Poly Styrene - "Talk In Toytown"

For New Zealanders and Australians the 25th of April is a day of remembrance for all who served in the military, particularly the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (of which ANZAC was named) who battled at Gallipoli, Turkey during the 1st World War. This year, although it coincided with Easter Monday, still had a huge turnout at all of the dawn parades and memorials. For me, and all punk/new wave era music fans, the 25th of April will now be remembered for another sad event... the loss of a punk icon. Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot-Said) died at the age of 53 after suffering from breast cancer. She was the vocalist in X-Ray Spex (we have already had one of their songs "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" on this blog) and formed the band after seeing 'The Sex Pistols' live, a similar story to many other punk bands. They did have the punk attitude but had a few differences like the prominence of the saxophone in their music and also, what was probably quite anti-punk, was Poly s Styrene's day-glo clothing. She was certainly an unconventional front person even within the punk scene. After X-Ray Spex disbanded she released her debut solo album 'Translucence' in 1980 and "Talk In Toytown" was a single from that album. By this time she was a real hero to me... I can remember buying the 45 single at Marbecks and I was obsessed with this song.... the sax and the shouting were both gone and the melody had been increased. I don't know if the album was not released in NZ or only as an import , which were hard to get then, but it eluded me... I just couldn't get it anywhere. I finally got a CD copy of the album, only a few years ago, and I started another obsession with "Talk In Toytown" but this time I was happy to be able to share my obsession with the Bitter FM listeners.
I wonder if Bitter FM is the only radio station that has "Talk In Toytown" on regular playlists? There is something wrong with this world if that is the case. April 25 will always be ANZAC day but another ceremony for me will be the 'Translucence' album blasting in remembrance of Poly Styrene.
"Oh Bondage, Up Yours!"