Back on this day 25 years ago...........WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 9th 1977
1977
 DATE INDEX
DECEMBER
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 c/o Virgin have the police enforcing an 1889 Indecent Advertisements Act as well as an equally antique Vagrancy Act upon the Virgin record shop in Kings Road, Nottingham today. Last Saturday a police sergeant was shocked to see a 6 x 9 foot poster of the cover in the window. It was removed and replaced when she left. The sergeant returned today with reinforcements and arrested the shop manager, Chris Scale. Records have been impounded, shop keepers (even independents) harassed and fines levied. All over a record sleeve. Virgin Records boss Richard Branson has said that Virgin will continue to display it in their shop windows. "We would be hypocritical if we took them down" he said. A trial date is set for November 24th. Not only is the album unable to be displayed, £40,000 worth of advertising has been rejected (even though it was earlier approved) by the Association of Independent Radio Contractors.  No ads will be seen on TV or heard on the radio. So far Woolworth's, W.H. Smiths and Boots have all forbade sale of the album. Others are covering up the offensive word. On the other hand, the Virgin retail store in Notting Hill Gate has stocked that store with nothing BUT "Never Mind The Bollocks."  have once again been immortalized on vinyl. This time it's "Mary Of The Fourth Form" flipped with "Do The Rat," a popular audience participation number....
THE BOOMTOWN RATS 'Mary Of The 4th Form' (Ensign)
While schnurdos everywhere are trying desperately to suss out whether The Boomtown Rats are actually punks or not, me and a bunch of other people are quite happy to dig 'em for the music, guffaw at Modest Bob Geldof's outrageous inflammatory statements to the national press and groove on regardless. 'Mary Of The Fourth Form' is an alternative version of their album track of the same name backed by 'Do The Rat', "a popular stage number" (to use technical music business jargon) of theirs. 'Mary'is a hard-charging Feelgoods-derived song about a horny, tantalizing schoolgirl which never descends into Strangled misogyny and is a nice enough single, but after 'Lookin' After Number One' it's a pity that Geldof & Co didn't have a chance to get into the studio and cut a Real Single as a follow-up. Still, like the voices go at the end of 'Do The Rat': "But what has all this got to do with punk rock?" "Uh...ummm...nothing at all." (Charlse Shaar Murray - NME)
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