1980: Splodgenessabounds - "Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please!"

Some songs bring wafting back the time they were hits so vividly... and none more so than Splodgenessabounds and the legendary Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please.

It was tucked away on the "B" side of Simon Templar, along with Michael Booth's Talking Bum, but Two Pints... became the anthem of the summer of 1980, that summer of Who Shot JR? The disc reached No 7 in the pop charts in June.

And what was it all about? Some desperate young lad trying to get served in a packed-out pub, it seemed.

Max Splodge, Two Pints... writer and singer, spilled the beans further years later:

"One night I rushed into The Crown in Chislehurst waving a pound note, trying to buy two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. The bell rang and the bloke wouldn't serve me. The guys in the band were out of their heads on magic mushrooms and thought this was hysterical. The next day I put down a drum track and bass line and just shouted, 'two pints of lager and a packet of crisps...' Mike Reid played it on Radio 1 and it started selling 17,000 copies a day. No one could believe it. It sold a quarter of a million copies and got to No 7."

The original Deram vinyl. "BUM 1", "(P) 1980"...