I stand before you seeking absolution at the altar of 1980s sartorial salvation.
Proper penance perhaps requires the subject to kneel, but that’s not an option in tight black leather breeks.
(Okay, faux leather.)
(Alright, PVC if you must know.)
It is topped off with a shirt which looks as if its wearer has been pinned down by a graffiti gang who have unloaded every colour within their aerosol arsenal at will.
Plus Duran Duran-inspired boots which defy description or any kind of defence.
Mercifully for all of us – not least yours truly – coming from an era closer to telegram than Instagram means there remains (hopefully) little photographic proof of that melange of fashion madness.
Time has also taken its toll on the now long departed flick of blond, in the same way the intervening decades have ravaged one regular haunt of a misspent youth – and no little amount of Courier wages.
Flicks in Brechin was THE place in those days.
An art deco, laser-filled temple of fun, fun and yet more fun.
My crimes against couture may be gone, if not entirely forgotten, but the place which became a mecca for the Stock, Aitken & Waterman generation from across Britain still stands, 91 years on from its opening as Brechin’s cinema.
Unfortunately, there is another generation that looks on the one-time king of clubs as only a dilapidated eyesore, dragging down a high street fighting for its future like every other in the land.
There has been no lack of ambition to return the Flicks buildings to productive prominence at the bottom of the High Street brae, but twice now Angus Council has been thwarted in a plan to relieve its owners of a deteriorating asset and remodel the cavernous interior with much-needed new homes.
Not so long ago it was even offered with a price tag of zilch, but Irish owners have turned down the latest bid and say they will probably put it up for auction.
It’s hammer time, as one hip hop artist’s song once boomed across the dance floor below the famous Flicks glass lounge.
Brechin can only hope the grand building gets a new owner – and a third successful lease of life – as soon as possible.
