Friday 26 July 2024

I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there

Needless to say, "Marvel geeks" John-John and I had a whale of a time when we went to see Deadpool & Wolverine on its opening night in Leicester Square last night!

It's perhaps not a film for the faint-hearted - true to the "Merc with the Mouth"'s previous movies, there's lots of blood and gore and fighting and swearing, but there's also also bucketloads of laugh-out-loud moments and innuendo. There's also some very clever digs at both 20th Century Fox (from whence the two characters originally got their big-screen spotlights) and Disney/Marvel (which recently bought Fox out) - and it's the latter's multiversal lore that provides the excuse to bring all the characters into the MCU [Marvel Cinematic Universe]. There's not only a slew of familiar characters from Deadpool 1 and 2 and X-Men films, together with the "Time Variance Authority" from Marvel's recent Loki television series - but also a joyful raft of very unexpected cameos, indeed... All that, and a splendidly evil villainess with an (ahem) interesting massage technique!

I won't spoil any of the plot - I'll leave it to you to get your own cinema tickets, or not as the case may be - but suffice to say, at a crucial moment in the film a very familiar and beloved choon comes into its own.

Thank Disco Madonna It's Friday!

Have a great weekend, dear reader!

Thursday 25 July 2024

Sweet, grey post-war reward paste

Today's kids, in addition to their bloody phones, can pick any fucking flavour ice-cream they want. When you were a child these were the options:

Vanilla
To a generation, this was ice-cream. Bright yellow, simultaneously watery and oily, and in its soft-scoop version the invention of a young scientist named Margaret Thatcher, it tasted of nothing, was definingly bland, and was a top-echelon treat.

Strawberry
Pink version of above. The strawberry taste was sickly and disgusting but it was a sensation. You knew you’d had it. You’d boast about it at school.

Chocolate
Didn’t taste like chocolate but nothing chocolate-flavoured did back then. Drinking chocolate didn’t taste of chocolate. Chocolate biscuits didn’t taste of chocolate. Still, it was the right colour.

Neapolitan
Vanilla and strawberry and chocolate, all in one tub? Astonishing and only for special occasions, like your parents’ anniversary or a neighbour’s divorce. Allowed you to confirm they were all essentially identical, and to mix them together for a sweet, grey post-war reward paste.

Raspberry ripple
Blew minds. There are grown adults still reeling at their first encounter of vanilla ice-cream shot through – in picturesque ripples – with deep, flavoursome raspberry. How? Why? Was Thatcher involved again? Does eating this make me a scab? But God help me I cannot stop.

Mint choc chip
Unavailable to the general public for decades, only sold through specialists, this was your mum’s ice-cream of choice. Green, sophisticated, containing real chocolate, as adult as smoking in bed, as luxurious as Imperial Leather soap. An After Eight in frozen form, you imagined Princess Margaret would have one, in a bath. Too raunchy for the Queen.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Wednesday 24 July 2024

London calling...

Another snippets post today, dear reader...


[click to embiggen, or even better, right-click and click "open in new tab"]

And now, the weather: Muggy.


STOP PRESS:

Team GB diver Jack Laugher is getting very excited indeed about the games to come, it seems!

Tuesday 23 July 2024

You came up from behind me and I knew

Sad news of the departure of the dance-floor diva Evelyn Thomas for the "Rush Poppers Room" in Fabulon yesterday sent me hurtling down a time-slip-wormhole...

...back again to the year when her only major hit was everywhere - the year of strikes, of Yuppies, of Space Shuttles and of Band Aid, the year of "Frankie Say" t-shirts and Hi-NRG music, the year I came out - 1984!

For me, this year forty years ago was one of the very best for music in that (or any other) decade!

What other year can you name, dear reader, that saw the debuts in the Top 40 of a clutch of world-beating and eternally influential artists of the calibre of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmy Somerville [with Bronski Beat], Gloria Estefan [with Miami Sound Machine] or Prince, or indeed the arrival of class acts like Scritti Politti, The Smiths, ZZ Top, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Alphaville, Van Halen, Propaganda, and of course Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

Making their first foray in the upper echelons of the charts in 1984 as solo artists were George Michael [although Wham! had a great year of hits as well], Alison Moyet, Freddie Mercury [Queen also had a huge resurgence that year], Philip Oakey, Limahl, Billy Idol, Malcolm McLaren and Ray Parker Junior. It was also the year that saw massive commercial success for a number of established stars such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Paul McCartney, Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Lionel Richie, Deniece Williams, Billy Joel, Pointer Sisters, Spandau Ballet, Elton John, Duran Duran, Thompson Twins, The Specials (Special A.K.A.), U2, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, Bananarama, The Cars, Style Council, Billy Ocean, Culture Club, Bob Marley and the Wailers and Depeche Mode.

So much of the very "gay-gay-gay" theme that year - be it Boy George and Marilyn's "gender-bending", an unapologetic drag star singing You Think You're A Man on Top Of The Pops, the Age of Consent LP, Pete Burns and Dead or Alive, or Relax - was forever underpinned by the aforementioned musical genre of Hi-NRG, with the likes of Hazell Dean, Divine, Maria Vidal, Laura Branigan, Sheryl Lee Ralph, The Weather Girls and their ilk all dominating the clubs and the airwaves.

So let's conclude with Miss Thomas's mega-hit, a classic if ever there was one - I can smell the Kouros and amyl nitrite as we speak:

RIP, Ellen Lucille "Evelyn" Thomas (22nd August 1953 – 21st July 2024)

Monday 22 July 2024

Bonnie's foot fetish?

We welcome with - ahem - open arms the world of work once again...

...to find another of those "you know you're getting old when..." moments.

For none other than the annoying "Vioet Elizabeth Bott" from the Just William television series of my youth, the overly-effervescent Bonnie Langford is 60 years old today!

Nowadays possibly better remembered as one of Doctor Who's companions "Mel", or maybe as a contestant on Dancing on Ice, or perhaps for her role as "Carmel Kazemi" in EastEnders, she is actually a brilliantly talented dancer and singer on a variety of stages - with a lot of talent in her extended family, being the aunt of West End actresses Summer, Scarlett and Zizi Strallen - including in panto, and as the star of productions of Guys & Dolls, Chicago, 9 to 5 and 42nd Street, as well as taking her turn in the faboo Sondheim tribute gala Old Friends in 2022 [and we saw her at the Sondheim 75th birthday gala Children Will Listen in 2005]. A trouper!

On this Tacky Music Monday, here she is in fine form, with a bevy of safety gays:

Many happy returns, Bonnie Langford (born Bonita Melody Lysette Langford, 22nd July 1964)

Have a good week, dear reader.

Sunday 21 July 2024

I got U

Sun is shining for a change, and I'll be spending a few hours this afternoon out in it, watering the garden again. No rest for the wicked!

Meanwhile, Our Patron Saint of the Vocoder Cher has been time-travelling - making surprise appearances in Mad Men, Red Dwarf, Sons of Anarchy, Secrets of the London Underground, and even singing karaoke with "Barry" in The Queen Vic in EastEnders over twenty years ago - as part of a relaunch/rebranding of cable channel UKTV as "U"...

It's faboo!

Saturday 20 July 2024

I meant the next street. Not this man's lawn.

Sad news. A peerless comedy talent - whose deadpan delivery inspired generations of comedians who followed - Mr Bob Newhart has died, aged 94.

We never had any of his shows - radio or television - in the UK, as far as I am aware, but his "Best Of" comedy LP was definitely in our family collection when I was growing up...

...probably mainly for this immortal sketch of his (here - ahem - ably assisted my none other than Dino himself):

Utter genius!

RIP, Bob Newhart (5th September 1929 – 18th July 2024)