The Daily Tonic: Banksy v Buchanan

With case numbers ticking back up, dozens of schools reporting corona outbreaks and general pandemonium still being a feature of everyday life, we figured we had no choice but to start The Daily Tonic up again.

We’ve got no idea how long we’ll manage to keep it going this time around – but we’ll try to fling an audio round, a few stories, some links and a joke (of no guaranteed quality) your way each afternoon.

And if it ends up going horribly, horribly wrong? We’ll just blame it on 2020…

To mark the start of the new school year, today we want to know all about the celebrities you knew before they hit the big time, back in the classroom.

Today’s Question: Who were the most famous people you went to school with?

Whether they were your actual classmates or just legendary alumni, send us your memories of celebrity school chums to hello@popbitch.com and we’ll sort out some sort of digital goody bag for our favourites.

No-one knows how to work a crowd better than Paul Danan. His hype-man act is so intense it famously lost him a starring role in pantomime in 2007 after he yelled “MAKE SOME MOTHERFUCKING NOISE, PRESTON!” at all the families gathered for the city’s annual Xmas lights switch-on.

This wasn’t an isolated outburst either. Danan was once hired by teen magazine Bliss to compere a High School Prom night at a school in Durham. Obviously oblivious to his surroundings, he kicked proceedings off by screaming: “COME ON! LET’S GET THIS FUCKING PARTY STARTED, YOU FUCKERS!”

Within seconds, the headteacher had stormed the stage, demanding that he apologise for using inappropriate language in front of everyone.

There’s been a fun rumour going around social media this weekend that Banksy is actually children’s TV art host, Neil Buchanan. Even though we wouldn’t be surprised by anything in 2020, sadly, we’re not sure the theory quite stacks up.

A former schoolfriend of Banksy’s tells us that Banksy was a big fan of T’Pau and Erasure growing up and was in a Beastie Boys-inspired rap trio called The Noize Boyz, who performed Morris Minor and the Major’s Stutter Rap in front of the school.

While Neil Buchanan also formed a band in his teens, their sound was a little different. He played lead guitar in heavy metal band Marseille.

[And did so until 2011…]

Many years ago Sade’s mum used to work as the school nurse at Colbayns High School in Clacton. She had a sneaky method to encourage some of the shyer pupils to undergo their medicals: by offering them signed photos of her famous daughter as a bribe.

The trick worked surprisingly well. Until she was spotted sitting in the nearby cafe one lunchtime – signing them herself.

In keeping with the scholastic theme, all ten of the tracks in today’s audio round have been lifted from the compilation album “Now That’s What I Call Old Skool”.

You’ll get one point for every song title you can identify and a further point for the artist too. With ten songs in the mix, there’s a possible twenty points on offer – each as worthless as the last.

[Ready to play?]

An oral history of Madness’s school-days classic, Baggy Trousers, which turned 40 this weekend
[Read on Seven Ragged Men]