Apart from collecting rockstar autographs and doodles, one of the joys of my diary has been that I use it as a store for ephemera of all sorts – tickets, passes, snapshots, credit cards, membership cards etc etc.
In 1977 I started to notice the extent to which titles and straplines from science fiction movies tended to be parodied and quickly passed into common parlance. Alien (In Space No-one Can Hear You Scream) and Superman (You’ll Believe A Man Can Fly) were done to death but the outright winner was unquestionably Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
So I started collecting them and sticking them in the book. I have two full pages of them (one page reproduced below) and many others dotted throughout the diary around that time. Have a look at the pic and then below I’ll list some of the others I collected.
Other examples ….
1. Close Encounters – For The First Time (Limara Body Spray ad)
2. Illegal Aliens of the Third Kind (Omni)
3. Casual Encounters of the Infectious Kind (Book about sexually-transmitted diseases)
4. Clothes Encounter – (Guardian fashion feature)
5. Benign Intentions Of A Dazzling Kind – The Times 23.5.78
6. A Close Encounter with Scotlan’ds soccer stars – BBC tv programme trailer script
7. Close Encunters Of The helpful kind – estate agency ad in the Wembley Independent
8. Close Encounters of The Sputnik Kind – not sure of the source but it was a glossy mag feature about Sigue Sigue Sputnik
9. Close Encounters in SW6 – Guardian again, People section
10. Close Encounters of a Numeric Kind – Observer mag, May 1990, about british telecom pagers
11. Close Encounters – title of the members news section of Image magazine, Oct 86
12. Closer Encounters – ad for Durex Fetherlight!
13. Close Encounters Of The Cosmetic Kind – Madamoiselle
14. First Encounters Of The Business Kind – glossy mag, not sure which
15. Close Encounter of the Turd Kind – Sue Arnold column about dog poo, Observer, Oct 1990
16. Close Encounter In Satin – lingerie small ad
17. Philosophical Encounters of the first-class kind – Radio Times
18. Close Encounter of An Heroic kind – Times – 19.5.78
19. Close Encounter with the Third Reich – Vogue feature about the National Front
20. Close Encounters of the Disco Kind – disco LP title
Sad to say, I have many more, but twenty is as many as I feel I can subject you guys to at any one time.
