you could be my railroad

"The geezer wears many masks, man."

disney princesses peggy gallagher and debbie gwyther 💞

^ noel, on a party he went to in 1994, though i haven’t been able to find a date for the quote itself

[Brookside] experienced an extreme backlash from viewers in 1996 following a hugely controversial storyline focusing on an incestuous sexual relationship between two siblings; from thereon the show became synonymous with outrageous and improbable storylines that affected its popularity.

^ wikipedia

most of the backlash was in august 1996, particularly the first week of august; it seems that, while the whole storyline was controversial, episode #1758, which aired on the night of 2 august 1996—that is, the night before loch lomond—was especially so (probably because its content was more explicit about the sexual relationship between the siblings, but i’ll look into it some more.)

nat and georgia (the brother and sister) are staying in a holiday cottage so that they can be together one final time before nat gets married to his girlfriend, jules. he is missing the wedding rehearsal to be with georgia.

due to some sort of double-booking situation, there is another family staying at the cottage; when they go fishing georgia and nat have sex (the sex isn’t shown onscreen, but we see them naked in bed making out afterwards).

they talk about their past and lament the fact that they can’t be free to be together; georgia says, “let’s just make the most of our last day together. then we can go back to being proper brother and sister again.” more making out and fucking offscreen ensues. (okay this scene is genuinely really emotional 😭 i’m not doing it justice with my lackluster narration)

the other family staying at the cottage come back from their fishing trip early and one of them walks in on nat and georgia naked and in bed together.

the family leave, disgusted, despite nat and georgia’s desperate attempts to de-escelate the situation and redeem themselves. georgia is convinced they’re doomed and that their relationship will inevitably be revealed; nat tries to comfort her and decides to leave to try to convince the family not to tell on them.

as far as i can tell from just those 25 minutes, the show is surprisingly sympathetic towards the couple; it seems like we are meant to feel sad for them (important disclaimer, though, that i watched this episode with absolutely no context whatsoever, so i could be wrong). anyways. let’s factor this into noel’s pre-loch lomond psyche shall we 😍

The critics are on about me being on a power trip and wallowing in the limelight, aren't they? Well, I first played it when we went to Japan and we were contracted to play for an hour and a half when we only had a 40-50- minute set. The one way out was for me to play acoustic. I'll admit to you right now it felt really good. I thought, "All right, I'll carry on doing this" But I've had a lot of shit off the band about it.

They think you're "wallowing in the limelight" too?

They probably do. The way I see it is this: I believe the fans of the band should get a chance to see how these songs are born. They all start with one man sitting in a chair with an acoustic guitar singing into a Walkman. I'll never let it go now.

People presume you're lining up to go solo. Is that your plan?

No. Never was, never will be. This is my first band and my first rock'n'roll experience and it'd be my last. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Steve: It's partly the image in your mind, when you're onstage. That's- that's what I'm thinking about. What you've actually got in your head.

Noel: Onstage- onstage, I just want him. And it's like- and there's only me and him, right, that...will ever get this. When he turns to me and I turn to him at, like, one guitar break or whatever, and like, we just like both look at each other. And that's what it's about for us. ... There's like, certain points at certain gigs and y'know, there's only, y'know. I mean, not like fucking dissing the rest of the band or anything like that, but there's only me and him. When he turns to me and goes, "Are ye mad fer it?" and I go, "Aye, cocker!" That's what it's all about, innit.

— Getting high : the adventures of Oasis by Paolo Hewitt

— 10/08/1994 Irish Centre, Leeds

(Noel nursing a black eye at Leeds Irish Centre after being punched in the face the night before in Newcastle.)

Jo: There’s kind of a rather large bloke following you around.

Noel: He’s me boyfriend.

Jo: So you’re big time now.

Noel: Yeah, that’s what my girlfriend tells me.

Jo: Boyfriend and girlfriend then.