In the summer of ’77 Skids formed in Dunfermline, which is in Scotland and not to be confused with Dumbarton.

The singer was a lantern-jawed teenager called Richard Jobson, who would go on to become a very earnest television presenter when people eventually grew tired of his band’s formula.

Their signature sound consisted of bludgeoning riffs, anthemic chants, brief guitar solos and – unless you were Scottish – indecipherable lyrics.

So much so when it came to the latter that in the 1980s The Skids spawned a Maxell cassette ad, phonetically interpreting Jobson’s bellowing with cue cards

1. It took over from an earlier spoof of Desmond Decker’s song Israelites, re-configured as ‘Me Ears Are Alight.’

Everyone thought they were very funny and I’d love to know what the band thought of it once they had finished counting the thousands of pounds they must have made.

No one xould ever accuse Skids of straying far from their signature sound, which may explain why one of its most integral components – Stuart Adamson and his guitar – left to seek greener pastures.

And to spawn the best joke in the history of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, penned by my old chum Jez Simmonds, when Mark Lamarr viewers that Adamson went on to become a Big Country member… “And and we all do remember.”

(It works best if you say it out loud).

Anyway, I was going to post their first single, Charles, which tells an odd story about a factory worker who turns into a robot. Then I hunted down the Maxell ad, which is much funnier.