Man on The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown - by Roger Shepherd — Doug Hood

While I have always had reservations about this release, I can see that I must learn to embrace it. Firstly as a part of the Flying Nun oeuvre that is personally unavoidably connected to me - as an almost forgotten quirky Christmas release in one remote corner of 40 years worth of Flying Nun’s more “conventional” releases. Secondly, whether anyone likes it or not, as a tiny particle of a much bigger and weirder genre - that of the Christmas record.

"I first met Doug at an Enemy gig at the Old Beneficiaries Hall in Dunedin in 1978. Chris Knox abused me for wearing a skinny tie (I still have it, but that was the last time I wore it), but I felt his friend Doug, who was the singer in the support band, The Clean, was committing a far greater sartorially sin that evening by wearing a stripped, “Oxbridge” style blazer."