101 Faces - 2

Here are some more great people with great faces

DEBBIE HARRY

It shouldn’t be, but it’s incredible that Debbie Harry was the great teen/pop icon/pin-up of the late 70s when she was already in her mid-30s. She was born in the same year as my mum, and I was a 4^th child being born when Debbie Harry was starting to get famous. She’d already had such a life before – there’s a story about her escaping from a car driven by serial killer Ted Bundy which is a little discredited, but it always struck me. I also think of the story of love and sacrifice at the centre of Blondie, the ongoing partnership between Harry and Stein (alongside whatever sadness and darkness). Most of all, I love Blondie songs, their range, their thrill. I love Rip Her to Shreds, it’s so nasty, and I love Call Me and Sunday Girl and the rest.

ALBERT CAMUS

There’s a lot I like about Camus. I love his face, I even enjoyed reading his books, but that football quote on that football t-shirt really is the icing on the cake. “Everything I know most surely etc” you know the one. Because it really articulates that thing that is really very important to me – sport is not just games for boys, it’s deep and brilliant and art and politics all at once. Kind of not-quite connected, but I enjoyed this quote from author Sally Rooney about footballers recently, “through no fault of their own they have a sublime gift and there’s nothing in their personality that would necessarily mean they enjoy fame. They don’t choose to be celebrities in the way that actors do. They just have it heaped on them.”

VALERIE SOLANAS

I’ve thought about Valerie Solanas a lot down the years. Really ahead of her time. Still, don’t go shooting people. 

I tell you, I wrote this  coupley I was proud of, then I not only ruined the poem that it prompted, I actually ruined the line itself by embellishing it. The original couplet was 

“Fame is for the few, whatever Andy Warhol said

 to Valerie Solanas as his holy torso bled”. 

Then I added “Fatal” at the start which takes away a lot more than it adds.  Still, I wrote that line, and I tell you, I like it a lot.

CURTLY AMBROSE

Curtly in his prime was, to me, the most fearsome thing in sport. More than Tyson, or Roy Keane, or Martin Johnson, or whoever. Fluid and deadly, and author of one of the great catchphrases “Curtly talk to no man” – except when he finished playing, he did start talking, and that was great too.  And he played bass in a band with Richie Richardson called Big Bad Dread and the Bald Head. Find me a greater man. "Curtly talk to no man", Curtly said curtly.

THOMAS HARDY

I always loved Hardy – and his writing straddles several eras. He writes about a shifting world and seems both ancient and modern – tremendously humane and deep. One of several famous people called Thomas Hardy, but this is my favourite.