Nah, Luton Airport!

You know you're getting old when...

...you discover that "Cockney Sparrow" Lorraine Chase is 75 years old today!

She may have been a quiz show regular, she may have been in the soap Emmerdale - but it is this for which she will forever be remembered by us Brits:

Campari commercial with Lorraine Chase, 1976

[She shares her birthday with a raft of fellow celebrants, including Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck, Angharad Rees, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Chilton, Desmond Dekker, Roald Amundsen, Big Breakfast alumnus Johnny Vaughan (who is 60), Corin Redgrave, Michael Flatley, Denise LaSalle, Stewart Copeland of The Police, Frank Field, Will Ferrell, Corey Feldman, and "Lady Edith" in Downton Abbey Laura Carmichael (who is 40). Many happy returns, all!]

Big hair and bagpipe solos would end the Cold War

You're the Voice by John Farnham, and other dangers of rediscovering 80s soft rock

Everyone loves Bonnie Tyler belting out Total Eclipse of the Heart, but Gen Z should be warned that 80s soft rock is not a safe space. These songs are why:

We Don’t Need Another Hero by Tina Turner, 1985
Archetypal soft rock thanks to its dated keyboards, catchy nonsensical hook and being a blockbuster movie tie-in. Tina Turner was in the film, so knew full well their overriding message was that until society is rebuilt you absolutely do need heroes or you’ll be cruelly slaughtered by bastards like Lord Humungus.

You’re the Voice by John Farnham, 1986
‘We’re all someone’s daughter, we’re all someone’s son. How long can we look at each other, down the barrel of a gun?’ sings John, in the typically impassioned plea for peace which made up around 40 per cent of all soft rock lyrics. It was generally accepted that big hair and bagpipe solos would end the Cold War. And eventually, David Hasselhoff did.

We Built This City by Starship, 1985
Musically it’s got every 80s cliché: synth stabs, power chords, boring anthemic chorus. While taking generic lyrics to a new level with pseudo-meaningful bollocks about ‘corporation games’ and the assertion that rock and roll builds cities, which it doesn’t. San Francisco, referenced in the song, was built on maritime trade and the financial sector.

Glory of Love by Peter Cetera, 1986
Pete pours his heart into it but the song is inextricably linked to The Karate Kid Part II, which is largely about a white boy travelling to Japan to kick ass. Colonialism and white American kids beating the natives at their own game are no longer considered the uplifting themes for a movie they once were.

Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, 1984
You’re torn between liking the tune and hating everything else: the pompous piano intro, the teenage poetry lyrics, a deeply misjudged video about a baby growing into a middle-aged father and passing on his teddy bear. And singer Kevin Cronin’s 1980s mullet is something to behold. It looks as if he’s wearing an Ewok on his head.

Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, 1982
Weapons-grade cheese, with its highly effective riff and lyrics entirely composed of guff about tigers, being ‘back on the street’ and fighting being a rewarding experience. But went from the Rocky III soundtrack to ubiquity, used everywhere from real boxing matches to Dumb and Dumberer, so the vicarious macho excitement is gone and you may as well be putting on The Smiths.

The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News, 1985
Huey and the guys really perfected the art of utterly bland pop rock no-one can object to, the musical equivalent of comfortable socks. However it was written specifically for Back to the Future and since Marty’s girlfriend isn’t in most of the film it should really be called The Power of Your Mum Fancying You. Which today’s porn-addled kids are probably into.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Of ancient bones (in and out of drag), cat Viagra versus pests, a Hollywood horse, witches' marks and Totty of the Day

RIP, Gilda Love, Spain's centenarian drag queen [Read more]
[click any pic to embiggen]

It's another snippets post, dear reader...

• Would you rather be attacked by mozzies - or cats? news: Scientists have discovered that an extract of common catnip - aka feline Viagra, that sends cats into ecstasy - is as effective at repelling mosquitoes as more expensive products, such as DEET. Remind me to seek some out for our trip to Amsterdam in August, and to avoid the oversexed toms. [Not!]

• My kingdom for a..? news: A massive Trojan Horse has materialised overnight in Trafalgar Square to mark the launch of Christopher Nolan's latest film The Odyssey. Money talks, it seems.
• I'm not a witch! I'm not a witch! news: A professor of architectural history in her new book has debunked the idea that etched patterns on the stones in medieval buildings are anything more than the mark of the mason(s) or apprentice(s). Not “witches’ marks” or “ritual protection symbols” at all! But does she weigh the same as a duck?

• Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones news: A fossilised skeleton of a 67 million-year-old 12-foot tall Tyrannosaurus rex has been sold for a record £37.4m ($50.1m) at a Sotheby's auction in New York. Where the fuck would you keep a thing like that? On your front lawn?
• And finally: The England football team's star striker during this World Cup has emerged as 23-year-old Jude Bellingham.

  Discuss:

And the weather? Still warm, but the ongoing breezes are taking the edge off. What I call a good summer!

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FOOTNOTE:

So Monday's post finally showed up in the Blogger Reading List - THIRTY-FOUR HOURS after it was posted!

What a bunch of wankers the Google gnomes are.

Mein Gott!

Oh, no! Monday again.

Never mind, eh? A little trawl through the archives here at Dolores Delargo Towers has turned up the perfect wake-up choon for this Tacky Music Monday - from Czechoslovakia's finest export, the late, great Karel Gott (whose birthday it would have been tomorrow), and his safety gays and girls!

Karel Gott - Lady Karneval

Inexplicable, but fun.

Have a good week, dear reader.

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STOP PRESS:

Here we go again...

I posted this at 7.46am. It is now 21.40pm. Still no sign of it in the Reading List!

The Google gnomes are bastards.

The Final Frontier?

As I turn once again, on this warm Sunday, to seek some suitably "cool" music from our house band - I was hardly prepared for this extravaganza:

Postmodern Jukebox ft. Demi Remick - 2001: A Tap Odyssey [Sci-Fi Theme Music Tap Dance Medley]

Featuring themes from:

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind 0:00
• Doctor Who 0:38
• Battlestar Galactica 1:06
• The X Files 1:26
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1:57
• Star Wars 2:38
• 2001: A Space Odyssey 3:10
• Star Trek: The Original Series 4:10
• Star Trek: The Next Generation 5:11

Possibly one of the most bizarre things I've seen from PMJ!

Postmodern Jukebox is on tour again in 2026 [when are they ever not?!], but not "crossing the pond" this time around, it seems...

Hole, again

Agapanthus “BlackJack” [RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year in 2023] absolutely loves the heat!

Another hot day here in London (29C/84F), albeit not as hot as we've had it - and John-John and I are meeting later to attend our former colleague Claire (Mrs R)'s 50th birthday party tonight at the very swanky Lillie's rooftop wine bar, which looks like it could be the perfect venue for a summer's evening...

Meanwhile, there's a running joke between John-John and Claire, as his nick-name for her is "Atomic Mutton", a pun on her sort-of-resemblance to one of this lot, I presume:

Atomic Kitten - Whole Again

Happy birthday, Mrs R!

[Attentive readers will recall I did post this song last year - but in a different version, before they sacked original member Kerry Katona - and wrote of my perennial association of the choon with memories of Gay Pride in 2001 and singing along to it as "You can fill my hole again"!]

These slippery people help us understand

As the UK continues to swelter, with no significant drop in temperatures in sight, let's give thanks for the impending weekend when at least we can get out-and-about rather than be chained to a desk for hours...

There are few good reasons to celebrate, too. I have an actual party to go to tomorrow, as one of the people John-John and I used to work with a few years ago in Scope, Claire turns 50 years old and has booked out a swanky new rooftop cocktail bar in Olympia, West London for the occasion!

It also happens to be the birthday today of the very lovely Mavis Staples, last survivor of her family's classic 1970s gospel-soul-funk group The Staple Singers. And whoever knew that they covered a Talking Heads number?!

It's brilliant - Thank Disco It's Friday!

The Staple Singers - Slippery People

Have a faboo weekend, dear reader!

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FOOTNOTE:

British Wimbledon hopeful Arthur Fery is primed and ready for action, it would appear...