The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 27/04/15
Editors - "An End Has A Start" (2007)
Following on from yesterday, here's another song I first heard in the car whilst carrying out my duties as IT Support Officer.
Actually, my job title by this time was 'IT Change Officer' because the actual front-line support work had been privatised to people sitting in a couple of call centres in Birmingham and Telford, and second-line help had been outsourced as well (a fuller, contemporary account can be found here). All that was left for those of us who refused to get ourselves exiled into the deep shit of the thrusting, dynamic private sector was little more than administering services and accesses: important, but not very exciting.
As a result of this substantial recasting, the geographical boundaries for our responsibilities were radically altered as well. From being part of a team based in Wrexham and Bangor looking after offices in those two locations plus Holyhead Harbour, Porthmadog, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Welshpool, we then added a couple of locations in Telford, along with three new team members. A change in management then added most of the offices in a swathe of territory reaching right across to the far side of Nottinghamshire, along with the people who had previously administered them alone. One more change of manager rid us of the East Midlands contingent but instead gave us the whole Birmingham area and right down to Hereford and Evesham, along with their existing IT Change bods.
This sort of thing made for difficulties when it came to holding team meetings, as we were spread over about ten locations. Sometimes the meetings were held in Birmingham, but more often in Telford as that made it easier for the two of us remaining in North Wales to get to. This meant that my colleague Derek Evans - based by the time I'm talking about in Colwyn Bay - would drive down to Wrexham to pick me up and then we would go down to Telford together, with him dropping me off again back at base before scooting up the A55 back home.
As with the journey from Rhyl which I referred to yesterday, Derek would have Radio 2 on as we came back (which was the cause of us hearing this little gem and Derek nearly leaving the northbound carriageway by an unofficial exit as a result). Again, I don't know if it was Wretched Wright doing the yapping, but I was jolted out of my own standby mode by an absolutely cracking song, Again, I had to wait until I got home and checked the playlist to find out what it was.
(It's worth remarking - well, I think it is - that since John Peel's death I had lost all track of what was to be found on the Cutting Edge Of Pop™, and that yesterday's little treat and today's were both encountered on Radio 2 rather than Radio 1. It may have been a sign that Radio 1 had given itself over so totally to dance-dominated, down-wid-da-kidz crap that anything interesting would have had trouble finding purchase there; or that Radio 2 had realised that its traditional audience of the Corfam slippers brigade were - literally - dying off, and had to be replaced by a younger set; or it may simply have been me getting older).
Editors - definitely (or rather indefinitely) not The Editors - are a band from Stafford (a location which I think our team had responsibility for at the time), and this track was the title number from their 2007 offering An End Has A Start. I was taken immediately by its anthemic power and drive, and perhaps you will be too, although the video is a bit naff. Like Electron Blue, it was only just a Top 30 sound, but it's a Top Ten spin for me. Enjoy!
