‘Springwatch’ presenter Chris Packham pulls off guerrilla Manic Street Preachers propaganda

Packham has been sneaking songtitles into his links

Springwatch presenter Chris Packham has been sneaking Manic Street Preachers songtitles into this year’s run of the wildlife show.

The TV nature expert, who older readers will remember from The Really Wild Show, made it his mission to surreptitiously get as many Manics references into his links as possible. By the time the series finished last week, he had managed at least 25 songtitles over eight episodes.

And Packham proved himself as more than just a fair-weather fan. As well as easily spotted songs like ‘A Design For Life’, ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ and ‘(It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love’, he goes as deep into the catalogue as it’s possible to go.

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As well as ‘Die In The Summertime’ and ‘Archives Of Pain’, album tracks from ‘The Holy Bible’, he mentions ‘A Design For Life’ B-side ‘Dead Trees And Traffic Islands’ and ‘The Everlasting’ B-side ‘Valley Boy’.

And just to prove his chops, he even sneaks in limited edition seven-inch ‘Feminine Is Beautiful’ from 1991. Featuring scratchy early versions of ‘New Art Riot’ and ‘Repeat’, it was limited to 500 copies on Caff Records, the label owned by Saint Etienne‘s Bob Stanley. The cover was designed by influential music writer Jon Savage.

But perhaps the most obscure of all is ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’. The Manics would cover the Johnny Thunders song on tour as an introduction to ‘Cardiff Afterlife’.

Packham‘s references were spotted and edited together by fan group Manic Street Mania. You can watch their video below and follow them on Twitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPFgJ8o0k8

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