on various compilation albums including Girl Bites Dog (Parlophone Records, 1993): click here. 

 

[2] I would later come to appreciate that the word 'fantasy' used here is inappropriate and that I should have written desire. For whereas the latter is, according to situationist theory, a libidinal reality, the former is what capitalist society substitutes for desire and lived experience. 

      This is expressed in a famous slogan from the May '68 uprisings: Faites vos désirs réalités! and was given a little more poetry and philosophical substance in this declaration sprayed on the walls of the Sorbonne: Je prends mes désirs pour la réalité car je crois en la réalité de mes désirs (I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires). In sum: McLaren was not a fantasist. 

 

[3] See the post 'What's-a-Matter Midge? (Hey!)' published 31 July 2021. 

 

[4] Local government elections were held across England and Wales on this date. The Labour Party, under the newly appointed leadership of Michael Foot, made substantial gains while the Tories under Margaret Thatcher lost control of over 1,000 council seats and control of the GLC (enter stage left Ken Livingstone).

 

[5] This slogan appears as part of the 'Rot 'n' Roll' text designed by Jamie Reid (in collaboration with McLaren) that featured on the back cover of the Sex Pistols' single (sung by Sid Vicious) 'C'mon Everybody' (Virgin Records, 1979) - taken from the soundtrack album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979). Reid's artwork can be found in the V&A Archive: click here. 

 

[6] The first of these works - The Student Revolt: The Activists Speak (1968) - was compiled by Hervé Bourges, a prominent French journalist. He put together the text by conducting a series of interviews with the main student leaders driving the May 1968 uprising, including, most notably, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. 

      It was translated into English by Ben Brewster, a Marxist intellectual who worked extensively with the New Left Review, and published in the UK as a hardcover by Jonathan Cape. It was simultaneously released as a widely distributed paperback by Panther Books.

      The second of these works - Revolution (1970) - was by Peter Calvert and published as part of a series of books on key concepts in political science by Pall Mall Press (London).  

      Finally, the book I had to request - Leaving the 20th Century: The Incomplete Works of the Situationist International (1974) is probably now the best-known - certainly within punk circles. Edited and translated by Christopher Gray, it had iconic visuals provided by Jamie Reid (who later used the exact same aesthetic in his designs for the Sex Pistols). It was the first English-language anthology of Situationist writings and Gray hoped to capture something of the violence, madness, and dark humour of Guy Debord, Raoul Vaneigem, and the rest of the gang. 

 

[7] Kirk Field - author of Rave New World (2023) - was my closest friend and partner in crime during the college years (1981-84) and I have mentioned him in several posts on Torpedo the Ark, including this one, for example: 'Punk Friends Reunited' (9 April 2019).  

 

[8] Obviously, I now very much regret not buying in to McLaren and Westwood's new vision. But, rightly or wrongly, I remained sartorially very much inspired by punk. For as I noted in my diary the following day (Sunday 8 Nov 1981) - following a gig at the Lyceum with Theatre of Hate (supported by Peter and the Test Tube Babies and the Meteors) - "although the so-called 'hardcore' punk look is dated, it still looks great".

      Finally, it might be noted that, amusingly, that last line about not wanting to be a pirate was later repeated by Jerry in the famous 'Puffy Shirt' episode of Seinfeld [S5/E2, 1993], written by Larry David and directed by Tom Cherones.  

 

[9] Tickets were priced at £2.50. The band were booked by the then Entertainments Secretary of the Leeds University Student Union, Andy Kershaw, who went on to find fame as a DJ and broadcaster. 

 

[10] August Finer, Gillian Hall, and Gaelle Sherwood. As with Kirk Field, readers who are interested can find their names in Labels and from their go to posts in which they feature.  

 

[11] Actually, Annabella, born on 31 October 1966, had just turned fifteen a fortnight before this gig. 

 

[12] While McLaren masterminded the band's conception, visual aesthetic, and supplied lyrics for the songs, he left the day-to-day coordination of regional dates to tour manager Andy Corrigan. Malcolm occasionally attended some shows, but there is no record of him at the Leeds University gig on November 14th.   

 

 

Postcard from Crete

 

Angry waves arise

The Cretan Sea fights the sky

 Cliffs of stone stand fast 

 

Άγρια τα κύματα υψώνονται 

Το πέλαγο το κρητικό μάχεται τον ουρανό 

Οι πέτρινοι βράχοι στέκουν ορθοί  

 

 

 

 

Credits: Photo by Andy Greenfield. Haiku by Stephen Alexander. Greek translation by Maria Thanassa. 

 

 

Collecting Conkers in the Autumn

(SA/2026)

 

When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. 

                                                                       - D. H. Lawrence           

 

 

I. 

 

In so far as young children view the world with a deep sense of wonder they are instinctive philosophers, able to find even the most everyday object or occurrence extraordinary and worthy of attention. 

 

Apparently, this is driven by the biological mechanics of an actively developing brain processing external stimuli and attempting to make sense of the world and their experience of the world.    

 

However, as individuals move into adulthood, their brains undergo a process known as sensory habituation and, having turned the world into something known, they wonder less and less. This has the advantage of allowing them to focus on more important things than puddles, and shadows, and spiders' webs. 

 

And they stop collecting conkers in the autumn ... 

 

 

II.    

 

Having said that, there are some people like me who have defective brains. 

 

We never become cognitively efficient; never become habituated to the phenomenal world. Things, for us, are never conceptually stable; they remain vibrant and astonishing (we have stamped becoming with the character of being, as Nietzsche might say).  

 

And that's why people like me either become artists, or poets, or object-oriented ontologists - and why we continue to gather horse chestnuts in the autumn ...