Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

is currently on Radio 4 for those who might be interested. I'm listening whilst doing our holiday ironing.

Eh ?

Attila the Stockbroker - famous old blue punk poet?
http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/

Looked at the web-site.

I must confess my ignorance as I'd never heard of him !

I loved his short tribute to the late, great and sadly missed, especially at this years Glastonbury, John Peel.

Atilla The Stockbroker is fantastic, Airstrip One is one of my favourites of his.

I've got the house to myself at the moment so I'm giving 'Tubular Bells' (re-mix version) a blasting at full revs !

On my Grecians, we had a double bill of Attila the Stockbroker and Mark Thomas at the school theatre... that was a good night!

Missed it, I was working in a different office today - one without Radio 4! Normally I would have heard it!

Never realised he was an old blue, seen him several times at Uni and around Reading as he tours with John Otway quite regularly

Bit more about him from wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila_the_Stockbroker

An extract from the reading matter thread on non CH stuff:

Matchday

What makes Saturday special?

Chris Green

This book looks at football from the perspective of nearly every party involved Chairman, Player, Groundsman, Supporter, Chaplain, PA Announcer etc, etc, covering leagues from the Premiership down to the Hertfordshire Senior League.

Unbeknown to me before I started reading, there is a CH interest in that the Brighton And Hove Albion PA Announcer featured is one Attila The Stockbroker aka John Baine, an Old Blue apparently. There is reference to his hit record "We Want Falmer" which reached number 17 in the charts in January 2005.

Also an extract that might strike a chord with his contemporaries: ...."He is 100% Brighton & Hove Albion and has been a fan all his life. Like me, Attila is a 46 year-old ex punk who is losing his hair badly. And what do old punks wear? Attila sports a Bad Religion T-shirt, leather biker jacket, narrow jeans, pointed shoes and a chain looping around his belt. All a little too tight, if truth be told.

On the face of it, asking Attila to play the music at a football ground is a bit like asking Hannibal Lecter to mind the kids while you pop out to a movie. He's not going to be satisfied playing Kylie or Rachel Stevens tunes. And what about football's much vaunted ageing audience, the people who are steadily filing into those plastic seats opposite? How old are they? What music will they relate to? Attila's answer, on his debut for Brighton when they were exiled at Gillingham, was to slap 'Anarchy in the UK' by the Sex Pistols on the turntable. The chief of police on duty had a fit. By that I don't mean he started pogo-ing; rather, he raced to the PA booth and ordered Attila to stop it immediately.

'Why?' asked Attila.
'Isn't it obvious?' replied the policeman. 'It will cause a riot.'
Attila's response was stunning: 'I have heard this record played hundreds of times in public. I have seen people leap around to it, but I have never seen it lead to violence. On the other hand, if you order me to play 'In the Air Tonight' by Phil Collins I will turn into a raging psychopath and cannot be held responsible for my actions.'
Point made. The policeman scurried off.".....

I heard Attila the Stockbroker quite by chance about two years ago on Radio 4, it was that programme called Off the Page with Matthew Parris, 11pm on Fridays if I remember rightly...well he was talking about how he went to boarding school and he loathed it and although he didn't mention it by name, it was obvious that it was CH he was talking about, things like marching, unusual uniform, quadrangle, location in Sussex etc, and he said he didn't like it at all there when he was there and still feels that way (as of about 2 yrs ago anyway)...was an interesting listen anyway especially as I was just tuned in by chance! Anyone else happen to hear that programme?

An extract from The Catholic Herald 31 August 2007.

This is from an article by Nick Thomas entitled: Longing for the boiler -suited revolution

To set in context a friend of Nick Thomas describes a suit as a "fascist uniform" a viewpoint Nick Thomas disagrees with.

......."But we have also had to contend with the affected prolish ignorance of those who should know better. Last week, on Radio 4, I heard the veteran anarchist performer John Baine, who prefers to be known as Attila the Stockbroker, confess that, in his maturity (he's 50 this year: I checked), he has realised that not all people in suits are idiots. He spoke as one who should be welcomed home as a prodigal son by those of us who were never that daft in the first place; but I am of his generation, not his father's, and, mindful of the parable as I am, my reaction is "once a pillock, always a pillock". Possibly there will come a time when I realise that not all public school -educated punk poets are idiots, but some prejudices die very hard."..........

Great Plum wrote:On my Grecians, we had a double bill of Attila the Stockbroker and Mark Thomas at the school theatre... that was a good night!

That was an excellent evening, although Mark Thomas told a lot of jokes about jeffery archer which i didn't get. Being only 17 at the time, know your audience Thomas.