Miscellany

Important to mention, I feel, that this picture of short-lived 1980s band Kajagoogoo has been adorning one of the whiteboards in Bart’s and my office for a month or so. Can’t remember now quite how they cropped up in conversation with Matt, but I must have confessed I’d been a fan at the time of their biggest hit ‘Too Shy’. In my defence, I was 14 and Smash Hits was adorned with their photos at the time. Following this conversation, Matt printed out this picture for me on the office colour printer, no doubt using more than his fair allocation of toner.

Given the brief window of fame enjoyed by Kajagoogoo, it’s been interesting to note which colleagues coming into the office have actually known who they are – it’s noticeably been people in a fairly narrow age range of approximately mid-forties to early fifties.

Learned from Matt that bass player Nick Beggs actually went on to have quite a respectable career as a rock guitarist. Unsure what Limahl has been up to since The NeverEnding Story, but according to Wikipedia, he's "openly gay", the shameless sod.

While sorting out a mess of paperwork this week prior to the Christmas break, I came across various party leaflets from June’s general election. So, the election, eh. Being on the electoral register in two constituencies, due to whole dual-living shebang, enabled me to spot the subtly top-down approach to the Conservative party’s pre-election publicity on this occasion. Couldn’t decide whether to be amused that it was thought necessary to emphasise to the public – and perhaps to the MPs themselves – that each Tory candidate really did support the PM, honestly.


In the event, Rob Wilson lost his Reading East seat to Labour’s Matt Rodda, which I was pleased about, less on account of anything to do with Rodda – though he has been around in Reading for a while so perhaps deserves a go – than because Rob Wilson supported remaining in the EU prior to the referendum, and promptly switched his allegiance to Leave afterwards, under the guise of “we must heed the will of the people”, or some such b*ll*cks, even though Reading was pro-Remain by 58% to 42%.

¹

Politics leads me laterally onto a memory of hearing Conservative MP and Chairman of the 1922 Committee Graham Brady announced on Radio 4 a while back, prompting me to check if he was the same chap who was in my college at Durham in the late 1980s. Indeed he was. We weren’t personally acquainted but Brady stood out rather, already looking like a Tory MP even at 20 – indeed, he looks remarkably similar now judging by the images that a Google search brings up.

Recalling others among the slew of posh people at St Aidan’s: my first year roommate Astrid Salvesen was the daughter of a golf course architect and former captain of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, and the enigmatic (i.e. I fancied her) Anna Bonas, who roomed on the corridor below me with her soft blonde hair and hosted dinner parties in the cramped college kitchens, is apparently the cousin of Prince Harry’s ex Cressida (though Cressida must be a good deal younger) and according to this, gave her surname to the Oliver Bonas chain of womenswear and accessories shops.

Going a bit further back, I was at school with chick-lit author Fiona Walker, whom I remember as being a pleasant girl even if she did once get out of running the 1500 metres by breaking into sobs partway round the course. I haven’t yet read any of her books but have been meaning to read one just to see what it’s like. (More famously, the lovely Lucy Worsley also went to St Bart's, but as she wasn’t in my year I can’t really count her.)

¹ Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028.