After completing a degree in history at the Polytechnic of North London, Neil takes a job at Marvel Comics, anglicizing spellings and indicating where over-risque woman needed to be redrawn decently. While there he interviews comic fan Marc Bolan, who politely points out that his tape recorder wasn’t working. In 1977 he works at Macdonald Educational Publishing, later moving to ITV Books. In June 1982, he joins Smash Hits.
The Pet Shop Boys perform in Brussels, Belgium.
Neil and Chris drive to Croydon to visit the Brit School, which is funded by the U.K. record industry and the government. As they note on their official website, it is traditional for winners of the BRITS ‘Outstanding Contribution to Music’ Award—which the Boys will soon be receiving—to pay a visit there.
They visit the Beverly Center, a huge eight-storey shopping mall in Los Angeles. On this same day, the second PSB b‑sides/bonus tracks collection, Format, is released in the U.K.
Neil’s duet with Chrissie Hynde on the Pretenders’ ‘Let’s Get Lost’ is released today as a single. Chrissie had given the recording its world premiere over the weekend just past on Graham Norton’s BBC Radio 2 show.
The second song from the new PSB EP Agenda, ‘On Social Media,’ debuts today.
Neil is among the attendees at this evening’s performance of Gerald Barry’s 2016 opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) at London’s Royal Opera House.