Edward
Bartender
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- 25,074
- Location
- London, UK
Full circle? Only as far as the late 70's. Who can forget.............Never Mind the B*ll*cks, Here's the Sex Pistols?
If you want publicity, prime time television publicity, swear! There's actually a YouTube clip of that, it gained them notoriety, I thought better of it than to post it here. Likewise the poster with that headline, it's on Wiki if you want to see it.
The promo material for that album saw the Virgin Megastore - in Nottingham, if memory serves - prosecuted. The defence, led by Geoffrey Robertson, established that it's a legitimate word with a specific meaning - a 'bollock' is a small ball, or a small stone, in Anglo-Saxon - and was therefore not contrary to the obscure law on which it was prosecuted. History records the magistrate as saying "I very reluctantly find you not guilty."
The really good line, though, was, as Geoffrey tells the story, from Lydon, who - on hearing the testimony of the witness who confirmed the word's legitimacy - slipped Robertson a note that simply said "Don't worry - if we lose we'll just change the title to 'Never Mind The Stones'."
Like Brian Jones a decade earlier, death immortalised Simon Ritchie, (Sid Vicious.) both of whom were dark, decadent and nihilistic.
Wasn't it Buddy Holly who said "death is a career move"?
Sid was an interesting character. If his friends are to be believed, very much an innocent who got sucked into something terrible re the drugs, though Lydon has also pointed out that a big part of the problem was his fixation with authenticity and inability to comprehend the notion of a stage perception. For better - or, more to the pint, worse - he committed fully to the Sid Vicious persona and all that entailed.