Today we are going to explore the romantic side of the Popper. When not in Benetton shops or making fun of people in Levis jeans, the Popper would be either hanging around fashionable cafes or host his or her peers at home. If there was romantic interest involved, candles and plum flavoured tea would be an important ingredient to set the mood, as of course was the music. As mentioned before, Italo Disco was one of the import ingredients, and Gazebo was one of the more successful artists of the period. Born Paul Mazzolini he was unusually talented for an Italo Disco performer, though his videos have unsurprisingly aged not very well.

Hello? You’re still with me? Great. So if that didn’t work there was always ‘Careless Whisper’ by George Michael. See how he had pretty much the proto-Popper hairdo? No wonder he was so popular.

So, what happened if Gazebo and/or George Michael didn’t work, the plum tea was cold, it was getting past 8 pm and there was no still no snogging to be initiated (anything more serious would have involved sweating and removal of clothes, and all these activities were deemed only worthy of the proletariat and removable Benetton or Lacoste tattoos were not yet invented, so very little actual sex actually happened in these days)?

Poetry

There was no shame in using a well placed bit of Sylvia Plath and if that didn’t work there was no reason to get upset, as there was always the Benetton shop to visit next day.