79. NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LOVE (BY STUART HUGGETT)

There have been many unexpected coincidences and connections in my daily posts on the GANTOB blog. A lot have been concentrated around the streets of Edinburgh. And a fair few emanate from The Benefaktor.

So it’s apt that Stuart Huggett’s second guest blog is set in central Edinburgh, and studies the close bond between The Benefaktor and his granddaughter The Foundation Doktor. The Benefaktor tells me that they have an “ionic bond” (a close and stable connection). Apparently it contrasts with the covalent bond that I have with The Benefaktor – a “stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces” that ties us, but at a distance.

If you haven’t already read Stuart’s first blog, please check it out before reading on.

Over to Stuart to take us through a musical tour of the late 1980s and 1990s, bringing us bang up to date with our characters in the process.

GANTOB

Watch Stuart’s narration here:

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The Benefaktor is heading into Edinburgh city centre to meet his granddaughter, known to some as The Foundation Doktor, for coffee. As he walks, he ponders her burgeoning enthusiasm for The KLF. She wasn’t born until a few years after their run of hits so this is all history to her, he feels. Mansplaining instincts kick in and he diverts into HMV on Princes Street to browse the compilations section, hoping for a hits CD that could help her place The KLF and The Timelords in a wider musical context.

Recognising the Now That’s What I Call Music! brand, he’s pleased to find a run of reissued 80s and 90s volumes in a 2 For £16 promotion, picking out Now 12 for ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ and, why not, the preceding Now 11.

Soon after, chatting amiably over their coffees, The Benefaktor hands over his gifts. His granddaughter accepts them with gratitude but secretly little enthusiasm and it is only that evening, after dinner has been eaten and television watched, that she idly picks the CDs up again to study their contents more closely.

And there on Now 11 she spots it. Coldcut Feat. Yazz & The Plastic Population – ‘Doctorin’ The House’. The memory bell rings again. She picks up her phone and finds the track on YouTube, in all its acid house, cut and paste glory.

“Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” jumps out from the cavalcade of samples. She DID remember the ‘Staged’ line from somewhere after all. She could only have heard it on Pick Of The Pops while driving with her parents recently, that’s where much of her knowledge of hits of the 80s has come from. Thank you Steve Wright!

David Tennant would remember that track, of course, and Cauty and Drummond were playing with its title when they made their Timelords single. A diagram of connections fans out in her mind.

The Doktor scrolls through Coldcut’s ‘Beats + Pieces’, ‘Say Kids! What Time Is It?’ and their JAMs-sampling remix of Society’s ‘Love It!’ before the YouTube sidebar recommends ‘I’m In Deep’ featuring Mark E Smith.

She clicks the link, laughing at Smith’s wildly distorted vocal. The sidebar then offers her The Fall’s ‘Edinburgh Man’ and the Doktor, tiring by now, emotionally vulnerable, wells up as Smith sings of wandering the city alone. The figure reminds her of her grandfather. Tears begin to fall.

Stuart Huggett

11 December 2023

GANTOB’s reflections:

I had not previously heard The Fall song Stuart mentions, or seen the video. It is difficult to imagine that Mark E Smith is dead after seeing him in such rude health (and smiling) in the video, walking through scenes that have barely changed in the intervening 30 years. And what a tune – something that he worked on for 18 months after spending time in Edinburgh; a marked contrast to his usual creative process.

However, on the theme of coincidences, watch the video carefully and you’ll see – 1:25 and 4:00 minutes into the video – Mark E Smith and bandmates at the top of the Playfair Steps that The Benefaktor was said to have fallen down a couple of months ago. That was a source of great worry to me at the time. But this is all pure chance. I have asked my music pals and The Fall’s the Edinburgh Man is new to them as well. Though of course the subconscious plays funny tricks, as Stuart points out.

And the dynamic between The Foundation Doktor and her grandfather that Stuart captures is very touching too. My father is suffering from dementia, and is increasingly frail. That has been very much on my mind while writing the book, pamphlets and blog. It is also a worry for my children, who have moved away but stay in close contact. It’s interesting that Stuart has projekted this onto The Foundation Doktor’s relationship with The Benefaktor. Or perhaps KLF fans are just much more likely to be part of the sandwich generation.