Do You Know What's Funny? Do You Know What Really Makes Me Laugh? I Used to Think That Sid's Death Was a Tragedy, But Now I Realise It's a Fucking Comedy

Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008)

and an early visualisation of the character 

based on Sex Pistol Sid Vicious 

 

 

I. 

 

According to Malcolm McLaren, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) would have been a great film were it not for the incompetence of the director Julien Temple. But that's a little harsh, to be fair.

 

For in extremely trying circumstances, Temple managed to assemble (and edit) a car crash of a movie that continues to fascinate cinephiles and symphorophiles alike. And, as Malcolm himself often said, better a spectacular failure than any kind of benign success. 

 

Where I do agree with McLaren, however, is that one of the things that the film doesn't quite convey is the dark humour underlying the story of the Sex Pistols and there are those who still think of it as an unreliable documentary rather than an artistic reimagining of events; i.e., po-faced moralists obsessed with factual accuracy and what they, like Lydon, call the truth. 

 

The film should provoke laughter, but it appears to invite sorrowful reflection or remorse. 

 

This is particularly so when it comes to the case of Sid Vicious; the British Board of Film Censors insisting that the ending of the film be changed to include a real press report of his death, thereby undermining the film's disclaimer that it is a work of fiction and that any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 

 

This is done solely with the intent to induce feelings of shame, guilt, and deep regret for ever having found the Sex Pistols amusing. They - the censor-morons - want us to think that Sid's death was nothing but a tragedy, when - as Arthur Fleck would surely recognise - it was a fucking comedy all along ... [1]  

 

 

II.   

Funnily enough, the above connection made between Arthur Fleck and Sid Vicious is not the only time the latter has found himself discussed in relation to the Joker ...

 

For it turns out that Heath Ledger based his unforgettable portrayal of this DC Comics character - in part at least - on the spiky-haired Sex Pistol in The Dark Knight (2008); this having been confirmed both by the film's director, Christopher Nolan, and Ledger's co-star Christian Bale (who played Batman).   

 

And once you know this, then you understand (and maybe even appreciate) the Joker's anarcho-nihilistic sense of humour a little better, as well as his fascination with chaos and violence. One finds traces of the same mirthful malevolence in Sid's performance in the Swindle (particularly, of course, on stage at the  Théâtre de l'Empire, in Paris, singing his version of  'My Way') [2]. 

 

 

III.

 

Now, I know there are those out there - including many punk scholars - who hate Sid Vicious: 

 

"He is, after all, to blame for embodying one of the 20th century's most exciting art movements in the form of a drooling, talentless junkie in a swastika T-shirt" [3]. 

 

Similarly, there are critics who hate the character of the Joker as portrayed both by Ledger and Phoenix. 

 

In an age of mass shootings and terrorist atrocities, it is, they argue, highly irresponsible to glorify anti-social and criminal behaviour carried out by individuals who clearly have serious mental health issues.  

 

To which one can only reply: Why so serious?  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix) became notorious in Gotham City as the clown-faced killer and aspiring stand-up comic called Joker in Todd Philips's fantastic film of that title (2019). 

      The scene in which he says the lines I have used in the title to this post (making one key alteration; replacing the words 'my life' with 'Sid's death') takes place in a hospital room, just as Fleck is about to murder his mother: click here.  

      Interestingly, Sid Vicious also kills his mother in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle - though with a pistol, not a pillow (see link in note 2 below).    

      Julien Temple briefly discusses the new British Board of Censors approved ending to his film in the commentary provided as an extra to The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle DVD (2005): click here and go to 1:43:37. Unlike Temple, I clearly do not think this makes a good ending; on the contrary, I think it places a moral curse on all those who watch and enjoy it.            

 

[2] In The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle viewers are led to believe that Sid is performing at L'Olympia, but this venue was unavailable, so filming actually took place at Théâtre de l'Empire, using the stage set which had been built for Serge Gainsbourg. To watch the performance, click here.   

 

[3] James Medd, 'Sid Vicious: The Grubby Demon of Punk', The Rake (September 2018): click here. 

      It should be noted that Medd himself goes on to mount a defence of Vicious and writes: 

      "Beyond the ferret-faced, sneery urchin cartoon [...] there's another Sid, not much more real but closer to something celebratory, romantic and even meaningful. Like the Marquis de Sade or Francis Bacon [...] he took ugliness and nihilism to their extremes, and found beauty in them."   

 

On the Figure of the Fallen Woman

Detail from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 

unfinished painting Found (1869)

Oil on canvas (36 x 32 in) [1]

 

 

I.

 

Due to a pair of unrelated incidents, both involving American women of my acquaintance, the figure of the fallen woman has never resonated more in my imagination than now. 

 

Whilst a woman might literally fall and break her nose on a cobbled street in Soho, or split her lip as she - again quite literally - trips and bangs her head against a wall in Reading, here I wish to remark on the figure of the fallen woman as a conceptual metaphor with theological overtones. 

 

It was a metaphor that was particularly prevalent in 19th-century Britain, where it described a woman who had lost her social and moral standing (often as a result of pre- or extra-marital sex) and was heading on a downward path into poverty and/or prostitution [2].  

 

 

II. 

 

I suppose the original (or prototypical) fallen woman, i.e., the first to lose her innocence and be tempted into sin; the first to fall from God's grace, was Eve, the fruit-picking mother of us all and red-headed ophidiophile.  

 

The question I have, therefore, is this: if modern women are all the daughters of Eve, all inherit her corrupt nature inclining them towards sinfulness, disobedience, and consorting with serpents, then how much further can they fall? 

 

Does it really matter if one has a bad reputation amongst men, when one already exists outside the covenant and under judgement from God? 

 

III.  

 

D. H. Lawrence would say that the Fall wasn't into wickedness, or even carnal knowledge per se, but into self-consciousness.

 

And, in a sense, I agree with him; the real problem - particularly today, in an increasingly narcissistic and solopsistic world - is that we have fallen victim "to the developmental exigencies" [3] of our own consciousness and become enchanted by our own image or reflection, isolating us from everyone and everything else (not just God). 

 

We live according to our ideals of self: and this becomes at last a fatal form of neurosis. 

 

 

IV.   

 

Putting this Lawrentian reading to one side, however, let us return to the Victorian usage of the term fallen which, interestingly, was one that applied to a variety of women in many different settings and circumstances; not just prostitutes (and rape victims), even if the term fallen was most often conflated with unauthorised sexual knowledge and activity.

 

As always in England, class is invariably a consideration: some upper-middle class men regarded all women of a lower socio-economic status to be in some sense fallen (drunk, dirty, disagreeable, and disreputable, even if not actually on the game) [4].    

 

And, although the English sometimes like to pride themselves on their eccentricity, in some cases a woman may have been branded as fallen simply because she was unconventional and well-educated (queer in the old-fashioned sense; meaning not only odd, but ruined as a woman who would one day make a good wife and mother). 

 

Or perhaps she liked to laugh just a little too loudly; or dance just a little too wildly - in each case attracting attention to herself and forgetting the golden rule within bourgeois society of modesty and decorum at all times.     

 

 

V.

 

For a certain type of man, the great thing about a fallen woman is that she needs him to pick her up!  

 

Rescue and rehabilitation were key words in the Victorian era; fallen women needed saving by upright men, motivated by religious conviction, noble intentions, and - no doubt - for the chance to associate with known prostitutes, many of whom were very young girls.   

 

It would, I suppose, be a crass generalisation to label all Victorian men who helped fallen women as perverts - no doubt their motivations were complex and varied, ranging from genuine philanthropic concern to a paternalistic desire to exercise power and authority - but I do have reservations about those, like Gladstone, who seem overly concerned with vice and female sexuality tied to notions of chastity and innocence, etc. [5]    

 

 

VI.

 

As might be expected, male artists and writers also had a penchant for fallen women; indeed, apart from the Bible, it was Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) that most shaped the cultural (and pornographic) imagination on this issue (although the Victorians liked to think of her as more a passive victim or poor unfortunate, than as a woman who actively embraced evil, making her all the easier for them to save).  

 

In Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton (1848), the story of Esther - a working class woman living in Manchester who ends up working as a prostitute - illustrates how even good girls go bad in times of great poverty. 

 

Whilst readers were encouraged to recognise how socio-economic factors played a significant part in her downfall, Gaskell doesn't offer us a radical politics, choosing instead to promote Christian values as the way to solve life's problems and remain an upright citizen even when times are hard. Unfortunately, prayer and reciting scripture doesn't feed hungry mouths or put shoes on the feet of children.      

 

Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy also expressed their views on the topic of the fallen woman; the former even went so far as to set up a home for such poor creatures (Urania Cottage) [6], whilst in Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) the latter explores the consequences for a heroine who became a fallen woman as a result of being raped. 

 

Hardy, however, like Gaskell, ultimately couldn't fulfill the revolutionary implications of his own art due to the Victorian moral context he still worked within (whilst attempting to challenge such). D. H. Lawrence would suggest that Hardy's innate pessimism (and fatalism) didn't much help either.    

 

VII. 

 

By the mid-20th century, after the emancipation of women and their sexual activity was no longer associated so closely with moral corruption, the fallen woman as a theme had become irrelevant and, thankfully, faded from the popular imagination (even if ideas of innocence and experience; sin and redemption; vice and virtue, still bedevil us thanks to 2000 years of Christian moral culture). 

 

It's a romantic fantasy I know, but sometimes I long for the day when the snake will coil in peace about the ankle of Eve and the fruit of knowledge be finally digested; for a time when we can 'storm the angel-guarded gates and as victors travel to Eden home' [7], fallen creatures no longer, but risen beyond good and evil.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The theme of the fallen woman was becoming increasingly popular at the time that Dante Rossetti began this painting. Conceived in 1851, it was described by his niece Helen Rossetti as follows: 

      "A young drover from the country, while driving a calf to market, recognizes in a fallen woman on the pavement, his former sweetheart. He tries to raise her from where she crouches on the ground, but with closed eyes she turns her face from him to the wall."

      Cited in Timothy Hilton's The Pre-Raphaelites (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1970), p. 140.  

 

[2] That's not to downplay the significance of actually falling in a physical manner, which, along with poisoning, drowning, and road accidents, is a leading cause of accidental death (and personal injury) worldwide (particularly amongst the elderly). 

      As someone who once had a nasty fall in which I spiral fractured my right leg in four places, I can vouch for the fact that falls can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere and that whether one slips, trips, stumbles, or faints in a heap, it is never fun to fall (particulary on to a hard surface or from a height of any kind). For bodies are surprisingly fragile and easily cut, bruised, and broken. 

      Interestingly, research shows that women (of all age groups) are more prone to falling than men and one wonders why that is; does gravity exert a greater pull upon them? Does possession of a penis help men stay upright and balanced?    

 

[3] Trigant Burrows, The Socal Basis of Consciousness (1927), quoted by D. H. Lawrence in his (extremely positve) review of this work; see Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 332.

 

[4] The reality in Victorian England was that for many lower class women prostitution was the only way to make ends meet during hard economic times. Most might best be described as transient fallen women, i.e., women who moved on and off the game as financial pressures dictated. See Anne Isba, Gladstone and Women (Continuum, 2006), p. 102.  

 

[5] The British statesman and politician William Gladstone (1809 - 1898) was a man who not only enjoyed his rescue work among prostitutes - many of whom he found physically attractive and knew by name - he also liked to read pornography and indulge in self-flagellation with a whip; we know this from his own diaries. 

      Thus, whilst Gladstone may have insisted on his fidelity to his wife - who bore him eight children - clearly she didn't satisfy his more exotic sexual tastes (which were a source of deep shame to him). And if he frequented the company of many prostitutes over the years, it clearly wasn't just from a sense of moral duty.    

      See H.C.G. Matthew's biography, Gladstone 1809 - 1874 (Clarendon Press, 1997). An excerpt frpm pages 90-95 can be read on The Victorian Web: click here. As Matthew concludes:

      "Gladstone's involvement with prostitutes was [...] in no way casual, nor was it merely charitable work which might equally have taken another form [...] The time spent on it, the obvious intensity of many of the encounters [...] show how at the centre of a Victorian family and religious life was a sexual situation of great tension." 

 

[6] Urania Cottage was what we would now call a women's shelter, but which the Victorians termed a Magdalene asylum. It was established in Shepherd's Bush in 1847 by Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the wealthiest women in England and a well-known philanthropist.

      I don't know what conditions were like at the hostel, but one imagines it was preferable to prison or the workhouse. Dickens explained to the residents - mostly prostitutes - that although they were fallen and degraded, they weren't lost and that they would be helped to return to happiness - provided they were good girls who worked hard and behaved themselves (no bad temper; no bad language; no bad conduct). Dickens also chose the reading material available to the women - and what dresses they should wear.  

       Over time, women admitted to the house became more varied; sex workers were joined girls convicted of crimes such as theft, and those who were guilty of nothing else other than being homeless or destitute. 

 

[7] I'm quoting from memory here from D. H. Lawrence's poem 'Paradise Re-entered', in the collection Look! We Have Come Through! (Chatto & Windus, 1917), which can be read online by clicking here. 

      The poem is found in Volume I of the Cambridge Edition of Lawrence's poems, ed. Christopher Pollnitz (2013), on p. 197.

 

 

This post is for Lee Ellen and Jennifer.     

      

 

Scarlet Threads

A Study in Scarlet 

(SA/2025) 

 

There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, 

and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. [1]

 

  

I. 

 

I don't dislike the bright shade of red known as scarlet, even if I prefer other colours, such as sky-blue pink and lemon drizzle yellow. That said, the less of an orange tinge the better (I don't like the secondary colour orange).

 

 

II. 

 

Like other colours, scarlet is associated with many things but has no fixed meaning. 

 

Even Christians can't decide whether to value it as the colour of blood and thus associate it with martyrdom (think of Jesus and the miracle of transubstantiation), or as the colour of sexual passion and of sin, associated with prostitution and adultery (think of the Whore of Babylon riding a scarlet beast and Hester Prynne wearing her infamous scarlet letter). 

 

 

III. 

 

Scarlet is an old word that can be traced back to ancient Persia. But in English, from around 1250, it referred primarily to the kind of brightly coloured cloth that the rich and powerful like to drape themselves in so as to demonstrate to the world that they are, indeed, rich and powerful. 

 

The finest scarlet, called scarlatto came from Venice, where it was made from kermes [2] by a guild which closely guarded the formula, much as KFC guards its secret mix of eleven herbs and spices today. Cloth dyed scarlet cost as much as ten times more than cloth dyed blue. 

 

However, in the 16th century an even more vivid scarlet began to arrive in Europe from the New World. For when the Spanish conquered Mexico, they discovered that the Aztecs were making brilliant red shades from another variety of scale insect called cochineal. 

 

The first shipments of this new and improved (and significantly cheaper to produce) scarlet were sent from Mexico to Seville in 1523.

      

Naturally, the Venetians at first tried to block the use of the cochineal in Europe, insisting on the superiority of their own dye. But, before the century was over, it was being used in in Italy, just as in Spain, France, and Holland, and almost all the fine scarlet garments of Europe were eventually made with cochineal. 

 

 

IV.

 

These days, in an age of mechanical cowardice and camouflage, British soldiers all wear their drab multi-terrain patterned uniforms. But, once upon a time, they were known as the Redcoats and proudly wore scarlet tunics so as to be seen by the enemy ...

 

This distinctive uniform was a powerful symbol of national identity and British imperial rule. Sadly, it was gradually phased out during the mid-19th century and the last time the British Army wore red in active combat was during the Battle of Ginnis, in 1885 (which they won).      

 

V.

 

Turning from the world of warfare to the world of art, we find that great painters across the ages have loved to use vermilion, a form of scarlet pigment made from the powdered mineral cinnabar. 

 

However, after the First World War commercial production began of an intense new synthetic pigment -cadmium red - made from cadmium sulfide and selenium. And this new scarlet pigment soon became the standard red used by artists in the 20th century. 

 

 

VI. 

 

I've already referred in passing to Hawthorne's great novel The Scarlet Letter (1850). But there are two other scarlet works of fiction I feel I should mention ... 

 

Firstly, Conan Doyle's detective mystery which introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world, A Study in Scarlet (1888), in which the main clue to a case of multiple homicide is the German word Rache (revenge) written in blood on the wall.  

 

Secondly, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), by Baroness Orczy, the story of an English lord, Sir Percy Blakeney, who wore a disguise in order to rescue French nobles from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. 

 

Sir Percy was supported by a secret society - the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - and he left behind him a flower of the species Lysemachia arvensis as his calling card. 

 

 

VII. 

 

There is, of course, a politics of scarlet, just as there's a politics of most things (even brushing your teeth). 

 

And in the 20th century, the red flag became firmly associated in the cultural imagination with revolutionary socialism; both the Soviet Union and communist China adopted such (although the Communards beat them to it in 1871).   

 

Funnily enough, in China red is also the colour of happiness, but I'm not sure the tens of millions of people who died during Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward (1958-62) found much to smile about. 

 

 

VIII. 

 

Something else that isn't all that funny, is the infectious illness common among young children known as scarlet fever. Although it can now be treated with antibiotics, it was once a major cause of childhood mortality. 

 

Ultimately, no one wants to see anything other than a healthy looking pink tongue; any other colour - white, yellow, black, or scarlet - and I would suggest you go see your doctor. 

 

  

IX.

 

And finally, let us not forget she who is Scarlet Johansson ...

 

Woody Allen was fiercely criticised for describing this American actress whom he had cast in his 2005 film Match Point as sexually radioactive [3]. 

 

But then, Woody Allen is criticised by a lot of people for a lot of things he has said and (allegedly) done. And, if I'm being honest, I understand exactly what he means and doubt there would have been so much fuss were he not considerably older than her; i.e., it's a case of ageism masquerading as moralism.

 

 

The Scarlet Pimpernel Meets Scarlett Johansson 

(SA/2025)

  

  

Notes

 

[1] Quote from A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is in this novel that the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, ably assisted by Dr Watson, makes his first appearance. The line is spoken by Holmes, to Watson, in an attempt to define his role as a detective. 

      For me, part of the appeal of this line is it reverses the biblical idea of a scarlet thread as a symbol of redemption and divine grace (see the story of the harlot Rahab in the Book of Joshua). 

 

[2] Kermes is a genus of gall-like scale insects in the family Kermesidae. They feed on the sap of oaks and the females produce a red dye that was the original source of natural crimson. 

 

[3] Woody Allen, Apropos of Nothing (Arcade Publishing, 2020). 

      What Allen said in full was that Miss Johansson - who was nineteen when cast in Matchpoint - was "an exciting actress, a natural movie star, real intelligence, quick and funny, and when you meet her you have to fight your way through the pheromones ... Not only was she gifted and beautiful, but sexually she was radioactive." Allen was seventy when he made the film in 2005 and eighty-five when his memoir was published in 2020. 

      Whilst this is not meant to be a post about Woody Allen and the accusations of abuse made against him, I would like to say shame on all those at the Hatchette Book Group who played a part in preventing the book's original publication with Grand Central Publishing. 

      As for Johansson, whilst she has expressed displeasure at being hypersexualised, she has also admitted being flattered that people find her attractive. I think that the film critic Anthony Lane hits the nail on the head when he writes that she is "evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation". 

      See Lane's piece in The New Yorker entitled 'Her Again' (24 March, 2014), Vol. 90, No. 5, pp. 56-63.            

 

 

On the Planet of the Apes with Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith (allegedly) wore a gorilla mask while writing 

and conducting the score to Planet of the Apes (1968) 

in order to better understand the film and its themes 

 

 

I. 

 

Last night, I returned to the Planet of the Apes ... 

 

That is to say, I rewatched the 1968 American post-apocalyptic science-fiction film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, starring Charlton Heston (as Taylor), Roddy McDowall (as Cornelius), Kim Hunter (as Zira), Maurice Evans (as Dr Zaius), and Linda Harrison (as Nova).

 

As well as marvelling once more at the cinematography, set and costume designs, and various other visual aspects of the film, I was for the fist time really struck by the brilliance of Jerry Goldsmith's score ...

 

 

II. 

 

Whilst working with a traditional orchestra - albeit one which made use of innovative techniques and some unusual percussion instruments [1] - Goldsmith fashioned a composition that is paradoxically primitive yet futuristic, alien yet strangely familiar, and thus perfectly suited to Earth in the year 3978, when apes have found their voices and assumed a position of dominance, whilst humanity, on the other hand, has lost its exceptionalism (as well as the power of speech).    

 

As one commentator notes, Goldsmith gives us an unsettling avant-garde combination of Bartók and Stravinsky [2] and why he didn't win the Oscar for Best Original Score for a non-musical motion picture in 1968 I don't know [3]. 

 

Perhaps it was just a little too clever (and unconventional) for the Academy; Goldsmith's background in classical music and his knowledge and appreciation of modern developments such as dodecaphonism (i.e, twelve-note composition) set him apart from many of those in Hollywood (including many of his fellow composers whom he felt were just repeating the same things over and over again) [4].      

 

  

Notes

 

[1] For example, when scoring Planet of the Apes, Goldsmith looped drums into an echoplex, had his orchestra imitate the grunting sounds of apes, and used stainless steel mixing bowls (among other objects) to create unique percussive sounds. 

 

[2] The Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók and Russian born composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky are widely considered two of the most important figures within the world of modern classical music. 

      Bartók's innovative style blended complex, percussive musical ideas and rhythms with extensive use of native folk music, thereby giving the latter a distinctive modernist edge. His work has had a lasting and significant influence on later classical composers, as well as those who, like Goldsmith, scored music for film and television. 

      Stravinsky's stylistic versatility along with his revolutionary approach to rhythm and harmony - as demonstrated in ballets like The Rite of Spring (1913) - opened up entirely new ways of composing and, like Bartók, he was highly influential on those who came after him. 

      Goldsmith cited both men as inspirational, whilst also acknowledging the profound impact made by Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone serialism on his own work, using the latter to create the psychological tension that is a crucial aspect of many a film score. For a comprehensive discussion of this, see John O'Callaghan's Simians & Serialism: A History and Analysis of Jerry Goldsmith's Score to Planet of the Apes (Pithikos Entertainment, 2015); an expanded second edition of this text was published in 2023.

 

[3] Actually, I do know: Goldsmith was nominated for the Academy Award, but lost out to John Barry for his work on The Lion in Winter (dir. Anthony Harvey). Planet of the Apes was also nominated for Best Costume Design (Morton Haack). The only Oscar it picked up, however, was an honorary award given to John Chambers, for outstanding makeup achievement. 

 

[4] It's interesting to note that although Goldsmith would receive 18 Academy Award nominations during his career - making him one of the most nominated of all Hollywood composers - he only once took home an Oscar, for his score for The Omen (dir. Richard Donner, 1976). 

      He did, posthumously, also receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017, in recognition of his many achievements.

 

 

Musical bonus: Jerry Goldsmith, Main Title from Planet of the Apes (1968): click here.  

 

Cinematic bonus: to watch the famous final scene from Planet of the Apes on YouTube, click here. 

 

 

This post is in memory of the English primatologist Jane Goodall who, sadly, died a few days ago (1 October 2025), aged 91. She spent more than six decades working and living alongside wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park, in Tanzania.      

 

 

In Memory of Soo Catwoman

Soo Catwoman (1954 - 2025)

Photo by Ray Stevenson

 

 

I. 

 

What Roland Barthes felt about the face of Greta Garbo, I feel about the face of Soo Catwoman: it's a pure and perfect object; untouched by time or finger-tips; unmarked by traces of emotion. 

 

It's a face that belongs to art, not to nature, and which has all the cold and expressionless beauty of a mask. An iconic face. A punk fetish object.

 

 

II.  

 

Although she wasn't a member of the Bromley Contingent, Sue Lucas - better known as Soo Catwoman - was a crucial (and much photographed) figure on London's early punk scene and a confidente of the Sex Pistols, at one time sharing a flat with Sid Vicious. 

 

Her distinctive feline image was so powerful that she was even chosen to feature on the front cover of the first (and only) edition of the official Sex Pistols' fanzine, Anarchy in the U. K. and she was widely acknowledged - even by Rotten - as being one of the true creators of punk style. 

 

And so, I was saddened to hear of her passing a few days ago (30 September), aged 70. But, just as Leonardo's Mona Lisa has fascinated people for centuries, I suspect people will be looking at images of Lucas for many years to come. 

 

For whilst the latter may not possess the same enigmatic smile as this Renaissance beauty, she perfectly embodies the character of punk womanhood; combining a defiant and aggressive realism with elements of romance and ambiguity.  

 

And, like la Gioconda, Soo Catwoman fixes the viewer with her gaze and it is this challenging aspect that sometimes provokes a violent response in those who like to look at art works, but don't like art works to look back at them.     

 

Note: for an earlier post on Soo Catwoman - Of Clowns and Catwomen (8 Dec 2016) - please click here. 

 

 

Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 6-8

Russ Bestley: Turning Revolt Into Style (Manchester University Press, 2025)

Stephen Alexander (à la Jamie Reid): God Save Russ Bestley (2025)

 

 

I. 

 

I have my own tale to tell in relation to the theme of Chapter 6 - 'Industry and the Individual' - or punk vs the closed shop. 

 

In 1982, I worked for six weeks at 19 Magazine in the features department, on an attachment as part of a degree course. I arranged and conducted an interview with Vivienne Westwood at her West End studio. The fashion editor at 19 wasn't happy - as I’d not sought her permission - and the NUJ rep wasn't happy either, as I wasn't a member nor even a paid employee. And so, even though the features editor loved the piece I wrote on Westwood, it went unpublished. 

 

I hate the bosses and the management. But, despite "intersecting concerns regarding class" [a] and worker's rights, I hate the unions and their restrictive practices too.

 

 

II.

 

"By the late 1970s, the original punk scene in the United Kingdom had been largely commercialised through the rebranding of new wave and post-punk ..." [200] 

 

That's true: but we should also recall that "some of the movement's more successful exponents" [200] were more than happy to collaborate in this and to assume elevated positions within "a revised and updated professional arena" [200]; i.e., to build careers and to make something of their lives.    

 

In other words, there were ambitious and aspirational individuals who wanted to get ahead had no issue with transforming from punks into yuppies and celebrities:

 

"The entrepreneurial spirit of punk [...] afforded entry to the fields of journalism, popular music, film, photography and design for those who chose to take the opportunity and run with it." [200] 

 

Some may still have pretended they wanted to 'smash the system' or 'disrupt it from the inside', but we all know most simply wanted to feather their own little nests and, whilst wearing their designer suits, turn rebellion into money.   

 

"To some critics", writes Bestley, "it was like punk had never happened" [200] [b]. 

 

Or, rather, I would say, it was as if the Sex Pistols had never existed.

 

 

III.

 

On the other hand ... 

 

I don't much care either for those who continued to cling on to a "stereotypical model of punk [...] despite the proliferation of new styles and the fragmentation of post-punk in myriad new directions" [201]. To paraphrase Jello Biafra: 'you ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair / when a [stuckist] still lives inside your head [c].     

 

Like Bestley, I'm less than impressed by hardcore punks in the early 1980s who "seem fixated on death, destruction and war, with little of the humour or self-awareness of the previous punk generation" [202]. 

 

And the hardcore punk designers were less than imaginative too, giving us "illustrations of stereotypical 'punk' figures replete with studded leather jackets and mohican hairstyles" [202] which have helped to establish "a set of generic graphic conventions that unfortunately still resonates across global punk scenes today" [202].

 

Bestley concludes: 

 

"Unlike the first wave of punk designers, who quickly moved on from what were fast becoming stereotypical visual symbols - such as the swastika, safety pin and razor blade - this punk generation seemed stuck in a time loop (or doom loop) of its own making." [202]

 

 

IV.   

 

Away from the hardcore dinosaurs, "punk and post-punk dress styles shifted [...] to the more flamboyant and expressive end of the dressing up box" [204], as a colourful new romanticism replaced punk nihilism; in 1980, McLaren and Westwood closed Seditionaries and opened Worlds End; out with the black bondage trousers and in with the gold striped pirate pants. 

 

Ultimately, writes Bestley, "the punk 'revolution' was to prove largely ineffective in its ambition to move away from pop music traditions and long-standing business practices, with many artists [...] falling into line as the industry took control" [204]. 

 

Rather irritatingly, Bestley (like so many others) seems prepared to let Rotten off the hook and give him far more credit than he deserves:

 

"Seeing the winds of change, Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten quit the band at the end of a disastrous North American tour in January 1978. Going back to his real name, John Lydon, he quickly established a new group, Public Image Ltd., with the explicit intention to turn the image of the rock performer upside down and to critique the exploitative practices of the music indusry from the inside." [204]

 

Firstly, Rotten didn't 'quit the band'; he was thrown overboard by McLaren with the agreement (or, if you prefer, connivance) of Cook and Jones who didn't like the fact Rotten was behaving like a prima donna, if not actually morphing into Rod Stewart [d].

 

Secondly, the North American tour may have been ill-starred, but it was not 'disastrous' in the sense that I think Bestley means. Rather, it was the consummation (or perfecting) of the nihilism that always lay at the heart of the Sex Pistols project and should be celebrated as such. Rotten's was a necessary sacrifice; just as Sid's death, which secured his tragic and iconic status, is a promise of life and its eternal recurrence [e].         

Thirdly, whatever his 'intentions' we all know 'Lydon' [f] signed an eight album record deal with Virgin and received a £75,000 advance from Branson [g] soon after exiting the Sex Pistols, with the latter promising to promote PiL at the forefront of the post-punk scene.   

 

And we all know the abject figure Lydon is today [click here and here].  

 

 

V.

 

This is true enough - and a good thing, I think:

 

"The new post-punk scenes moved away from focusing purely on music and lyrics to far more visual expressions of style and taste, along with a wider range of philosophical and aesthetic concerns ..." [207]

 

I'm not sure that references to oblique postmodern theory by music journalists such as Paul Morley necessarily makes them pretentious, however. And, besides, surely we might question the supposed moral merits of humility? The dreary utilitarianism (and realism) of the English intellectual tradition is not something I would wish to defend.  

 

After all, pretension is a form of pretending and, as my friend Thomas Tritchler likes to remind me, pretending is a vital and productive act of the imagination [h]. 

  

 

VI. 

Anyone for electronic music ...? 

 

No thanks: I don't care about (or care for) the Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Ultravox, Gary Numan ... et al. 

 

As Malcolm always said: 'A man sitting on a mountain top tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger sound than all the electronic music of today.' 

 

And who really wants to see pop stars standing behind synthesisers like clerks behind the counter of a hightstreet bank?     

 

 

VII. 

 

Bestley closes Chapter 7 with a couple of paragraphs that essentially summarise the book and so merit being quoted at length:

 

"Graphic design and commercial art have a long-standing relationship with both advances in technology [...] and artistic or cultural trends. While this book has argued that much punk graphic design was heavily impacted - or even driven - by access to materials and technology, punk's visual provocations clearly also had antecedents in Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International, together with Pop Art and its inherent critique of the distinction between fine art and the commercial arena ... But those connections were often indistinct, serendipitous and stylistic, rather than formal - and the same can be said of the similarities between post-punk or new wave music graphics and the new styles emanating from American and European designers in response to postmodernism." [230]

 

"As all these converging themes illustrate, the historical relationships between punk, art history and design are highly complex, with punk and post-punk graphic approaches drawing upon earlier visual conventions while they themselves helped to inspire a new generation of design professionals working outside the subculture. Whether that fits the model of postmodernist theory or not is something of a moot point, since punk's historical moment intersects so closely with wider changes in the arts, media and politics that it is almost impossible to separate causes from consequences." [230-31][i]   

 

 

VIII. 

 

"Popular music has changed irrevocably in the past forty years." [233] 

 

Well, that's true - but then everything has changed, hasn't it? Change is the only constant (becoming is ironically stamped with the character of being, as Nietzsche might say) [j]. 

 

One of the things that has significantly changed for Bestley is the fact that popular music no longer plays such a crucial role in the lives of the young: "The  notion of music as a core element of personal identity and (sub)cultural capital seemed to fall away in the 1990s, a process that accelerated in the new millennium." [235]

 

When Bestley and I were teenagers, the first question we would ask of anyone was: What bands d'you like? And that pretty much determined the relationship (or lack of relationship) going forward. 

 

But young people today pick 'n' mix from a variety of music genres and have a much wider range of interests; "from film to fashion, celebrity culture, sports, literature and the arts" [235]. They don't care about shared communal identity so much as their individual right to like what they like and share selfies on social media.   

 

This doesn't bother me as much as it bothers Bestley, who bemoans the fact that pop music is once again "simply a form of light entertainment or background noise" [235] and that rock music was also sent into sharp decline by "banal television 'talent' shows and the return of the pop music Svengali in the odious form of Simon Cowell" [235]. 

 

As for punk? Well, punk "became recuperated [...] through the cementing of a set of visual and musical tropes that could be picked up and regurgitated in the affectation [...] of a generic 'punk' identity" [235].

 

Indie, meanwhile, is dismissed as "the bastardised offspring of the original independent post-punk scene, combined with a postmodern, sometimes ironic and often conceited form of self-reflection in musical approach, dress style and design" [236]. 

 

And, finally, don't mention the post-punk revival of the early 2000s; because that was merely a commercial pastiche "with highly successful groups adopting some of the gestures and signature styles of their late 1970s forebears, though often with little of the wit or intelligence" [236].

 

Ouch!  

 

Even today's reinvigorated interest in music graphics is greeted with more sorrow than joy: 

 

"Sadly, this interest is often linked to home decor and interior styling, with 'album art' displayed on bookshelves or in purpose-made frames hung on the wall - a marker of the owner's cool taste and cultural capital, rather than an object with a function and purpose." [236]

 

Again, all this is absolutely true, but I simply don't feel his pain. 

 

As for themed live events and corporate festivals ... the answer is: don't go! 

 

I wouldn't dream of heading up to Blackpool for the Rebellion Festival, although, funnily enough, I wouldn't mind visiting the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas that Bestley mentions; "a massive former warehouse building in the Arts District. now dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of punk rock while offering guided tours led by ageing pop punk musicians" [237] - and a gift shop!

 

Like it or not, this is who we are today; not fans in the old (authentic) sense, but consumers in search of a simulated (or ersatz) experience they can be posted about on Instagram or uploaded to YouTube [k]. 

 

Malcolm McLaren decried such toward the end of his life as a karoake culture - i.e., one which lacks substance and originality and relies upon pre-existing ideas and old styles constantly being recycled and repackaged - and, to be honest, I'm a little disappointed Bestley didn't refer to McLaren's TED Talk on this topic [l].  

  

IX.   

 

Returning to his theme (not quite like the proverbial dog to its vomit, but like someone with an itch that they simply have to scratch, even if it causes irritation to do so), Bestley writes:

 

"Punk's visual conventions [...] were appropriated, mimicked and blatantly copied by a rampant branding and marketing industry that is always on the lookout for material that might communicate an elusive sense of authenticity and agency. From trainers to power tools, credit cards to hamburgers, punk graphic conventions have been milked for all they are worth in the pursuit of profit. [...] Meanwhile, identikit, cosplay 'punks' around the globe adopt outfits lifted directly from the stylistic dead end of 1980s hardcore punk, in a desperate search for subcultural legitimacy." [237]

 

Again, all of that is true, but one wonders why Bestley cares so much (to the point, indeed, of writing a 250 page book about it)? I suppose it's because he believes that just as beneath the paving stones lies the beach, so there is "much more" [238] beneath the surface of punk and post-punk graphic design than meets the eye. 

 

What would this hidden punk substance "beyond stylistic gestures and visual tropes" [238] be one wonders? And why should it have priority over the latter? 

 

I suspect, for Bestley, this (metaphysical) substance consists of content, function and purpose and is what guarantees that the superficial (material) expressions of punk possess value and meaning. 

 

I have to admit, I find that a little odd coming from a graphic designer. One might have expected him to remain courageously at the surface, affirming forms, tones, and words; i.e., the world of appearance [m] (which is perhaps the only world that exists for us).  

 

Unfortunately, we do not have time to enter here into a philosophical discussion about "punk as a concept and its manifestation" [247] in physical form (a statement almost Platonic in its dualism which makes me wonder if punk wasn't simply another form of idealism all along).    

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 190. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the post. 

 

[b] Writing in the following chapter of his study, Bestley notes: 

      "Even the arch Situationist behind punk's original graphic provocations, Jamie Reid, found a creative home in the mid-1980s, taking up the offer of a studio at Assorted Images to develop his art practice. While Reid never did make the leap to the commercial graphic design industry, he did continue to collaborate with musicians, artists, filmmakers and political activists, embracing the potential of new print reproduction tools to create a new aesthetic." [215] 

 

[c] The paraphrased line is from the Dead Kennedy's track 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off', written by Jello Biafra, and found on the EP In God We Trust, Inc. (Alternative Tentacles, 1981). It was also released as a single in November of that year.   

 

[d] For more on Rotten's dismissal from the band in January 1978, see the post entitled 'It Was on the Good Ship Venus ...' (4 March 2024): click here. 

      As indicated here, Rotten was starting to develop certain starry pretensions and thinking about how he might develop a long-term (possibly solo) career in the music industry. In this, he had the backing of record company executives, who saw him as a valuable asset and someone whom - unlike McLaren - they could work with (see note g below). 

 

[e] See the post 'Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) - click here - where I explain what I mean by this.  

 

[f] On being told that 'Johnny Rotten' was a name owned by the Sex Pistols management company (Glitterbest), John Lydon reverted to his birth name.  

 

[g] Lydon also enjoyed a very nice, all expenses paid 'working holiday' in Jamaica, staying at the Sheraton hotel, accompanied by Richard Branson and others in the first three weeks of February 1978. In addition, Virgin agreed to pay for the rehearsal facilities and studio time for the new group Lydon planned to get together.  

       Later that same month, Lydon also flies to LA for a meeting with executives at Warner Bros. and to solicit further support for his (still unformed) new band. They eventually pay him £12,000 and Lydon uses the cash to buy a flat at 45 Gunter Grove in Fulham, West London. 

      Finally, let it be noted that when Lydon takes McLaren and Glitterbest to court in 1979, Virgin - supposedly neutral and in favour of an out of court settlement that will allow both the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited to peacefully coincide on the same label - are clearly more in Lydon's camp than McLaren's. 

      The public school hippie Richard Branson - "four years younger [...] but by far the smarter businessman" - was arguably motivated by a degree of personal animosity towards McLaren; not least because he disliked the derisive nickname, Mr Pickle, that the latter coined for him. When Cook and Jones were offered a record deal of their own by Branson, the former Sex Pistols switched sides and Glitterbest's case (such as it was) pretty much collapsed. 

      Note: the line quoted is from Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355.

 

[h] See the third part of Tritchler's post on the malign/ed art of faking it (27 Dec. 2014): click here.   

 

[i] One wonders if Bestley has ever considered the possibility that there are no causes and consequences - i.e., that the theory of cause and effect is a convenient and conventional fiction that we impose on reality in order to simplify and understand the complex chaos of events and which enables us to posit concepts such as free will and moral responsibility.  

 

[j] See §617 of The Will to Power, trans. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1968), p. 330.  

 

[k] As Bestley later notes: 

      "Viewed from a contemporary vantage point, 'spectacular subcultures' such as punk, that centered on tribal affiliations and subtle (or not so subtle) visual tropes, appear to have come from another age. The internet, personal blogs, influencers, social media and search engines have redefined modes of discovery, criticism and taste-making." [247] 

 

[l] See McLaren's TED Talk on the topic of authentic creativity contra karaoke culture (October 2009): click here. 

       I have to admit, McLaren rather surprises - and rather disappoints - with this return to highly suspect notions of authenticity, originality, substance, etc. Here was a man who once celebrated style and, as an artist, understood the importance of the surface (see note m below). 

      It pains me to say it, but one wonders if, in this final public presentation, it's fatigue, and age and illness that speaks (McLaren died six months afterwards, aged 64, from a form of asbestos-related lung cancer (mesothelioma)).    

 

[m] I'm half-quoting and half-paraphrasing from section 4 of Nietzsche's 1886 Preface to The Gay Science, written in praise of those artists who, like the ancient Greeks, knew how to be superficial out of profundity.   

   

Notes on the Introduction to Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

Notes on Chapters 1 & 2 of Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

Notes on Chapters 3-5 of Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 3-5

Russ Bestley: Turning Revolt Into Style 

(Manchester University Press, 2025)

 

 

I.

 

It's true that although UK punk began in London, it soon spread elsewhere; that it was neither a uniform nor static phenomenon; that it was "subject to rapid and dramatic change over time, particularly as local scenes sprang up across the country" [a]. 

 

But whereas Bestley, like most other punk scholars, is interested in the way in which "punk's evolutionary diaspora was as much geographical as it was temporal and aesthetic" [103], I have to admit that my own interest tends to begin and end at 430 King's Road. 

 

And whilst I wouldn't dismiss the punk scene as it developed in Leeds, or Manchester, or even Penzance [b] as part of the "'incorporation and containment'" [c] of McLaren's project, I do think that the Sex Pistols were something distinctly different, as recognised by Bernard Brook-Partridge [d].

 

In brief, whether we choose to think of them as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [e], or as a group of Dickensian yobs looking to swindle their way to the top of the music industry whence they could shit on their own success, they were not a punk band merely offering us, in Rotten's words, a bit of a twang, a giggle ... [f].           

 

 

II. 

 

Post-punk: an aesthetic and stylistic expansion, which, to be fair, did result in some great records and previously unknown pleasures. 

 

And I'd concede the point that one cannot stay forever at the level of the ruins, like those "sections of the original punk scene ossified around a set of fixed aesthetic conventions" [106]. Ultimately, one has to "build up new little habitats, have new little hopes"[g] and even McLaren and Westwood ditched punk for piracy in 1980 and set off in search of new sounds, new looks, and new adventures.   

 

But, on the other hand, I'm extremely wary of those who think Metal Box is more fun than The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, or more radical than Your Cassette Pet - and I'm sorry to say that seems to include Bestley, who describes the former as ground-breaking and thrills to the album's dub rhythms and "Lydon's leftfield, poetic lyrics" [105], whilst not once mentioning either of the other two albums.     

 

 

III. 

 

Extreme punk politics: from puritanical anarcho-hippies Crass, to fascist morons Screwdriver - what can one say? 

 

Punk, as I understood it, rejected political asceticism of all varieties; it had no time for "the sad militants, the terrorists of theory, those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political discourse" [h]. 

 

Punk was not apolitical; but it was transpolitical ...

 

 

IV.  

 

"A significant part of the emerging punk aesthetic was driven by enthusiastic followers and amateur producers ..." [124] 

  

Sadly, it seems to me that amateurism is, in this professional era, increasingly looked down upon (with the possible exception being that of amateur porn; the erotic folk art of our digital age). 

 

Which is a pity: for I tend to be of a Greek persuasion and consider the amateur as a virtuous figure; open minded, devoted, and full of passion for their discipline regardless of whether this brings public recognition or generates an income. 

 

Ultimately, as Roland Barthes notes, the true amateur is not defined by inferior knowledge or an imperfect technique, but, rather, by the fact that he does not not identify himself to others in order to impress or intimidate; nor constantly worry about status and reputation. 

 

Also, crucially, the amateur unsettles the distinction between work and play, art and life, which is doubtless why they are feared by those who like to police borders, protect categories, and form professional associations.  

 

Having said that, the fact remains that the "history of punk graphics in the United Kingdom starts [... and I'm tempted to say finishes] with Jamie Reid" [124], whose work for the Sex Pistols captured what they were about with a high degree of skill and style.   

 

Obviously, there were many other design practitioners and graphic artists who emerged at the time of punk and contributed to it. But, other than Winston Smith - who was associated with the American punk band the Dead Kennedy's - and Nick Egan, who worked in partnership with McLaren in the post-Pistols period, I can't think of any whose work ever really excited my interest.  

 

I know a lot of people rave, for example, about Peter Saville's cover for the first Joy Division album (Unknown Pleasures, 1979) and Mike Coles's cover for the eponymous debut album by Killing Joke (1980) [i]. However, whilst they're both vaguely interesting works, neither really means anything to me, whereas Reid's Never Mind the Bollocks cover still makes smile almost 50 years later.    

 

 

V. 

 

Chapter 4 concludes on a slightly depressing note (but true, of course):

 

"Despite the rhetoric of the punk 'revolution', little changed at the major labels [...] The recorded music industry was founded on the core principles of innovation and novelty, at least in relation to identifying new artists that could be moulded and exploited to generate popular appeal. The commercially viable areas of punk and new wave were rapidly absorbed, just like the at-the-time radical music and youth scenes that preceded them." [151]

 

Similarly, while some of the "new breed of punk-inspired graphic designers set themselves apart from the traditional art departments [...] many of the more successful practitioners joined the ranks of the commercial studios as time went on" [151].

 

In brief, never trust a punk [j] and remember - to paraphrase Nietzsche writing in the Genealogy - no one is more corruptible than a graphic artist ... [k]   

 

 

VI. 

 

I think the main takeaway from Bestley's book is that amateurs and professionals need one another and that both types of producer "informed the wider punk aesthetic and reflected common visual conventions that were emerging as the new subculture made a nationwide impact" [154].

 

Those who lack education, skills, and material resources but who still attempt to do things for themselves should not be looked down on. But inverted snobbery aimed at those who are professionally trained and talented and do have access to the very latest technologies [l] is also unwarranted. 

 

 

VII.   

   

Whilst I'm not particularly interested in the "range of processes chosen by punk and post-punk designers for the origination and print reproduction of record sleeves, posters and other visual materials" [155], there are passages in Chapter 5 of Turning Revolt Into Style that caught my attention and in which Bestley's analysis is spot on. 

 

For example, I agree that the reason many punk visual tropes and techniques work so well is because they not only "drew upon a much longer tradition of agitprop art and design" [157], but unfolded within "a new context that extended into mainstream culture resulting in [...] a more powerful impact" [157].

 

In other words, things such as record sleeves, posters, badges, etc., "were not fine art objects to be appreciated by connoisseurs in galleries and exhibitions; they were examples of mass-produced printed ephemera that conveyed a sense of identity and subcultural capital" [157].

 

Of course, today, many of these same objects are in fine art galleries and museums and cultural capital is now big business. 

 

Thus, for example, a copy of the one-off official Sex Pistols newspaper, Anarchy in the U. K., produced by Jamie Reid in collaboration with Sophie Richmond, Ray Stevenson, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, and featuring a striking photo of Soo Catwoman on the cover, may have had a cover price of 20p when it was sold on the Anarchy Tour in 1976, but it will now set you back £2000 if you wish to buy it from Peter Harrington in Mayfair: click here. 

 

Cash from chaos, as someone once said ...

 

 

VIII.   

 

Bestley mentions many of the more successful punk fanzines; Sniffin' Glue, Ripped & Torn, Chainsaw, etc. - and several of the fanzines produced outside of London which "reflected the development of scenes well beyond punk's stereotypical epicentre" [172].

 

One that he doesn't mention and won't know of - one that probably only me and one other person in the world remember - was Yourself which was a single photocopied page of A4, printed on both sides, and freely distributed amongst the student body of a small Catholic college which, at that time (1981) was affiliated with the University of Leeds. 

 

The subtitle read: 19 and young - 20 and old (ageism was a defining feature of punk as I remember it back in the day) and the text called for a rejection of all authority, particularly beginning with the letter 'P' (parents, priests, and policemen, for example). 

        

 

IX.

Ultimately, as Bow Wow Wow once informed us, it's T-E-K technology - not punk rock or other forms of subcultural activity - that really brings about fundamental change in society; demolishing patriarchal structures and creating greater degrees of A-U-T autonomy [m]. 

As Bestley notes in his closing remarks to Chapter 5, "changes in the social and technical practices of design blurred the boundaries between amateur and professional production" [178-79]. He continues:

"Changing technologies and the culmination of an ongoing restructuring of the labour market [...] enabled more control along with creative freedom for a new generation of designers ..." [179]

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 103. All future page references to this text will be given directly in the post.

 

[b] See Simon Parker's PZ77: A Town a Time A Tribe (Scryfa, 2022), for a nostalgic look back at the punk scene in Penzance in 1977. And for my thoughts on this work, see the post entitled 'Punk History is for Pissing On' (21 Sept 2025): click here. 

      In brief: I don't like it. Bestley seems to approve of punk bands acknowledging their roots and paying homage to their locality and that of their friends, family, and fans; singing about "the issues that affected their local community" [113]. But that kind of folksy provincialism doesn't really appeal to me (not even when it's the Clash singing about West London). 

      In part, the is due to my own intellectual background in schizonomadic philosophy; home is made for coming from, it's not somewhere to idealise (or even dream of going to). Punk, at it's best, is headless and homeless (one might do well to recall the destination of the Sex Pistols bus as well as Poly Styrene's problematising of identity). Remember kids: civic pride is simply a form of micro-nationalism.

 

[c] Gary Clarke, quoted by Russ Bestley in Turning Revolt Into Style, p. 103.

 

[d] Brook-Partridge was a high-profile Tory who served as chairman of the Greater London Council's arts committee (1977-79). He famously described punk rock as "nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy,  prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating". 

      Singling out the Sex Pistols as the worst of the punk rock groups, Brook-Partridge labelled them as the "antithesis of humankind" and suggested that "the whole world would be vastly improved by their total and utter non-existence". 

      Malcolm so-loved this, that a filmed recording of Brook-Partridge uttering these words was included in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). As far as I recall, no other punk (post-punk, or new wave) band ever solicited such a vitriolic response. Click here to watch on YouTube.

 

[e] Peter York, 'Them', Harpers & Queen (Oct 1976), quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329.  

 

[f] Of course, Rotten himself would eventually collaborate with Virgin Records and build himself a long term career in the music business. 

 

[g] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 5. 

 

[h] Michel Foucault, Preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, tran. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1984), p. xii.

 

[i] Bestley discusses Cole's Killing Joke sleeve on p. 141 of Turning Revolt Into Style. 

 

[j] Jamie Reid came to the same conclusion and in 2007 he issued a limited edition giclee print with this title; an ironic inversion of the 'Never Trust a Hippy' slogan from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.  

 

[k] See Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, III. 25. 

      For Nietzsche, the artist, as a creator, should actively invest and transform the world; not simply represent it by holding up a mirror to the times. Or, failing all else, the artist should be prepared to return the world to its chaotic character and become a great destroyer.

      Unfortunately, Nietzsche was obliged to accept that the becoming-decadent of even our greatest artists is far more likely than their becoming-untimely.  

 

[l] Often, knowledge of and access to new technology was what mostly "separated the professionals from the amateurs, the commissioned from the vernacular" [170]. 

 

[m] I'm quoting from the lyrics to the Bow Wow Wow single 'W.O.R.K (N.O. Nah No My Daddy Don't)', written by Malcolm Mclaren and released on EMI Records (1981). 

 

To read the first post in this series - Notes on the Introduction - click here. 

 

To read the second post in this series - Notes on Chapters 1 & 2 - click here. 

 

To read the fourth and final post in this series - Notes on Chapters 6-8 - click here.