Walthamstow's Finest

I am not ashamed (though I probably should be) to say that I was an East 17 fan back in the day where being an East 17 fan didn’t get your head kicked in. Yep, I had large posters of Tony Mortimer and Brian Harvey up in my room, even a couple of small ones of Bill and Bob (or whatever the other two were called). Mum of course knew of the fascination, being subjected to their music all the time. I even blasted it in the kitchen when she was trying to teach me how to make chapattis.
East 17 broke up in 1997 and I was sad for, oh, about a day. My musical tastes have changed, you’ll be pleased to know. (Some would argue that liking the Backstreet Boys isn’t much of a progression but boo sucks to them.) Mum however isn’t quite up to speed with the goings ons in the pop world (apparently she has better things to do with her time. Poor excuse, I know.) Whenever I’m listening to something that happens to have a male voice, mum chimes in, “Is this East 17?” To name but a few, she has asked me this whilst I’ve been listening to the following: Seal, 112, Maroon 5 and Notorious BIG.
I don’t mind of course, I just gently tell her that no, it’s not the boys from Walthamstow.
The last straw however was the other day when I was listening to Franz Ferdinand. “Is this East 17?”
“Mum! East 17 have been been gone for over eight years now! No this is not East 17….I don’t listen to them anymore! They weren’t that great a band in the first place; that is such an insult to this music!”
“Okay, okay, baba…..is it Take That?”