However far it seems

We here at Dolores Delargo Towers are flattered, nay, humbled to be featured as the latest exhibit in the "Infomaniac" Garden Photos event, currently being hosted at Inexplicable Device's place - however, over here it is another timeslip moment again, peeps!

We've been unceremoniously beamed down by Captain Kirk and the crew of his stolen Enterprise into the heart of the big-shoulder-padded, Yuppie-strewn, strike-torn, Space-Shuttling world of 1984 - the year of the Brighton bombing, Torvill and Dean, the Bhopal disaster, the Miners' Strike, Soviet Chairman Chernenko, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Terms of Endearment, the Bishop of Durham, Libyan Embassy siege, Footloose, Zola Budd, Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, Daley Thompson, Carl Lewis, The Company of Wolves, Hezbollah, Robert Maxwell, Spitting Image, famine in Ethiopia, Band Aid, Greenham Common, Robin of Sherwood, Hilda Murrell, Indiana Jones, Colin Baker, Tamil Tigers, Threads, Joan Hickson, Howard Jones, Like a Virgin, crack cocaine, The Jewel in the Crown and my coming-out; the year of the births of Prince Harry, Scarlett Johansson, Olly Murs, the Thames Barrier, Thomas the Tank Engine, Crimewatch, Mark Zuckerberg, Duffy, Katy Perry, Claire Foy, Calvin Harris, Little Boots, Katie Melua, Gareth Gates, Kelly Osbourne, the Apple Macintosh, Dizzee Rascal, Brunei, Avril Lavigne, Kim Jong-un, Theo James and Tetris; and the year that Ethel Merman, Eric Morecambe, Sir John Betjeman, Indira Gandhi, Alexis Korner, Marvin Gaye, Jack Howarth, Tommy Cooper, Diana Dors, Jackie Wilson, Richard Burton, Dame Flora Robson, Truman Capote, J. B. Priestley, Count Basie, Johnny Weissmuller, James Mason, Leonard Rossiter, Jon-Erik Hexum, François Truffaut, Sam Peckinpah, Binnie Hale, the halfpenny and Triumph cars all died. 

In the headlines in November '84:  British Telecom shares went on sale in the biggest privatisation ever; President Ronald Reagan won his second term in office at the US election; a fire at Oxford Circus tube station caused chaos in London but no serious injuries; miners began their return to work after the strike, but the murder of a taxi driver by the dropping of a concrete block from a bridge onto his cab exacerbated the tension; and a wave of massacres of Sikhs swept across India in the wake of the assassination of Mrs Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. In our cinemas: Ghostbusters; Gremlins; Dune. On telly: The Box of Delights, Dallas, and the first ever season of The Bill.

And in our charts this week thirty-six years ago? [aaargh!]  The fantabulosa Chaka Khan I Feel For You ruled the roost at #1, and in her wake were Wham!, Duran Duran, Paul McCartney, Julian Lennon, Alison Moyet, Billy Ocean and Limahl..

...and this one! To my absolute chagrin I missed celebrating the sixty-fifth [double aaargh!] birthday last month of the triumph of art over nature that is Mr Phil Oakey, so let's make up for it with this magnum opus:

Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Together in Electric Dreams

I only knew you for a while, I never saw your smile
Till it was time to go, time to go away (time to go away)
Sometimes it's hard to recognise, love comes as a surprise
And it's too late, it's just too late to stay, too late to stay

We'll always be together, however far it seems (love never ends)
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

Because the friendship that you gave
Has taught me to be brave
No matter where I go
I'll never find a better prize (find a better prize)

Though you're miles and miles away, I see you every day
I don't have to try, I just close my eyes, I close my eyes

We'll always be together, however far it seems (love never ends)
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

We'll always be together, however far it seems
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

How can that possibly be almost FORTY YEARS ago?!

Sob.