Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Who is Blondie Longneck?



When you return to a town where you've lived for several years, you notice all the little changes. And so to Weymouth, where I spent ten years of my life, but haven't called my home for the last three.

It's faded seaside glamour writ large, but in a nice way - the Georgian seafront defiant against the changing tides of British holiday habits. The bucket and spade holiday may be dying a slow, lingering death, but Weymouth does enough to keep the tourists coming back again and again.

The town still looks the same - with the addition of the modern new viewing tower at the end of the beach, and the Pavilion Theatre hangs on, now in private lands after the council did its level best to run it into the ground with a diet of tribute acts and very little else.

I notice the small changes. Tweaks to the bewildering traffic system, so there's now less than half a chance of killing yourself completely to death trying to turn right off the Esplanade; and the ASBOs on the town's cider enthusiasts appear to be working as there are very few to be seen in the beach shelters.

It being the school holidays, there's a small traveling funfair in the car park by the beach. Waltzer, dodgem, everything you'd expect - with pictures of all the latest celebrities painted on the side to bring on The Kids. If they were The Kids from about twenty years ago.

 There's Robbie Williams! There's Jim Carrey as The Riddler! There's Tina Turner with one breast clearly larger than the other! And ...err... Blondie Longneck!

Stumped, I uploaded Blondie Longneck onto various social media sites and asked the Hive Mind what they thought.

And the Hive Mind said Cameron Diaz, who - mid-90s - was riding the crest of a wave with that film she was in. You know - There's Something About Blondie Longneck. Obviously, Mr Fairground Owner had stumbled out of his local fleapit, absolutely determined to immortalise Blond Longneck on the side of the waltzer, right next to One Big Boob Tina Turner. ('Thunderdome' joke goes here).

Another Hive Mind suggestion was Anneka Rice, and Weymouth and Anneka have history. In 1989, she came to the town to sort out the white horse for her Challenge Anneka programme. The white horse is a depiction of King George III on horseback carved into a hill overlooking Weymouth Bay. By 1989, it was looking a bit tatty, and Anneka's crew was charged with freshening it up.

Unfortunately, corners were cut, the wrong stone was used, and within a few years, the white horse was an embarrassing shade of grey. So, to get revenge, a local fairground operator painted her on the side of a waltzer, so her face would be the last thing you saw before puking candy floss and hot dog all down your front. Makes perfect sense to be.

So, to sort this out for once and for all, I reached out to Cameron Diaz on Twitter to see if she had posed for a fairground artist, or would she like us to send the boys round.

She does not reply.

4 comments:

Chris said...

I thought it was Mariella Frostrup.

Proof said...

Gwyneth Paltrow?

Proof said...

with Shirley Bassey on her left.

Howard said...

David Soul?