Whoo-hoo! Another three-day Bank Holiday weekend is almost upon us, it is finally hot and sunny weather, payday was yesterday, we're off to Essex tomorrow for a weekend with Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex...and it's Our Princess Kylie's birthday!
What else could I play but the "Gay National Anthem"? Thank Disco It's Friday!
Have a great (long) weekend, dear reader!
PS "normal" service will resume after our return on Monday...
The BBC is to launch a £10m probe into claims of sexually suggestive language in its 1970s cartoons.The inquiry will focus on previously false allegations that popular children’s programme Captain Pugwash included references to masturbation, under-age sex and seminal fluid.
A spokesman said: “We’ve decided that a ‘Pugwash’ means being urinated on simultaneously by four Radio One DJs.”
The Pugwash inquiry forms part of larger £400m BBC investigation into every single thing that was said, done or thought about in Britain between 1970 and 1985.
Meanwhile, a separate £30m probe will attempt to find out how its radio headquarters in central London came to be named ‘Bush House’.
The spokesman added: “We would prefer if you didn’t call it a ‘probe’. We think that’s inappropriate.”
The corporation stressed the Pugwash probe will not involve actually watching Captain Pugwash, but will instead examine the culture that led to rumours about the names of some of the characters in it.
The investigation will also look at other 1970s animation after claims that ‘Mary, Mungo and Midge’ was secretly used as a verb.
Of course.
On a separate, but not entirely unrelated subject - today marks the centenary of one of Britain's most beloved animators of the short-cartoons-to-end-children's-telly-before-the-news, Mr Bob Godfrey [see my tribute to him on his death in 2013].
So here, for your delectation are three of his finest creations. No accusations of "masturbation, under-age sex and seminal fluid" here, methinks.
Ah, memories...
Time, methinks, for a little trawl through some of the "newer" music that's caught my ear of late...
First up, something that's not actually new at all - it was actually released in 2018, but I only recently stumbled across it, so it's as good as. Never heard of the "hooker" before, but Gaby Amarantos is an old fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers. I love this!
By way of a complete contrast, here's a rather angry young lady - with a faboo choon, to boot:
Speaking of "old faves" - I just discovered this new one from Yelle, a band I first picked up on way back in 2009...
A brand new one from a brand new artist; how about a bit of "gay electro-go-go"? And why not?
Quite the regulars in this particular "pick of the pops" slot, Parralox have decided to take a trip on the Tubeway...
Saving the best for last, however...this is what happens when three world-conquering talents collide - one of the most fantabulosa collaborations in years (& years?)!
[Look out for the "supporting characters": one of the original Blitz Kids Princess Julia (who appeared in Visage's Fade to Grey video), Lavinia Co-op (a founder member of Bloolips drag troupe with Bette Bourne, and one of the subjects of Lexi's Riot Act trilogy) and performance artist Nando Messias...]
Wow. Just wow!
As ever, let me know your thoughts, dear reader.
PS As if little Olly weren't busy enough - guess who he's collaborating with next?!
Among another miscellany of mismatched fellow celebrants including Stanley Baxter [who celebrates his 95th birthday today - see my tribute on his 90th], Queen Victoria, Kristin Scott Thomas, Priscilla Presley, Jim Broadbent, Lilli Palmer, Éric Cantona, Bob Dylan, Rosanne Cash, Prince Buster, Alfred Molina, Gene Anthony Ray and - erm - Jacob Rees-Mogg, it's the birthday today of the marvellous Miss Patti LaBelle!
What better excuse do I need on this groansome, grey and miserable Tacky Music Monday to play a glitter-, silver- and feather-strewn bombastic performance such as this..?
When divas collide, indeed:
Well, that woke me up!
Have a good week, dear reader...
How humiliating. Not only did the UK not get a single point in last night's Eurovision Song Contest final from anyone, anywhere - not the 39 participating countries' professional juries nor the public votes across the whole gamut of Eurovisionland - but the contest was won by a "The Darkness tribute band", to boot!
Sigh.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't overly keen on UK entrant James Newman's song, but there were some far, far worse songs than that in this year's contest final. Surprisingly, however, there were some absolute crackers in the line-up, too, so we did have a close-run list of choices for the "points from the Dolores Delargo Towers jury". And yes, despite previous reservations, I did finally crack - and cobbled together spreadsheet voting cards for all nine of us (Me, Madam Acarti, John-John, Hils, Crog, Lou, Jim, Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex), and, yes, thanks to Jim's rallying of the troops we also had not one, not two, but three Zoom drop-ins so we didn't all feel quite so isolated from the traditional camaraderie that usually accompanies our "Gay World Cup" celebrations.
Anyway, to the event itself. Twenty-six participants [the rest having been knocked-out in the semi-finals, except the "core" countries - i.e. the ones that fund the whole thing - France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, who automatically go straight to the final], a massive venue [Rotterdam's Ahoy arena which, incidentally, this time last year was co-opted as a coronavirus emergency hospital] with gigantic sets, pyrotechnic light-show effects, revolving, elevating and illuminated stages, cheesy hosts [including the first ever trans co-host Nikkie de Jager], and sarky commentary from our very own Graham Norton - it was almost "business as usual", really. Apart from the limited live audience, the obvious "COVID-safe" precautions and social distancing, and the fact that some acts (Iceland) and even the Dutch winner in 2019 Duncan Laurence, who was due to take part in the live interval slot, were unable to be there in person thanks to positive test results...
The whole night is always a long haul - it kicked off at 8pm, and we were still watching the votes come in when our third and final Zoom get-together kicked in at 11.30pm! First, it's all the songs, needlessly interrupted at stages by hosts conversing with guests, audience members, random commentator crews and so on, then an interval [we didn't bother with that bit as it looked a bit cheesy, and we needed to catch up with the gang and also wolf down some pizza], then the thirty nine individual link-ups to get the jury votes from all the member states, then the hideously-drawn-out-for-effect announcement of the audience votes, participant by participant, until finally the winner is announced and they sing a reprise of their song and finally piss off.
Songs we really didn't like this year included the "GaGa-rip-off" from Cyprus, the infantile rubbish from Germany, the really nasty heavy rock mess from Finland and the dull-but-worthy Bulgarian misery-ballad.
Spain provided the best totty of the evening - Blas Cantó!
Honourable mentions should go to the fab Hooverphonic [who I featured here in a post way back in 2010), recently reformed and performing the Belgian entry, and to Albania, despite the obvious fact that their contestant Anxhela [just one of a cavalcade of "Shakira-wannabees" competing this year] could hardly move her face for the Botox.
At the "professional jury votes" stage, there was a bit of leapfrogging going on, as the French pseudo-Piaf-with-a-shrill-vocal, the cute Swiss balladeer and the superb voice of the Big Mama from Malta alternated in the top slot. Then the public votes came in, and everything changed, as the half-arsed Italian rockers hurtled out of nowhere to take the crown!
All of this shenanigans pales into insignificance, of course, compared to the opinions of our own little gang! So here, for your delectation, is the Top 5 that we chose...
5. "Our Boy":
4. This sparkly number from Moldova:
3. Last year's should-have-been-winners:
2. A most unusual culture-clash between Ukrainian folk music and Techno [and my personal favourite out of the whole contest!]:
...and our gang's favourite?
1. ...a little slice of the 80s, courtesy of Lithuania!
In all, it was a fabulous evening's entertainment - remote or otherwise.
Roll on next year, when (hopefully) we'll do it all again - but this time TOGETHER!
Albeit a strange prospect, since we customarily would have been swathing Dolores Delargo Towers in the "flags of all nations" and getting our costumes ready for our traditional Eurovision Song Contest house party by now - for the first time, we'll be watching the live final on our own. Last year, the contest was cancelled and replaced with studio-based "specials", which we tried to watch en masse via Zoom; it was cumbersome but needed little concentration, as there was no voting. [As my regular reader will already know, we usually have voting cards and allocate marks for song, outfit, dreadful dance routine, buff totty backing dancers, and so on - it's a deadly serious process. Ahem.]
We decided not to do it this year, as the logistics would be unmanageable.
Our friend Jim has, however, offered to host pre- and after-contest Zoom sessions, so we will have a chance to gather and do some toasts and "post-match analysis", as it were...
While we wait for the madness to begin this evening, we're listening to Radio 2's countdown of "The UK’s All-Time Eurovision Top 50", as voted for by listeners (myself included). The station's schedule is entirely given over to a celebration of Eurovision today, so there'll be a lot to keep us occupied...
Meanwhile, let's revisit this fantabulosa piss-take that was actually performed by the contest's hosts in the interval of the contest back in 2016:
[Måns]: Step 1! Get everyone's attention. A powerful, majestic start. Maybe a battle horn of some kind?
[Petra]: Step 2! Drums! There has to be drums! It doesn't hurt if the drums are played by gorgeous topless men. It's proven very efficient throughout the years. But, please feel free to try other alternatives. It's proven very helpful to go the exact opposite way. Use a grandmother!
[Måns]: Step 3! Show the viewers your country's ethnic background by using an old traditional folklore instrument that no-one's heard of before
[Petra]: No, no - in this case, it's proven much more efficient to not use a young model. Go with an old man instead. A beard helps!
[Måns]: This instrument is called a Swedish kvinnaböske - a small roundish piece from the horn family, inherited from the Vikings. Just make something up. No-one will know!
Step 4! In Eurovision, nothing says winner like a violin. Trust us - bring a violin
[Petra]: Step 5! The violin, the drums and the kvinnaböske might make it all feel a little bit old fashioned, but this can easily be fixed by adding a DJ who pretends to scratch. In real life of course, this is thirty years old but in Eurovision, it will give your number a contemporary feel
[Måns]: Step 6 - costumes! You need to look memorable, something that the viewers will notice.
[Petra]: Oh! Perfect!
Step 7! The song. Everything else might be important, but the song is essential. Let it be about something everyone can connect to. Love works. Peace is also a popular way to go
[Måns]: Yes, peace is good. ABBA actually won the competition with a song about war with Waterloo, but this is not something we recommend
[Petra]: Now when you have everything you need and the pieces are gathered - go for it and don't look back!
[Måns]: Let the song begin with passion
Let the wind begin to blow
[Petra]: You can break the rules of fashion
And your chance to win shall grow
Look into the TV camera
So the audience can see
[Måns]: That you're lovable - not desperate
Smile and they will vote for me
[Both]: Fill the stage with light
As dancers will join us
The expectations grow
It's time for the chorus
Love love peace peace
[Måns]: Old women baking bread
Peace peace love love
[Petra]: And a man in a hamster wheel
Love peace peace love
Make it unforgettable
You will be the best
And win the Eurovision Song Contest
[Måns]: Now we'll go down a notch
Our hands will touch
Pretending we're in love
[Petra]: It's you and me and when we change the key
[Both]: We'll give the world a show
It begins to snow
Love love peace peace
[Petra]: And a burning fake piano
Peace peace love love
[Måns]: And a Russian man on skates
Love peace peace love
It'll be incredible
You will be the best
Love love peace peace
[Måns]: Party for everybody!
Peace peace love love
[Petra]: More tricks in a hamster wheel
Love peace peace love
And we can guarantee
That you will be the best
And win the Eurovision Song Contest
And win the Eurovision Song Contest
This is NOT an event that takes itself too seriously...
Another weekend looms - and we have a Zoom call with Mother this evening and the frenetic Eurovision Song Contest final tomorrow to look forward to.
Meanwhile, the weather continues on its shitty trajectory. Almost the end of May...and it's SLEETING out there. Harrumph.
To take our mind off it, let's wallow in some gratuitous totty photos, for - sharing the celebrations as he does with a motley crew that includes Ronald Isley (who is 80), Leo Sayer, Albrecht Dürer, Kay Kendall, Robert Montgomery, Judge Reinhold, Fats Waller, Gotye, Harold Robbins, Noel Fielding, Mutya Buena and Raymond Burr...
...it's my ultimate sex god Tom Daley's birthday today!!
And, to take our minds off the cold and gloom, here he is to wiggle his tush for our viewing pleasure - Thank Disco (and Speedos) It's Friday!
Have a good weekend, dear chums!
It was with the greatest of excitement that I, John-John and (eventually) our friend Paul met up for the first time since last October - in a pub (Halfway to Heaven, of course). For not only were we getting our first taste of "freedom" as lockdown restrictions are lifted, but the occasion was for the triumphal return of "London's peerless literary salon" Polari to the legendary Heaven nightclub! And what an evening's entertainment was in store...
Our hostess-with-the-mostest Paul Burston looked ecstatic to welcome us back, opening proceedings with an apposite reminder that, although the sense of relief was palpable at the prospect of the coronavirus pandemic coming under control in the UK, for many people in the room this was actually the second pandemic we have lived through and survived to tell the tale - about which there would be more in parts of the evening's programme.
Opening the evening, however - emerging through the "rock concert-style" dazzling light-show and dry ice that enveloped the stage [the effect of which meant that 160 out of the 183 photos I took went straight to the delete bin as the glare made it impossible to see anything in them] - was a gleam of exuberant joy, in the form of the delightful PJ Samuels. I love the way she described herself in one of her blog posts way back in 2014:
I am a black woman. Rastafarian. Christian. Immigrant. Exile. Lesbian... I am by no means confused. This relationship in my skin sits like ice lolly on a hot day, a magnum original on the stick. So many reasons why it shouldn’t work together but heaven when you taste it. So for every group that I don’t fit in because of the other aspect of me that I embrace, it’s your loss. I’m delicious. All kinds of delicious. A smorgasbord of incongruous flavours that are heaven on a platter. Damn I want to eat me…
Mesmerised by her recitative delivery of a selection of her poems and songs: some tender, some angry, some empowering, our audience wanted to "eat" her up, too!
Speaking of "poetry powerhouses", next was the turn of Joelle Taylor, as excited to have just received her first print copy of her new anthology Cunto and Othered Poems [this Polari being its "unofficial" launch] as she was to be performing extracts from it on stage again!
According to the eminent Patience Agbabi she is
"...a shape-shifter, myth-maker, linguistic risk-taker; poetical activist, surrealist with a raised fist. She knows how to handle a pen. Razor sharp, tattooed or AWOL, her women are the best dressed men. Her material – fractured glass and human skin; the effect – a maze, a mosaic, a hall of mirrors. She redefines the dispossessed, the caged in and gives them a way out."
Focusing largely on her own experiences as a masculine presenting woman, a "Butch" or "Boi" on the in London lesbian scene in the 1990s, the poems she read for us were a combination of pent-up frustration, intriguing and sometimes menacing characters, politics, anger, love, lust and loss - like this one:
...and here's one she made earlier...
Just when we thought "how does one possibly top that?!" - our lovely "Sexy Lexi", the sublimely talented Alexis Gregory trolled up to the mike...
Riot Act is surely his magnum opus - he wrote this one-man-drama based upon three real-life interviews: with Michael-Anthony Nozzi, one of the only remaining Stonewall survivors; Lavinia Co-op, a 1970s London radical-drag artist; and someone a little closer to home.
The piece he performed from it for us was the tale of an activist in the era of fear and loss and anger that encompassed the gay world when AIDS reared its ugly head in the 1980s, of his conflicting experiences of camaraderie and dull political correctness, of placards and protests and forming a chained blockade across Waterloo Bridge, of attending funeral after funeral after funeral of people who were too young to die, of experiencing rejection and denial on the gay scene, burn-out and "survivor guilt", partying too hard to try and blot out the grief, and the feeling of hopelessness that a whole generation of collective memory has been lost, so the next wave of gays has no connection with that era and would rather forget it ever happened - all too, too real. And familiar. I cried.
The subject of the monologue was, of course... Paul Burston himself.
Here's the trailer for the show:
I really needed a cigarette after that!
After the break and some more drinkies, served to our table of course, it was time for a familiar friend and Polari stalwart to appear. However - shock! horror! - to our dismay, Paul announced that would be the very last time the lovely VG Lee [for it is she] would ever perform live again...
From her entrance with a sort-of "1960s catwalk model" routine, to the end of her performance with a series of her hilarious "Dear Auntie Val" agony aunt letters, she had us enthralled!
Accompanied as she was [in fact, all our speakers including Paul B had their own similar large-screen back-drop] by a selection of photos from various points of her younger - and dead glam - life, she revealed that ("before I was a lesbian") she had actually been married (to "Hemel Hempstead's answer to Barry Gibb") for quite a few years - and even wrote a semi-fictional, and hilarious, short story about it in her recent anthology Oh You Pretty Thing, which she read for us. Here she is with a [unfortunately abridged - the longer extract she read for us continued with a more pithy take on the relationship and its inevitable fate...] version from a Zoom-based event she did last year:
If this really was the "farewell performance" of such a legend, there's going to be one helluva gap in the Polari repertoire... We'll certainly miss her!
Finally, from one legendary long-serving performer to another.
Ian Elmslie was (the cuter) half of the cabaret duo Katrina and the Boy [who I saw on stage - after attending Gay Pride in Kennington Park - at the long-demised gay pub the Market Tavern in Nine Elms/Vauxhall way back in 1991. There's some fab footage of one of their performances in this video on YouTube - however, you'll need to skip to the 2:20:00 mark to see a very youthful Mr Elmslie in action!]
click any photo to embiggen
Latterly, Mr Elmslie published his entertainment memoirs - A Marvellous Party, from which he read an extract at Polari back in December 2017 - and still "keeps his hand in" as a cabaret singer-songwriter; indeed, he had not one, but two CDs on sale last night. He also, it emerged, is a bit of a Bowie fan [hence the photo at the head of this post with the neon sign "Boys Keep Swinging"] - and the major part of his performance was indeed dedicated to the great man, with audience participation, to boot! I'm not sure any previous audience in the history of Heaven nightclub has been encouraged to shout "Hot Tramp!" en masse in quite the same way before...
He also treated us to one of his own songs The Other Man from the new Old Boyfriends CD, which I think is brilliant:
After resounding applause came the customary curtain call...
...and without further ado, it was time to clear the decks and bugger off for last orders at the pub.
It was such a brilliant evening that, despite having suffered the "getting up for work" bit afterwards, I'm still coming down to earth.
Unfortunately we might miss the next outing at the RVT on 4th June (with headliner the lovely Adele Anderson), as it's not just selling out fast, but apparently clashes with other arrangements... but we do indeed love Polari!
Yes, Indeed!
John-John, Paul and I are out on the razz tonight for a long-overdue visit to "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari, once again raising the rafters at (a socially-distanced, table-service-only) Heaven nightclub!
My first evening out in seven months. I can't wait!
All together, now...
Take me to the edge of heaven
Tell me that my soul's forgiven
Hide your baby's eyes and we can
We can, woo
Take me to the edge of heaven
One last time might be forever
Indeed.
It is the International Day Against Homophobia [or whatever it's called these days, since the acronyms keep changing] and so, to the governments of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Malawi, Oman, Jamaica, Myanmar, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia, Tanzania, Sudan, Iran, Uganda, Maldives, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt [from this list]; to Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria [see here]; and to all the insane Trump acolytes, the pseudo-religious evangelists, imams and and rabbis, the tin-pot dictators, rappers, media moguls and to anyone who espouses hate against us...
...we charge our glasses for our traditional toast. All, together, now!
Cheers!
The countdown has begun...
After its planned mega-celebration of 65 years of the Eurovision Song Contest was unceremoniously cancelled last year thanks to the pandemic, it's scheduled to go ahead as normal [as "normal" as the world's biggest, campest, most OTT musical event could ever be!] this year, with the grand final this Saturday in Rotterdam.
Once again, we have had to put any plans for our usual house party on ice [we're not even doing a Zoom call, as the consensus is that it really doesn't work when our fifteen-strong gang want to chat and watch telly at the same time], but to make up for it, let's shake ourselves out of the usual start-of-the-week doldrums in the most appropriate fashion.
On this Tacky Music Monday, it's one of our favourite UK Song Contest entries ever...
I'm singing along (and doing all the actions) as we speak!
Have a good week, dear reader...
[Happy birthday, Baby Steve!]
Outshining the mere mortals with whom he shares the day such as Hazel O'Connor, Tamara de Lempicka, Pierce Brosnan, Judy Finnigan, Yvonne Craig, Henry Fonda, Debra Winger, Jonathan Richman, Tori Spelling, Woody Herman, Olga Korbut, Robert Fripp, Janet Jackson - and even Christian Lacroix, sweetie - it would have been Liberace's birthday today!
By way of a celebration (and in the interest of recycling, of course!), here's a post I did way back in 2009...
...[In June 1959] the sparkling multi-million-selling entertainer Liberace sued the Daily Mirror for libel (and won!). Gossip columnist Cassandra (William Connor) had described him as:
"The summit of sex - the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want… a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother-love... this superb piece of calculating candy floss... the biggest sentimental vomit of all time... a preposterous clown."Absurd, of course! After all, this is the same "devout Catholic" Liberace who outsold Elvis, broke all the records for ticket sales at Madison Square Gardens and in Vegas, and was "almost married" to the silver screen formation skater Sonja Henie - how could he be gay?
The rest, as they say, is history. In 1982, his former lover Scott Thorson sued for "palimoney" (and was paid off to the tune of $95k!), and (amid a sickening media frenzy at the time) eventually "Mr. Showmanship" died of complications from AIDS in 1987.
But let us not dwell on that when we can have the man himself. Enjoy yourweekendSunday with a bit of sparkle!
The book Crying All the Way to the Bank: Liberace V Cassandra, which gives all the gory details of the fabulous libel trial, was published in June 2009.
And why not visit The Liberace Museum?
Of course, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2009 - not least with the success of the infamous TV movie (based upon Scott Thorson's memoir) Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, in 2013; and the physical home of the Liberace Museum closed in October 2010 (although the collection survives and the link in my post above is till active).
Regardless, the world of camp would have been a lot less sequinned and twinkly without Władziu Valentino Liberace (16th May 1919 – 4th February 1987). All hail.
More Liberace here, here, here, here, and of course (on his centenary) here.
On such a grey and drizzly day, one can be forgiven for just lounging around in subtle leisurewear.
The perfect accompaniment for a lazy Saturday is, of course, a foray into the glamorous lives of impossibly stylish people, cavorting in exotic places - courtesy of the eternally-tasteful Soft Tempo Lounge. Bien sûr!
Lovely fashions...
Ah, that's better.
[Music: Mike Vickers - Light and Easy]
