On November 10, 1997 Pulp released Help The Aged as the first single from their sixth album, the UK chart-topping This Is Hardcore. To promote it, frontman Jarvis Cocker was invited to appear as a guest on TFI Friday, the popular Friday evening entertainment programme presented by Chris Evans for Channel 4.
Cocker wasn't a huge fan of either Evans or his TV show, which was very much a reflection of the loud and lairy 'New Lad' attitude which went hand-in-glove with the emergence of Britpop in the mid '90s. He was particularly irritated by the fact that there was a life-size cardboard cut -out of him behind Evans' desk on the programme, which was in the camera shot every time the presenter conducted an interview. So when he was asked to appear as a guest on the show on November 14, 1997, the singer saw this as the perfect opportunity to re-arrange the set at Hammersmith's Riverside Studios, and remove his cardboard lookalike from the equation. On the night, after being introduced, Cocker shook hands with Evans then promply walked over behind his desk, lifted the cut out, and dumped it out of a window.
