...IM GLAD THEY MADE TEA FOR THE BBC...

On the clash's first lp is the song 'career opportunities' and as im sure you know, the song has the line "do you wanna make tea at the bbc?" now i assumed the image of being a bbc tea boy was enough to make the clash listeners think "no".
But it now looks to me like they were in fact thinking "yes!", and im glad they did. last christmas's tv listings was a good example, this yule we were given the (admittedly awful) 'sid and nancy' followed by derek jarman's odd but fun 'jubliee', and best of all was the programme about the year 1977.
this programme had the usual happenings of that year, its most popular tv shows, funniest comedies, top 10 'pop' hits, the usual sort of tv retro guffery, but it also included a large segment about the firemens strike that had been going on for much of that year and had been quite hard on the strikers and their families who were trying to live off a weekly wage/pay that mounted to nothing, times were hard and they were living totally off charity.
It was at this point that punk was mentioned in the programme, but instead of the usual same old 'filth and the fury' story what we got was the tale of how the pistols put on a christmas day dinner party with all the trimmings for the strikers and their families out of their own pockets.
In previously rare film footage we got to see a laughing j.rotten and sid v as they and cook'n'jones gave out presents to the happy smiling kids, all looking good in their free 'never mind the bollocks' t-shirts. then we saw the more familiar film of johnny rotten and his cake fight, this was mixed in with interviews of the strikers, their wives and the now grown up kids. all had nothing but good words for the band and the great day given on their behalf which is suprising beecause they were the exact same type who got so upset when 'god save the queen' 45 came out. But out of all the talking head soundbites my favourite was the woman who said "my claim to fame was when i was walking along when this blerk (northern accent) handed me a slice of xmas cake and gave me a kiss on the top of the head, it were sid vicious". we were then treated to a exibition of the many momento's of the day that were kept and proudly held up to the camera's by their smiling owners. the whole segment was positive which is a rare thing on tv for punk and im glad it was on. there was more punky/alternative stuff on as well but that stuck out the most, i must say. carry on chaps.
oh and by the way, my thinking about using punk records as backround music in between tv programmes? occasionally it works but, usually i dont really think it does.
oh, oh, and using 'punky' songs as theme tunes is always a no no, always.