19 Sep 2007
A Market Town That Lacks Quintessence
The lyrics of For What is Chatteris… may well be my favourite in the whole Half Man Half Biscuit songbook. And not because the song refers to a village just up the road from here. The track from Achtung Bono famously generated a story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph which would surely have made the band chuckle: Fellow Chatteris councillor, Peter Dickinson, continued: “I’ve yet to hear the song, but it’s great news. Well done for Chatteris – we’re always trying to promote the area, and this will certainly help.”
43 Letters Sent:
Alan Perkin
You’re doing a great job and your site is great but isn’t it ‘prick barriers’ ?
Nov 24th, 2007
chris
Ah, the $64,000 question. Well, actually, a question hardly anybody is asking, but one which has been a source of debate at the pub here. To some of us, it sounds like ‘prick’, to others (including me) ‘crick’. I can’t find any reference to ‘crick barriers’ or ‘prick barriers’ anywhere, other than in people’s transcriptions of the lyrics of this song. So what is the term, and where did it come from? We have them in our village, and ‘crick barriers’ (slalom things you have to drive round) seems a quite feasible name for them. But what transport planner would call their invention a ‘prick barrier’, I asked myself? So I thought if there was a name for the things, it’d more likely be ‘crick barrier’. Perhaps Nigel will help out.
Nov 24th, 2007
Brads
I always thought it was “quick barriers”.
Nov 30th, 2007
lifeislandfill
Prick barriers: A traffic-calming device, spikes in the road which burst tires if driven over in the worng direction or before they are lowered. Or a device to keep out Pricks.
That’s my reading of it at least.
Jan 18th, 2008
grim
Oh dear. I submitted the original “crick barriers” definition to gez at hmhb.co.uk. It was changed at some point to “prick barriers,” and although even after careful listening with headphones I think there’s room for doubt, I’d still probably stand by my initial hearing.
The barriers themselves I mostly recall from travelling up and down the B1040 in childhood, but on more recent revisits I’ve learnt that they’re not as Z-shaped as I remember them; in fact the construction I was picturing is simply such that a single lane of traffic is blocked entirely, and the other is entirely unimpeded.
I forget from which direction one is forced to give way…
Feb 7th, 2008
geraint
I always heard as ‘prick barriers’ in the ‘barriers to keep out pricks’ sense, probably because it fits so well with the overly-idyllic village the lyrics conjure up. it’s not THAT much of a stretch to say that Nige might even have picked it because it rhymes with/sounds like ‘Crick barriers’
Apr 18th, 2008
Pete
HMHB’s own site says “prick barriers”, defining them as “a traffic-calming device of particular abundance in the Fens. I can’t speak for Chatteris, but nearby Gamlingay certainly has them, at both ends no less. They’re somewhat like a chicane but more Z-shaped than hourglass-shaped and the purpose is to allow traffic through from one direction at a time.”
I’d also argue it’s “what’s a park if you can’t see a limit”, not “linnet”, mainly because it has the same general meaning as the next line about the timetable.
May 14th, 2008
Paul F
The official site certainly used to say “Crick barriers”.
May 19th, 2008
Nick
The PopMatters interview supports the “prick barrier” theory
It’s quite clear that Blackwell has a problem with the people that, for simplicity’s sake, he terms “pricks”. His idyllic rural Chatteris, for example, boasts “prick barriers at both ends”
Maybe the author checked with Nigel during the interview?
May 20th, 2008
Ray Gee
It’s got to be ‘prick barriers’, to keep out the pricks, nob-heads, and I think it’s linnet not limit.
Great song, whatever the lyrics.
May 21st, 2008
Swanaldo
Definitely ‘prick barriers’ – I imagine traffic calming devices to keep the chavs at bay.
May 25th, 2008
Pete
I refer you to http://www.hmhb.co.uk/
Click on the album
It definitely says “prick barriers”.
May 27th, 2008
dj
having recently heard the bootleg from the brampton folk festival from the kershaw show i’d agree it’s prick barriers, but what exactly are they? something nigel just made up?
Jun 2nd, 2008
chris
I’m definitely outnumbered here, so “prick barriers” it is from now on. Thanks all.
Jun 2nd, 2008
Geoff
I think I remember someone commenting in an interview that the dyke that passes through the town is *bricked* up at either end…
Jun 5th, 2008
dj
will the debate never end???
from the official site
“Crick barriers A traffic-calming device of particular abundance in the Fens. I can’t speak for Chatteris, but nearby Gamlingay certainly has them, at both ends no less. They’re somewhat like a chicane but more Z-shaped than hourglass-shaped (i.e. there’s a crick in the road) and the purpose is to allow traffic through from one direction at a time.”
Jun 19th, 2008
sean
I’d go for ‘prick barriers’ also.
One thing though, I heard ‘envy of the Fens’ as the ‘Denbigh of the fens’ (its in North Wales, pronounced Denby) – I thought it might be this ‘cos the area is often referenced in HMHB lyrics.
Interesting fact: Denbigh is absolutely heaving with Liberty Cap mushrooms when the season comes around!
Jul 2nd, 2008
Fen_boy
I agree with prick barriers, however having lived in Chatteris for the last 6 years the they should be to keep the locals in. None of the roads into town have a chicane just sleeping policemen. As far as I’m aware we only have 1 Butchers not 3 but that wouldn’t work as well in the song. I remember reading that NB had never visited Chatteris.
Jul 8th, 2008
Mr Larrington
Apropos nothing at all, when I found myself in the Green Welly Café in Chatteris a couple of years ago, they had a poster on the wall advertising gigs at The Junction in Cambridge. It will come as no surprise to The Assembled Faithful that one of them was HMHB.
Oh, and if they’re really prick barriers (as I have always understood it) they don’t work on the local bus drivers.
Jul 14th, 2008
Fen_boy
Arrr The green Welly – Rooms from £12 a night nuff said.
Jul 14th, 2008
Phil Elson
Well, I always thought it was “crick barriers”, but I suppose like many people I wasn’t sure, so I did an Internet search to check and came across this site. Obviously it’s vitally important I get this right, as I can never get this song out of my head and I often sing it during the day. No-one wants the humiliation of singing the wrong lyrics in front of others! – although I live in St. Petersburg, Russia, so the chances of really being embarrassed in public on this particular point are slim to none.
Aug 12th, 2008
Michelle Stamp
The last line of what’s chatteris, I’m sure it’s
“I may as well be in Ealing or St Ives”
Sep 19th, 2008
Chris The Siteowner
You wouldn’t if you lived round here!
Sep 19th, 2008
Neil G
In reply to Michelle, Chatteris, Ely and St. Ives are all in Cambridgeshire. There is a railway line between Ely and St. Ives, called, suitably, the Ely and St. Ives Railway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely_and_St_Ives_Railway
Chatteris is in the vicinity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatteris
I think this points to it being ‘I may as well be in Ely or St. Ives, rather than Ealing. It would be too much of a coincidence. It sounds like Ely to me anyway.
Sep 22nd, 2008
Chris The Siteowner
It is Ely, of course. The railway above is long gone, and St.Ives is getting a brand spanking new white elephant called a “(mis)guided bus” to connect it to Cambridge. Anyway, the point of this post is to put to bed for once and for all the crick/prick debate, because it’s quite clear from the live performances now that it’s “prick barriers”. So there we go. Or not, probably, if we’re on the bus.
Oct 30th, 2008
Giles Pattison
May be of no significance but found the following. Can’t say I understand it and further googling revealed nothing, it just struck me that the Fens are rather vulnerable to flooding.
“As for Britain, “Times” River and “Dalatford Crick” barriers were closed, as it is expected that the water level would rise by a meter and a half above sea level.”
Nov 19th, 2008
Paul F
Incidentally, I was walking back from the pub a while back, with a mate of mine, a fellow Scouse HMHB fan, in the small Berkshire village where I live. As we were walking he asked me if we had many “drive-by shoutings” in the village. Not 30 seconds later, a car sped past us and the lad in the front passenger seat leaned out the window and yelled “Fuck off” at us. One of the funniest things that has ever happened to me – tears rolling down our faces.
Dec 8th, 2008
Rik
Surely it’s crick?
Jul 27th, 2009
Keefaz
Sounds like ‘crick’ to me. Don’t think ‘prick’ would be in keeping with the general tone of the song, to be honest.
Aug 17th, 2009
Dave F.
I hear it as prick, the barrier being more metaphorical than physical.
Can someone provide a link to a picture of said barrier actually being described as crick?
Aug 17th, 2009
s.g.d.,a Shropshire lad
I found this poem…
The butchers and cake shop have now all closed
Fen subsidence has left pot holes along the roads
For sale signs now outnumber the towns few trees
And nothing has sold cos of the credit squeeze
There’s no sign of a linnet, or even a bunting
Just fields of pheasants for the farmer’s hunting
Chatteris is no longer looked at with fenland envy
For what is Chatteris if you’re not in it, its empty.
It was/is on the “Toadsnatcher warts ‘n’ all” website
s.g.d.
Aug 17th, 2009
Petrovic
@ SGD: Now, that’s heartfelt.
http://toadsnatcher.blogspot.com/search?q=chatteris
@ Dave F.: I’d always thought it was ‘crick’ from the album, but at the Roadwater gig it was ‘prick barriers’, definitely. I’ve failed to find a photo of a crick barrier, but guess it is one of those that sticks a bit of pavement into an otherwise usable road so that you have to drive around it?
Aug 18th, 2009
Dave F.
Petrovic
I’d like to say that I could confirm what you say from the Bath gig the night after, but due to the sound of the vocals being so muffled which was “naturally caused by the walls of the venue”, I am unable to.
It sounds like you’re describing chicane calming. If the barriers are side-by-side, I think they’re called chokers.
Aug 18th, 2009
Petrovic
Chicane! That was the word I was looking for, thank you.
Was that the official description of the Bath venue? Perhaps they would prefer it without walls…
Aug 18th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Well… it’s confirmed as “prick barriers”.
Apr 16th, 2010
Joe
It’s crick barriers – look on hmhb.co.uk
Jun 11th, 2010
nigel (no not that one)
@Joe
Have you checked the source of the confirmation posted by Chris?
Jun 13th, 2010
Charles Exford
Well yes, NB57 did tell me it was ‘prick barriers’, but we always have to allow for the possibility of the Tarkovsky factor (AKA an Emily Davison). However, perhaps Gez is equally likely to have been a victim of a Tarkovsky/Davison, and I would like to know if he has actually personally witnessed such measures in Gamlingay? Google satellite images show no sign, either there or in Chatteris.
Nor does this page make any reference to them.
Nor can I find any other reference to Crick barriers in lists of traffic calming measures anywhere on t’interweb.
Jun 14th, 2010
grim
Not this again. As I said in 2008: it was me. The term “crick barriers” and the accompanying definition on hmhb.co.uk are taken directly from an email I sent to Gez, years ago when the album came out. It’s what I heard, at the time, and it even seemed to make sense. I was wrong.
At any rate, this is what I was talking about:
Give way.
and at the other end:
Yaw Evig.
Jun 14th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Yep, we love ‘em here in Cambridgeshire. NB57 said in the Popmatters interview that he’d never been to Chatteris, so maybe it was just luck that we happen to have so many of the things around here.
Jun 14th, 2010
Exxo
Notice the phrase “when set against the scale of human suffering” in that interview, two years before it appeared in NSD.
Jun 14th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
There’s an even earlier use of the phrase in the Is This Music? interview from 2004 on Gez’s site: I wonder if as the Biscuit’s lyricist people have him down as a grumpy so-and-so. “With music it’s peoples attitudes which amuse me, the things people will complain and get het up about,” he says. “We live in one of the most spoiled societies in the western world; nothing is bad enough to moan incessantly about. You can write about your art or your angst-ridden love life, but you can’t expect people to think you’re hard done by, set against the scale of human suffering.”
Jun 14th, 2010
Mr Larrington
Didn’t NB57 say he pinched the phrase or saying off Peelie?
Jun 15th, 2010
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