Gigs 2017

Two weeks from now I'll be celebrating my 18th birthday. It really is exciting, old enough to drink, vote, heading into higher education this September and have the right to call myself an adult - a whole boat load of things to be looking forward to. However, I wasn't just eager for this year to roll around because of this special birthday and university on the cards, I'm going to be going to a couple of gigs this year. I feel like my passion for the 1980s will be ignited further.

The first one I'll be going to see is Adam Ant, on his Anthems: The Singles Tour, in just 13 days at the First Direct Arena in Leeds. I've been a big fan of his for quite a while now and I always dreamed of having the opportunity to see him live, because I've heard a lot of good things about his recent Kings of the Wild Frontier anniversary tour and his 2012/3 Blueblack Hussar tour; he's still got the moves at the tender age of 62 years young. Crazy to think that he's that old, I always thought he was a similar age to that of my folks (who are in their mid 50s), but there you go! In September last year he announced that he would be doing another UK tour in 2017, and when he released the dates, I knew I would be working on my dad to let me go and see him in Leeds. The tickets were reasonably priced, so he said he was going to book for me and my mum (who admired him in the 1980s) to go see him on 27/5. Boy, I wasn't half a happy camper that day! I'll definitely be sharing my experiences and a few photos (if I can) after the show! So far I've heard some glowing reviews so I know for sure that I'm in for a treat.

In June, I'll be seeing Jeff Lynne's ELO at Sheffield Arena. They have been really good live so far on their Alone in the Universe tour. Originally, we were going to travel to London to see them at Wembley Stadium, but they must have gotten a couple complaints, they added extra dates in Sheffield, Glasgow, and I think there's some more. They can't forger Birmingham, that's where they hail from! Again, should be another good show!

Lastly, in November, I'll be seeing popular 1980s group Big Country at Sheffield O2 Academy on The Seer 30th Anniversary Tour. The original frontman passed away in 2001, and there's only two of the original members left, but I saw them on the same tour last September at the Holmfirth Picturedrome, and it was a good show! I've definitely got the same expectations again this time.

So with all that being said, these will certainly be good highlights of the year, and I'll definitely share my experiences and photos with you (if I take any).

See you in the next post


- S

University is nigh...

Hello everyone,

This is just a quick post to reassure you that no, I haven't disappeared off of the face of the earth, I'm still here and I most certainly haven't forgotten about this blog. I just haven't had the time to update it. Recently, I have come under a lot of pressure lately to get everything that I need to get done for college, such as tending to any assignment re-submissions that need doing, getting all my work together to be independently and externally verified, applying for student finance (which I seriously need to hurry up and sort out), a whole manner of things really. All of it has become very time consuming and I've only just found time to update things here, so sorry I've been silent for a couple of weeks whilst I've sorted out my soap opera of a life.

University is almost around the corner and I want to make sure that I achieve the best now to ensure that I keep my place and get in in September. I'm honestly glad you no longer have to do A Levels to get in, you can still get in with a set number of UCAS points from a BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma (which I'm doing right now). There probably won't be anymore posts for a bit until I get signed off from college the second week in June, and I know I promised a whole boat load of things a couple of months ago that I still haven't done but one day or another, I'll get round to them. Right now I want to focus on securing my future in the long run, otherwise I'm going to regret it for the rest of all eternity. All I know is this; I've got quite a long summer holiday so there will be definitely be more posting going on then.

That's all folks,

- S

My Top 10 Disney Films

Hello everyone

Recently it seems that for the last couple of weeks all I've spoke about is just negative stuff that's been kicking off in my life and online. To be honest, I'm not going to move forward if all I keep doing is cling on to the past. So from now on, I promise you guys I'm gonna keep ll of that to the bare minimum if I can. And so far, I've mentioned old television shows (briefly), and mainly music. Today I'm going to be doing something a little differently.

I'm going to be counting down my top 10 favourite Walt Disney films, even now as I enter adulthood they still have a special place in my heart. No matter what people say, you are never too old for Disney, whether you binge watch the films or collect cute little charm bracelets with timeless and classic characters on. When I was six or seven, I collected a complete set of porcelain figurines consisting of all the favourites from the movies, including Belle, Aurora, all of the Seven Dwarfs, etc. These would come out every fortnight with a magazine describing the striking features of all the dolls, little cartoon strips from the movies, puzzles and recipes so you could hold your own little Princess tea parties with cakes and tartlets.

Ah, memories! I still have all of the dolls, still in their original presentation boxes, and all 90 supplementary magazines (this was a while ago, I don't know if the figure is correct), all tucked safely in their binders. One day, if I do decide to have children, and have a little girl, I intend to pass them down to her to love just as much as I did. No matter how much people ask for them - they are not for sale! Period.

Anyway, back to the main topic, I'm harping on a bit. There were lots of different films by Disney I loved growing up, and still play them to this day. We've began converting our ageing VHS collection to DVD, and now own over 20. Stores recently have had offers on such as 2 for £12, 3 for £12 and more, so I've been definitely taking advantage of that!.

So without further delay, here are my top 10 favourite Disney movies!

10. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

9. Dumbo (1941)

8. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

7. 101 Dalmatians (1961)

6. Basil the Great Mouse Detective (1986)

5. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1970)


























4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

3. Cinderella (1951)


























2. The Little Mermaid (1989)

1. Bambi (1942)

And that's my list! Honestly, I could put all of them on here if I hadn't regimented myself to choosing just 10. I love them all. Admittedly, there's only a small number of them I haven't watched yet, such as Pete's Dragon and The Sword in the Stone, but watch this space, I may need to update this list one day in the near future. I don't know what I would have done with my life if I hadn't been brought up with it.

Do you have a similar list?

With all that being said, that's all for the blog today, hope you have an excellent Easter weekend, and I will see you in the near future!

- S

Story Time: My Stalker

Hi guys, hope you’re all well,

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a long time, college may be out now for the Easter holidays, but there’s a big push to get work done now as university is looming. At least now I’ve got some time on my hands to actually post here. When I first opened this blog I talked about this being solely about my love for music, movies and everything 80s, but also, to chat about experiences I’ve had in the past online, and in real life. This is one of them. Your discretion is advised as this is a very sensitive topic and some readers may relate to this.

In April 2012 I rejoined Twitter for the second time after being hacked and locked out of my first account. As you know by now my sole purpose for joining social media around that time was to find friends and connect with fellow fans of the eighties. This edition of Story Time is a real account of when one of these 'friendships' went sour.

I received a follower request in October of the same year by a woman who claimed to be a big fan of the band Spandau Ballet, the proof was in her username really so I thought 'why not?' I followed her just to see where things would go. About five minutes later she contacts me and is very grateful for me following her back, and goes on to say that she is 27 years old, 28 years old in the morning, Italian and she has loved Spandau Ballet and other eighties groups from being very small, like me! I thought 'geez, we have a lot in common, she has an excellent taste in music! I'll carry on talking to her". At this time I could not fault her one bit, there was a bit of a language barrier and it was hard to make out what she was trying to say, but credit to her she tried her best. We would talk almost everyday about music, and eventually she went and created a private Facebook account, added me there and we would talk regularly on Messenger too, but more about general things like family, weather and pets. In a few short weeks I felt I had really got to know her quite well. She spoke very candidly about personal things, such as being brought up in a dysfunctional family environment, her father dying of lung cancer when she was a teenager etc. I felt sympathy for her and protected her when trolls struck her page. Little did I know, she was one of the biggest trolls I would ever associate with.

Eventually we would talk everyday. She got me to create an account on the popular messaging app Kik as she claimed the conversations were completely private and nobody else would see them. She was always concerned about privacy and even blackmailed me to change my profile picture on Kik to myself, using the excuse that her mother wanted to know that all of her ‘cyber friends’ were not scam artists. Things got rather desperate. She said if I didn’t do it within the next hour her mother would take a sledgehammer to her computer, broadband router and electronics. I complied, but I wasn’t going to use a personal photo of myself as I knew all the dangers that would arise. I went on Google and uploaded a photo of a model that looked like me. She bought it, thank goodness. I felt after so long that I was being suffocated by this person. She always wanted to talk, no matter what time in the day it was and if I was busy or not. I deliberately left my phone at home whilst I was at school to avoid her because there was no way I was going to let her get in the way of my education. There would be several messages demanding to know where I was and she didn’t buy for a second that I was at school. She even went public on her Twitter account talking about me, even if she wasn’t mentioning my name, I knew she was talking about me. “If she is not on by 11 o’clock Italian time I’m going to sleep”. This woman was very controlling, and expected me to believe the unrealistic lies she began to spurt. A funny one I remember is that she said that she wasn’t going to be online that night because she was going to a restaurant with her family. Four hours later she messaged me saying she was still at the restaurant, and she hadn’t been served yet! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There was no way somebody would wait 4 hours to be served and not get any food. If I was faced with a delay that was even three quarters of an hour long I would refuse to pay and walk out.

It went on for a while and eventually I confronted her about her lies, saying I didn’t believe her for a second. She didn’t take well to this, argued with me for about an hour, and cursed me out, becoming very abusive, calling me names such as narcissistic, ugly, fat, (bearing in mind she only had the photo of the model and not me), rude and other things I do not want to repeat, in very poor grammar so it honestly became quite laughable. My mother saw the emotional distress this was causing me, seized my phone and very politely told this woman to cease and desist. I ignored her after that and at least twenty messages came through where she was trying to still provoke me. She was so desperate! Eventually I had enough of her and straight out blocked her on everything. This is where things got worse.

She stalked me and several of my best friends on Twitter, retweeting everything she assumed was about her, even if it wasn’t. But the sneaky thing was, she did not use her own Twitter account as I had her blocked. She created many fake accounts, used photos of the reality star Amanda Bynes and said it was herself, despite many sceptic followers. Soon accounts posing as her ‘friends’ would attack me, saying I was a bitch for bullying someone I didn’t really know, I didn’t know what she was going through, and that she was self-harming because of me. Now, I didn’t aim any abuse at this woman, I did call her clingy and asked her to back off on several occasions, and any insults that I threw at her, were in my own defence. Every time I blocked and reported an account, a new one would crop up. A pattern was soon forming, they all had similar grammar, so it all boiled down to one person. The excuse was someone else was attacking her, which was not true.

It was getting to the point where I didn’t feel safe on social media anymore, it was like she was constantly trawling my profiles to find what juicy gossip about me to use for her own personal gain and then when I least expected it, launch an attack on me. I had blocked her so many times it was getting ridiculous. I stopped using my real surname on Facebook and opted for something different, but something simple so my loyal friends and family could still find and interact with me. I neglected to go on Twitter for quite a while, but when I did eventually return, I locked it so people who I approved could view my tweets and talk to me. Twitter was a godsend. Eventually in November 2016, after four years of hell and dragging me through pointless drama, getting blocked by celebrities for no reason, and endless trolling, all her accounts, including two supposed Toto fan pages vanished overnight without a trace. To this day, some of her ex followers believe that she got tired of Twitter and just deactivated her pages, but I have a different opinion. I believe that she was reported a lot to Twitter for abusive language, cyber bullying and targeted harassment towards me and others, they disabled all her accounts and possibly blocked her IP address from making anymore accounts. One old page still exists today, but has not been active since October 2015. I felt a sense of relief knowing that her reign of terror was finally over. I returned to Twitter and picked up from where I’d left off from 2 years prior. I wasn’t afraid to go on Facebook again as I made sure beforehand to block all of her known accounts.

If this experience has taught me something, it’s to be more sceptical of what you read on the internet. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is completely harmless, but there’s times when things can sound too good to be true. Looking back, I was completely clueless and naïve and did not spot the warning signs until it was too late. One thing’s for sure now, I’ll know to be warier around who I add as friends on social media, and get rid of them at the first sign of trouble to be able to let go of the past more easier and for my own sanity. Thankfully, the woman, has not attempted to return to Twitter since, but still posts on Facebook from time to time. I couldn’t care less though. Only people I truly care about, whether in the cyber world or in reality, can hurt my feelings

Thank you for listening,

- S

Peace at Last for George Michael

Hello everybody,

This is only going to be a short post today.

If you didn't catch the news for any reason whatsoever yesterday, it has finally happened. George Michael was laid to rest yesterday in a private family service, attended by his partner that found him deceased, Kenny Goss, and his other nearest and dearest.

I cannot really say that I am glad he has finally been buried, but what I can say is that I am relieved that it has finally happened. It has taken a long time to happen, specially on account of the fact that it has been 3 months since he died. Hopefully now the healing process can begin for some. I know it has for me.

Rest in peace, George. I hope you're reunited with your beloved mother up there.

- S

My Favourite Eighties Albums of All Time

Hello everybody, 

I haven't posted in a couple of days, due to handling some important personal business and wading my way through a stack of assignments that are due in just before we break up for Easter. But I've got some spare time on my hands right now so I thought I'd give you guys what you wanted and do another 'Favourites' post. I was really surprised at the high number of pageviews on my recent response to all the George Michael drama that's been kicking off recently and the background of how I came to be fascinated on this subject, if you like. So thank you! You guys are awesome! ❤

For today's post I'm going to be sharing with you my favourite 80s albums of all time. My inspiration came from a good Twitter buddy of mine who recently made a video montage of her top 5 favourite albums. So I'm going to take the inspiration I got from that and apply it to this post. I'm no expert when it comes to videos, so there won't be one - sorry! 

When it comes to music, I'll listen to everything at least one, and that includes every genre, and *cough* every artist. But my main passion for it centers around the late 70s and early 80s. I don't ask for recommendations and then never follow up on them, that would totally defeat the object of asking for them in the first place. Normally it's just one track, or their greatest hits album, and if I like what I've heard, I'll listen to more. Also, I'm discovering more bands every day so, I'd safely say, watch this space, I may need to make an updated version of this post this time next month!

So with all that being said, here are my favourite 80s albums of all time, and I'll even recommend a few tracks from each one, too!

5. Duran Duran - Rio

Recommended tracks: Save a Prayer, Rio, Last Chance on the Stairway, Hold Back the Rain

4. Wham! - Fantastic (1983)

Recommended tracks: Young Guns (Go For It), Nothing Looks the Same in the Light, Club Tropicana, A Ray of Sunshine

3. Adam and the Ants - Prince Charming (1981)

Recommended tracks: Stand and Deliver, Prince Charming, Ant Rap, Mowhok

2. Ultravox - Vienna (1980)

Recommended tracks: Mr X, All Stood Still, Passing Strangers, Vienna, Western Promise 

1. George Michael - Faith (1987)

Recommended tracks: I Want Your Sex, Faith, Father Figure

And that's my top 5 favourite albums of all time! Do you have a similar list?

- S

A Thought for this Tuesday

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all well this rather fine Tuesday afternoon. For the first time in a while I'm actually quite optimistic that some good weather is forecast. I wasn't expecting to do two posts today but a lot of people have expressed great curiosity in how I began my passion for the 1980s and music. I've just posted it, so I hope you guys like it.

If you follow me on Twitter I'm not going to be posting for the next couple of days, I just really want to dedicate some time to focus on what outstanding coursework that I have and getting it right so I get the grades I need to get into university this year. So don't worry, I am coming back. It's not one of those crazy moments where I decide to leave permanently and then rock up a week later completely regretting my actions. It's just that I really now need to get my priorities straight and focus on what I want to get out of life the most. So with all that being said, Tweeps, I'll see you when I get back! A while ago, I discovered an app called Buffer in which you can schedule tweets to be posted at any date and time that you want, so this week's tweets will be coming from that source and not me. I'll also be taking time out of my studies to keep this blog updated too.

So with all that being said, here's this Tuesday's motivational quote. Hope it motivates you, even just a teeny tiny bit!

Sigourney