SOCK TO THE SOLAR PLEXUS
Time for a few home truths: your “British Invasion” may not exactly constitute a Brain Drain for us, but the U.K. is certainly not Where It’s All Happening. To give you facts (rather than sales gimmicks), this is actually Where It’s All NOT Happening.
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
SOCK TO THE SOLAR PLEXUS
by
Cynthia Rose
Time for a few home truths: your “British Invasion” may not exactly constitute a Brain Drain for us, but the U.K. is certainly not Where It’s All Happening. To give you facts (rather than sales gimmicks), this is actually Where It’s All NOT Happening. This week the nurses, teachers, postmen and auxiliary staff at various large municipal spots up and down the isles are on strike. And last night’s news showed barely-believable footage of 5,000 mounted police charging 7,000 of the miners—whose strike is in its 13th week. Two days ago, our own publisher even suspended printing the New Musical Express “for the foreseeable future.”
This afternoon in London at least 25,000 folks plodded seven miles in the sunshine to protest Maggie Thatcher’s meeting with Pieter Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa’s apartheid state. The many martyrs to its entrenched racism include, of course, Nelson Mandela—and strains of the Special AKA’s “Free Nelson Mandela” could be heard the length and breadth of the march*, .both blaring from trannies and sung by the crowd.