The Crusher - Novas

'I''m Dickie Davies - welcome to the World of Sport.'

Do the Hammerlock, you turkey necks. It's the Novas, grapple fans, with their 2 minute wrestling riff. Everybody's doing it. It's on ITV after Final Score and before Tarby's Frame Game

Big Daddy, Jackie 'Mr TV' Pallo, Dave 'Fit' Finlay and Giant Haystacks. It was a world of prosaic nicknames, brylcream headbutts and the male leotard. These were sweaty town hall bouts; pantomine dramatics in the days before the Smackdown, the Royal Rumble and Rowdy Roddy Piper.

From Big Daddy at the Rhyl Town Hall to the WWF Royal Rumble, modern wrestlers can trace their lineage back to the 'Crusher' persona from 1950s televised bouts.

Unlike the modern American wrestler, Big Daddy and his Saturday tea time contemporaries would never go near an anabolic steriod... unless of course is was covered in pastry and served with chips.

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I Want My Caveman - The Pandoras

All-girl California rockers the Pandoras pine for the days, One Million Years B.C., when everyone looked like Ringo Starr; before the average man could stand up straight, button his chinos and order the second cheapest wine on the wine list.

The Pandoras rocked hard and adopted the whole leather, lace, super-strength hair mousse and lime green eye shadow that was standard for all girl groups in the 80s.

When Gwynne Kahn, one of the original Pandoras, was kicked out of the band, she formed her own version of the band, a situation reminiscent of the Motown scandal in the late 1980s where there were something like sixteen versions of the Four Tops touring the bars of Magaluf.

The three white men and an Asian posing as 'Levi Stubbs and the Real Tops' in Club de Vela was pushing it too far, though there was one real 'Top in the group that played at a Battle of the Dj's night in Pancho's Bar, Tossa de Mar.

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Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

Until next week, have a good week



> Martin Lampen (latest book news, contact details and other stuff)

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