One fine day Noddy met a dark little man with a guitar. "Golly gosh!" cried Noddy, "are you a musician?" and the dwarf nodded slyly, and showed Noddy all his chords. Their friendship blossomed as time slipped by, and one drunken afternoon, Noddy made a proposition to his friend. "Would you like to start a little band?" he asked coyly. The dwarf started, "Why yes! Yes! What a good idea!" And so The Smiffs began.
But because Noddy was so cripplingly advanced, he suffered in his claustrophobic little city, and became increasingly neurotic. "I need advice! I need advice! Nobody ever looks at me twice!" But nobody could persuade him to take the paper bag off his head.
As Noddy grew older, he spent more and more time locked in his bedroom, stroking his cat. Noddy was sure that his message was far too important to be ignored, and so through hook and through crook, he brought on the empty hoarseness. Noddy sang until his little face turned blue, and his hormones went funny. Noddy sang until he rusted the iron bridge, and gave the neighbour's cocker spaniel haemorrhoids. Noddy sang his little heart out, and nobody could stop him.
Eventually, his dear old mater decided to send him to London town, where a nice man would allow Noddy and his tiny friend to cut a cripplingly advanced record.
The night before they left, Noddy and the dwarf were packing their satchels, a-glow with anticipation and too much cough medicine. Suddenly, Noddy leapt up. "Good Heavens! I've left my Oscar Wilde hot water bottle in the bed!" And as he unfolded the crimson blanket, the cork of the bottle popped open, and deafened Noddy in one ear.
The dwarf hobbled in anxiously, and held poor Noddy's head as he wept and wailed. "I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving! England is mine and it owes me a living!!"
"Ah..." the dwarf murmured gently, "my friend, we cannot cling to the old dreams anymore... does the body rule the mind? Or does the mind rule the body?"
"I DON'T KNOW!!" Noddy shrilled, "I'm just a country mile behind the world..." and he cried and cried and cried.
Years later, when The Smiffs were almost the best-known band in England, bar the Bay City Rollers, Noddy would look back on the old days and laugh softly.
Until one day, The Smiffs embarked on a nationwide tour to spread the word. Big Ears Tour Manager had arranged for The Smiffs to play a concert in Stroke-on-Trent, north of the equator, south of sensibilities. A nasty little girl and her rude photographer friend decided to interview Noddy for a national magazine, and they precociously rocked up on Noddy's doorstep.
"Hallo!" cried the nasty little girl. "I'd like to see if you're really as cripplingly advanced as they say."
"Yeah," said her rude photographer friend. "Less 'ave a look at you close up, then." Big Ears Tour Manager squinted at the pair of them, and reluctantly allowed an interview. "Mind you, you only have an hour with him..." Big Ears Tour Manager stipulated. "He turns into a pumpkin at four o'clock..."
"We'll be good!" the nasty little girl and her rude photographer friend chimed in chorus. And so they were ushered to Room 115 of The Grand Stakis Hotel, grinning in anticipation...
Noddy coughs.
Hi.
"Hullo."
I'm the person who stood you up at the Tara Hotel, remember? I was sick that day...
"Yes indeed..."
I can't actually see you. I'm going to have to put my glasses on, too.
"Do you ask better questions when you put your glasses on?"
But of course! Do you think creation is borne of destruction?
"Ummm... well. I answered that question yesterday. You'll have to ask me something a bit more interesting I'm afraid."
Your lyrics seem almost to sanctify the famous British reserve. Do you think that's healthy?
"Yes. Exactly. Completely. The British reserve is a great charm. I find it's a wonderful charm, yes I do. And people respond, therefore it's successful. It strikes a common chord."
In who?
"In so many, many people, I find."
Yes, but don't you think that's dangerous? Don't you think you're encouraging people to shut down, rather than open up?
"No, because there are so many people who are successful, and who are bland, and who are violent. People follow them, and believe that this is the way they should be."
But reserve isn't the antonym of violence...
"No it isn't. They're certainly not the same, though. I find my attitude very positive.
"It's like the whole debate about people who say that I'm terribly miserable. It's like the surface opinion of what has happened. People feel that because you speak very loudly and openly about introspection or awkwardness, that you're actually insisting that the entire human race BE that way. But that isn't the way things go. That isn't what happens. Even though these are the subjects, that isn't what --- what follows on. It's facing oneself to a critical degree."
But don't you think that you're basically running away from reality?
"No! Nooo!!! If I had that attitude, I wouldn't sing. And I would never have made records. But it's because I didn't run away that I'm sitting here talking into... your little box."
Would you describe yourself as passive or active?
"Both. I'm afraid I'm both. It depends what we're talking about."
As a person.
"It's difficult. In many ways I'm critically passive, but obviously I'm very active because I'm up here."
Judging from your songs, you seem to spend an awful lot of time watching, rather than participating.
"Well, a lot of people participate, and haven't a clue what's happening, so we can't actually gauge anything from one's actual position... it doesn't really indicate the level of awareness that runs through our brains. Lots of people have never been to Africa, and yet they can talk about Africa for days and days and days, so... what does it mean?"
What difference does it make?
"Exactly."
Do you think you have a sense of humour?
"I think I do, I think I do. I think I have a very --- a very ---"
Wry?
"WRY! Let's dive into the obvious traps! I think wry is the obvious one, but yes, I do. I think I have a very strong sense of humour. I also have a very strong sense of the ridiculous. Yes, I like to do quite ridiculous things."
Why?
"I don't know... it's a throwback. A throwback to the childhood. Oh --- I can't say that again in an interview."
What happened when you were a child?
"Nothing. Nothing. This is why I have to be ridiculous now, because you have to be ridiculous at some point in your life."
You really think so?
"Yes, yes I do."
But don't you think that life in its entirety is ridiculous?
"Yes it is, but it's too easy to say that. That means we can just switch off the tape recorder and go home. But no --- I think you have to go through stages where you're ridiculous, and you have to go through stages where you're terribly serious. If you don't go through these stages when you're young, you have to go through them eventually."
But that's ridiculously formulated. Why should all people follow the same book?
"Life is formulated. That's why it's so distressing."
Then why are people so different?
"Really? I don't think people are different. Not at all."
So you wouldn't say that you're different to me?
"W-e-ell... heh heh heh... yes, in one or two ways, yes. For instance, you've got bigger... biceps than me... heh heh heh... so there we are."
Do you see yourself differently from other people, or do you think that projection is the reality of self?
"Ermmm... I'd have to think about that question for at least three days. I'm sure there's a snappy reply."
We're pushed for time here. You've come up with plenty of snappy replies in the past...
"Yes, I know. But this is serious. This is quite critically serious. Ask me that question again."
(repeats question)
"I'm afraid I think it is. I'm afraid I think it is. Because we can --- I mean, for me, personally, the biggest fault that I have, is with me, is that when I first meet a person, the first impression formulates a very cemented opinion within me of them. Which is terribly wrong. Hideously erroneous."
What's this with 'wrong' and 'right'? Where the Gospel of Human Behaviour?
"Well, there is. There's like unwritten laws in life. Yes there are. I'm sure you adhere to them day and night. You know, you have to brush your teeth every night..."
"No, but this is serious. This is very serious. I've thought about this for days and days and days... I know that from my point of view, I meet a person, I shake their hand, and it's like --- it's like --- within the grasp of one handshake, I'm grasping their entire life history..."
Oh God. That's a bit melodramatic, isn't it?
"It is, but all the good things in life are melodramatic. I find that I don't really have the patience to wait until December to discover that somebody is really quite a nice person. Shocking, isn't it?"
Is it?
"Y-e-e-e-ess..."
So from the shake of someone's hand, you automatically have a grasp on all their fears, hopes, paranoias...
"Indeed I can."
So I'm staring at the essence of Steven Patrick, and not the Morrissey persona?
"It's almost the persona, probably. Yes it is. It's not an absolutely critical stand point of --- I mean, if I said it was the absolute persona, it would sound shallow..."
Shallow can be fun...
"But there's nothing there! Who wants to be shallow??"
So I gather you don't think ignorance is bliss...
"It depends. In some ways it is, in some ways it isn't. I mean, we can't talk generally about these things. I mean, ignorance isn't bliss in relation to nuclear weapons..."
Please, please --- let's not get in Greenham whales and striking heifers...
"But yes it is, and yes it isn't. I mean, you're asking me all these questions that are so very... people want one word replies to these elongated biblical sermons. It's just not possible."
You're nervous. You're twiddling with your hair.
"I am, because these are really important questions."
Is that why you're nervous?
"No! Do you want me to tell you why? Because I do three hundred interviews a day, or at least it seems that way, and yet I'm so critical of the end result. I haven't reached the stage where I can say interviews are not important, or this magazine's important, because I'm somewhat of a failed journalist..."
"But the critical point is this. Although I'm sitting in this chair, and you're lying on the bed with a marshmallow stuffed in your mouth..."
Look, if you're going to start talking dirty...
"--- which is incredibly becoming, I must say --- I'm actually more interested in the questions than I am in the replies. I concentrate on the questions, more so than the answers because there's something inside me --- in there --- (looks down inside his jumper) --- that's like a --- that's like a maroon sweater..."
Do people fall in love with you frequently?
"They tell me they do, but I sit at home, night after night, watching Panorama, and I say to myself, 'Where are all these people who are falling in love with me?' And you know, I'm stroking the cat, and I'm buttering a large piece of brown toast, and asking myself whether or not I really have anything to do with youth culture... it's very curious..."
Do you think you're in the position not to take yourself seriously?
"Oh, Good Heavens, yes! If I don't, everything crumbles..."
But do you think you do it out of sheer paranoia? The one step ahead syndrome?
"No, no no. I think it's more --- I think it's more --- I certainly think it's more fundamental than that... I'm just alarmingly dedicated..."
To what?
"To what I'm doing."
Which is?
"Well, you should know, you know who I am..."
Actually, I thought you were Robert Smith...
"That's who I am, that's who I am... but no, it's because I'm so alarmingly dedicated..."
To what?? Dedicated to what??
"To --- to what I'm doing. To sitting in this chair and talking about marshmallows... WRITING! YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS!! I do write the occasional line, you know. The odd line. What else is there? I can't really think of anything else..."
I could think of a lot of things...
"I know, I know, but you're a journalist..."
Actually, I'm not. I'm a frustrated housewife. Would you describe yourself as a megalomaniac?
"No, not really. It's too long a word. I've no time to pronounce these long words. Power --- the word power --- strikes a very sour chord. It's so careerist and awful, and it's very serious when you're in the public eye. I only want power so that I can actually reach more people, and make life easier --- not for Fascist reasons."
So you think you have something valid to say?
"Yes I do, I do actually... he says, shrinking into the chair..."
What makes you think your opinion is any more valid than the dustman's down the street?
"Because I know the dustman down the street very well..."
Keep your sex life out of this.
"He's somewhat of an imbecile. I think it's because I look at the pack of heathens who glut the chart, and I look around at the people making music..."
Heathens??
"Yes, yes... HEATHENS!"
But it all depends on what you're trying to achieve, doesn't it? These 'heathens' may be incredibly sensitive people who don't particularly want to bandy their case histories about on vinyl, their one aim being to inject a little fun into the charts.
"But they don't, they're not... that's why they're heathens. That's not the case. Let's exchange the word heathen, and put simpleton in."
Would you describe yourself as a neurotic?
"Arr... ummm... er..."
Oh, come on! Anyone who chews their lips for that long has to be neurotic!
"Well, I suppose the fact that I've answered immediately proves that, yes, I am neurotic. I used to get very distressed when it rained and I had to go and catch the bus, and I had to wait at the bus stop. I always felt that it was some underground plan to thwart me..."
Why do you take life so seriously?
"Because life is a serious business."
But you agreed before that it was ridiculous?
"Yes... yes... but it's... seriously ridiculous. No... ummm..."
Haven't you ever thought that perhaps if you looked on the bright side...
"No, I've never thought about that. Sorry, next question."
What would you like me to ask you next??
"Oh, something scintillating..."
What colour underpants are you wearing?
"White. Marks and Spencers. I'm sure you're very familiar with them, Antonella."
Yes, I wear them myself. I actually carry five spare pairs around in my bag ---
"Only five?"
--- I change them every two hours in case I get run over by a bus.
"Otherwise nobody would claim you from the hospital."
You constantly refer to your schooldays and your youth. Why is the past so much more palatable than the present or the future?
"Palatable? It isn't actually. It's a subject I occasionally probe. Again, it almost seems that it has become the rock on which I stand, which it isn't. I mean, I'm plundering towards the ripe old age of twenty six. I certainly couldn't be mistaken for a teenager, even though I'm sure you did when you walked in this room..."
How did you guess! I thought I was going to be arrested for carnal knowledge.
"Weeell... they all do. And because I'm of a considerably advanced age now, I'm somewhat of an overgrown schoolboy."
What were you like as a schoolboy?
"I was completely overgrown! I was very advanced. I was cripplingly advanced."
Have you left yourself behind?
"No. I'm trying desperately to, but it's difficult. One likes to progress and move on, and change one's clothes occasionally..."
I have a nice pink chiffon dressing gown in my bag... the bust may be a bit small...
"As long as it's a delicate size, a delicate size..."
You constantly refer to dreams. Do you think that you exist in one?
"No, I don't. I can't possibly. I mean I have to be a realistic person. Otherwise all this wouldn't have happened."
But you've been portrayed as such a dear little flower child, sprawled across Oscar Wilde every night...
"Mmm... yes. Well, it's better than the old phallic guitar bit. I mean if I came on in black leather --- this monster of rock'n'roll machismo, I'd probably be... hugely successful..."
In your songs, you spend most of your time in cars and beds --- you appear to be relatively fond of leather...
"I certainly do, yes."
Aren't these relatively sexual ambients?
"They certainly are. You're on the right track now. Next question."
No. Tell me about cars. Aren't cars very male?
"They are, but I'm afraid we all have our idiosyncracies, and one of mine... as a child of the sixties, when the seats of cars were made entirely of leather, to me there was something highly erotic about actually being in a car... I've always found cars highly erotic."
Why? Because they go vroom vroom, and you can switch them on and switch them off when you want?
"No, no --- not the driver's seat... there was just something about the old leather seats..."
So you're into leather?
"Y-y-e... next question."
Are you celibate?
"Yes. I'm a devout celibate.
"Initially I had no choice, and it occurred to me that I had been celibate without actually wanting to be, and that angered me, and I became quite bitter and twisted about the whole situation, because I wanted to have a great deal of fun, and I didn't... so... you can put lots of dots here, implying that he didn't actually finish the sentence. He fell off the chair and started crying."
If you've been celibate for as long as you claim you've been, how can you possibly even BEGIN to comprehend love? Isn't love an amalgamation of the mental, spiritual and physical?
"Ah --- sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't ---"
(Big Ears Tour Manager walks in to drag Noddy away)
"Saved!!"

This article was originally published in the May, 1985 issue of ZigZag magazine.
Reprinted without permission for personal use only.