Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon Page A

quite work on him. He looked more like someone’s dad out of
World War Two days, with the hanky on the head and the braces. And a big Tottenham scarf, and a big grin on his face. Hilarious, but a chap full of malcontent.
    He lived near that Krays pub, the Blind Beggar in Whitechapel. The first time I went down there, I said, ‘But don’t you know that’san Arsenal
pub!’ We never rowed about football – there wasn’t the need for that. We had much bigger rows with everybody else. I had other mates, like Dave Crowe from William of York, who
were Tottenham. Of course there’s always been a big rivalry been Arsenal and Tottenham, but it wasn’t like something you’d resent each other for, because we had other things going
on. I’m not going to want to kill someone over a game of football. And I emphasize the word ‘game’. And seeing as I’m not specifically playing or in the team, I have to
remove myself from the brawling. Although I have enjoyed a good football brawl from time to time. Sid of course was indifferent, anyway.
    I never really discovered what Wobble’s curriculum was. I don’t think we ever sat down and discussed our lessons. He was someone else to hang out with at lunch breaks. You had a
group of people to communicate with, and of course we were all on the outside of things. Wobble couldn’t understand Sid, and I’m the unification, how we all knew each other. Sid, me,
Wobble – and there were a few others, like John Gray – we didn’t really look like we belonged in this environment at all.
    We were all viewed as potential-for-violence people. We understood that, because a friend of ours broke into the files at the college, and they had on file that Wobble, Sid and I had a
propensity towards fighting. Now, we didn’t. What we had was a questioning propensity, and then if you talked shit to us, you’d get beaten up. We were in this ridiculous fiasco. It was
utter nonsense, the accusations and misunderstandings of what we were and came from – that led us into being violent. Wobble genuinely wasn’t, originally. He wanted to achieve, and he
was pushed and presumed by the system. He was Stepney, Sid was Hackney, I’m Finsbury Park. It’s basically the same manor, it really is, with variations on a theme. The problem being
that the school system adjudged us as unteachable, uneducation-able.
    Wobble was gone in six months – bored. He’d had enough. But he was my best mate, and stayed that way for a while. Do youknow why? Because he stood up for
Tottenham. He believed it, as ridiculous as it is. And I have no doubt, he believed me, as ridiculous as my Arsenal is. We were forming terra-firma gangs, outside of the regular discipline.
That’s good roots to punk, mate.
    I was a diligent student, but about what mattered to me. And again the authoritarian encumbrance of times and lessons was not very helpful to me in the long run. Or the short run. After about a
year I got so mindlessly bored with it. It just wasn’t moving quick enough, and there wasn’t enough to occupy the head.
    I was still working on the side, so I was bringing money in. I had all manner of jobs – I’d take anything that was going. Mainly, I worked on the building sites – Dad got me
jobs there for a while. I loved that, the money was fantastic.
    On the sites, it was hard having to deal with the threatening behaviour of the Paddies. They were definitely always trying to enforce a pecking order, which I would have none of. ‘Ye need
ti knoaw yer place!’ ‘No, I fucking don’t!’ I resented being given a shovel and told to dig a hole. That was not fun for me. What fascinated me on a building site was
working with the site engineers, and designers, because it meant I could look at the technical drawings, and I loved all of that. I didn’t mind going out measuring the landscape.
    Dad loved his cranes, loved them. He could talk up a storm on cranes of all kinds. He loved any heavy goods vehicle