Picture the scene: it's early 1991, and the Lovesticks are writing more than at any other time in their history. They're writing crap, of course, but writing nevertheless. In order to gain the best advantage of this artistic outflow, Xav and Alex decide to form another band, with just the two of them, to run parallel to the developing Lovesticks.

Seeking inspiration in their shared history, they decided quite quickly on the band's name: The Bertillons. This was the familial name of an iconic cartoon family who taught many a Grammar School boy French with the "French for Today" series. To this day, I still bear fond memories of the Bertillon's teenage daughter, Marie-Claude, standing in the bathroom in just her skimpies. What an image. What a great piece of drawing. What a great idea for a song...

But before we get to that, I should point out that I'm not really as sad as this is sounding. I don't think any (okay, many) of us were turned on by the cartoon (she was, after all, no Wilma Flintstone or Daphne from Scooby Doo) - it's just that the French teacher (Mr. Bardou) was very easily embarassed by such displays of human flesh (or skin coloured paint). Consequently the memory persists more because of his reaction than anything else. On that theme, if we ever meet, ask me to tell you the story about Mr. Bardou and the train...

Anyway, onto the music of The Bertillons. We fairly immediately wrote two songs. Well, half a song (okay, a fraction of a song) with some music, and some lyrics to another (no music). The former, inspired by our inky desires, was titled "Marie Claude", and represents Xav's first guitar based song (some four years before he owned, or could play, a guitar). Unfortunately, we tried to write it in French. Neither of us were particularly good at French. Well, not good enough to find a suitable rhyme for "Salle de bain":-

Marie Claude est dans le salle de bain,
Attention! Elle et une grande banane!

Erm... that was as far as we went with it, though the music was complete.

The second song was another attempt at writing in a foreign language - or rather in three foreign languages. It was called "Parce qu'il fait chaud, peut etre?" (note that my last French lesson was in 1988, so my spelling is probably atrocious) and contained verses in French, Spanish(!), Latin(!!) and English. It never had any music, made absolutely no sense, and was generally not very good. I might dig out the lyrics sometime, and post them here.

Suffice to say that The Bertillons folded shortly after, though they did "reform" for the 1997 St. Celia's Day Jam, and may yet rise up again to dominate the world with their abysmal selection of tunes. Or maybe they won't.