Whispers
This week Whispers ponders the question: what is the worst thing about stardom?
Is it the money? The groupies? The vast supplies of finely chopped parsley that decorate the backstage smoked salmon?
Nope, according to Duran’s Nick Rhodes, it’s having to use the tradesmen’s entrance at hotels to escape lust-crazed fans.
“I quite often have to go through the back,” he grimaces, “and I really hate kitchens. I like going through the front!”
Meanwhile Nick can’t decide where to go for his hols: “I’m definitely having one this year,” he vows. “But I can’t stand the sun, I get easily burnt.” That rules out Rhodes then (yuk yuk)…
Frankie Goes To Crickiewood? Could be, could be. The lads want to add to their motor collection. Ped, Mark and Nasher have got a £150 kitty together and are scouring through Exchange & Mart for a pal for the Orange Go Mobile.
We bumped into the Franks on the way back from the Fatherland, moaning about Brit Air losing their luggage again. Mark O’Toole’s brand new shirts were sent from Munich to ZTT without ever gracing his manly back…
On a recent visit to Portugal Spandau had a surprise clash with someone other than FGTH. When leaving the stadium where they’d performed to 40,000 hysterical fans (hysterical looking, that is), the boys were cut up by none other than Mickey Mouse and Goofy driving an old Jalopy. Luckily Steve Norman communicated with them in a common tongue and the two cars parted peacefully.
Problems, problems for Terry Hall and his Colour Field combo as the lads rehearse in a Coventry sports centre for a November tour. Nothing unusual in that, you reply, but said centre is smack next to a nursery —
“That suits me,” says Hall. —
The enormously wealthy Feargal Sharkey was seen watching pals Mickey Bradley and Damien O’Neill as the ex-Undertones debuted their band Eleven at the Marquee. Feargy bought two halves of lager, for himself, and then strutted around waving a cheap-looking plastic walking stick with an imitation silver knob…
Like Richard Jobson’s teeth, the stars came out at night for the return of Spizz. Heaven 17, Midge Ure and various Banshees attended the gig and post-gig soiree in Europe’s tackiest disco, The Park. Heat in the club was so intense that Siouxsie and Steve Severin’s make-up melted.
Jim Kerr learns what it means to support the wife when Simple Minds open for The Pretenders this week at Madison Square Garden. While you try to fathom the extraordinary coincidence that brought about this billing, Whispers merely wonders: Will they do ‘I Got You Babe’ or ‘The Great Pretender’?
S And The Bs, Holly and Paul, Bailey and Helvin and Malcolm McLaren were also seen at smart photographer Bruce Weber’s Olympus beanfeast, swigging the free wine like there was no tomorrow and wolfing down the canapes. We learnt that the Banshees may provide music for The Howling 2 and that Richard Strange, such a dear boy, is to star in a new Mel Smith flick…
Hugh Masekala, Amazulu, Matt Johnson, Jeremiah, Dammers et al swarmed to see Zeke Manyika play the Africa Centre last week. GLC leader Ken Livingston was also there but fled to the bar when Edwyn Collins joined Zeke for an onstage knees up…
Simon Le Bon is on a nice boat thing somewhere in the oil-polluted Med. Hi Simon! Coo-ee! Deck tennis? Quoits? More bubbly?…
Oh God! Boy George’s buddy Philip Sallon has got a band called The Mud Men. Does The Sun know?…
Howard Jones took time off from munching through his pulses and beans with friends Eurythmics In America to tell a flabbergasted Whispers of his recent Japanese travels. Whilst there Howie lost several pairs of keks and various nether garments, ripped from his shapely torso by inquisitive fans, many of them female. “I had so much fun there, I’m going back,” Howard roared.
The pop and fashion world are coming together next week with the help of TVam. Frankie, Nick Heyward, Sade, Marilyn and Steve Strange are all picking their favourite fashion designers of the moment…
And as we write you may well have already spotted Nick Heyward poncing about in Stephen King’s fashionable shop in London’s King’s Road…
Phil Collins got married last Saturday somewhere in Guildford. It was a quiet wedding with only the bride and groom’s immediate family and the whole of Fleet Street in attendance…
Meanwhile, some 500 miles away in darkest Scotland Sideway Look (who?) were seen filming a video (gasp) with Gregory’s Girl recluse Dee Hepburn and Gordon Sinclair. The crew set up gear in Royston Hill estate, Coatbridge, but were so intimidated by the natives they they had to ask for police protection.
Commented a spokesman for Virgin Records: “It was a brew, brecht, moonlicht nicht”…
Oops! Remember our exclusive revelation of a behind-the-scenes tiff between Sade and TVam weather girl Wincy Willis? Well it was all a case of mistaken identity. Wincy it wasn’t. We wince at the memory…
“No comment!” Holly Johnson, dressed for the weather, turns down a double Mr Softee Chocco-Whip while in the background several million bemused Frankie fans decide which mix of ‘Two Tribes’ to buy this week in Virgin’s new Torquay store.