How was I supposed to know our love would grow?

"Big dick spammer" be damned!

On with the show... It's a mini-timeslip moment again!

We've been Cast Away [geddit?!] two decades back in time - to January 2001. In the news that month: the age of consent in the UK was finally equalised for gay and straight men to 16, the killers of eight-year-old Victoria Climbié (her great-aunt and partner) were sentenced to life imprisonment, George W. Bush was inaugurated as President of the United States, an earthquake in Gujarat killed between 13,805 and 20,023 people, Tony Blair's closest ally and "spin-doctor" Peter Mandelson resigned amid a scandal about a fast-tracked passport application for a billionaire Labour donor, and Philippine President Joseph Estrada was overthrown and replaced by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In our cinemas: Meet the Parents; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Sexy Beast. On telly: I Love the '80s, Phoenix Nights, Judge John Deed, and ITV's News at Ten returned after a two year hiatus.

...all that, and a small, unassuming, rather geeky website launched that was destined to change the way the world got its information forevermore - Happy Birthday Wikipedia!

But what was in our charts on this auspicious occasion? "Big Bum" J-Lo had crashed straight into the #1 slot with Love Don't Cost a Thing, and also present and correct were Steps, Fragma, Feeder, Texas, Santos [nope, me neither] and the loathsome Eminem. However, the song that the delightful Señorita Lopez had unceremoniously knocked off the top was this fantabulosa dance classic, by far the best song in the charts at that moment:

Rui Da Silva ft. Cassandra - Touch Me

How terrifying is it to think that song is twenty years old?! How can that be possible?

Cause I've got the cure for all of my blues

I think this was his profile picture [or maybe not] - anyone recognise him?

Having awoken today to find that my blog had been invaded by dozens of fake comments from some spambot masquerading as a "Kelvin Steve", bragging about how some fucking voodoo "doctor" somehow made his cock grow to eleven inches, I've spent fifteen minutes of my life that I won't get back blocking them all - and have had to switch on comment moderation (sorry, peeps).

However, this tiresome exercise immediately brought this song to mind - so here's to you, "big boy"...

Wait A Second Tenor - My Enormous Penis

Acapella, 1; Spammer, 0.

How many times?

Thank heavens for that. Another particularly dull and gloomy week is petering to its welcome close - and it's "party" time again...

Let's squeeze ourselves into our magnificent gold lurex batwing frocks, stick on the most preposterous nails, whip up the dry ice, hone our overacting dance moves in the company of the late, great Sharon Redd - and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Sharon Redd - In The Name Of Love

Have a great weekend, dear reader...

Retour aux années quatre-vingt!

Among another miscellany of fellow celebrants, including Cecil Beaton, "professional weirdo" Faye Dunaway (who is 80), Richard Briers, Bebe Daniels, Warren Mitchell, Steven Soderbergh, Jack Jones, Sir Trevor Nunn, Pierre Loti, Emily Watson, Billie Jo Spears, Yukio Mishima, Nina Ricci, Mark Antony, Dave Grohl and - erm - LL Cool J, it's the 65th birthday today of Étienne Daho, one of France's most popular (and coolest) singers of recent years - he was even immortalised by Pierre et Gilles (with a parrot), as above!

By way of celebration, let's let the man himself whisk us away to his heyday (and mine), the 1980s...

Etienne Daho - Tombé pour la France

Etienne Daho - Week end à Rome

Reminder to self: must dig out that pirate shirt, sixteen-pleat two-tone pegged trousers and pixie boots...

Bonne anniversaire, Étienne Daho (born 14th January 1956)

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you

It's gloomy, wet and miserable out there. What we really need is a lovely little easy listening music interlude...

With a perfect combination of one of our favourite house bands, Debussy, sunshine, the Von Trapp singers, The Mamas & The Papas and - ahem - a tortoise, I think this will do nicely!

Pink Martini and The von Trapps - Dream a Little Dream of Me

Oh, that's better.

Roll on summer...

When you've gotta go...

Now wash your hands!

Little Donkey*

After a cold and frosty weekend, and with the prospect of a new week of unbridled joy of work about to unfold before us, dear reader, I think on this Tacky Music Monday we deserve a virtual visit to warmer climes.

This particular mind-fuck of a video, however, might well change our minds on that score...

Peret - Borriquito

Mere words do not suffice - although it has woken me up with a jolt!

Have a good week, folks...

[*Borriquito = "little Donkey in Spanish]

Totty of the Day

Sunday lunch, sorted.

Sal Mineo (10th January 1939 - 12th February 1976)

[Read an interview with Sal Mineo's "widower" Coutrney Burr on Matthew Rettenmund's "Boy Culture" site]

Enough to turn your stomach

Longing for the simpler days of bell-bottom trousers, disco and good Star Wars films? Remind yourself how bad things actually were in the 70s with these godforsaken meals.

Things in aspic
The culinary equivalent of freezing Han Solo in carbonite. For a whole decade people pushed the boundaries of good taste to the limits by sealing salads, eggs and entire fish in a jelly made of meat. It’s our public duty to make sure we never repeat this dark chapter of our history.

Ham and banana hollandaise
Even in the throes of bizarre food cravings, a pregnant woman would never dream of something as deranged as bananas wrapped in boiled ham and glazed with mustard and cream. We like to convince ourselves that we’re a developed society, but the invention of this dish should serve as a reminder of how uncivilised we really are.

Fish trying to look fun
Decorating a dead fish with broccoli florets and slices of cucumber doesn’t transform it into a cheerful character that deserves its own Disney film. Also deserving a mention is the 70s trend of thinking it’s a good idea to turn fish into a mousse. Serve fish in unrecognisable breaded finger form or don’t bother.

Spam cupcakes
There’s a reason you don’t see amateur bakers whip up cupcakes made of canned pork on Bake Off and that’s because the name alone is enough to turn your stomach. Prue and Paul would be vomiting beneath a gingham-checked table cloth before they’d finished the first mouthful.

Anything with prawns
Prawns are the biggest culinary casualty of the 70s. Putting some shrimps in a fancy glass and covering them with tomato sauce and mayonnaise is an undeniably classy idea, but everyone overdid it and now it can only be consumed with a large side serving of irony.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Yum yum.

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues

That was a long, long, long week... Time for a bit of a party!

As it is "Diva Day" again - the date when two of our greatest icons Dame Shirley Bassey and David Bowie [whose death five years ago this weekend rocked the world, and still hurts] were born ten years apart - it seems only fair that we usher in the weekend in their company. First, a boppy number from her...

Shirley Bassey - Disco La Passione

...and then one from him!

David Bowie - Let's Dance (The Penelopes Remix)

Have a good weekend, dear reader - Thank Disco It's Friday!

Many happy returns, Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (born 8th January 1937)

RIP, David Robert Jones (8th January 1947 – 10th January 2016)

• Read the concluding post of my week-long set of tributes to the great man after his death was announced [it contains links to each of the others in the series]

Boom or bust?

Taking our minds off COVID, bankruptcies on the High Street and that fucking shitstorm in America whipped up by the nastiest wannabee-dictator since Pol Pot for a moment - in the Eastern Orthodox church calendar it's actually Xmas today! Festivities are going on in countries including Russia, Macedonia, Serbia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldavia...

...and Eastern Europe's home of "tacky music", Ukraine!

By way of a celebration, what could be better than a typically understated number from that country's former Eurovision sensation and Queen of Tackiness herself, Svetlana Loboda?!

Svetlana Loboda - Boom Boom

Class.

Motivi per essere allegri

"John Coltrane's soprano, Adi Celantano
Bonar Colleano
Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3)
One, two, three!"

Ever wondered who all those people were in that classic Ian Dury number?

Well, today's birthday boy is one of 'em!

Adriano Celentano [for it is he] is a true "national treasure" in Italy. The man widely credited with introducing rock'n'roll to that country in the 1950s, in his eight-decade career he has sold millions of records, appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, and worked with just about everybody who was anybody in the Italian entertainment world, from Federico Fellini to Mina Mazzini, and, of course - our Patron Saint of Neck-breaking Head Flicks herself, Raffaella Carrà!

And this, dear reader, is their finest hour - something I stumbled across many moons ago that is so gob-smacking, so brilliantly camp, it made me thankful for the invention of the internet...

Nobody has a clue what Prisencolinensinainciusol actually means, but who cares? I love it!

Adriano Celentano (born 6th January 1938)

A delicious bowl of plov

Lockdown #3 is quite the wrong moment to be thinking about dieting...

The new year can be a difficult time for many, especially after 12 months of bloody 2020. Here are some sure-fire ways to shake off the January blues:

E-resign
Let’s face it, it’s probably your job that’s making you unhappy. So take advantage of being able to resign via Zoom. Nothing will perk you up more than calling your boss a twat, giving them the double Vs then closing your laptop like a coward before they bollock you.

Do ‘Wet January’
Sure, Dry January is healthy and for a great cause. But why pick such a depressing month not to drink? Give the opposite a try. Drink for 31 days straight. Bonus points for trying a different beverage on each day. Bonus bonus points for not ending up in rehab.

Hibernate like a bear
No one can feel bad in bed. Make yourself a tent out of a duvet and pillows and wait for this whole January thing to blow over. You can’t literally hibernate but you probably bought enough Christmas provisions to see you through another month. Admittedly, you might be approaching the lower reaches of your Netflix account, so prepare to binge six seasons of Dawson’s Creek.

Travel
You might not be able to visit the country you want to, but be creative. Apparently Turkmenistan is particularly bracing at this time of year. Hop on a flight to Ashgabat, buy yourself a delicious bowl of plov and get ready to enjoy the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas.

Take up a hobby
Hobbies can be a real tonic during the dark evenings and depressing weather. Perhaps use 2020 as inspiration and finally start building that panic room, become a backstreet dentist or dabble at making a mutant Covid vaccine in your bathtub.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Pretty?

Oh. Shit. The dreaded "first Monday" is here, and after a lovely couple of weeks of self-indulgence I am not ready for all this...

Never mind, eh? On this Tacky Music Monday, let us revel in the sheer insanity of this remarkable routine featuring our Patron Saint of Bugle Beads Miss Mitzi Gaynor (and her safety gays) to cheer ourselves up, shall we?

Mitzi Gaynor and her dancers - Pretty for Me

That almost makes the prospect of a week chained to the laptop more bearable. Almost...

Make my day, indeed

This is the official start of the Roaring Twenties!

It's my last day of freedom before that bastard laptop has to come back out and be dusted down, for what is undoubtedly going to be a fun-filled first week back to work in 2021 - so let's make the most of it, in the company of a new discovery here at Dolores Delargo Towers...

Waldeck (for it is he) is an Austrian former copyright lawyer-turned musician, and if that sounds unusual, then you'll probably understand why I like him. Lounge-with-a-twist, here are just a few examples of the man's creative outpourings - perfect for a Sunday, methinks!

Waldeck feat. Franziska Schrammel - Make My Day

Waldeck feat. Patrizia Ferrara - Rough Landing (Soul Goodman Remix)

Waldeck feat. Patrizia Ferrara - Lady Bedford (Soul Goodman Remix)

I'm not entirely convinced all those "ladies" are actually such...

There's no need to be unhappy

It's a mini-"timeslip moment", dear reader...

We've been dropped off by The Doctor, Romana and K9 at a pivotal juncture for the UK - January 1979. For this was indeed the notorious "Winter of Discontent" - with strikes at the ports, hauliers, railways, hospitals and public services, and snowstorms that brought the country to a virtual standstill - and Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's quote "Crisis? What Crisis?" (as above, the banner headline on the front page of The Sun) made such a lasting impact that Maggie Thatcher swept to power a few months later, and Labour failed to regain government for the next eighteen years. Also in the news headlines: Pol Pot and his murderous Khmer Rouge regime were deposed in Cambodia by Vietnamese forces; The Bee Gees, Abba, Andy Gibb, Earth Wind & Fire, Olivia Newton John, Rod Stewart, Donna Summer and more all sang at the "Music for UNICEF" concert and donated the royalties from all the songs they performed to the cause; and the deposed Shah of Iran fled his country. In our cinemas: Superman; Jaws 2; Capricorn One. On telly: Blankety Blank, Life on Earth, Give Us a Clue and Danger UXB.

And in our charts in the post-Xmas period, this week forty-one years ago? Just evicted from the top slot [to a collective sigh of relief from discerning music lovers] was Boney M Mary's Boy Child, and also present and correct were Chic, the Bee Gees, Racey, The Barron Knights, Elton John, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond and Hot Gossip. But the year opened with a new Number 1 - and possibly the campest, gayest one Britain had ever had! All together, now...

Village People - YMCA

Arise...

...house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers Dame Sheila Hancock, cute motor-racing champion Sir Lewis Hamilton [who I hope will not be wearing just his skimpies to the Palace!], Dame Angela Eagle (first out-lesbian MP in the UK) and "Lydia Quigley" herself, Lesley Manville CBE.

Joining them in [a vast list of individuals, some famous, many more honoured for their services to the community and to charitable causes (in particular in response to the COVID-19 crisis)] HM The Queen's New Year Honours List 2021 are Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) jockey Bob Champion; Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) Nina Wadia (of Goodness Gracious Me and Eastenders fame), actor Toby Jones, cellist Natalie Clein and screenwriter Jed Mercurio; and Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) singer Craig David, Sally Dynevor (Coronation Street) and footballer and pundit Jimmy Greaves.

Congratulations, all!

My Damehood is obviously still in the post.

New Year Honours List 2021 in full
New Year Honours 2021: Overseas and International List in full