No More Heroes 1: Malcolm McLaren - Stuckism and the Quest for Authenticity

No More Heroes (Malcolm McLaren)

(SA/2026) 

 

 

I. 

 

One of the things said by Johnny Rotten that has stuck with me for fifty years is his response to Janet Street-Porter's question about who he admires: "I don't have any heroes - they're all useless." [1]

 

Ironically, his anti-hero stance instantly made him a hero to me. However, my affections and loyalty later shifted to Malcolm McLaren once it became clear that he was the conceptual genius behind the Sex Pistols [2]. 

  

And I have continued to name McLaren - along with Nietzsche, D. H. Lawrence, and Larry David - as a primary influence on my thinking. However, I'm not sure I would call them heroes. And, if I'm honest, each has disappointed in some manner. 

 

Here, and in the posts that follow, I will attempt to explain why. Let's begin by raising concerns around what might be called the ideological stuckism of my punk mentor, Malcolm McLaren.      

 

 

II.

 

To be clear: when I say Malcolm was a stuckist, I am not suggesting he had any involvement with the international movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art [3]. I am simply referring to the fact that McLaren was trapped in his past like a spider in its own web [4].

 

His entire career was an endless (if brilliant) recycling of the memories, radical ideas, and obsessive fixations drawn from his 1950s childhood and his 1960s art school days. Forever associated with the Sex Pistols and defined by the role he played in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), McLaren was stuck in a self-made loop of his own youthful mythology and his desire to live yesterday tomorrow [5].   

 

 

III.

 

Apart from the childhood tales told to him by his grandmother to do with Peter Pan and pirates and Dickensian street urchins, the first thing to really make a terrific impression on McLaren were the great balls of fires projected into popular culture by Jerry Lee Lewis and his fellow rock 'n' rollers. 

 

He loved the records and he loved the clothes and spent his entire life trying to perfectly recreate the look of music and the sound of fashion (a conceptual phrase coined by McLaren that he repeated in interviews and public lectures until his dying day). 

 

He may have experimented with many kinds of music in his career, but at heart he remained a rocker and it was the raw authenticity (and sheer fun) of the records he heard in the '50s that he wished to inject into his own projects and the various incarnations of the little shop at 430 King's Road, from Let It Rock to Worlds End. 

 

Ultimately, punk wasn't really an attempt to look forward - it was, rather, an attempt to strip rock 'n' roll of its bloated, progressive bullshit and recapture the excitement, danger and innocence of his childhood.      

 

 

IV.

 

If, on the one hand 1957 was a crucial year for eleven-year-old Malcolm McLaren [6], then so too was 1968 for the then twenty-two-year-old art student. For although not directly involved in the événements de mai [7], McLaren - the would-be revolutionary and Francophile - now fell under the influence of Guy Debord and the Situationists. 

 

Radical ideas to do with the société du spectacle and the staging of events in order to shatter such, thereby rescuing people from the boredom and inauthenticity of everyday life, remained important to McLaren throughout his life. A volatile character and natural born troublemaker, he was always attempting to mix the perfect Molotov cocktail: two parts art theory; one part political ideology; and one part cultural terrorism.  

 

It's certainly difficult to understand the Sex Pistols project without reference to McLaren and Jamie Reid's belief in the ruins, demand for the impossible, and wish to steal back happiness.  

 

The problem, however, is that avant-garde political theories relying on Marxism and surrealism don't adequately address the problems that emerge in a post-68 world. The revolution that happened was technoliberal in character and seems to allow not only no alternative but no outside space from which one might form a critical perspective or offer resistance. 

 

If McLaren had bothered to keep up with his reading - some Baudrillard perhaps - he might have understood that although the beach does indeed lie beneath the paving stones, it too is a constructed (artificial) reality that merely provides the illusion of depth and the false promise of authentic freedom [8].

 

As the conceptual artist Michal Martychowiec has shown, what were once natural grains of sand are now cold and lifeless glass crystals ... [9] 

 

 

V.

 

If, then, McLaren retained a fixed model of style based on the look of music and the sound of fashion and a fixed politics that relied for the most part on subversive pranks and the technique of détournement [10], so too did he hold on to the same concept of sex throughout his life - one closely tied to his radical politics. 

 

Influenced by thinkers such as Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, McLaren was of the view that liberating libidinal energies would outrage bourgeois society and threaten a culture founded upon sexual repression.

 

Thus, like so many other sex radicals and countercultural theorists, McLaren sought to weaponise desire, using pornographic images printed on T-shirts and a range of fetishwear sold in SEX and Seditionaries, for example, to provoke public outrage and incite his young clientele to insurrection.  

 

McLaren was (naively and mistakenly) convinced that by dragging the forbidden into the open, he was striking a blow against the state. However, this politics of desire relied entirely on what Michel Foucault famously termed the repressive hypothesis - i.e., the flawed belief that power functions primarily through prohibition, censorship, and denial. 

 

What McLaren failed to realise - and what Foucault brilliantly demonstrated [11] - is that modern power does not repress sex; it incites it, categorises it, and manages it. By remaining stuck in a sixties model of liberation, McLaren's radicalism was easily co-opted. He believed he was unleashing a dangerous, and authentic energy, when in reality, he was merely pioneering a highly profitable new market and the pornification of society.  

 

Decades later, he was still talking about bondage trousers with their zipper crotch with the exact same pseudo-academic earnestness and revolutionary zeal of a soixante-huitard [12]. 

 

 

VI. 

 

If there is one word that comes to define Malcolm McLaren's thinking, it's not sex, nor style, nor even subversion - it is rather authenticity. That's the thing that most intrigued him and which he set out to discover - authenticity in an age of artificiality and what he termed karaoke culture [13].

 

In an interview in 1999, McLaren describes authenticity as something dirty, horrible, and disgusting; something which "is to be found in the ruins" and involves "reclaiming the past"; something which is complex and "has built into it this uncomfortable idea of chaos"; something which contrasts with everything valued today as success [14].    

 

He certainly makes it sound attractive and almost has me sold on the idea. But then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid (or at the very least politically naive); "the authentic is something that isn't as easily assimilated by capital" [15] - something that can't conveniently be packaged and sold. 

 

At that point, one realises that ultimately McLaren is still a romantic idealist at heart who has failed to fully learn the crucial (Situationist) message at the centre of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980). Namely, that even something like punk is very quickly recuperated - no matter how authentic it may be [16]; that even the most radical ideas and images can be stripped of their danger and turned into products or harmless forms of entertainment.    

 

 

VII.

 

So, to conclude ...

 

McLaren disappoints because of his inability (or refusal) to recognise that his ideals of sex, style, and subversion, had been rendered null and void by a radical neoliberal shift in the 1980s. 

 

His political and aesthetic strategy relied on a set of mid-century conditions that no longer existed, including a rigid, easily shocked, top-down Establishment that could be genuinely threatened by countercultural activity involving the look of music and the sound of fashion.

 

What Mark Fisher terms capitalist realism thrives on the revolutionary rhetoric and authenticity McLaren championed - the pursuit of individual expression, personal branding, constant reinvention, etc. 

 

During his Duck Rock and Nostalgia of Mud phase, McLaren operated under the optimistic delusion that paganism and primitivism were wild forces external to the market. He would insist that a man on a mountain side tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger sound than all the musicians playing electric instruments or programming their synthesisers. But the sound of two sticks can be just as easily commodified as techno-pop (file it under world music and allow it to be sampled by others).    

 

The fact is, in the twenty-first century, there is no Outside from which to launch an attack and desire is no longer (if it ever was) a wild revolutionary force; it is an entirely synthetic product engineered by the market. Capitalism does not repress our libido - it structures it through algorithms, infinite digital feeds, and consumer niches, pre-formatting what we want long before we even know it. 

 

Ironically, when McLaren made his critique of karaoke culture, arguing that young people had become timid consumers of an endlessly recyled past, he failed to realise that this digital landscape was the monstrous offspring of his own '60s ideology and that youth today are not lazy or complacent - many are acutely aware that things are fucked up - but they feel powerless to act (what Fisher terms reflexive impotence) in a way that McLaren's post-War generation of baby boomers were not. 

 

Notes

 

[1] The interview took place in late 1976 at the Denmark Street studio where the band used to rehearse and essentially squat. It was broadcast on the London Weekend Show, hosted by Janet Street-Porter, and broadcast on 28 November 1976. It was one of the very first television features dedicated to the underground punk scene. To watch a clip on YouTube, click here. 

 

[2] Years later, during McLaren's Charisma Records period (1982-85), that love and loyalty paid off when he placed me inside the label's press office (acting as a kind of spy). I have written several posts about my time at Charisma: click here.  

 

[3] The name Stuckism was coined in January 1999 by Charles Thomson in response to a poem by Billy Childish in which the latter relays that his former girlfriend, Tracey Emin, had repeatedly said he was stuck with his art, writing and music. 

      After exhibiting in small galleries in Shoreditch, London, the Stuckists' first show in a major public museum was held in 2004 at the Walker Art Gallery, as part of the Liverpool Biennial. It was titled 'The Stuckists Punk Victorian'.  

      By 2017, the initial group of thirteen British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries and although painting is the dominant artistic form of Stuckism, artists using other media such as photography, sculpture, film and collage have also joined, and share the Stuckist opposition to conceptualism. 

      I would like to say more, but this is probably not the right time or place - I will endeavour to publish a post on Stuckism in the near future. 

 

[4] Interestingly, however, the first Stuckist manifesto issued by Childish and Thomson in 1999, opens with the line: "Stuckism is a quest for authenticity" [3] and that is something that McLaren fundamentally endorsed, frequently contrasting it with what he called karaoke culture, as we shall discuss.

      However, the manifesto also emphasises the value of painting as a medium and opposes what is seen as the superficial novelty and nihilism of conceptual art and postmodernism and McLaren, who often styled himself an artist without portfolio and whose final works were audio-visual in nature, would laugh at the statement: "Artists who don't paint aren't artists." I also like to think that, unlike the Stuckists, McLaren would always choose irony over sincerity, viewing art as a material practice rather than a form of spirituality. 

      The first Stuckist manifesto (1999) can be found on their website: click here.  

 

[5] To be fair, this idea of living yesterday tomorrow is not simply an exercise in bogus nostalgia and can be tied to Mark Fisher's thinking on retrofuturism and hauntology and the reclaiming of what he calls lost futures. In notes written in 2000, McLaren discussed how history might be reclaimed (and not merely pissed on): 

      "The question I find most interesting is how you reclaim history. This is a very different thing from repackaging it. It's not about nostalgia, which is basically dead tissue. Living yesterday tomorrow should be about reclaiming history then reversing it into the future. If you can discover how to do that, you are probably doing everything an artist genuinely wishes to be involved in. One must aim to use ceratin disruptive practices to challenge the dominant cultural forms and relax the grip of authority."

      Quoted by Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 718-719.   

 

[6] An end-of-term Christmas concert in 1957 "provided the eleven-year-old with what he would later describe as 'an epiphanic moment'. Among those selected to provide entertainment was a young male teacher who performed an enthusiastic rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis's rollicking 'Great Balls of Fire'." McLaren, who had never seen or heard anything like it, was understandably blown away. 

      Not long afterwards, his older brother took him to see Buddy Holly & the Crickets and Malcolm was fascinated with rock 'n' roll subculture for the rest of his life. See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 30.  

 

[7] McLaren failed to get to Paris in May '68 due to ongoing French rail and air strikes. He did, however, visit the French capital at the end of June and his political imagination was excited by the literature and graphics of the Situationist International (even if he couldn't read much French). 

      Back in London, and friends by this point with Jamie Reid and Fred Vermorel, McLaren got involved with the SI's (unofficial) British offshoot known as King Mob. See my post titled 'It Was Meant to Be Great But It's Horrible: Christmas with Uncle Malcolm and the King Mob' (21 Dec 2025): click here.     

 

[8] See the essay by Nataliya Atanasova, 'We Dreamt a Beach and Found a Desert: What It Means to Live in Post-Situationist Reality', Sofia Philosophical Review (1): 70-85 (2026). This essay can be downloaded as a free pdf via Academia.edu.   

 

[9] Sous les pavés, la plage! was a solo exhibition by Polish artist Michal Martychowiec, held at the De Sarthe Gallery in Beijing (16 July to 13 August, 2017). Creating a deceptively inviting beach setting, Martychowiec replaced natural sand with industrially produced glass crystals, in order to critique capitalist realism. For more details visit his website, michalmartychowiec.com 

 

[10] Détournement is a Situationist technique by which familiar images and texts are recontextualised or amusingly altered in some fashion, forcing people to question the original ideological meanings embedded within them. 

      It was outlined by Guy Debord and Gil Wolman in their Mode d’emploi du détournement, which originally appeared in the Belgian surrealist journal Les Lèvres Nues #8 (May 1956). An English translation by Ken Knabb can be found in the Situationist International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, PM Press, 2024).     

 

[11] See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1998). 

      Foucault persuasively argues in part two of this work that what most perversely characterises modern societies, "is not that they consigned sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicated themselves to speaking of it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret" (p. 35).   

 

[12] See the episode of Being Malcolm (Canal Jimmy, 2000) titled 'How To Make Subversive Trousers' in which McLaren discusses the design for bondage trousers, created in 1976 and sold in Sex and Seditionaries, the shops he operated at 430 King's Road with Vivienne Westwood. It was uploaded to YouTube by the Malcolm McLaren Estate in 2015. 

 

[13] McLaren first unveiled his Karaoke Culture thesis in an essay titled '8-Bit Punk' published in Wired (November 2003) He spent the final decade of his life expanding this concept, giving a 2010 TED Talk titled 'Authentic creativity vs. karaoke culture' shortly before his death.

      The manifesto is founded upon the idea that contemporary culture is a kind of desert of the real and that young people today are incapable of generating authentic and original art, prefering to 'mouth the words to other people's songs' - i.e., surrendering agency and living by proxy, whilst chasing instant celebrity and success (afraid of struggle and failure). Karoake culture, argued, McLaren, built a risk-free environment (or safe space) - the antithesis of 430 King's Road. To combat this, McLaren championed a romantic return to creative authenticity and real sex with real bodies in order to discover real pleasures, which had to be better, he said, than 'fucking an inflatable doll'. 

 

[14] Jefferson Hack, 'A Malcolm McLaren Moment', Another Magazine (7 May 2013) - revisiting an interview originally conducted in 1999. 

 

[15] Ibid.

 

[16] Récupération is the situationist term for the co-option and commercialization of radical ideas. Formulated by Guy Debord and the Situationist International in 1960, it describes the process by which subversive concepts are twisted and absorbed into mainstream consumer culture as harmless, innocuous commodities.

 

 

Magic Moments (In Memory of Joyce Greenfield 1931 - 2013)

 Joyce Greenfield and Perry Como 

sharing a magic moment 

Time can't erase the memory of 

These magic moments filled with love 

 

 

Like many people, I associate the popular song 'Magic Moments' composed by Burt Bacharach, written by Hal David, and recorded by Perry Como in 1957 [1], with TV ads for Quality Street [2].   

 

But when I listen to it, I also think of my best friend's mother who loved the song so much she had it played at her funeral service in 2013 [3].  

 

At the time, I didn't quite understand the choice; didn't know if it primarily revealed her sense of fun, her passion for smooth American crooners, or her love of confectionery.  

 

But having just re-read a quote from Malcolm McLaren in Paul Gorman's biography, I think I finally understand why the song held such profound meaning for her generation. Recalling his own childhood in the late 1950s, McLaren explains how it captured the pure optimism of an era transitioning away from post-War austerity into a period of consumer affluence and joyful exuberance:

 

"As well as 'Rock Around the Clock' I heard Perry Como's 'Magic Moments', which our mother had bought. The sound became interesting to me, because it seemed to be a language that everybody emotionally felt in some way. They responded to it. It could have been absolutely inane if you sat down and thought about it, but that didn't matter because it was a train people wanted to get on. They all thought it sexy, and so did I." [4]  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] 'Magic Moments' was originally the B-side of Perry Como's 'Catch a Falling Star' (RCA Victor, 1957), released in December 1957. However, such was its popularity that the single effectively became a double A-side and the song charted in its own right, reaching number one in the UK thereby becoming Como's biggest UK hit. To watch Como and friends performing the song back in the day, click here. Or for audio only, click here. 

 

[2] For non-British readers, I should explain that Quality Street is a tin of mixed toffees and chocolates first manufactured in 1936 by Mackintosh's in Halifax, West Yorkshire and, since 1988, produced by Nestlé. A real Christmas favourite, it was named after J. M. Barrie's popular four-act comedy Quality Street (1901). 

     

[3] Born in Bethnal Green in 1931, Hannah Joyce Greenfield - known as Joyce by friends and family - was evacuated to Wales during the Blitz, returning to London towards the end of the War, finding employment in the rag trade having left school at fourteen. 

      After marrying, she and her husband, John, moved like so many other Eastenders to Essex, where they raised three children; a daughter, Lynne, and two sons, Peter and Andrew. The latter recalls that his house growing up was always full of the popular music from the 1950s and '60s and that his mother was particularly fond of singing along to Perry Como's 'Magic Moments'.

     Joyce - who in some ways was like a second mother to me, so much time did I spend at her house with my friend Andy - sadly passed away on 29 November 2013, aged 82. Her funeral took place (like my mother's ten years later) at South Essex Crematorium, on 13 December 2013.      

 

[4] Malcolm McLaren quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 31.     

 

 

Whitley Bay (In Memory of My Mother)

Vintage poster from the 1920s encouraging holidaymakers 

to take the train to Whitley Bay [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Although, in a very real sense, Soho is my spiritual home and the place in which I feel happiest, dig deeper, as Heidegger would say, and you will find me standing on golden sands ... [2] 

 

 

II.

 

Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough of Tyne and Wear, England [3] - about ten miles east of Newcastle. It's perhaps most famous for its grey-black rocks that my mother used to love climbing on as a little girl and St. Mary's Lighthouse [4].

 

The town has a long history stretching back to at least 1100 when it is first mentioned in historical documents. But it wasn't until the late 19th-century that it emerged as a popular seaside holiday resort - rather than a coal mining town [5] - after it, along with several other small coastal towns, was connected by rail to Newcastle. 

 

At this time, the town was still known as Whitley and was often confused with the far more famous (and upmarket) town of Whitby, in North Yorkshire. Fed up with the problems this caused, including misdirected mail, in 1901 local residents were asked to suggest a new name and Whitley Bay came out on top (the town officially adopted this new name the following year).    

 

 

III. 

 

If it doesn't have the most illustrious roll call of famous names associated with it, Whitley Bay is nevertheless where comedy writer Ian La Frenais was born, in 1937, and he went on to co-create with Dick Clement one of the 1970s British TV shows most celebrated on Torpedo the Ark [6]. 

 

And it is also where my mother was born, 100 years ago today ... Whitley Bay remaining the place she loved best, despite her living in Essex for over 75 years and rarely returning to the North East after leaving to start a newly married life at the end of the 1940s.  

 

A print of the picture above, by John Littlejohns, still hangs in her bedroom even now, three years after her death [7].  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The original art deco style poster was designed by John Littlejohns in 1929. It was commissioned by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) to promote services to Whitley Bay and displayed at local stations as well as larger stations on the East Coast Main Line including London. The work is held in the collection of the National Railway Museum in York, which is part of the Science Museum Group. 

      The poster features Table Rocks Pool, situated just south of Whitley Bay and north of Cullercoats, showing people in fashionable bathing gear. This small natural tidal pool was developed and made safe for swimmers in the 1890s following a number of fatalities. It was later significantly expanded in size (to 70ft) and steps were added along with a hut to provide changing facilities, although, unfortunately, this blew down in strong gales four years after its erection in 1912. 

      Sadly, by the 1970s - as more and more English people deserted the British seaside and flew off to the Spanish Costas - the pool had fallen into disuse. However, it still remains visible at low tide even today.  

 

[2] I'm paraphrasing a line that Heidegger is reputed to have liked saying: 'Dig deeper and you will find yourself standing on Catholic ground.' See the essay by John D. Caputo, 'Heidegger and Theology', in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, ed. Charles Guignan (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 270.

 

[3] Whitley Bay has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. Prior to that it was governed as part of Northumberland. 

 

[4] St. Mary's Lighthouse (1898) is on the tiny St. Mary's Island (aka Bait Island), just north of Whitley Bay on the coast of NE England. The small rocky island is linked to the mainland by a short concrete causeway which is submerged at high tide. 

      Sadly, it was decommissioned in 1984, just two years after its conversion to automatic operation. It is now a tourist attraction run by the North Tyneside Council. In addition to the lighthouse itself there is a small museum, a visitor's centre, and a café. In 2012, St. Mary's Lighthouse attained grade II listed status. Plans for further renovation have so far come to nothing due to financial issues and environmental concerns.   

 

[5] Exposed coal seams can still be seen in the cliffs north of St. Mary's Island and it's possible to pick up shiny black pieces of coal from the beach at low tide. 

      For younger readers who may not know, coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from fossilised plant matter subjected to intense heat and pressure over millions of years. While sparkling diamonds may be a girl's best friend, for me, it's coal that has a more magical allure with its lustrous sheen; and for D. H. Lawrence, the son of a miner, coal was a powerful symbol of the earth's hidden forces, carbon providing the elemental clue to human nature. 

      I mention Lawrence here not only for a literary connection to coal, but because, like him, I am also the son of a miner (loosely speaking); my father left school in Newcastle at fourteen in the year my mother was born and the General Strike took place (1926) and spent a very brief spell down the pits. Hating the experience, he took a job working in a paint factory instead. 

 

[6] I'm referring of course to Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (BBC One, 1973-74). 

      Certain scenes in The Likely Lads (dir. Michael Tuchner, 1976) - the feature-length spin-off of the TV show - were filmed in Whitley Bay. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, the movie starred Rodney Bewes and James Bolam, reprising their roles as Bob and Terry. 

 

[7] Readers who want a fine art quality medium-sized print (52 x 62 cm) can find one (framed) on the King & McGaw website priced at £160. Produced in partnership with the National Railway Museum, every purchase of the print helps support this institution.  

 

 

Rigsby and the Grey Lady

Fig. 1: Gay Rose as Brenda is amused to see 

Richard Beckinsale as Alan dressed in his Grey Lady garb  

 

 

I. Things That Go Bump in the Night: A Christmas Ghost Story

 

In paranormal folklore, a wandering female spirit is typically referred to as the Grey Lady. 

 

Fans of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter will doubtless think of Helena Ravenclaw whose ghost haunts Ravenclaw House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  

 

But fans of the classic 1970s British sitcom Rising Damp (1974-78) - of which I'm one - will immediately think of the series two episode titled 'Things That Go Bump in the Night' [1].

 

Written by Eric Chappell and directed by Len Lurcuck, the episode first aired on 19 December 1975, and starred Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby, Richard Beckinsale as Alan, Don Warrington as Philip, and Gay Rose as Brenda [2].   

 

Because of its broadcast date, it can reasonably be considered a Christmas ghost story, constituting a marvellous comic addition to an ancient British practice of pagan origin [3]. 

 

  

II. Things That Go Bump in the Night: Synopsis

 

After Alan returns late one night from the cinema, having taken Brenda to see Doctor Zhivago (1965) [4], he and Rigsby get into a discussion about the latter's preference for watching horror films on TV, such as Dracula's Daughter (1936) and The Mummy's Hand (1940). 

 

Alan suggests this shows a morbid frame of mind, but Rigsby insists they have something important to teach us about "the eternal struggle between good and evil, revealing the darker side of human nature" (3:27) [5] and that the supernatural is not something to be lightly dismissed: "They don't like it when you're frivolous about them." (7:09) 

 

Knowing that despite his claims not to believe in vampires and ghosts Alan won't walk through the local churchyard after dark, Rigsby decides to play a joke on him with the aid of a rubber werewolf's hand bought from a local toy shop. 

 

Having scared the bejesus out of Alan, Rigsby then attempts to do the same to Philip by wearing a ghoulish rubber mask. Unfortunately, and hilariously, the urbane and supercool Philip isn't fooled or frightened by Rigsby and greets him calmly when he jumps out - "Hello Rigsby" (8:21) - advising him also to change his face soap.  

 

Undeterred, Rigsby then tells them the tale of the Grey Lady who is said to haunt the house, having being walled up long ago. This gives Philip an amusing idea, which involves Alan donning an old-fashioned long dress and bonnet in order to scare Rigsby. This he does, twice, on the stairs: "My God, she's a size", Rigsby tells Philip: "She's got wild hair and feet like barges. No wonder they walled her up." (14:40) 

 

All of this is much to Brenda's amusement (see fig. 1 above) and, interestingly, she also seems far more sexually attracted to Alan when he's in drag than she was earlier at the cinema: "Well, now you're here, why don't you take your frock off?" (11:47) [6]        

 

Philip persuades Rigsby that the Grey Lady is trying to get in touch and they need to hold a séance - although Rigsby isn't keen on putting the lights out until Brenda expresses the fact that she's game. And it's whilst the lights are out that Rigsby accidently on purpose has the opportunity to bump into Brenda, his hands touching her breasts: Quite firm (15:57) [7].

 

They hold hands round the table: and Philip contacts the Grey Lady: "Are you there, lady in grey? Do you wish to speak to us? Knock once for no and twice for yes." (16:31) Alan, hiding in the room, tells Rigsby in a comical ghostly voice that she's alone and unhappy and that he should be kind to his tenants before it's too late: "Money isn't everything. Don't be an old skinflint." (17:27)

 

Thinking that there must be a tape recorder hidden in the room, Rigsby jumps up and pulls back the curtain from behind which the voice emanates - only to encounter the Grey Lady for a third time. He runs from the room screaming.     

 

The following day, Rigsby enlists the help of sceptical local vicar (played by Norman Bird) and his overly enthusiastic cricket-loving curate (David Rowlands). The vicar tells Rigsby he'll see what can be done, although he's reluctant to perform the elaborate exorcism that Rigsby is demanding with holy water sprinkled over everything, insisting there must be some natural explanation and that "too much spiritual excitement" is "bad for the digestion" (20:15).  

 

Predictably - this is a sitcom after all - things do not go as planned. The clergymen only discover Alan and Brenda canoodling on the sofa and manage to photograph Rigsby - now dressed as the Grey Lady having found the outfit and uncovered the deception (not quite what they hoped for the parish magazine).  

 

They storm off with the vicar telling Rigsby he doesn't need a priest - he needs a doctor. 

 

This leaves a final scene on the stairs outside Brenda's room in which Rigsby, still in Grey Lady get-up, asks Philip for a light. Philip gives him such and then delivers with his usual deadpan comic skill the killer line: "You know something Rigsby, we just can't go on meeting like this." (23:35) See fig. 2 below. 

 

III. Things That Go Bump in the Night: Why I Love This Episode

There are several reasons why I love this particular episode of Rising Damp. Here are arguably the main two:  

 

Firstly, it cleverly subverts the Gothic horror tradition and writer Eric Chappell brilliantly plays with the Christmas ghost story trope by setting his tale not in some lonely country mansion or haunted castle, but the slightly seedy world of the boarding house and bed-sit. 

 

Exploring Rigsby's superstitious character - established in earlier episodes such as 'Black Magic' (S1/E2, 1974) and 'Charisma' (S1/E4, 1974) - always produces comedy gold and it's fun to discover that not only is he a lover of classic horror movies, but an avid reader of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1839). 

 

Secondly, the episode provides a masterclass in physical acting - and I say that as someone who isn't a great fan of slapstick, farce, and/or the use of drag in order to solicit laughter. It works here, though because the writing is so good and Rossiter, Beckinsale and Warrington all give sterling performances - as does Gay Rose [8]. 

 

I am very aware of the fact that Fawlty Towers (BBC Two, 1975-79) is critically regarded as superior to Rising Damp, but if I were exiled on a desert island, I know which box set I'd rather have with me ... [9]  

 

 

Fig. 2: Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) in the Grey Lady outfit

and Philip (Don Warrington) being supercool and witty as always 

 

Notes

 

[1] Rising Damp, 'Things That Go Bump in the Night' (S2/E7) can be watched in full on YouTube: click here. Times for the lines quoted from the episode will be given in the post.    

 

[2] Brenda, an artist model, played by Canadian actress Gabrielle Rose (credited as Gay Rose), temporarily replaced Miss Jones (Frances de la Tour) in the second series of Rising Damp. De la Tour was obliged to step away from the show in 1975 due to theatre commitments. Although she only appeared in four episodes as a new tenant, Rose made an interesting addition to the cast and I have always been fond of her character who added a missing sexual element to the show. 

 

[3] Telling ghost stories by the fire on those long December nights is rooted in the ancient winter festival of Yule, celebrated by Germanic peoples to mark the solstice; a time when people believed that the veil separating the living from the dead was thin. 

      It is an oral custom that carried on into the Christian era and the telling of terrifying tales and spooky stories had a real resurgence in Victorian England thanks to authors including Charles Dickens and M. R. James (the latter's 1904 collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary remains a spine-chilling example of the genre). 

      If largely overshadowed by more modern (and more commercial) Christmas traditions, the custom of telling ghost stories never completely went away and in the 1970s the BBC broadcast a series of short television films under the title A Ghost Story for Christmas (1971-78).

       And so, as indicated, the Rising Damp episode under discussion here must be understood within a broader cultural context. Readers who want to know more are encouraged to read The Ghost: A Cultural History (Tate Publishing, 2017), by the writer and art historian Susan Owens.   

 

[4] Directed by David Lean, Doctor Zhivago (1965) is an epic historical romance set in Russia which "deals with man's disillusionment with the Russian Revolution" (2:12). Alan was hoping it would get Brenda in a nice romantic mood - which it did; she fell in love with Omar Sharif.  

 

[5] Alan is impressed with Rigsby's insight, but he is simply repeating something he heard on Film Night, the BBC Two show that aired from 1968 until 1976 and featured movie reviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with prominent actors and directors.    

[6] Whilst gender play is, one suspects, quite a common phenomenon in the bedroom, some members of the kink community use the term Gynemimetophilia for this form of attraction. Coined by sexologist John Money in 1984, this clinical term refers to a sexual attraction to men who mimic or impersonate women, including cross-dressers and drag queens. 

      Although nothing is made explicit in the episode of Rising Damp under discussion, it does contain a scene in which, having been defrocked by Brenda, Alan tells her she's terrific and that they must do whatever it is they've done again sometime; that she's made him feel like a man. The more sexually experienced Brenda seems fairly blasé and simply reminds Alan not to forget to put his dress back on when he leaves. See the scene beginning at 13:31.  

 

[7] This is probably my favourite line in the episode, but I cannot decide whether it was scripted by Eric Chappell or ad-libbed by Leonard Rossiter. And I'm not alone in this; writing in an article on Rising Damp for the website Television Heaven (published on 5 June 2020), Andrew Cobby admits to his own indecision concerning who should be credited with the line, deciding that even if Rossiter didn't come up with it, he should be praised as an actor for making it sound as if it's ad-libbed.

      Either way, it's a hilarious line, which seems to make Brenda smile - or again, is that the actress Gay Rose who is amused and on the verge of breaking character? I can't tell, even though I've watched the scene repeatedly.   

 

[8] I have to confess that I'm not so keen on the supporting roles played by Bird and Rowlands, but don't wish to say anything too negative about either actor here. 

 

[9] Actually, several critics have come round to the opinion that Fawlty Towers hasn't aged as well as Rising Damp and now feels like a clever but clockwork theatrical farce rather than a genuine sitcom. 

      Writing in The Guardian (20 November 2009) Catherine Shoard argues that, at its best, Rising Damp "bears comparison with Beckett and Pinter". Plus, as she rightly notes, "it's hilarious".

      See also Michael Henerson's article 'Shouldn't we celebrate Rising Damp?' in The Spectator (24 September 2025), which argues that the ITV show was every bit as good as Fawlty Towers - just as funny and featuring a central performance by Leonard Rossiter just as convincing as that given us by John Cleese.  

      

 

Readers who wish to read more about Rising Damp are advised to go to Oh ... Miss Jones! a fantastic online resource for all things Rigsby: click here. 

 

 

No, Jasmine, Cliff Richard Isn't Cool

Cover of the debut album by Cliff Richard and his band 

the Drifters (later known as the Shadows) 

Columbia (EMI) (1959) 

 

I. 

 

The latest edition of SIG News (#5 2026) contains a provocative piece by Jasmine Howard [1] reflecting on one of her pop heroes. 

 

In it, she poses the question: 'Is Cliff Richard cool?' and attempts to play devil woman's advocate by making the case for the so-called Peter Pan of Pop [2]. 

 

Howard is, of course, by no means the first person to do this. Back in 2013, for example, Kiwi author Tim Roxborough claimed not to care if others thought Cliff uncool, writing: 

 

"Cliff may be celibate, he may annoy some with his public professions of his Christian faith [...] and he may have had a knack for singing Christmas number one hits that sap the tragically hip's will to live. But get passed [sic] that and he's the owner of one of the finest, most adaptable voices in popular music history." [3]

 

More recently, Stuart Penny also wrote a few words in defence of Sir Cliff:

 

"I know what you're thinking. With his goody two-shoes image and cringeworthy Wimbledon tennis rain break singalongs, the Peter Pan of Pop may have been hopelessly, desperately, terminally uncool for more than half a century, but it wasn't always that way." [4] 

      

In for a pound, Penny continues:

 

"I'm not ashamed to say that before the Beatles and Dylan, before discovering electric blues, folk, jazz and psychedelia, in fact before just about every other kind of music I grew to cherish, Cliff was my guy. The infatuation didn't last much beyond late 1962 and the arrival of the Fab Four, it's true, but his early singles, some of which were (and remain) excellent slabs of well-produced 60s pop, will always have a special place in my heart." [5]  

 

 

II. 

 

As I think is clear, even his biggest fans and would-be defenders concede that Cliff isn't cool. 

 

Talented, good-looking, clean-cut, devoted to his God and to his mother Dorothy, but not cool - an aesthetic quality that relates not only to appearance and style, but to attitude and behaviour (and so is more than merely being trendy or fashionable). 

 

Much like art, cool is notoriously difficult to define. But even if you can't quite describe it, you know it when you see it - and you also know what it isn't (and Cliff isn't it). 

 

Malcolm McLaren used to say that the coolest thing he'd ever seen was when Edward Tudor-Pole walked on stage auditioning to be the new lead singer with the Sex Pistols and flipped a cigarette in the air, caught it on his foot, and then flicked it into his mouth. And that is pretty cool - thus not something one can ever imagine Cliff doing (unsurprisingly, he doesn't smoke).   

Essentially, cool is tied to evil; to rebels, gangsters, rockers, and all those unconstrained by authority and who live in defiance of rules and conventions. 

 

Having said that, the idea of cool has now been fully recuperated and coolness is now mostly a marketing strategy; something manufactured and sold by those looking to capitalise on trends and subcultures. In fact, some commentators argue that cool is the central ideology of consumer capitalism.   

 

And so, ironically, it may be the case that the coolest people today are those who reject the stereotype and cliché of coolness entirely (though, sorry Jasmine, that still doesn't include Cliff - a man who, despite his name, completely lacks edge). 

 

 

III. 

 

In her effort to puzzle out why Cliff is considered so uncool, Ms Howard compares his career and public image to that of Elvis - which is certainly a brave and bold (some might say foolhardy) move, not least because Presley is incomparable as an artist in terms of cultural impact, vocal versatility, and his on-stage presence. The fact that he piled on the pounds in his final years - as Cliff was only too quick to point out [6] - does nothing to detract from his unique genius.    

 

Even Howard's claim that Cliff was "just as successful as Elvis" [7] - from a purely statistical perspective (i.e., in terms of record sales and UK number one singles) - doesn't quite add up. 

 

For whilst Cliff undeniably commands a spectacular chart legacy as the only artist to score a UK number-one single across five consecutive decades (from the 1950s to the 1990s), he remains firmly in the King's shadow when we look at the Official UK Charts' historic tally. 

 

Cliff has a highly respectable fourteen number-one singles; but Elvis has a staggering twenty-one UK number one hits. Further, whilst Cliff has sold over 250 million records worldwide across his 68-year career, this figure is dwarfed by the more than one billion Elvis records sold.

 

To claim parity when it comes to their commercial success is therefore inaccurate - and also, we might add, when did commercial success and longevity as an artist ever equate with cool or relevance? Some of the coolest singers hardly troubled the charts and died young (Ian Curtis is an obvious example). 

 

Cliff's ability to score number-one hits across several decades is a testament to an aging, fiercely loyal fanbase and clever marketing, not cultural impact. David Bowie also sold a lot of records and had a long career, but he redefined music, fashion, and societal norms, whilst Cliff remained artistically stagnant; his later chart-toppers were not driven by musical innovation, but by novelty appeal and seasonal sentimentality, such as 'Mistletoe and Wine'. 

 

  

IV. 

  

Apart from his commercial success and longevity, attempts to defend Cliff as cool are also often based upon his early days as a credible rock 'n' roller who opened the way for British pop music and his national treasure status. 

 

Let's briefly examine each of these points ...

 

Firstly, it's true that his 1958 hit debut single 'Move It' (written by Ian Samwell) might be viewed as marking the birth of British rock 'n' roll, as acknowledged by John Lennon and many others. However, Cliff almost immediately abandoned his leather-jacketed persona and within a few years transitioned into a safe, sanitised, family-friendly performer who happily established himself in the world of light entertainment and Eurovision.  

 

Thus, if Cliff paved the way, it was a road that subsequent generations of British rockers were desperate to veer off. For the punk generation in particular, Cliff was the ultimate symbol of establishment compliance and everything they hated about Top of the Pops (it will come as no surprise to discover that he made more appearances on the iconic BBC music show than any other solo artist, with over 150 performances).   

 

As for his national treasure status, which rests on the idea that he's basically a good egg, even this might be questioned in light of his politically suspect views on women in the workplace and parenting, for example [8]. Coolness may involve a degree of studied indifference, but it also requires a degree of cultural sensitivity and Cliff has sometimes used his public platform to judge others from a position of detached privilege. 

 

Ultimately, his wholesome image disguises a rigid (often reactionary) moralism that may be Christian but isn't cool [9] - we don't like being lectured to by pious pop stars, thank you very much.        

 

 

V. 

 

Finally, I'd like to remind Jasmine - a canny lass from the North East of England [10] - of a famously surprising televised encounter between her hero, Cliff, and Thomas (Mensi) Mensforth, the lead singer of South Shields punk band the Angelic Upstarts [11]. 

 

Rather than playing along with the polite banter expected by mainstream television, the fiercely intelligent punk vocalist confronted the Peter Pan of Pop over his privileged celebrity status and his religious faith. However, if producers had hoped for an explosive, foul-mouthed slanging match, they were disappointed. 

 

While Cliff spoke of personal salvation and his pop career, Mensi steered the debate toward systemic political issues: religious sectarianism, police brutality, and social deprivation. He emerged as someone who genuinely cared about the contemporary world around him, rather than what had occurred in the Holy Land two thousand years prior. 

 

All Cliff's tried-and-tested defence mechanisms - polite smiles, deflection, and breezy showbiz charisma -proved useless against the raw passion of Mensi’s arguments. The Peter Pan of Pop was exposed as having little concern for the struggles of everyday people in Thatcher's Britain.  

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Edited by Russ Bestley, Tim Gibney, Kevin Quinn, and Roger Sabin, Sig News brings the work of the Subcultures Interest Group (SIG) to a wider audience. Operating out of the University of the Arts London (UAL), this diverse, informal collective focuses broadly on the politics of style. The publication offers an eclectic mix of articles by a disparate group of authors from both within and outside UAL. For more information, click here. 

      Postgraduate student Jasmine Howard wrote her MA dissertation on class and clothing in the North East of England in the mid-late 1960s; see the post on Torpedo the Ark dated 30 March 2025 in which I discussed her granny, my mother, and the likely lasses: click here.   

       

[2] This nickname is not a self-styling coined by Richard himself, nor one he particularly cares for as it creates pressure upon him to always appear youthful when performing on stage before his fans. It was actually coined by music journalist Keith Altham of the NME in 1972 and was quickly taken up by the press and public alike. 

 

[3] Tim Roxborough, 'Why Cliff Richard Is Much Cooler Than You Think', The Roxborough Report (26 January 2013): click here. 

      Roxborough goes on to inform his readers that as well as having a great voice Cliff is also "said to be one of Britain's most generous philanthropists", saying that this is important when considering Richard the man and not just Richard the artist. 

      I might point out, however, that philanthropy is a contentious issue. Whilst it directs resources to worthy causes, it can also function as a tool for the wealthy to virtue signal and ease their conscience. It can also allow donors power over social agendas while providing them with significant tax benefits.   

 

[4] Stuart Penney, 'A Few Words In Defence Of Sir Cliff Richard', And Now ... It's All This! (21 August 2025): click here. 

 

[5] Ibid.

 

[6] During an appearance on ITV's This Morning (20 Nov 2023), Cliff was asked if he had ever met Elvis: he hadn't. But he revealed that he had once turned down an opportunity to do so and be pictured with Presley on the grounds that the latter had put on a lot of weight and no longer looked as good as he had in his prime. 

      Probably to his surprise, the comment immediately went viral and caused a massive uproar. Viewers of the show accused him of fat-shaming and were particularly upset that he made the comments whilst sitting next to popular host Alison Hammond, a plus-sized presenter. This is just one of several occasions in which Cliff - usually known for his polite and overly cautious public persona - came across as tactless and uncool, sparking controversy.  

 

[7] Jasmine Howard, 'Is Cliff Richard Cool?', SIG News 5 (1 Sept 2026), p. 12. 

[8] In a controversial 1994 interview with Bella magazine, the Bachelor Boy claimed that women cannot successfully juggle both careers and children. He also blamed working mothers for the breakdown of discipline in society. These remarks drew sharp criticism from the public and parenting organisations at the time, with representatives from groups like Parents at Work dismissing his comments as 'complete and utter nonsense'. 

 

[9] Amusingly, Cliff even managed to alienate sections of the Christian community in 1999 when he set the words of the 'Lord's Prayer' to the tune of 'Auld Lang Syne'. The resulting record - titled 'The Millennium Prayer' - was almost universally loathed by music critics, but, more surprisingly, various church leaders and Christian commentators condemned it as a gimmicky and cynical exploitation of faith for commercial chart success (even though Cliff donated the proceeds to charity).

[10] As the child of parents from Tyneside - my father was born in Gateshead and my mother in Whitley Bay - I trust I am allowed to say this without sounding patronising. 

 

[11] The meeting between Sir Cliff and Mensi was recorded by Anglia Television for an episode of the late-night religious and current affairs series Something Different (hosted by Stewart White) and was broadcast on 25 January 1980 (or early March in some ITV regions). Click here to watch an excerpt on YouTube (as preserved by Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive).    

 

 

Musical bonus: Angelic Upstarts, 'The Young Ones', from the album Teenage Warning (Warner Bros., 1979): click here. The track also featured as the B-side to the single 'Teenage Warning' (1979), which reached No. 29 in the UK charts.

      The song, written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, was made famous by Cliff Richard and the Shadows and is the title song to the 1961 film The Young Ones (dir. Sidney J. Furie). 

      With advance orders of over 500,000, it was released in January 1962 on the Columbia (EMI) label and went straight to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart (the first British single to do so since Elvis Presley's 'It's Now or Never' in November 1960). It held that position for six weeks and spent twenty weeks in the chart overall, selling over a million copies in the UK, and 2.6 million copies worldwide.   

       

 

SIG News 5 Manifesto: A Friendly Deconstruction

SIG Manifesto 

(SIG News 5: September 2026)

 

 

I.

 

The new, bumper edition of SIG News (#5) is out now - arriving two months ahead of its cover date and two weeks ahead of its public launch at the Mausoleum - sorry, Museum - of Youth Culture (see below). Edited by the established team of Russ Bestley, Tim Gibney, Kevin Quinn and Roger Sabin, it assembles an eclectic mix of articles by a disparate group of authors from both within and without the University of the Arts London (UAL). 

 

By deliberately choosing the inky medium of an old-school, limited-run newspaper, SIG's explicit aim is to thumb its nose at mass circulation and the algorithmic curation of the online world. Anyone interested in the history and practice of music- and style-based subcultures is guaranteed to find something to excite them in this issue. 

 

However, it is the ever-changing SIG Manifesto, printed boldly on the back cover, which I invariably read first, and it's this ten-point text that I'd like to discuss - by which I mean deconstruct - here. Let us begin by looking at each point in turn, offering a brief response before building towards a critical overview of a text that functions as a public declaration of the Group's ideology. 

 

Ultimately, we are obliged to ask: does this text genuinely rally readers to radical action, or does it risk encouraging mere repetition of the same old inauthentic busyness [1] and the restless pursuit of novelty? 

 

II.

  

1. We at SIG News decree that the high-street purveyors of plainstream bad dreams dispense nothing more than tribal whorefare. A cavalcade of copycat caricatures and clone-clowns cascade across mediascapes devoid of depth and bereft of breadth.

 

Point 1 playfully, if somewhat aggressively, sets the tone: mock-authoritative, mock-confrontational, and mock-avant-garde, delivered with an over-reliance on alliteration and Situationist-style wordplay. 

 

Strip away the performative hostility, however, and it's a bog-standard critique of the Mainstream Media (MSM). It accuses the latter of lacking both substance and diversity whilst actively exploiting social divisions for profit (tribal whorefare), manufacturing systemic anxiety (bad dreams), and recycling formulaic content (copycat caricatures).

  

2. Scenes should be heard, not spread. 

 

Point 2 of the manifesto posits that for subcultures to remain authentic and flourish, they must foster local, organic connections through live performance, material publications (such as fanzines) and word-of-mouth, rather than engaging in global, digital dissemination. In line with subcultural theory, the statement also suggests that exposure via modern media causes rapid commodification and the loss of a scene's underground edge.

 

Ultimately, there's nothing virtual or viral about SIG News: it demands physical presence. Ironically, however, by demanding scenes remain localised, it inadvertently privileges those living in metropolitan cultural hubs whilst excluding the isolated, provincial outsider, i.e., the sort of poor sod stuck in the sticks or in some shitty seaside town that SIG often seems to champion.

  

 

3. Within the suffocating technological netweb 'DIY-bother' has become the despairing mantra of an autonomous muddleground desperate for something 'more'. 

 

Point 3 suggests that within a restrictive digital infrastructure, autonomous DIY culture has devolved into an exhausting, ineffective, and futile struggle - hence DIY-bother.

 

Whether we like it or not, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have successfully co-opted, neutralised, and commercialised creative independence, transforming the radical punk ethos of Do It Yourself into a neoliberal chore that demands constant content creation, algorithmic self-optimisation, and endless self-promotion.

 

Independent creators are left confused, isolated, and trapped on a digital muddleground - profoundly exhausted by the machinery of the burnout society [2], yet desperate for an authentic path forward that doesn't involve feeding the algorithm.

 

 

4. Be impossible, demand the unrealistic.

 

By reversing the famous Situationist slogan from May '68 - Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible - this point serves as an update appropriate to the age of capitalist realism [3]. It is a potent mix of defensive absurdism and revolutionary desire for alternatives in an era dominated by the mantra there is no alternative.

 

By becoming-impossible, one becomes capricious and unclassifiable and thus useless to systems that rely on reliable data and predictive modelling. By demanding the unrealistic, one asks for the very things that consumer capitalism cannot commodify or deliver: silence, secrecy, and stillness.

 

   

5. It is absolutely normal to be resolutely on the outside of anything and everything. 

 

Point 5 normalises and validates splendid isolation and magnificent marginalisation, asserting that refusing to belong to any mainstream group, trend, or digital network is a completely valid way to live. 

 

This position is arguably more countercultural than subcultural. For in actively rejecting anything and everything one acknowledges that even the most radical subcultural movements will eventually be compromised, co-opted, and commodified. 

 

However, in affirming such an extreme model of individualistic detachment, it becomes politically problematic for those of a more socialist persuasion who believe that it requires collective power (i.e., solidarity with others) to build lasting alternative structures.  

 

  

6. Inspiration + imagination x application = no sweat.

 

Quite possibly, this is the point I dislike the most. It reads like an uninspired motivational slogan dreamed up by some corporation trying to sound knowledgeable about the creative process. Ironically, it undermines SIG's own depiction of cultural production as involving a good deal of sweat (not to mention blood and tears). Only artificially intelligent machines don't sweat.   

 

If I were to be generous, I might accept that the author of this manifesto is attempting to subvert the capitalist no pain, no gain work mantra. In other words, they might be trying to say that when one is genuinely inspired, creative work ceases to feel like alienated, exhausting labour. 

 

However, by dressing this concept up as a reductive, pseudo-logical mathematical formula they have ended up producing a trite, neoliberal slogan that completely devalues the demanding reality of artistic practice.

 

 

7. Omniformed existences expire with no trace. A feast of spectres amasses. 

 

Jesus! Point 7 reads like gothic poetry as much as cultural theory. Nevertheless, the warning here is stark: if you allow yourself to be shaped entirely by the Matrix, your life will leave no lasting legacy; you will expire with no trace and the world will become haunted by the ghosts of mass-produced human entities who failed to realise their potential or blossom as individuals.

 

Put another way, it's arguing that total conformity leads to a form of spiritual and cultural death and what Mark Fisher would term lost futures.  

 

 

8. Humanarchism is the logical evolutionary step away from total disconnection towards renewed social connection. Unplug, turn off, conjoin in. 

 

Is humanarchism a SIG neologism? At any rate, it's a new word to me; a portmanteau blending humanism and anarchism which suggests that in order to survive the isolating effects of modern digital life, society must evolve a new philosophy that rejects technological control in favour of autonomous (and essentially analogue) human community. 

 

There's no point (and no fun) in being connected to networks if we are physically out of touch not only with other people, but with animals, plants, and objects. We need a form of libidinal materialism born of desire, not merely a new idealism. 

 

Unfortunately, whilst I approve of the necessary update to (and inversion of) Timothy Leary's famous countercultural mantra, I'm not sure humanarchism is the best term for this new philosophy. 

 

Also, one must ask how realistic is this as a solution; by simply instructing people to unplug and turn off the SIG manifestoists assume people can easily walk away from the digital infrastructures that control their jobs, bank accounts, and daily communication and make a nostalgic return to pre-internet socialising [4]. 

 

 

9. Renounce the over-the-counterculture. Spurn the splendour-vendors and venal frontiers. Difference is natural indifference.

 

I like that last sentence: Difference is natural indifference (even if, obviously, I think indifference is a highly stylised pose born of stoicism and dandyism and has nothing natural about it). Indifference, along with several other 'I' terms - irony, insouciance, insincerity - is one of my watchwords here on Torpedo the Ark (TTA). 

 

The starry individual does not care about being noticed or need to be validated. They are secure in their own distinctiveness and completely indifferent to mainstream trends, social media metrics, or corporate attempts to categorise them - and, as the rest of the point makes clear, they have renounced the over-the-counterculture too which all-too-often means pseudo-rebellion and commercialised bullshit sold by splendour-vendors (i.e., hucksters working in the advertising business or those in marketing who wish to build and promote brands).    

 

Of course, again, this sounds good - but it involves the same naive romanticism as we have encountered already; just because you choose to ignore the Matrix it doesn't mean you are outside of it; in capitalist reality, modern data tracking doesn't care if you are indifferent to it; the system still tracks your habits and monetises your lifestyle; it might frame your structural isolation and indifference, for example, as the adoption of a zen attitude (Would you like to buy a yoga mat?)   

  

 

10. Fashion is no more than a fleeting fad. Follow nothing except your shadow. Go forth and amplify. 

 

The SIG Manifesto ends with a tripartite series of slogans intended, one assumes, to inspire readers and incite them to acts of defiant rebellion. 

 

The third - Go forth and amplify - is simply a play on the biblical injunction given initially by God to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28) and then later repeated to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9: 7). I suppose it's encouraging us to find our own voices and to speak up (so is again at odds with the ethos of silence and shutting the fuck up promoted on TTA). 

 

The first sentence - Fashion is no more than a fleeting fad - is one that I'm astonished to see in a manifesto born of a university which includes the London College of Fashion as one of its six constituent colleges. Also, as the author of Philosophy on the Catwalk (2011), I am very much of the view that in fashion we can discover "all that men have thought, dreamed, done, and been" [5].

 

As for the fleeting character of fashion - or what we might term after Barthes the logic of fashion - isn't that its beauty and philosophical importance? Lars Svendsen is spot on when he writes: 

 

"Fashion does not have any telos, any final purpose, in the sense of striving for a state of perfection [...] The aim of fashion is rather to be potentially endless, that is it creates new forms and constellations ad infinitum." [6] 

 

This is why, one might suggest, the most interesting writings on fashion have tended to come from our poets and novelists; for "they alone are sufficiently free from its perceived triviality" [7]. 

  

As for the second sentence ... ironically, despite speaking of shadows, it's another essentialist injunction; for it is saying, is it not, be completely self-reliant and look only to your own true self for direction. One of the problems, however, is that Baudrillard powerfully illustrated how in an obscene hyperreal world and an era of total transparency, we have no shadows!  

 

So that's another issue - one of many - for the signatories of the SIG Manifesto to address ...

 

 

III.    

 

We are told to memorise the ten-point SIG Manifesto and ignore it at our peril. 

 

Obviously, this is said humorously - but, somehow, the text doesn't leave us smiling and I suspect that's because it functions primarily as an academic pastiche rather than a viable blueprint for contemporary cultural resistance. 

 

Whilst it accurately diagnoses the exhaustion inherent in a hyper-commodified digital landscape, its structural utility is limited by an outdated binary framework. It posits, for example, an enlightened avant-garde operating from an imaginary external position that ignores how modern capital functions through decentralized, participatory networks. 

 

Consequently, directives to unplug (Point 8) or remain on the Outside (Point 5) overlook the material reality that economic survival and communication are fundamentally embedded in digital infrastructure. Further, by framing resistance as a personal lifestyle choice, the manifesto risks falling into bourgeois individualism and what theorist Mark Fisher termed the privatisation of discontent, effectively atomising opposition rather than fostering collective solidarity.

 

Aesthetically, the wider SIG project draws heavily from historical precedents, specifically 1970s punk fanzines and 1990s culture jamming. The decision to print SIG News as a physical newspaper highlights a deliberate engagement with obsolete media forms, positioning the work closer to an archival art project than a contemporary subcultural critique. 

 

However, viewed through the lens of radical graphic design and visual history, the SIG Manifesto might be said to succeed on its own terms. For while it lacks a coherent political strategy for navigating an algorithmic mediascape and, theoretically, it has more holes than a proverbial piece of Swiss cheese, it functions effectively as a stylish conceptual provocation, illustrating the profound difficulty of offering meaningful resistance today. 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Heidegger terms this Geschäftigkeit - a key concept introduced in Sein und Zeit (1927) as a structural component of Dasein's everyday manner of existing; i.e., constantly occupied with the immediate tasks at hand and numerous daily distractions. 

      For Heidegger, this relentless busyness is a coping mechanism; one that allows us to avoid confronting the deeper questions of our existence, including our own mortality. It is closely connected to his concept of Verfallen, wherein the individual tumbles into superficiality and evaluates their life simply by how much they are doing, losing their authentic self in the process. 

 

[2] The phrase Müdigkeitsgesellschaft was used by the philosopher Byung-Chul Han as the title of an essay first published in German in 2010 (the English translation by Erik Butler was published by Stanford University Press in 2015). 

      It might be noted that the term literally translates as fatigue society, but the word burnout - coined in 1970 by the German-born American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger to refer to a state of mental and physical exhaustion - arguably has greater contemporary resonance.     

      Readers who are interested can find a two-part post published on Torpedo the Ark back in November 2021 discussing Han's text: click here to access part one.  

 

[3] The phrase capitalist realism is, of course, forever associated with Mark Fisher; see his book of this title (Zero Books, 2009). The first of a three-part post written on this work published on Torpedo the Ark earlier this year can be accessed by clicking here. 

      In brief, capitalist realism refers to the fact that capitalism is more than an economic arrangement of society or a political ideology; that it has become a singular reality that is so all-encompassing that we mistake it for the natural order or inevitable way of the world. This, in turn, makes alternative models either unimaginable or seem foolish and utopian: 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism,' as Fisher famously puts it. 

  

[4] It must also be pointed out that in demanding that people gather and collaborate as what D. H. Lawrence would term a democracy of touch, point 8 is at odds with point 5 - remain a singular individual on the outside of everything.

 

[5] Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, ed. Kerry McSweeney and Peter Sabor, (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 57. 

      Admittedly, this novel derides those who would make of fashion the basis of all human experience, but, contrary to his own idealism, Carlyle is obliged to concede that clothes do play a crucial role in materially constituting the self.  

 

[6] Lars Svendsen, Fashion: A Philosophy, trans. John Irons, (Reaktion Books, 2006), p. 29.

 

[7] Roland Barthes, 'Language and Clothing', in The Language of Fashion, trans. Andy Stafford, ed. Andy Stafford and Michael Carter, (Berg, 2006), p. 21.