What a set up, Holy cow!

I make no excuses for another gratuitous pic of sex god Tom Daley (wearing the new Team GB kit for the 2024 Olympics that was launched yesterday)!

A much-needed weekend is almost here, and I think we need to crank up the wireless and get into the party mood that normally greets the end of another week of drudgery..! Our gang actually has a "party" afoot, as we gather once again tomorrow afternoon in the Perseverance pub near Great Ormond Street in leafy Holborn for the first "Film Club" in ages.

On the list of prospective movies on offer (we tend to bring a few then choose the ones to watch by a show of hands) is one of my all-time favourite musicals Sweet Charity, so how about this version of one of its most famous numbers by Miss Linda Clifford and - ahem - a dancing robot?!

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Linda Clifford - If My Friends Could See Me Now

Bizarre.

Have a fab weekend, dear reader!

Arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system

We ask you: will you go in the shop and buy a 34-year-old cigarettes in two decades' time?

Outside  the newsagent in the year 2044 lurk two men in their early thirties. They hold up a £40 note and ask you to get them a packet of Silk Cut. Will you?

Bill McKay, smallholder: “No way. Smoking will stunt their growth.”

Susan Traherne, accountant: “Absolutely not. The law is the law, and the law has an arbitrary cut-off point of January 1st, 2009. I would light up, blow a lungful in their jowly faces, and tell them to piss off.”

Martin Bishop, hare courser: “Not me. Instead I would point them to someone who would do so on principle like Liz Truss or Kemi Badenoch, both of whom I expect will be hanging out down the precinct.”

Jim Bates, lighting technician: “Smoking is illegal for those mid-life reprobates. But I would get them rolling baccy for a good old English spliff, because that tradition must be kept alive.”

Hannah Tomlinson, hairdresser: “Can’t they just tell the shopkeeper the fags are for their dads?”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Read the depressing-but-true news that PM Rishi Sunak - supposed champion of the freedom to choose, hence the "Eat Out to Help Out" scheme he launched between lockdowns - and his Tory government have introduced a new bill in Parliament that is worthy of the worst of the Tony Blair "Nanny State" years; to make it illegal for anyone born after 2009 to buy cigarettes in their entire lifetime!

Shocking abuse of power. Even New Zealand didn't get their own version into law... [And Rishi's one only got through its first reading with the support of the opposition Labour Party anyhow.]

I despair.

Ars Gratia Artis*

Another day, another centenary...

One hundred years today, three studio magnates reached a merger agreement - and the legendary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was born!

Famed for its glittering parade of stars over the decades - such icons as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, Rudolph Valentino, the Barrymores, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Judy Garland, Robert Taylor, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Lana Turner and Cyd Charisse (and so many more) all got their big break at MGM! - it was also the home of Tom and Jerry, Lassie, the Marx Brothers, and some of the biggest and campest Busby Berkeley productions.

This was the studio that was responsible for some of history's most-lauded films, including The Women, Doctor Zhivago, North by Northwest, Mrs. Miniver, Ben–Hur [both versions], National Velvet, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Jailhouse Rock, Waterloo Bridge, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Forbidden Planet, Mutiny on the Bounty [both versions], How the West Was Won, The Philadelphia Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Shaft, Where Eagles Dare, Westworld, The Hunger, Moonstruck - and hundreds more besides!

It is, of course, as the production house behind some of the most wonderful musicals ever made that we love MGM the most! Its back-catalogue includes Easter Parade, Annie Get Your Gun, On the Town, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Show Boat, Gigi, Meet Me in St. Louis, and these...

Judy Garland & co - We're Off To See The Wizard [Wizard of Oz]

Gene Kelly - Singin' In The Rain

The Band Wagon trailer

Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron - An American In Paris

Ann Miller - Too Darn Hot [Kiss Me, Kate]

Lesley Anne Warren - Chicago, Illinois [Victor Victoria]

Following the death of Louis B Mayer in 1957, the demise of the original company was palpable - with a number of buy-outs, reshuffles and bits sold off to the likes of Ted Turner, the involvement of dodgy businessmen and accusations of illegal operations, it went bankrupt in 2010 - despite having acquired United Artists, and with it the distribution rights for such cinematic behemoths as the James Bond and Rocky franchises. It survived the humiliation with a major buyout by its creditors, and finally MGM ended up in the hands of none other than Amazon, who bought it in 2021...

Let's hope that bodes well for its future.

["Ars Gratia Artis" = "art for art's sake" in English]

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

One of my favourite comedy routines - The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Darlings! We have a centenary to celebrate...

Sharing a birthday (as he did) with another random selection of notables such as Spike Milligan, Sir Charlie Chaplin, Sir Peter Ustinov, Dusty Springfield [as featured yesterday], Georgian-era academic and collector Sir Hans Sloane, Dame Joan Bakewell, Kingsley Amis, Guy Burgess, Gerry Rafferty, Claire Foy (who's 40), Robert Stigwood, Bobby Vinton, Anya Taylor-Joy and (erm) Jimmy Osmond, Mr Henry Mancini was born one hundred years ago today!

A true musical genius, he wrote the music for numerous classic films and TV series such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Charade, Arabesque, Two for the Road, The Thorn Birds, 10, Victor Victoria...

...and these!

Henry Mancini - Pink Panther/Baby Elephant Walk/Peter Gunn Theme [Parkinson, 14th December 1974]

And here's possibly his most enduring standard, from the aforementioned Breakfast at Tiffany's:

Andy Williams - Moon River

A remarkable man!

Henry Mancini (born Enrico Nicola Mancini, 16th April 1924 – 14th June 1994)

If you peruse the people in the news, the people that the magazines all mention...

It's always a nightmare, after a lovely (and busy) weekend, to find it cut short by...WORK.

Ah, well, 'tis the necessary chore we do in order to pay the bills, and for holidays...

...and we have something to cheer us up - for, by a fortuitous turn of events, there's a Patron Saint to venerate!

Tomorrow would have marked the 85th birthday of the sublime Miss Dusty Springfield: icon, national treasure, and possessor of one of the finest voices in pop music history. But how, I hear you say, would the divine Dusty ever fit in with a Tacky Music Monday?!

Here's how!

Dusty Springfield on the Liberace Show (1969) [also featuring Millicent Martin and Phyllis Diller]

[Wait until around 8:30 for the real campery to commence...]

Dusty Springfield (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Have a good week, dear reader.

Glamour and sunshine

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...

Another sunny (if hazy) day. More pottering afoot.

How about more frolics in the company of impossibly glamorous people in exotic climes, courtesy of the geniuses of Soft Tempo Lounge? That'll do nicely!

Soft Tempo Lounge - Sunny Escapade

[Music: Polish Radio Orchestra - Sunny Escapades, Film: Satanik (1968)]

Grab a pack of cigarettes, and meet me on the porch

A view up my back passage today... [click to embiggen]

It's been a gorgeous Spring day in London, and I have spent hours in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers pottering, splitting-up herbaceous plants, and generally basking in the sunshine.

Bliss.

My day was mainly accompanied by the mellow joys of BBC Radio 2 - but, surprisingly enough, this one - a recent triumphal "find" by Madam Arcati - was not on their playlist!

Can't imagine why...

Ashley McBryde, Caylee Hammack, Pillbox Patti - Brenda Put Your Bra On

Brenda, put your bra on, there's trouble next door
Grab a pack of cigarettes, and meet me on the porch
Marvin baby mama 'bout to catch him with a whore
Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)

I knew she shouldn't let that bitch watch her baby
I used to work with her at the Krystal
She always got them good shifts just 'cause she had good tits
And cut her shirts off at the middle

Brenda, put your bra on, it's just gettin' good
Shit's goin' down in the trailer-hood
Pants 'round his ankles, still sportin' wood

Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)

Well, did you hear that? There went the good dishes
I hope they don't knock out the cable
Ol' Suntan City won't look quite as pretty
When Gina puts that ass through a table

Brenda, put your bra on, there's trouble next door
Grab a pack of cigarettes and meet me on the porch
Marvin baby mama, put that whore on the floor

Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Put it on
Put it on, shit

Brenda, put your bra on, here comes Channel Four
We ain't never been on the TV before
Grab the marijuana, stick it down your drawers

Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Brenda, put your bra on (bra on, bra on)
Brenda, put your bra on

A classic.

I love it!