Vinyl log 9 - 7 May

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
7	May	1977	10cc	Deceptive bends

Like many other records which I have written about, I have no actual memory of buying this. It is, however, connected in my mind with a specific event, so I'll write about that. 

It was the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee and there was a long public holiday. A few of my friends and I decided to go for a walking trip in the area of Hindhead, staying in youth hostels. I still had my youth hostel membership card (bought for Habonim), and in those days, a group needed to have at least one member in order to use the facilities. We traveled to the Hindhead railway station, then walked from there to a small hostel. The only guests were the four of us and a group of three girls, but no mingling took place (and that's not a euphemism!).

The next day we walked a fair distance, around the Devil's Punch Bowl, to a larger hostel, only to find that the girls had also arrived. That evening, we reverted to our youth leader personae and ran a series of the silly games that we knew so well. I had my eye on one of the girls and managed to orchestrate a solo meeting during on of those games, but nothing came of this.

On the third day, we walked (without the girls) to yet another hostel. This was more anonymous; we arrived, unpacked, ate and went to bed without interfacing with anyone. After we returned to London, I found myself at a loose end on the Sunday and walked down to Swiss Cottage to see (once again)  "A touch of class".

What is the connection? The fifth 10cc album, the first without Godley and Creme, had just been released and we had seen a video of "Good morning, Judge" on television. We spent a fair amount of the trip singing this somewhat stupid song. I now see that in fact the Jubilee was on June 6, a month after having purchased this record! The tricks of memory: the events of the youth hosteling certainly occurred as I described them, but the link between them and the album is tenuous at best.

It wasn't a very good record. The best song was probably "The things we do for love", which would have been considered merely average had it been included on earlier records. What can I say? I preferred Godley and Creme to Stewart and Gouldman; the latter duo were more than competent but they were 'professional' and lacking the manic tendencies of the first duo. I wrote a little about this record a few years ago.