Where were you in `72?
- Top Ten Glam (Channel 4)
- Manchan in Eireann (TnaG)
- Michael Moore's Awful Truth (C4)
If you're under 40, you were most probably trapped in a cloth nappy
with a big blue safety pin, the ones your ma used to boil in a big
pot in the kitchen, and you're probably now a Slade or T-Rex fan.
Channel 4's Adam Freeman and Tony Blackburn were stirring the `70s
embers on ``Top Ten Glam'', although understandably in present
circumstances denying Gary Glitter the No. 1 spot in the glam chart.
The glitter had very much faded from the `70s, with Glitter
resembling an overweight Liz Taylor, while his most famous songs, ``I
love you love me'' and ``Do you want to touch me there - oh yeah!'' take
on a somewhat sinister or ironic tone in light of pending legal
proceedings.
Alice Cooper was always guilty of bad taste with his stage antics,
including bringing snakes on stage, reputedly biting bats and
painting his baby in gold paint and covering him in dollar bills,
giving us the title ``Million Dollar Baby''.
Bay City Rollers were No.1 in Clare with their yellow tank tops,
tartan flares and Kevin Keegan hairstyles.
After much success and teenybopper mania, they were subjected to the
clichéd tabloid grind of sex, drugs and rock `n roll and the
inevitable split followed, with gorgeous Derek the drummer graduating
to a career in medicine.
Other parachute-trousered Hairy Mollys featured including Mud, Slade
and Sweet, who were all prone to the ``hell raiser' lifestyle and
suffered the consequences through alcohol and drug addiction and in
T-Rex singer Mark Bolan's case death in a high speed smash.
Still, who can forget such classics as ``20th Century Love Boy'' or
``Mama we're all crazy now''.
In retrospect the `70s were a much more positive environment to grow
up in, unlike us `80s teenagers who suffered pimples, Nick Kershaw
and drainpipe trousers. For you ageing glam fans, there'll always be
the cover bands and the yellow jackets and silver platforms at the
bottom of your wardrobe!
Manchan Morgan, TnaG's wacky but energetic presenter, was busy
looking for ``Faoiseamh'' relief, visiting the highlands and lowlands
of Ireland at lightning speed on TnaG's ``Manchan in Eireann''.
Although omitting the heroic feats of Alistair Elliot and the hurlers
of Antrim's Glens, we were taken to the Giant's Causeway, where
tourists visited long before ``it was either popular or profitable''.
Sure didn't Cú Chulainn stand his ground here, as he and his Scottish
foes hurled chunks of Ireland at each other, resulting in the
creation of the Isle of Man and Lough Neagh simultaneously when one
of his chunks landed short of the enemy. In the words of Flann
O'Brien: ``Wasn't his arse so big and strong that the little people
used to play handball up against it!''
Highlight of Manchan's travels was his trip to Tory Island, nine
miles off the coast of Donegal - ``Lán le cúltúr craiceoch, meisceach
`s draíocht'' (full of mad lively culture and magic).
Tory isolation has resulted in a less commercialised beauty spot when
compared to the shillelagh-ised Dingle and the like, and a survival
of ancient beliefs and superstitions combined with Christianity.
The independent-minded souls of Tory even have their own royal
family, headed up by (High King Patsy Dan Rodgers) Ard Rí Patsy Dan
Mac Ruairí. Its place ``ar imeall an gnáth saoil'' (on the edge of the
rat race) has become somewhat tainted where one can now spot the
youth excelling in foreign games and AC/DC graffiti on the gable
ends. Still surely the best place in Ireland to ``chill out'', and not
a peeler in sight!
Mad Manchan also took us to a lonely deserted monasteries in
Westmeath's everglades, ``where monks went mad in splendid isolation''
and to Brú na Bóinne, where the terrific Celtic wooden carvings of
(master craftsman) sár snaídóir would make an excellent wedding
present alternative to carraige clocks or tasteless Parian China
dogs. Manchan still has ``na mílte míle fós romhaim'' (many miles to
travel) - fair play duit a chara!
Mischievous Michael Moore is busily exposing corporate crime on his
Channel 4 ``Awful Truth'' series, where he sends in a Big Bird
character and other strange types to the headquarters of evil
multinational types to expose and ridicule them, including the visit
of a ``voice-box choir'', a group of elderly folk, who had lost their
voices as a result of throat cancer, to the HQ of Marlboro to sing
Christmas carols for the slimy PR men in shirts who battled vainly to
keep their cool, inevitably sending in their own numbskull heavies to
``vacate our premises, please''.
Other targets of his zany but effective campaigning have included
Disneyworld, whose workers are forced to work in sweaty costumes for
buttons, and United Parcel Services (UPS), who recently reneged on
increased wage promise to their workers, despite increased profits.
Moore's opening lines, in light of the current NATO bully boy bombing
tactics, are very apt: ``In the beginning there was a free press - now
at the end of the 20th century, the world's press is controlled by
five people, and the world's people rejoices, because their
televisions tell them so. Standing in their way is one man''.
But let us not forget our own An Phoblacht!
By Sean O Donaile
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)