Hello Sandie

Oh God, if I'm going to have to listen to endless bloody rolling news interviews with smug bastard Tories all pigging weekend then I'm going to need some thrilling music from groovy left-of-centre personages to carry me through and a bit of blog tennis with Simon might be a good place to start.

I absolutely bloody love Sandie Shaw and I was thrilled skinny to see her at ULU back in '88 when the Hello Angel album came out - she was sexy, sassy, smart, funny, gorgeous and quite, quite magnificent and we ought to thank not just The Moz for his well-documented role in the Sandie-relaunch back then, but also those Heaven 17 boys who first (re) introduced her to 80s pop pickers with their Music Of Quality And Distinction project. Which is not to take anything away from Sandie herself, whose determination to certainly not be anybody's puppet on a string again burst through big-time on this solo LP and continues, and not just with music, to this day.

These are my favourite three songs from the record, two of them originals penned with Chris Andrews (who had written material for her in the 60s, including the lovely 'Girl Don't Come') and the third an absolutely cracking cover of The Jesus & Mary Chain's 'About You' from their Darklands LP.

Sandie Shaw - 'Nothing Less Than Brilliant' (1988)

Sandie Shaw - 'Hello Angel' (1988)

Sandie Shaw - 'Cool About You' (1988)

Finally, some Smiths-covering footage to give a flavour of Ms Shaw 'live' at the time; scarily, she was younger then than I am now....

PS: I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you Ken, but it's not looking good.