TERPSICHORE'S FIRE
12. NIGHTCLUBBING
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special
Once bitten and twice shy
I keep my distance but you still catch my eye
Tell me baby do you recognize me?
Well it's been a year it doesn't surprise me
Happy Christmas
I wrapped it up and sent it
With a note saying "I love you" I meant it
Now I know what a fool I've been
But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special
Wham! - At Christmas 1984
Christmas and then the New Year arrived! Here is the news. Another action packed adventure. In December hundreds of people died from the effects of toxic gases which leaked from a chemical factory near the central Indian city of Bhopal. This appalling accident happened in the early hours of the morning at the American-owned Union Carbide Pesticide Plant three miles from Bhopal. Mr. Gokhale, the managing director of Union Carbide in India, said that methyl isocyanite gas had escaped when a valve in the plant's underground storage tank broke under pressure. This caused a deadly cloud of lethal gas to drift away from the factory towards Bhopal, which is home to more than 900,000 people. Chaos and mass panic broke out in the city and surrounding countryside as tens of thousands of people tried desperately to escape. More than 20,000 citizens needed hospital treatment for symptoms including swollen eyes, frothing at the mouth and breathing difficulties. The Union Carbide factory was closed immediately after the accident and three senior members of staff were arrested. Medical and scientific experts were urgently dispatched to the scene and the Indian government ordered a judicial inquiry. In total, nearly 3,000 people died from the effects of the poisonous gas in the days following the disaster. The Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, flew to the stricken area to see for himself.
Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, has been found guilty of two charges of obstruction during a picket at a Yorkshire coal works earlier that year. He was fined and ordered to pay court costs following a scuffle outside Orgreave Coal Works, near Sheffield in Yorkshire, on 30th May. Mr. Scargill was arrested as he led about eighty pickets to the plant during strike action by miners in protest over feared pit closures. The mineworkers' leader was told by magistrates that his actions "demonstrated a very poor example for those he sought to lead".
Mikhail Gorbachev, the man widely expected to be the next leader of the Soviet Union, spent five hours in very friendly and cordial talks with the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, according to British Government officials. Among the topics discussed at Chequers, Mrs. Thatcher's country residence, were ending the arms race and improving communications between the Eastern Bloc and the West. It came after Mr. Gorbachev signalled his desire for reduced tensions when he arrived at Heathrow airport. "Opportunities for the prevention of nuclear war exist. These opportunities must be used to the full," he said.
