Ooh ar ooh ar

It certainly has been a hot, hot, HOT day here in London [it hit 36C/96.8F (!) on the south coast - and was definitely not much cooler here] - and I spent three hours of it in a Teams meeting pod in work, with "air-con" that was about as effective as someone wafting a chiffon scarf in my general direction!

Hey ho. As always, any heatwave in the UK is immediately and inexorably compared our most famous one way back in 1976...

...so, simply because this song was indeed #1 in our charts this very week 50 years ago - and in honour of our very own Ms Scarlet, who loves it - let's all sing along to The Wurzels!

The Wurzels - Combine Harvester [Top Of The Pops, 1976]

I drove my tractor through your haystack last night
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
I threw me pitch fork at your dog to keep quiet
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
Now somethin's tellin' me, that you'm avoidin' me
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
Come on now darlin' you got somethin' I need

Cos I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together in perfect harmony
Oh I got twenty acres and you got forrty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

We'll have twins and triplets, I'm a man built for speed (Ooh ar ooh ar)
And you know I'll love ya darlin' so give me your hand (Ooh ar ooh ar)
But the thing I want the most is all the acres of land

'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together in perfect harmony
I got twenty acres and you got forty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Phwoar, she's a lovely bit of stuff 'n' all

For seven long years I've been alone in this place (Ooh ar ooh ar)
Pigs sleep in the kitchen, it's a proper disgrace (Ooh ar ooh ar)
Now if I cleaned it up would ya change our mind (Ooh ar ooh ar)
I'll give up drinkin' scrumpy and that lager and lime

'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now, let's get together in perfect harmony
I got twenty acres and you got forty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Who loves ya baby, HA
Weren't we a grand couple at that last wurzel dance
I wore brand new gaiters and me corduroy pants (Hahahaha!)
In your new Sunday dress with your perfume smellin' grand
We had our photos taken, us holding hands

Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Now that we''re both past our fifties I think that you and me
Should stop this gallivanting and will you marry me
'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Arrr, you're a fine lookin' woman and I can't wait to get me hands on your land, haha!

Only in this country could something like that top the charts for two weeks and end up one of the best-selling songs of the year, in a year dominated by great stuff from Abba, Elton John & Kiki Dee, Queen, Rod Stewart, Miss Ross and Wings, and the year that also saw the simultaneous rise of Punk and Disco...

Your old pal Keir

Keir Starmer has performed one of his characteristic U-turns by walking back yesterday’s resignation, Downing Street has confirmed.

After thinking about it overnight, the prime minister has announced he is remaining in office and consequently that Andy Burnham can get on his little train and sod off back to Manchester.

He said: “If Starmerism is anything, it is making a hugely damaging announcement then changing your mind and ineffectively reversing it. Which is what I do here.

“Why would anyone be surprised? It’s what I did with winter fuel payments, the family farm tax, Mandelson. So I stand before you today to say I am resuming my position as prime minister.

“Your old pal Keir is going nowhere. I’m going to hunker down and weather the Makerfield win with my characteristic stubbornness. I may, in time, offer Burnham a junior Cabinet position and allow him to work his way up.

“You seem too stunned with excitement to speak. I’ve noted this reaction previously. I shall leave the room to reflect on my infallible political instincts but feel free to form a conga line in my absence.”

Voter Eleanor Shaw of Hereford said: “And we’ll do just as we did when he went back on those previous decisions, and ignore it.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

I like big muscles and red corpuscles

Yep! Monday again.

We are shaken out of our reverie by the realisation that the old familiar - and endlessly enjoyable - routine that is called work begins once more...

Hey ho.

To take our minds off it - it would have been the 105th birthday yesterday of one of our most revered of all Hollywood vamps, Miss Jane Russell, so on this Tacky Music Monday, let us indulge in some homoerotic fantasies alongside the great lady herself, shall we?

Jane Russell - Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love [Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953]

Have a good week, dear reader. Keep cool in the heatwave, if you can...

Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten.

We are less than two weeks away from "Gay Xmas" aka Gay Pride in London, and our outfits are all done and sorted. We can only hope that this new heatwave has subsided by then, otherwise we'll look less-than-glamorous, bathed in sweat...

Speaking of all things gay, we're well overdue another faboo classic film review by the lovely "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" Mr Steve Hayes - and when I saw his latest was one of the great British gay films of the 1980s [cf. Maurice, My Beautiful Laundrette], that coincided with my own coming-out, I whooped with joy! Some of the quotes alone are timeless:

Guy Bennett: "But you couldn't help it, could you? Because in your heart of hearts, like Barclay and Delahay and Fowler and Menzies, you still believe, in spite of your talk of equality and fraternity, you still believe some people are better than others because of the way they make love. Now, think of that for a lifetime. Think of the names: pansy, nancy, fairy, fruit, brown-nose."

Menzies: "You'd better take a pull on yourself, Guy!"
Guy Bennett: "I'd rather do it with you."

Fowler: "I have half a mind to ask Barclay for permission to beat you!"
Tommy Judd: "Well, you've half a mind. We can all agree on that."

Guy Bennett: "Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten."

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Another Country 1984 Review

Wonderful...

Another Country is currently available to watch on YouTube - catch it while you can!

Down Mexico Way - and an unexpected visitor

Brodiaea laxa “Queen Fabiola” is a sparkling joy! [click to embiggen]

It's been rather hot and humid in London again today - and of course, I spent hours in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, potting-on more specimens that have rapidly outgrown their current space, and watering the whole shebang from end-to end [that's a lot of pots!].

There's one wall-pot that isn't going to be sprayed down with the hose for a while, however - for we have discovered, among the branches of our Fuchsia Viva Ireland (with its companion self-seeded fern), and shaded by a branch of the climbing Fuchsia Lady Boothby, directly opposite our back door to the garden...

...a Robin has made her nest!!

That's a first - for any garden we've had - and it will be lovely to observe [fingers crossed] the pair raise their chicks! If I can do so without disturbing her, I hope to get a pic at some stage.

Meanwhile, let's take a trip to exotic climes, in the company of the ever-wonderful Soft Tempo Lounge, shall we? I think we should:

Soft Tempo Lounge - Holiday in Mexico '63

Just what the doctor ordered.

I wonder if all that hideous brutalist architecture's still standing?

[Music: Orchestra King Zérand - Pop in Mexico]

But what kind of holiday is this?*

The weekend's almost upon us, the sun is blazing (it's 29C/85F, and likely to get even hotter next week!)...

...and it would have been our Patron Saint of Terrifying Head-Flicks Signorina Raffaella Carrà's birthday today!

Sufficient excuse (if any were needed) to revisit this - as La Carrà and her impossibly-tight-trousered safety gays show us how to party. Thank Disco Raffaella It's Friday!

Raffaella Carrà - Santo Santo (Ma che vacanza é)

Have a great weekend, dear reader...

[Ma che vacanza é = "But what kind of holiday is this?" in Italian]

---

FOOTNOTE:

I'm taking bets on how long today's post will take to arrive in the Blogger Reading List... Wednesday's and yesterday's both arrived together on the dot at 9am - that's more than 36 hours for the former, and 19 hours for the latter! Someone needs a good kick up the arse at Google HQ.

Feel the room swayin', for the band's playin'

Sad news. The last surviving member of that fabled and eternally camp trio The Beverley Sisters, Teddie Beverley has shimmied her way up the dazzling stairway to Fabulon, at the ripe old age of 99.

True "national treasures", The Bevs (as they were known) gave a much-needed boost to post-War Britain with their close-harmony singing and their cheery personas, which made them an ideal Light Entertainment staple. They always dressed in identical outfits, had a string of hits in the 1950s, performed endlessly on the cabaret circuit, and were the highest paid female entertainers in the UK for more than 20 years, becoming "gay icons" in the process.

I actually saw them on stage, headlining the Gay Pride festival at Jubilee Gardens [where the London Eye is located today], at the first Pride I ever attended way back in 1985!

Another long-distant chapter of my life closes. Sigh.

Beverley Sisters - Hello Dolly/Mame

More Beverley Sisters over at the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp, including this footnote, that I simply have to repeat here:

---

FOOTNOTE

Such was the "camp icon" status of the girls, even Rod Stewart, Elton John and Freddie Mercury desired their "look":

[In 1978 the trio discussed] "...the possibility of the three of us forming a supergroup; the name we had in mind was Nose, Teeth & Hair, a tribute to each of our most remarked-upon physical attributes. The general idea was that we could appear dressed like the Beverley Sisters. Somehow this project never came to anything, which is contemporary music’s deep and abiding loss."