Well, actually, they’re extremely tenuous at best, but I did enjoy watching When Julie Met Toby last night on BBC 2.
My “links” such as they are were that I went to Manchester University just after Charlotte Raven had left. Raven was the sabbatical Women’s Officer when Derek Draper was a sabb as well (in fact, they went out with each other for a time). Back then, these two obsessed the UMU hacks no end – they all hated them, they all wanted to be them. Both of course fell from grace shortly afterwards, Icarus like, but at least Derek Draper is still tabloid-fodder due to his marriage to Kate Garraway. Raven has disappeared; at the end of the programme Julie Birchill mentioned that she’s now married to a truck driver and has grown so fat she has to use one of those mobility scooters. I hasten to add I have no idea if that is true. One other theory is that she got a peroxide job and transmogrified into Marina Hyde, but I think the fattie story is kinder.
My other link to the Modern Review is that at work, we still get their post (the ancient Egyptians believed that you only truly died when no-one could remember your name – I have a theory that no-one will ever truly die again now due to us remaining on junk mail lists until the end of time). No mention of 6 Cynthia Street was made on the programme however and it would appear that the first incarnation of the Modern Review was edited entirely in Toby Young’s flat. What of Charlotte Raven’s short lived second incarnation? The rumour is they used to do their ad sales out of the place, but no-one seems sure. Anyone out there know?
I’m feeling oddly nostalgic about my uni days at the moment – see the mention of Nick Angel in my previous post. 1996 was a fucking great year for me and one of the few times in my life when it actually felt good at the time.