You can scarcely imagine the state of nervous anticipation that I lived through whilst waiting to see whether Angry Wife would take the bait. I mean, if she was nuts enough to reply in the first place, then hopefully I could count on her to have a massive over-reaction to my suggestion that she let her husband know I wanted him to wear me as a hat. I hoped to embark upon an extensive passive-aggressive correspondence with her, that I could share here under the heading ‘The Hat-Wearing Diaries’.
Luckily, I didn’t have to endure this feverish state for long. Within a mere 2 days (impressive, considering the time-difference between Tokyo and London) the wife was back, baby. And she was determined to see the funny side. Thereby determinedly making the funny side less funny.
Here it is:
Hahaha! You score HUGE points for your sense of humour alone, darling!!! Wow! Made my day! Ironically, my post to you was my first one on this site for what seems like a decade, but it is prob way more like 9.27 years in reality. Funny what time can do.
I’d be the first to admit, I had my doubts, she just said somewhere, and I’d be the first to be worn like hats, she just said somewhere south………………. I was so sure this song was written about and for me, until I read your reply. Just WHO are you darling?!!! Now you have got me all hot and bothered! Feel like heading somewhere south with us both, sweetheart?!!!
🙂
With tons of respect,
Your friend and colleague and partner-in-crime,
The One, The Only, Mrs Gary Newby
XXXXXXXXXXXX
My emotions were mixed upon receiving this. let me try to summarise them briefly below:
1) Seriously, he married this woman??
2) Was she pissed? Surely she was pissed??
3) Was she looking after the 2 Mini-Newbys whilst this pissed? I mean, they were going to be pretty unsteady in those spacesuits for the first few weeks.
4) She was not funny. I mean, you can see that for yourselves, I know, but I have to underline the sheer appalled wonder with which I read her effort.
5) Around about now, suspicion started to creep in:
a) I don’t care how drunk and disorderly you are, it would be kinda weird to back-handedly acknowledge that your husband’s lyrics are shit on a forum that he moderates and that is supposed to be a channel for praise from his adoring fan(s).
b) This is where you’ll have to forgive my obsessive tendencies and bizarrely long memory for mundane facts. The obsessive tendencies shouldn’t come as any surprise to you – after all, you’re reading a blog that’s fundamentally about some guy who I’ve now been without for longer than I was with. And I have a post brewing in the background that will demonstrate how palpably I’m still not over him. Gah. So yes, obsessive you know all about.
Just to further underline the fact that this is a general, rather than a Dave-specific trait, let me share with you THIS nugget. Years before everyone hated Mica Paris for being so useless on What Not To Wear, I LOATHED her. This wasn’t due to a fashion premonition, it was because in 1988, she ill-advisedly said in an interview that she thought Matt Goss(see last post for significance) was gorgeous and “I could have a hundred babies with him”. My 11 year-old self has still never forgiven her for making such a blatant move on MY celebrity boyfriend. Bitch (even now, I swear it rankles). Anyway, obsessive point proven.
The memory for random facts you’ll have to take my word for but it freaks the hell out of people. Regrettably, I can’t choose what I remember, so I could name more or less every Big Brother contestant that there’s ever been but I could only tell you a handful of my close friends’ birthdays. Shocker. Now, if you bear these 2 tendencies in mind, it shouldn’t come as any surprise to hear that I remember that back when I fancied Gary Newby (c. 1990), he was going out with a nurse from the same Northern Town as him. The song that Angry Wife is ‘hilariously’ mis-quoting was written in 1988. The laughter-fuelled google research that Eva and I did uncovered that Gary moved to Japan as it was where his wife was from. I suspect there weren’t so many imported Japanese nurses in northern England in the 1980s. This was just a hunch however. Who am I to question diversity within the medical profession?
So was the whole thing too good to be true? Or could my 13 year-old self now thrill at the fact that not only had Gary Newby’s wife emailed me, but that now I could be on for a threesome. How many Air Miles did I have again?
Alas.
A couple of days later, the ‘angry wife’ posted a brand new message in the forum, using the same alter-ego that had messaged me and the same email address:
Gary,
Thanks a bunch for “enlightening” me recently. A (total) Pleasure, as they say in the trade. Yes, the memory is still intact and I remember that pre-Renuion gig at King’s College in London tahn. It was that very cool room with a mezzanine, and the mixing desk was up there too. It was a wet miserable night in Londonium. But The Railway Children came on, all pristine, shimmering, shiny blue Rickenbacker-driven music, with it’s very own atmosphere. This is what defined at least early Railway Children: atmosphere. The music was different, and it had a clean sound, but for sure in Reunion’s case a very atmospheric sound. You announced that a mini-album was on the way, and we all know what that was. Hearing Another Town, Brighter, History Burns and others cranked out cleanly by this tight outfit was something. Cool equipment always. Including Mr. Hull’s enviable Trace Elliot stacks. I bought the 12 inch of Brighter the next morning. Not long after entering the Virgin Megastore on an early Sat morning, and there was Reunion front and centre as I walked in. A total indie sound and worthy of Factory, of course, but somehow apart at the same time. It was destined ultimately for wider perusal than pure Mancunia, clearly. We headed back out into the misty rain of Londonium knowing we had seen something very new, a nucleus of something that could be great. And way cooler than most, in person. Languor was how some NME reviewer put it, which I didn’t totally agree with. But NME could have it’s head up it’s own arse from time to time, so, no big shock there.
The rest is history, as they say in the trade. Rave on, Gary, Rave on……………
What a dick. And I’d been had by said dick. And not in a good way. Gutted.
Right, I’m off to tell Shaun Ryder’s wife that I’d like to audition to be his fluffer. Actually, I doubt she’d argue the point…
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