ECLIPSE 1999
Some weeks earlier, the Pet Shop Boys were contacted by Radio One, who asked them to compose a piece of music to play on the radio during the forthcoming total eclipse, the first to be visible in Great Britain for over seventy years, on August 11th. They agreed. The week before, they recorded a song called "Casting A Shadow", and prepared to go to Cornwall for its premiere.

August 10th, 1999.

The Pet Shop Boys party meet up the day before the eclipse at Paddington station, to catch the train down to Cornwall. Cornwall is where the total eclipse is to be visible - or would be, anyway, if the sky is clear. At any given time in August there is generally a 45% chance of a clear sky, but the forecast is now bad: meteorologists are estimating less than a 20% chance. The Pet Shop Boys must travel down today because it is nearly six hours by train. All the roads are blocked and they have decided (unlike Suede, who are also appearing in Cornwall) that they don't fancy going by helicopter.
Neil and Chris browse in the station book store. "What can I read for six hours?" Chris frets. He plumps for a Ruth Rendell mystery, The Best Man The Die, and Kevin Sampson's music industry satire Powder. Neil chooses Things Can Only Get Better, the reminiscences of a Labour party supporter, and Martyn Harris's Diana: The Final Days.

At 3.33pm, as the train pulls out, Neil says so we re off into the great unknown". Mitch, their manager, hands out photocopied fact sheets about the eclipse ("so you don't have to ask me too many questions," she says) and convenes a meeting about the forthcoming Creamfields show, and an offer to play two concerts in the Middle-East. They discuss money, then Neil reads his newspaper horoscope.
"Start concentrating on your finances," it says. At 3.56pm Chris says: "Right. Are we nearly there?" There is a picnic and some drinks stowed away. Neil suggests they're not touched until Exeter. "Because," he reasons, "when you get to Exeter you think you're already there, and there's about three hours to go." Mitch puts forward some more business proposals, some of which they agree to and many of which they dismiss. She announces that "the Latin Americans are coming in" and hands them the printout of an e-mail. Neil studies it. "That's a great line," he says. "'Jesus is keen to utilize the media'. I bet he is." (Jesus is one of the South American record company executives; it is a common name in the Spanish-speaking world.) The meeting continues. "Right," says Chris, after a while. "Have we said no to enough things on this journey?" Neil begins reading his book about Princess Diana, though he gets a little defensive whenever anyone teases him about it.

'There used to be a half hour time difference in Cornwall, didn't there?" Chris suddenly announces. No one answers for a moment. "That's an outrageous thing to throw in," Neil splutters. 'I think we need to find out about this."
'Why don't we get you to say it on national radio tomorrow," suggests Chris, who rapidly becomes less confident about this fact, "and make you a national laughing stock?" The train rolls on. 'For lunch tomorrow," Chris says, "I want a Cornish pasties." Mitch asks Chris whether he would do a fashion feature for Loaded magazine. 'That's a great idea," says Neil.
I'll do that," Chris concedes, "in return for knocking out two German interviews." 'Germany is a very important market," Mitch reminds him. "You decide," Chris grins. "I like this bartering business."

We reach Exeter. A large bowl of caviar appears, carefully cradled inside an even larger bowl of ice. There is also a large tray of sandwiches. The champagne is opened. "It's our champagne-and-caviar lifestyle," Neil observes. "It is beluga, isn't it?" inquires Chris cheekily.
"You are so pretentious," says Neil. Even after everyone has enjoyed generous dollops, there's plenty Life. "We've got tons of caviar here," Neil says. "Do you know how much it cost?"
Chris looks out the window and admires the countryside. "You know," he says, "if the world ended, it wouldn't take long to be covered in vegetation. It'd be like we'd never been here." Neil worries about the Radio One broadcast tomorrow. The eclipse occurs in the middle of the Radio One Roadshow, on which the Pet Shop Boys have also agreed to appear. It is hosted by Simon Mayo, but Radio One have agreed that the Pet Shop Boys' piece of music will be played undisturbed. Neil wants reassurance. "He's not going to talk over the music, is he?" he asks Helena, the woman from their record company Parlophone.

"No," she says. A rather drunk man wanders towards us and asks for a plastic glass. He may well be hoping for some champagne as well. "I'm an ex-royal marine," he says, "and I just got married." "We need a velvet rope here," Neil mutters, half-ironically. A few minutes later he suggests to Dainton that they offer the rest of the sandwich tray around the carriage. Chris complains about the ring-tone on Mitch's mobile, and insists on returning it. He selects the option called "polite", then telephones her phone with his phone, about two feet away, to check that it works. He nods approvingly at the more restrained noise which results. "Have you heard Moby's album?" he asks. "It's really good."

"It's a masterpiece," Neil agrees. His phone rings. It's Janet Street-Porter. "We're halfway through the six hour train journey," he reports. "We've had the caviar, we're on the champagne... Chris wonders what they'll need on the return journey. "After," he says, "the euphoria of our...what's it called? 'Grasping A Shadow?"'
"'Grasping At Straws'," says Neil, who gets out his CD Walkman and plays himself something by Bach.. Finally, the train pulls into Redruth where they are met by a driver and his minibus. "Are we not limed up?" asks Chris, deadpan. "I can't believe we're really geeing into a minibus. We're an International Priority Act."

They drive into downtown Redruth. Just as we pass some teenagers and Chris says "here's the local youth" one of the girls spits on one of the boys. When she hears a combination of cheers and jeers from the van she raises her fist in triumph. At the hotel, they go for dinner. "Let's get started," says Chris, brandishing a menu. "Yes," says Neil, "because we're in the wiggy wiggy wild west." This leads them to talk about frightening rural-based movies. "Stars' Dogs," says Neil. "Scary film."

"Was it scarier than The Tony Blair Project?" asks Chris. "Yeah," says Neil. "I thought you thought it was the scariest film you'd seen?" Chris says. (They're talking about The Blair Witch Project, which they saw on holiday with Elton John in France.) "It was rubbish." "I was terrified throughout," Neil says. "Me and Elton thought it was crap, Chris reports. Neil mentions that during the holiday Elton John went round singing "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", and would do an impression of Marlene Dietrich singing "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More".

Later in the meal, Neil and Chris debate whether you ever really know whether something you do is good. "I knew with 'West End Girls'," Chris says. "Every time we played it, it just sounded great." "I thought 'It's A Sin' was really good when we finished it," Neil says. "And when Derek Jarrnan came round to discuss the video at Advision, I remember playing it to him and thinking it sounded absolutely fantastic." The hotel pianist dawdles through a terrible version of The Beatles' "The Long And Winding Road". "They can't keep time," Chris mutters. "In the bath I listened to the end of Abbey Road," Neil says, "because someone said it made them cry." He pauses. "It didn't make me cry, but it's jolly good."

They begin arguing about "A Day In The Life". Chris maintains that the Paul McCartney bit in the middle - "got out of bed..." - is useless, and ruins the song. "No, it's good," Neil insists, "and it allows you to have the best bit." He half-sings, half-mimes the dramatic transition between that bit and the song's third verse. "This is a classic Neil argument," Chris declares. "Having a crap bit so you can have a good bit." They talk about their recent day at The Of The Pops, when they met Puff Daddy, and were invited to his party that evening. "The music was fantastic," Chris says. "The atmosphere was so good. Puff Daddy got on the microphone and did a bit of MC. He even played..." Chris sings Nub Shoot's "I Can't Wait" - "...That's how good the music was. And Naseem came running up to me.

"Top Of The Pops was a hoot," Neil says. "Madness, Culture Club, Elvis Costello, Catatonia. Cerys told me I looked like Nik Kershaw. Boy George was fascinated by our wigs. They all came to watch us do our number." Neil eats scampi on a plate of spinach: "the dish I have created for myself," he points out. "It looks fetching on the green." Chris has Dover sole. He pokes it with his knife and is a little alairned by the result. "Is that blood?" he wonders. "Do fish have blood?" "Yes," Neil says.
"I didn't know that," says Chris. "Even as I said yes," Neil sighs, "I knew I should say no." Chris asks Helena if she's Turkish. "I've got a bit of Spanish in me," he says. "Not very much. About an eighth." They discuss tomorrow, and are horrified to discover that they are supposed to do their radio interview about "Casting A Shadow" in front of the roadshow audience.

"I can't do that," Chris flatly declares. "Let's get the next train back. I'm sorry, I can't do that. I'll tell you what it'll be like - like when you've won the French tennis open and you do a live interview in front of the whole audience and it's the most embarrassing thing you've ever seen. And I'm not doing it." It is agreed that the subject will be discussed more in the morning. "We can't cause bad feeling," Chris grumbles. "We're hear to spread goodwill." Before they go to bed, Neil and Chris want to visit the sea, so everyone jumps back in the minibus. It is very dark, and the minibus careers down tiny country lanes. "It's interesting," says Neil, "how the person reading The Last Days Of Diana has his Seattle on." On the beach, the sky is clear and we can see stars everywhere. "How can it possibly change by tomorrow morning?" reasons Chris. The milky way's streak runs along the sky. A shooting star trails above us. There is talk of how ours is only one planet round one star inside one galaxy. "It's bloody scary," says Chris. "I don't like to think about it too much." Back in the bus, Neil says, "Well, we're in Cornwall. Fancy that." He sighs. "We're all nicely tired now." "The world's ending tomorrow at 11.11," Chris says, "and the last words we hear will be 'Radio One Roadshow'."

August 11th, 1999

We awake to cloudy skies and newspapers full of Prince Philip's latest gaff, pointing to some messy wiring and saying "that looks like it's been put there by an Indian".
"He's a fool," Chris says, who is ready to leave first. "Why can't he be fired from the monarchy? It's not a 'gaff'. It's a racist remark. The idiot. He's got to go. He's an embarrassment." Neil appears and Chris fills him in. "Well, that's it, really, isn't it?" Neil says. "It's all over. They jump into the minibus. It is about 8.4Oam. "Well, this is exciting, isn't it?" says Neil. Helena tells them that their Simon Mayo interview is at l0.45am.

"So we're not on the stage..." Neil confirms. "So you are on the stage..." she corrects. "So we're not doing that then," Chris chips in. He now asserts that he has never agreed to this interview in the first place. "Something's got to be signed by me to prove to me that I've agreed to do it. I'm not going live on the Radio One Roadshow. I've got a little more dignity than that."
Such concerns are overtaken by a more important discussion: what to have for lunch on the train back to London. Chris still wants Comish pasties, which is also fine for everyone else but Neil, whose diet it would violate. Mitch suggests a couple of dressed crabs for him. "That would be nice," Neil nods. We are caught in traffic. "Isn't this your memory of an English summer holiday?" Neil says. "The sand's damp, you're playing on the beach, and it's sort of cold but you don't mind." A helicopter flies over.

"That's Suede," says Chris. Neil checks up on his astronomy, in case Simon Mayo asks why the song is called "Casting A Shadow". "He's more likely to say 'why are you wearing a pair of silly wigs?"' says Chris, who now threatens to go back to bed and listen to the whole event on the radio. "Right," he says, "I feel carsick." On the radio, Simon Mayo says, "we do have 100% cloud cover." Chris laughs. "100% cloud cover," he repeats.
"I've never been to a Radio One Roadshow," says Neil. The minibus. pulls into a paddock behind a stage on a hill overlooking the sea. A few thousand people are there. Neil and Chris are asked whether they will do a live TV interview from their caravan on BBC 1. Outside, they can hear the songs being played on Radio One, all of which are loosely appropriate: "You Stole The Sun From My Heart", "Kelly Watch The Stars" "Moonlight Shadow", "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", Here Comes The Sun", "Setting Sun", "Ain't No Sunshine", "The Killing Moon" and so on. Helena announces that they don't need to do the Radio One interview at all. "Brilliant," congratulates Chris. "Well done, everyone. That's what I call a result. Come here, cause so much bad feeling that they'll never play us again." Outside, it starts to rain. Chris laughs. "It's brilliant. It's pissing down."
"It was inevitable," says Neil. "It couldn't be better," says Chris. "This makes me tend to believe in God, things like this." "Why?" asks Neil, genuinely curious.

Chris's rather sacrilegious reasoning revolves around the notion that God wouldn't be very nice, and so these kind of disappointments may prove that he exists. "That's a new spin on Christian theology," says Neil. They agree to do the BBCl interview with Emma B, but Neil tells Helena that Emma B must not refer to their wigs and the way they look: "She just has to behave as though we look totally normal". Chris puts on his jacket, and makes an observation. "We need thinner hangers next time," he says. "These hangers are too thick." He sits down, and nearly sits on a cup of coffee. "Which idiot left coffee there?" he says. "That strikes me," says Neil, the culprit, "as the sign of an intelligent but absent-minded person..." He looks around. "Is there a Bog in here?"
Chris points to a door a few feet away: "What do you think that door is? A door to another world? A door to Namia?" In fact, though it is a toilet, it is taped up. "Do you want Bear to take you to the Bog?" Mitch suggests. Neil shakes his head. "No.1 have my legendarily strong bladder." Brett from Suede pops in. "Ever done one of these before?" Neil asks. "Never," says Brett.
"We've got away with it for fifteen years," Neil says. "We got our arms twisted," Brett explains. "They said, 'the Pet Shop Boys are doing it..."' Out front, "Unfinished Sympathy" plays. "The record of the millennium," says Chris. "It just is." The BBCl crew comes in. As they set up the camera, Chris sticks his bum towards it and says, "Here's the only eclipse you're going to see."
During the interview Emma B plays a few seconds of "Casting A Shadow" on a ghetto blaster, and asks about the writing of it.

"We just tapped into some cosmic rays," says Chris. An interviewer for the Dave Pearce show comes in "How long did the track take?" she asks. "How long is it? Two minutes," says Chris. '~It took two minutes to write." "Three days," corrects Neil. "Are you spiritual people?" 'Yeah," says Chris.
"Oh yeah," says Neil. Brett reappears. "Well," he says dryly, "that was the most exciting experience of my life." "You've been on?" says Neil, surprised. He nods. "We mimed to a song."
Simon from Suede joins him. "The words out' and 'wash' come to mind," he says. "In which particular order?" Brett inquires. It has been getting darker over the past few minutes, but only in the way that it does on a very stormy day, then suddenly - at the moment when, far above and out of sight, the moon entirely obscures the sun - the light level drops dramatically. It's not completely dark, but it's very very strange and murky. Neil and Chris peek outside occasionally but spent most of the two minutes watching a TV monitor showing the eclipse above the clouds. On stage, the Pet Shop Boys' "Casting A Shadow" can be heard, but so can Simon Mayo, commentating almost incessantly about what is going on. Two minutes later, the sky's light surges back and it is all but over. "They said there'd be silence," mutters Neil.

"I told you he was going to do that," says Chris. "The whole thing has taken five days," Neil says. "Three days to record the music, and two days here and back..."
"Typically," says Chris, "Radio One had to make it their kind of thing..." A few minutes later, however, he laughs and says, "We've even hijacked the eclipse for promotion! What other world events can we hijack?" They still have to perform to the roadshow audience, miming to "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" and "Go West".
"It's funny," Chris points out as he gets ready, "miming on the radio." At least there is an audience. Once they had to mime on the radio in Paris, and they were asked to rehearse it first. "It was us versus the French radio director," Neil remembers. "It was great. We lost, of course." One of Phats And Small's dancers comes in. They have just been miming out there. She says that Radio One played a different version of the song, one to which they didn't have a routine worked out. She shrugs. "So we just started jumping up and down."
Before the Pet Shop Boys go on stage, some complex technical discussions need to take place. Neil's microphone has to be switched on so he can announce the songs, but then switched off on cue so that he can mime. Radio One need to know what he'll say. "Just say, 'hello - I don't know what you want but I can't give it anymore'," suggests Chris. "No," says Neil, wearily. "It sounds too ironic.
Simon Mayo introduces them: "We've never been able to get these guys because they're always too busy, and far too successful for their own good..."
As they perform, Simon Mayo climbs up on the ramp behind the stage on which a screen is mounted, and dances along.

The plan is to leave quickly, so that they can catch an early train. They walk right off stage to the minibus. and Chris, disobeying all wig-protection instructions, has ripped off his wig before he even gets aboard. The minibus. radio is tuned to Radio One, on which people describe how incredible the eclipse has been. "Why won't anyone say 'thoroughly disappointing'?" Chris asks. "They've just got 'yes' people. It's thoroughly under whiling." The mood is a little low.
"I feel used and abused by the whole thing," Neil says. "I'm not doing any more of this," says Chris. On the train, it begins to seem just a little fancier. "You gave 110%," Chris says to Neil, shaking his head. "I did," Neil says.
"I don't know how you do that," says Chris, not without admiration. "Neither do I," says Neil, "but I do." Only now do they really express any regret at missing the rare natural phenomenon around which all this tomfoolery has been arranged.
"I might have to find another eclipse," Chris says. "I knew I should have gone to Northern Iran," Neil agrees. Lunch appears - Cornish pasties for everyone else and, crabs not having been found, a salad sandwich for Neil. It doesn't look particularly nice. "It's hard being me," he notes. After a few mouthfuls he cracks, and tucks into one of the spare pasties. "I don't care," he says. "Even though I'll put on three stone immediately and look like Fat Bastard."

The journey back takes even longer; there are fewer stops, but this train can't go as fast. "We should never have got rid of steam trains," Chris announces. Neil looks baffled. "I don't even think I think that," he says.

Sam Taylor-Wood calls on Neil's mobile, and he summaries the story so far: "We're on the interminable train journey back.. Well, there was torrential rain.. About 120% cloud cover..." He sounds quite jolly about it. For much of the way, everyone sleeps. Finally, we approach London.
"A long train journey," says Neil, "but one which will live forever.. In our hearts.. In our minds...and in Literally..." Chris sighs one final time. "We only do these things for Literally," he says.

Copyright Areagraphy Ltd 1999: All Articles have been
Taken From Literally 1998 Issue 21