BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

So anyway - you remember how I was on about that 'drug awareness for schools' book SOLVENTS? The one with the wicked looking skinhead with facial tattoos on the front cover? Well, SOLVENTS was the one to flick through if you wanted to get that 80s punk look down pat, instead of coming across like a plastic who has his hair dyed by his MUMMY. But there were other great books in this series. AMPHETAMINES was kind of like a fucked up mod/punk version of 'Vogue' - that's if you dug girls with 1,000-yard Hanoi kill stares, pink socks, Chelsea Girl haircuts and whizz zits around their lips. ALCOHOL was pretty crap, save for a picture of a dread passed out in front of a sound system with a bottle of Captain Morgan. HEROIN didn't even try to go in for subcultural portraits, instead featuring a skeletal Chinese man who, the reader was informed, hadn't eaten or taken a shit in eight weeks.

Look, these were desperate times, OK? Anyway, this all came to mind when I was listening to some old punk tunes the other night. Since giving up smoking, I've rediscovered my love for songs that only last 90 seconds. First up was Never Been To Borstal by THE TERRORWAYS - a brilliant thrashalong with the singer bemoaning the fact that his mates all think he's a well-behaved wuss because he hasn't been sent to youth prison - when it's actually because the cops are too slow to catch him! "Never been to borstal...but I never stop tryin'!" he rages. Then I listened to Latex Love by VICE SQUAD. This is Beki Bondage singing about tying her boyfriend up and sticking him in a cupboard. Again, the 20th century - you had to be there to realise how desperate things were. Incidentally, my one and only experience with bondage was a complete disaster. The girl I was going out with wanted to try dominating me and I was young and naive enough to think this'd fling open the gates to an exciting new cosmos of sexual adventure and amoral anarchic experience. She agreed to come round my pad on a Saturday. She turned up without any 'bondage paraphernalia' whatsoever. "Pretend you've got handcuffs on," she unhelpfully suggested. "Just stretch your arms back!" She wanted to blindfold me but the nearest thing I had was a Tottenham Hotspur scarf. She bound it round my head and got on top. Suddenly, I had We're loyal Spurs supporters, and we go to every game...and the Spurs go marching on! Ohhhh...GLORY GLORY TOTT'NUM 'OTSPUR! by CHAS AND DAVE in my head and I burst out laughing. I then had to spend 45 minutes explaining to my distraught would-be dominatrix that I wasn't laughing AT HER, honest. In fact, the only remotely servile thing that happened was I made a cup of tea to try and placate her as she sobbed and repeatedly asked "Do you still love me?" And that was bondage. Latex Love isn't that great but, by Shambo, it beats the fuck out of whatever Capital Radio's churning out as I type.

Funnily enough, has anyone seen Foot & Mouth's back? See, I told you these pulp stories were memetic hexes. Surely this is a sign of LORD SHAMBO'S WRATH? Ah well - at least it'll give Gobshite Gloria Hunniford plenty to mull over on The Heaven and Earth Show this Sunday. Temple bulls indeed!

FLUX OF PINK INDIANS were a load of rubbish, but they did have one good song, Tube Disaster, which has the singer drooling over the 1975 Moorgate crash. For foreigners, this was when some tube driver's wife dumped him and he decided to plough the train through a wall in a fit of nihilistic turmoil. I've been on at Jim XYLITOL to do an electro cover version of this, but I don't think he's interested, so I might well do it myself, seeing as I've recently gained access to a Yamaha and a distortion box. If anyone wants to sing on it, drop me a line. Doppelganger can do the artwork, if he doesn't mind being paid in liberated office stationery.

BEST ITALO DISCO SINGLE OF THE WEEK

People like to yap a lot about the qualities that define a REAL MAN. These include: a fondness for football, a preference for eating meat, ability to handle emergencies in a calm and collected manner, the capability to drink 247 pints in one night and being able to show your emotions by blubbing like a big baby the minute life doesn't go your way. Sorted? What tosh - I'll tell you what defines a real man, connected to his true inner self - LATENT PYROMANIA. Oh come on, stop fooling yourselves. We all want to see cars torched, flames licking the sky, billows of black smoke rolling towards us like waves of toxic death. We hold the same fascination with the glow of a bloody great conflagration as did our ancestors when they sat around gibbering and wanking in caves.

Men with the 'arsonist' gene are easy to spot at barbecues. While the usual 'Mr Smartarse' of the occasion is trying to impress everyone by getting the fire started (and knocking raw discount sausages onto the charcoal), the arsonist is the one who, when the flame shoots through the grill, glances at it longingly, then suddenly darts his eyes towards the house next door, and then back again. It's a reflex response, we can't help it. Don't mean nothing. Don't get in a strop about it.

No, it's the one who tries to light the barbecue - he's the one you want to watch out for. I mean! What sort of man volunteers for this task? A show-off, that's what. Starting the barbecue is a highly arcane occult ritual - a wretched attempt to forge a Promethean sense of self-importance. What the lighterman is saying is - I am a thief of fire. I am providing the means of sustenance for this tribe. I must therefore be accorded respect. It's a stab at leadership and group dominance, and it sucks. Mark this creep well for, behind his jovial anecdotes and self-deprecating comments about burnt food,lousy weather and botched barbecue attempts of yore, lurks a vicious, scheming little Hitler who would literally massacre entire continents if it helped to bolster his festering, shitty ego by the width of a pea.

And what's all this buying charcoal and expensive little grill kits with lids and wheels? Ah, just hack the side off an Asda trolley like everyone else, willya? Bloody posers. I also find that petrol helps - like, duuhh.

Anyway, I was considering all this when listening to Firelight by GHECKO, an arsonist's wet dream of a disco anthem, with some of the coolest vocals to ever emerge from Europe. I saw it burning! the bloke purrs over his luscious Yamaha DX7 and Drumulator sonic stew, no doubt recalling a youth spent torching beach huts and ice cream stalls in Rimini.

Ah, to be 17 again! Bondage, amphetamine abuse and arson! You teenagers need to seriously log off and go and do some crazy stuff instead of reading this shit. OK, sorry, I really will mention some current records instead of a load of 80s tat next time round.