Night Boat To Cairo

The opening fog-horn sound of Lee‘s baritone sax certainly conjures up visions of a pea-souper over the English Channel. Still, I’m not sure about the River Nile … and then “it’s just gone monsoon,” the monsoon being a seasonal wind that affects southern Asia, though you’d be hard-pushed to find it troubling the Nile’s passage from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea.

Of course, none of this matters whatsoever. The video that accompanies this unlikely top-ten single reinforces the colonial imagery. Our gallant lads are all in pith helmets, marching around a film studio that doesn’t have enough sand on the floor to cover the floorboards, have all the props rattling around and some very dodgy backgrounds of the pyramids and so on. You wouldn’t believe that the promo was made using cutting-edge technology, the first time they’d shot a ‘video’ on film, which made editing faster. Robbo is proud of having made it in an afternoon, put it together overnight and aired it the following morning.