It’s like a disease

Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and The Pacemakers, is not going to be tempted by any dockside "action". Not even Ludo, a game that was still widely available when I was a child, but not to the extent that anyone still knew how to play it. PS I spent a long time in consultation to find an appropriate euphemism for "sex worker" for this comic and I hope I made the right decision.


89 comments on “It’s like a disease

  1. To be honest. He has every reason to be afraid of Shelley. His mother teaches him very well. Unfortunately, Shelley is waaaay stronger than him.

  2. I must admit, “fille de joi” is not one I’d heard before. After saying that, if Gerry still is worried about girls like her, I wonder what quality he is referring to. Maybe his ma warned him off gingers?

    1. Or maybe he doesn’t speak French?

  3. “Waterloo sunset” started playing in my brain

    1. …And one wonders precisely how much irony was deliberately loaded into that post.

  4. Ludo may seem like a harmless game, but it can be a gateway to more dangerous things, like (gasp) pitch-and-toss!

    1. I’ve hears it can lead to Trivial Pursuit, or even (shudder) Monopoly!

  5. I don’t want to be “that guy” but isn’t it “fille de joie”?

    1. I just read it as Shelley’s not-entirely-up-to-l’Académie-Français-standards pronunciation.

      1. *Française

        Je suis tellement mortifié.

    2. Wait what did it say originally?

      1. “filly goy”.

  6. He needs to take that ferry ‘cross the Mersey.

  7. The first time I heard this song was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s cover. (Which is actually fairly serviceable, but it still feels a little shameful.)

  8. Tsk tsk. Filth is what it is. Nothing but robots and Ludo women.

  9. Best songs about local water features:

    Ferry Cross the Mersey – Gerry & the Pacemakers
    Dirty Water – The Standells
    Tahquamenon Falls – Sufjan Stevens
    River Euphrates – The Pixies

    Am I missing any?

    1. Cuyahoga – REM

      1. An excellent selection!

    2. I’m pretty sure there’s one about the Mississippi.

      1. Black Water

      2. Old Man River

      3. Classic river songs!

    3. The Broad Majestic Shannon – The Pogues
      Rockaway Beach – The Ramones

      1. I had not heard that Pogues song. I can never understand his lyrics, but I can easily imagine they are about the majesty of Ireland’s longest river.

        I can’t imagine the Ramones ever touching the ocean. Salt water is murder on leather jackets.

        1. SchadenfreudePersonified

          “I can’t imagine the Ramones ever touching the ocean. Salt water is murder on leather jackets.”

          LOL!

    4. Night Boat to Cairo by Madness?

    5. Echo Beach – Martha and the Muffins
      An Der Schönen, Blauen Donau – Johann Strauss II & Franz von Gernerth

      1. Also “You Sold the Cottage” by Martha and The Muffins!

      2. Strauss was a populist. He knew what the people want! They want songs about rivers!

    6. A Great Northern River by the Unthanks

      tangentially, Medway Wheelers by the Buff Medways

      Rhinestone Cowboy

      And anything by Terence Trent d’Arby.

      1. “A Great Northern River” pshaw! Tell us which river, mesdames! Is that really too much to ask?

    7. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

      1. It’s a boat song, albeit one of the best boat songs. For some reason it’s deeply important to me that this is a distinct category.

    8. Riverboat by Allen Toussaint/Van Dyke Parks/Robert Palmer etc?

      1. There appear to be a great many songs about boats and significantly fewer specifically dedicated to the sub-oceanic bodies of water in which those boats travel. It’s truly a shame!

    9. Waterloo Sunset. Tops all of the above.

      1. A beautiful song, but it’s primarily about Waterloo station, with only a glancing reference to the “dirty old river”

    10. Does Surf City count? Is the Pacific Ocean considered a water feature?

      1. If it were up to me I’d allow it, but the Local Water Feature Song Council feels that it’s a “slippery slope”.

    11. Burn On by Randy Newman

      1. It’s telling that there are multiple songs about the Cuyahoga, specifically because of the catching on fire thing. It would be nice to have some more positive river and lake songs. Songwriters of the world take note!

      2. “Louisiana 1927” – also by Randy

    12. Roll On Columbia – Woody Guthrie

      1. This one is great. Woody really knew how to write a song about a river.

      2. I would have suggested Roll On, Columbia if it hadn’t been done. Gotta recognize Woody.

    13. Down by the River (Neil Young).

      1. But which river, Neil? Which river?

        I believe he’s trying to obscure the details to cover up his heinous crime. Though I suppose that if I shot my baby, I wouldn’t want to tell anyone else where it happened either.

    14. Shenandoah

      1. I had always thought that song was about the valley, but now Wikipedia informs me that it might be about the Oneida chief Shenandoah, who the valley and river were named for. Now I don’t know what to believe!

        1. It’s about the river:

          Oh Shenandoah,
          I long to hear you,
          Far away, you rolling river.
          Oh Shenandoah,
          Just to be near you,
          Away, I’m bound away
          Across the wide Missouri.

        2. Dr. Boots' List

          Interesting, not the lyrics I was familiar with. Wikipedia gives several variations.

        3. I’m sure it’s about the Indian chief. One of the verses goes, “O Shenandoah, I love your daughter …” Rivers don’t generally have children.

      2. Which version? The one quoted below from Joe King or Bob Weir’s song? “Only a river’s gonna make things right.”

    15. Don’t forget Indian Lake by the Cowsills.

      1. I did not know it, but now I do!

    16. Song of the Clyde …
      Volga Boatmen …
      There’s that poem by William McGonagall about The Silvery Tay, but I’m not sure if it counts as a song … I could compose a tune for it I suppose.

      I’m sure I know loads of songs about rivers, lakes, lochs and tremendous puddles, but I haven’t had any coffee yet and my brain is a-fuzz. Might get back to you when I’m awake.

      1. Excellent! Let me know what else you think of. This thread got so inspiring that I’m actually starting a list.

    17. Floating in the Forth – Frightened Rabbit

      Rest In Peace, Scott Hutchinson

      1. RIP, so sad. Saw him play in 2016 and had no idea it would be the last time. They were very good though, such a powerful catalogue

    18. Dar Williams – The Hudson

  10. …I keep feeling bad for all of these other bands.

  11. Don’t get me wrong I’m loving this but still wondering where the Beetles fit in. I guess there are revelations still to come.

    1. Hear hear! Where is the immortal poet Pam Dylan? http://scarygoround.com/badmachinery/?date=20131212

      The Tackleford universe timeline seems rather more than a bit fractured.

      1. Don’t try to make it all fit together. It’ll hurt your head.

        As William Hurt said in The Big Chill, “Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.”

    2. Written out of history in Crisis On Infinite Earths

  12. “Fille de joie” synonyms: fallen angel, watery tart, moistened bint, good-time girl, Misguided Girl Guide, soiled dove.

    1. There’s probably a mandatory Monty Python link at about this point.

    2. I’ve soiled my doves more than once reading Destroy History.

    3. Lady of negotiable virtue is good, too.

      1. “Seamstress” or Ladies of Negotiable Affection in Ankh-Morpork.

  13. Fille de joie is a gem. I shall be using it at the earliest opportunity!

  14. “Fille de joie” was indeed the right decision. Though I think I last (and possibly first) heard it in another comic strip. (By Posy Simmonds, back in the ’90s.)

    1. (a) Should be “saw” rather than “heard”, of course, and (b) ’80s rather than ’90s, of course. I’m getting careless.

  15. I wish I was back in Liverpool
    Liverpool town where I was born
    Where there ain’t no trees, no scented breeze
    No fields of waving corn
    But there’s lots of girls with peroxide curls
    And the Black and Tan flows free
    There’s six in a bed by the old pier head
    And it’s Liverpool town for me

  16. John, I hope you’ve thoroughly researched Gerry’s height and hairstyle, as well as his typical posture. You don’t want another Freddygate.

    1. Sadly I missed his Cuban heels until after I’d finished drawing this series. I’ll be in the dock on Monday.

  17. My preferred job title would be “Independent Contractor Dealing in a Personal Service” .

    1. That “independent” part can be contentious. In San Francisco someone filed a suit arguing that the strippers at a local “gentleman’s” club were actually employees, which would mean management was required to provide health insurance.

  18. “Strumpet” always makes me laugh.

    1. Now we’re getting into AD&D first edition GM’s Guide Prostitute Encounter Table territory. For those of us willing to own our geekiness.

  19. My Gramma grew up in Liverpool, and she didn’t mind leaving.

    1. That wasn’t what grieved her?

      1. Heh. I used to know the man who first collected that song.

  20. Way back, my youth group booked a pop group for our annual barbEque; and – because he was cheap – we got Gerry+Pacemakers. Soon afterwards, he made #1 with ‘Ferry’, but we had a contract. We were offered a large sum to let him off, but held him to it; and we made enough to book Marianne Faithful the next year…

    1. Wasn’t ‘Ferry’ – elderly memory (sigh). It was ‘I like it’.

  21. If you like specificity in the river that you murder your lover next to, there’s Banks Of The Ohio.

  22. Late to the party, but… “Swanee River” (Stephen Foster). Also “The Moldau” (Vltava river in Bohemia) by Bedrich Smetana.

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