Monday 31 January 2022

Sweet Suite Andalucía*


We're getting ourselves in the mood for our trip to Spain...

Another work week begins - but for a change, I am not in such a maudlin mood. We're counting down the days until we depart for our long-awaited week in sunny Benalmadena this Saturday - and it's another four-day week to boot, as I am off this Friday to finalise the bag packing!

I feel a little trip on this Tacky Music Monday into the dreamworld of our Patron Saint Sara Montiel and her safety gays might well be appropriate...

Oh, yes. Bring it on!

Have a good week, dear reader.

[* Malagueña originally formed the sixth movement of Ernesto Lecuona's Suite Andalucia.]

Sunday 30 January 2022

Ikaris' hidden weapon

I spent most of the day yesterday at our friend John-John's, on another Marvel movies binge-watch - firstly Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [which was heaps of fun, with loads of stylish fight scenes and a spell-binding smattering of pseudo-Eastern mythology, as well as some very funny moments and a scene-stealing appearance from Sir Ben Kingsley to boot] and then the one the critics sneered at, Eternals.

It is actually a very good fantasy/sci-fi film indeed - much better than some of the reviewers had said. I think the main reason the film was the subject of so much ire is that it breaks the pattern of the previous twenty-odd movies, and has very little discernible connection to any of them. [It's a well-documented fact that everything up to and including Avengers: Endgame had been part of a "thread" that all revolved around the Infinity Stones and Thanos. Apart from the tiniest throwaway references to Thanos and "The Snap" - which was an important plot point in Avengers: Infinity War - Eternals largely sidesteps the whole shebang and takes its own path.]

Much of the reason it is so enjoyable is not just the stunning visuals, scary monsters and the weird galactic mythos, or the battle-royal with a monster in the middle of Camden, but the cast (that includes Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan and Kit Harington). Speaking of Mr Madden, it was interesting that his costume included a "skirt" [yes, it is true to the comics character, but...] - and there may be a very good reason for that, given his previous comments about wearing tight-fitting costumes in movies for the Disney empire:

Richard Madden will soon be seen as Ikaris in Eternals, but few people remember him as Prince Charming in Cinderella (2015).

While on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, Madden revealed that his genitals created a big problem for the crew during filming. The actor apparently had a very large “bulk” in his pants that was not appropriate to be seen in a Disney movie.

"The prince can't have any genitalia, apparently," Madden said. "We had about two days of screen tests where we had to try lots of different jock straps, just to make sure we can't see anything through the trousers."

“I had a really bad day, as I tried different athletic supports and had several cameras and lights aimed at my groin. And everyone watched and discussed what was happening down there,” said the well-endowed actor.

He did not reveal how Disney solved the issue, but in Eternals, the character’s costume was created to solve this problem.

Unfortunately.

Saturday 29 January 2022

Friday 28 January 2022

The reason for my fever is right in front of me

Phew! I thought I had better check that no more of our house faves or national treasures had popped their clogs before leading our traditional countdown to the weekend. It's all clear...

Once again I am actually on leave - but there is still every excuse to flick our hair like Tina's, throw on that flouncy chiffon number, and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Remarkably, that song is forty-five years old this month! Gulp.

Have a great weekend, peeps! For me, there's just one more week to go before Spain. Yay!

More Tina Charles here, here and here.

Thursday 27 January 2022

The true King of Comedy

  • A wife is in the bathroom trying on a new dress. She comes out and says to her husband: "Does my bum look big in this?" He says: "Oh be fair, love, it’s quite a small bathroom."
  • I’m 59 and people call me middle-aged. How many 118-year-old men do you know?
  • I'm thinking of entering myself in a talent contest... It's a neat trick if you can do it.
  • Quick – the noise made by a dyslexic duck.
  • Picasso was burgled and did a drawing of the robbers. Police arrested a horse and two sardines.
  • Hashtag - party game where you chase each other for drugs.


A man and his wife are out walking one day when they spot a lone fellow on the other side of the road. "That looks like the Archbishop of Canterbury over there" says the woman. "Go and see if it is.”
The husband crosses the road and asks the man if he is indeed the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"Fuck off," says the man.
The husband crosses back to his wife who asks "What did he say? Is he the Archbishop of Canterbury?"
"He told me to fuck off,"
says the husand.
"Oh no," replies the wife, "Now we'll never know".


A man was driving down a country lane and ran over a cockerel.
He knocked on the farmhouse door and a woman answered. "I appear to have killed your cockerel," he said. "I’d like to replace it."
"Please yourself," said the woman, "the hens are round the back."


Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are camping out on Dartmoor after solving the case of The Hound of the Baskervilles. It's night-time and Watson is staring up at the sky.
"What do all those magnificent stars make you think, Holmes?" Watson asks. "Does your enormous brain turn to other life forms out there? To the origins of light? To God?"
"No, Watson," says Holmes. "They make me think, 'Who stole our bloody tent?'"


They're dropping like flies, dear reader!

Another legend has ascended that glittering stairway to Fabulon - the maestro of comedy writing, stalwart of panel shows, a "must-have guest" on many a chat show, stand-up comedian, TV presenter, raconteur, wit and "national treasure" - Mr Barry Cryer.

Having moved to London from his native Leeds in the late 1950s, after a stint dodging the hecklers as a standup comic at the notorious Windmill Theatre [home of the naked tableaux vivants, and made famous in the film Mrs Henderson Presents], Mr Cryer began writing material for the legendary drag queen Danny La Rue. It was while at Danny's nightclub that he was "discovered" by David Frost - who co-opted him to write for his TV shows The Frost Report, Frost Over England and Frost On Sunday - and the rest, as they say, is history!

Over his seven-decade career, he went on to write jokes and sketches for just about everybody who was anybody in the comedy world, including Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, Tommy Cooper, Jack Benny, Mike Yarwood, Billy Connolly, Russ Abbot, Bob Hope, Richard Prior, Bobby Davro, Jasper Carrott, Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery, Dave Allen, Frankie Howerd, Kenny Everett and Les Dawson, often in partnership with fellow geniuses such as John Junkin, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. He did a double-act with the late, great Willie Rushton called Two Old Farts In The Night; as recently as 2019 (not long after recovering from hip surgery) he was on stage again with Barry Humphries [aka Dame Edna Everage], recreating slaptick routines from silent movies; and he was a mainstay of the cult "spoof panel show" I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue from its inception in 1972 until very recently.

In late 2021 he started a podcast (with his son Bob) called Now, Where Were We? that featured guest appearances from his friends Stephen Fry, Danny Baker, Miriam Margolyes and Sanjeev Baskar; the last episode was broadcast just two weeks before he died. Apparently, he was astonished by the format. "He was amazed," said Bob. "He couldn’t believe anything existed that paid less than radio."

Read a marvellous interview with the great man in The Oldie, a magazine to which he contributed for many years, published in tribute following the news of his death.

RIP, Barry Charles Cryer, OBE (23rd March 1935 – 25th January 2022)

Wednesday 26 January 2022

Queen B

And so, farewell then to another musical great, and one beloved in the household of Dolores Delargo Towers - Miss Beegie Adair!

Who? I hear you ask...

A maestro of jazz piano, Bobbe Gorin "Beegie" ("B-G") Adair had an extensive career that spanned seven decades, during which she recorded more than 35 albums, played on sessions for country and pop stars including Dolly Parton, Henry Mancini, Dinah Shore, Ray Stevens, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, J.J. Cale, Connie Francis, Waylon Jennings and Neil Diamond and many more besides, appeared on the soundtracks of such films as Clint Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose and Burt Reynolds’ Smokey and the Bandit, composed ad jingles, and even headlined at Carnegie Hall at the age of 76! She hosted her own radio series in the 1990s, and was still performing - doing regular YouTube broadcasts throughout the pandemic lockdown - almost until her death.

We have a couple of her CDs in our collection, and simply adore them.

Here's just a small sample of the lady's talents:

RIP "Queen B" Beegie Adair (11th December 1937 – 23rd January 2022)

Tuesday 25 January 2022

Furious Faggot


The incomparable and tireless champion of gay rights, civil rights and free speech, Patron Saint here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Mr Peter Tatchell is 70 years old today!

From his own Foundation's press release:

Peter Tatchell is one of Britain’s best known and longest surviving LGBT+ and human rights campaigners. He’s supported nearly every major human rights campaign for the last half a century – and taken on everyone from Mike Tyson to Tony Blair and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He first began campaigning while still at school in 1967 aged 15, against the death penalty and the execution of Ronald Ryan in his home state of Victoria, Australia. He went on to champion indigenous Aboriginal rights and oppose Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. On moving to London in 1971, he was prominent in the newly-formed Gay Liberation Front and ... helped organise the UK’s first LGBT+ Pride parade in 1972 – this July being the 50th anniversary...

He stood as the Labour candidate in the notorious 1983 Bermondsey by-election – often regarded as the dirtiest, most violent and homophobic election in Britain since 1945. In 1990 he was a founding member of the LGBT+ campaign group OutRage! Its activism against homophobic discrimination included the most numerous and sustained direct action protests in Britain since the suffragettes.

Over the last five decades, he’s participated in 3,000 peaceful protests, been arrested 100 times and suffered 300 violent assaults by homophobes and far right extremists, including 50 attacks on his flat. He has described the violent assaults as like living through a low-level civil war. For many years he suffered from PTSD.

He was beaten unconscious by President Mugabe’s bodyguards when he tried to make a citizen’s arrest in Brussels in 2001 and suffered a severe beating by neo-Nazis in Moscow in 2007 when he supported the bid by Russian LGBTs to hold a Pride parade.

“My coordination, memory, balance, vision and concentration are somewhat impaired. Campaigning is more difficult but I still manage. I’ve no regrets. Compared to the jailing and torturing of human rights defenders in China, Russia, Syria and Uganda, I’ve got off lightly,” said Mr Tatchell.

All hail!

We would really love to see the recent film of the great man's life - co-produced (i.e. funded) by Sir Elton John and Peter Furnish, and featuring (among others) commentary and tributes from esteemed gayers such as Stephen Fry and Sir Ian "Serena" McKellen - Hating Peter Tatchell, but unfortunately it seems to have been snapped up by that behemoth Netflix, a service to which we stalwart BBC-ers would never subscribe, so I doubt we will get the opportunity for a while...

Regardless, we charge our glasses to a true hero!

Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25th January 1952)

Today also happens to be Burns' Night - yet another excuse for Scots to get pissed on whisky and eat pig guts - so what better way to pay tribute to Mr Tatchell's milestone birthday than with one of Scotland's finest bands and an appropriate choon?



OCH, AYE!


click to embiggen

Monday 24 January 2022

You will come back*

As we crawl reluctantly, cursing and spitting, out of bed (far too early in the day yet again) to embark on another week's joy in work - to wake us all up on this Tacky Music Monday I think a dose of Paraguayan footballer-turned-"singer" Carlos “Lobo” Diarte, some dodgy backing vocalists and really cringeworthy graphics should suffice...

Have a good week, dear reader...

[* Tu volverás = "You will come back" in English]

Sunday 23 January 2022

Roll up, roll up!

Fairgrounds are only worth going to if they look so ramshackle that you are in genuine fear for your life, it has been confirmed.

They are also much more entertaining when the rides are controlled by shirtless tattooed youths who are only interested in flirting with young women and could not give a fuck about your safety.

Funfair attendee Jack Browne said: “Feeling that at any moment the seat belt on the pendulum ride might break and you’ll fall to your death and be crushed by the mechanism is where the amusement lies.

“I don’t want my fun to be sanitised. I want to see sheared-off bolts and missing wheels on the waltzer just as it’s too late to change my mind and get off, while a man booms ‘Scream if you wanna go faster!’ over a pounding techno track.

“My personal favourite ride is the ‘biscuit tin’ where there are no straps and you’re relying purely on centrifugal force to stop you being flung out and spread like jam across the car park of the local leisure centre.

“And then you round the night off by purchasing a hotdog with a 96 per cent chance of giving you food poisoning. Bliss.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Saturday 22 January 2022

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

In the 1970s on the UK, there was a veritable "invasion" of American cop shows, and we went mad for them - Columbo, Cannon, Police Woman, The Streets of San Francisco, McCloud, Hawaii Five-O, Starsky & Hutch (as well as Charlie's Angels, Banacek, Barnaby Jones, Petrocelli, The Rockford Files and McMillan and Wife, although those weren't strictly speaking "cops")...

...and Kojak!

Yesterday marked the centenary of its eponymous star Mr Telly Savalas, who became another [cf. Barry White, Demis Roussos] unlikely sex symbol on the back of the show's success - and (remarkably) had a massive #1 hit in our charts over here in 1975 [it flopped Stateside], with this bizarre cover, which he was even invited to sing for HM The Queen!

His popularity back home even led him getting his own TV special there in 1976, and so to complete this tribute to the great man - how about the camper-than-camp opening number to that show, based upon his Kojak catchphrase? [Dig those Kraft recipes!]

And to finish? How about "Savalas-does-Zorba"?

Facts:

  • Telly Savalas was born in New York State to Greek parents; his mother's family were from Sparta.
  • He began his career in television news and sports broadcasting, then TV drama series and supporting roles in numerous films, before getting his first (co-)lead role in The Dirty Dozen.
  • His portrayal of "Ernst Stavro Blofeld" was only the second (on-screen) incarnation of the Bond villain, superseding Donald Pleasance and preceding Charles Gray in the role.
  • He had a degree in psychology - and was also a world-class poker player who competed in the 1992 World Series of Poker.
  • In the late 1970s Savalas narrated three UK travelogues: Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth, Telly Savalas Looks at Aberdeen, and Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. Embarrasingly, these are still available via YouTube.
  • Mr Savalas was Jennifer Aniston's godfather.
  • He lived at the Sheraton Hotel in Universal City, California, for 20 years, becoming such a fixture at the hotel bar that it was renamed "Telly's".

Ένας φανταστικός άνθρωπος!

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas (21st January 1922 – 22nd January 1994)

Friday 21 January 2022

I's like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightenin'


RIP, André Leon Talley

I may be off again today, but I haven't forgotten our traditional way to welcome in a weekend - forget the grey, cold, gloomy weather; try on that preposterous "twisted-balloon" crown one more time...and get ready to party like (Sinitta's auntie) Miss Amii Stewart!

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Thursday 20 January 2022

Man with the Horn

We have a centenary to celebrate today - and for a change, the birthday boy is still with us!

Ray Anthony - for it is he - is a rare survivor from a long-distant era. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

With his matinee-idol good looks and his consummate musical talent, he survived the end of the Big Band era (even landing his own prime time TV show Stateside) and, by incorporating some of the newer rock'n'roll styles into his repertoire, remained popular well into the 1970s on the cabaret circuit.

Along the way, he attracted the attention of a bevy of blondes - including Marilyn - and even married one of them, Mamie Van Doren!

Let us celebrate this remarkable milestone - with some of the great man's music:


He could have been Cary Grant's brother!

Happy birthday, Ray Anthony (born Raymond Antonini, 20th January 1922)!

Wednesday 19 January 2022

It's about cookery, apparently

Meet Peruvian model and "chef" Franco Noriega...

[Thanks, John-John!]

Tuesday 18 January 2022

Hi-Tech

Back to the office again today...

Monday 17 January 2022

If you want to hear that Swanee River played in a ragtime


I wish.

It's been a very relaxing three-day weekend. I did get some stuff done, such as cleaning off the black mould caused by condensation around our bedroom window - oh, the delights of an old home! - but generally I was mainly sedentary. Now it's time to dust off the laptop once again, and see what joys the working week's going to bring...

To alleviate the forthcoming frustrations, let's indulge ourselves this Tacky Music Monday in the company of another of this weekend's birthday girls, the irrepressible Ethel Merman - doing Disco!

Those poor kids must have been threatened with unspeakable punishments to cheer the way they did...

More about Ethel's infamous "Disco phase" in a post I did way back in 2009.

Ethel Merman (16th January 1908 – 15th February 1984)

Sunday 16 January 2022

Higher, higher, highest


click to embiggen

It's not that long since we bade a fond farewell to "hair-hopper" Wanda LaFaye Young of the Marvelettes, and now not one, but two of her contemporaries (and proud fellow mistresses of the beehive 'do) have departed for the great "Corny Collins Show" in the sky - Veronica Yvette Bennett, better known as Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes:

...and also Rosa Lee Hawkins of the Dixie Cups:

Perfect "Sunday Music"...

RIP, both.

Saturday 15 January 2022

Fun Land


click to embiggen

Saw this remarkable snap by photographer Stephen Tayo in The Guardian's "My Best Photo" column today - and this immediately came to mind:

"A child has been lodged in the Tunnel of Goats… If a nurse could please come to the Tunnel of Goats… A goat and a child have now become lodged together, and a nurse has become involved in the incident… Another nurse is required to remove the nurse mentioned previously…"

Watch the legendary first episode of Father Ted, and marvel at the other entertainments on offer at "Fun Land" - including the Whirly-go-round, Freak Pointing, Duck Startling, the Chair of Death, Goading Fierce Man, the Spinning Cat, Tarot Reading, the Ladder and the Pond Of Terror!

One of my favourite comedy series, ever.

Father Ted on Wikipedia.

Friday 14 January 2022

Don't wanna dream about you baby

Ha! It may be a Friday, but I am on leave (and will be on consecutive Fridays for the next four weeks - because I have so much excess leave to use up [thanks, COVID!] - culminating in our holiday in Spain)!

However, a weekend's-a-weekend's-a-weekend, so to mark that fact in our traditional fashion, let's drag out our most bizarrely-lapelled cream flared-trousered suits from the back of our wardrobes, practice our best co-ordinated twirls just like The Trammps - and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a great weekend, sweeties!

Thursday 13 January 2022

There were 50 people high as kites dancing a Charleston just over the hedge

I'll always remember that party summer, by Boris Johnson
The summer of 2020. For many it was a time of Covid, of lockdowns, of furlough. But I and a hundred close colleagues will always remember it as our party summer.

As the days lazily rolled on, the sun shining and the streets empty of traffic, there seemed to always be a party blossoming into raucous life on Downing Street.

Whether wine, cheese and a tableful of bottles on May 15th or the full-on 100-person bring-your-own-booze bacchanalia a week later, the champagne was flowing and spirits were high.

Like Jay Gatsby and his gang in the roaring twenties, we had nary a care. While Covid ravaged the country we chinked glasses and mingled in the Eden of Downing Street’s rose garden.

It seemed those days would never end. Even when Cummings was doing his press conference there were 50 people high as kites dancing a Charleston just over the hedge.

Back then nothing could ever go wrong for us. We were young, and free, and full of life and hope. The whole of Britain being locked down simply didn’t matter to us.

But no summer lasts forever. The months advanced, the days got shorter, the rest of the country was allowed to meet six people from a maximum of two households, and the parties lost their delicious savour. We’ll never have that summer again.

No, it was time to put away the rosé, to fold up the garden chairs, to retreat indoors and to begin planning our absolutely fucking massive party winter.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Wednesday 12 January 2022

They too hunger for the beast below

Happy "Hump Day", dear reader!

The sun's shining again, and the spikes of Crocus, Snowdrops, Daffs and Iris are poking through the soil.

Time for the first "timeslip moment" of the year, and this time we've been dragged by the "Preparation H" tractor beam back two decades to 2002 - the year of HM The Queen's Golden Jubilee and the "Party in the Palace" concert, Die Another Day, Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Ian Huntley, the Potters Bar rail crash, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, David Beckham, Bali nightclub bombings, "Metric Martyrs", Gunther von Hagens, George "Dubya" Bush, Paul Burrell, Ford ending car manufacture in Britain (with 2000 job losses), "The Great Glass Testicle" (London City Hall), Spider-Man, Milly Dowler, Jason Bourne, the D.C. sniper attacks, and an attempted coup in Venezuela; the births of Emma Raducanu, Girls Aloud, East Timor, and the International Criminal Court; and the year we bade fond farewells to Spike Milligan, Princess Margaret, Peggy Lee, Joe Strummer, John Thaw, Richard Harris, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, James Coburn, Dudley Moore, Rosemary Clooney, Rod Steiger and HM The Queen Mother.

In the headlines in January that year: the Euro became the official currency of the EC, Mount Nyiragongo in DR Congo erupted, the foot and mouth crisis was declared over, the hype was building over the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (which opened in February), and fans of his surreal "gobbledygook" routines were saddened at the news that "Professor" Stanley Unwin had "ploddy-ploddy forward into the deep fundermold". In our cinemas: Mulholland Drive; Black Hawk Down; Iris. On telly: the debuts of Mr. Bean, Tracy Beaker and Footballers' Wives.

And what of our charts this week twenty years ago? The recently-deceased Aaliyah was in the #1 slot, having deposed Daniel Bedingfield from his second visit to the top, and also present and correct in the Top Ten were Dr Dre, Sophie Ellis Bextor, novelty act DJ Aligator (Blow My Whistle), So Solid Crew, the Stereophonics, Goldtrix presents Andrea Brown and Lange ft Skye (nope, me neither)...

...and, just crashed into the #2 slot (from last week's #68), there was this slice of genius!

I got two pale hands up against the window pane
I'm shaking with the heat of my need again
It starts in my feet, reverbs up to my brain
There's nothing I can do to revert the gain
I'm looking down to the street below
There's nothing in the way, they move to show
They too, know what I know
They too hunger for the beast below
Listening to the radio I feel so out of place
There's a certain something missing that the treble can't erase
I know you can tell just by looking at my face
A word about my weakness

I'm totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

There's nothing I can do to be cool
I don't sleep 'til I've had my fuel
It frustrates if I am deprived
A hunger that grates from deep inside
I feel like I'm doing time
Imprisoned by dependence on a rhythm sublime
In my mind I must overcome the need to define
The solitary silence of a faceless crime

Standing by the stereo I'm feeling so alone
My back against a speaker and I'm moving on my own
Surrounded by so many and they're staring at my face
They're picking up my problem

I'm totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

Your bassline is shooting up my spine (wow woah ho)
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Your bassline is shooting up my spine (wow woah ho)
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Sunrise at my window, I look down on the street
People I see everywhere are tapping their feet
Suddenly I realise in a look that I was wrong
Everybody's groovin' to their own song
Down at the scene below
There's something in the way they move to show
They too, know what I know
They too hunger for the beast below

Rhythm's running over me to wash away my fears
The backbeat of humanity it sweetens my tears
There's something that's connected us down throughout the years
No need to feel so lonely, everyone's addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Everyone's addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

Your bassline is shooting up my spine
Your bassline
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Your bassline is shooting up my spine
Wow woah ho
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Love. That. Song.

Twenty-fucking years ago?! Noooooooo!

Tuesday 11 January 2022

Anatomy lesson

Monday 10 January 2022

I took sips from your sweet lips and now I can't get free


Monday again.

Sometimes, when one is so rudely awakened with the prospect of another tedious week dealing with idiots to come, on a Tacky Music Monday only an old fave Scopitone starring doomed starlet Joi Lansing will do...

Have a good week, dear reader...

Sunday 9 January 2022

Who wants to be a millionaire?

It's been quite nice weather here for a change (especially on a weekend), so, despite the limited daylight hours we were out in the garden doing a bit of (light) pottering today - clearing dead, wet leaves and bloody sycamore seeds from the tops of pots, and lifting the dahlia tubers (which have sadly suffered a lot thanks to the terrible weather 2021 gave us, so we fear this year's show may be somewhat less-than-spectacular again) to dry off and store somewhere out of any risk of frost (usually well-wrapped in newspaper on a dry shelf against the wall of the house, as we don't have a greenhouse in this tiny garden).

Such a gentle way to spend a day - so we need some mellow music to go with it, this time courtesy of (the "precursor" of our usual fave site for such things Soft Tempo Lounge) "Uncle Jerry's Pad":

Ah, that's just the ticket!

[Music: Syd Dale Orchestra - Fly The Magic Carpet]

Saturday 8 January 2022

Just a mortal with potential of a superman


right-click and "open in new tab" to embiggen

The "God who walked among us", David Bowie would have been seventy-five years old today.

No-one, no thing could ever replace him...

I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith

If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Ah!
Ah!

Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Ah!
Ah!

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones, 8th January 1947)


More Bowie:

Read my week-long series of "Bowie Tracks of the Day" following his untimely death six years ago:

Read my two-part magnum opus in tribute to the great man on his 65th birthday:

Friday 7 January 2022

I cannot begin to understand the thing this feeling does to me

The. First. Week. Almost over...

It has (understandably) been a helluva wrench to actually hear an alarm clock go off and to get up every day this (admittedly short) week - but it'll soon be over. After the frosts and gloom, and with rain forecast for the weekend we could be glum - but no!

Instead, let's get our boogaloo shoes on and greet the wekend with open arms, in the company of some '90s club maestros [who've remixed the likes of Carleen Anderson, New Order, Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Samantha Mumba, Geri Halliwell and Kylie Minogue in their time] - and thank Disco K-klass It's Friday!

An absolute classic.

Have a great weekend, peeps!

Thursday 6 January 2022

Memorial of the Day


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Wednesday 5 January 2022

Totty of the Day


click him to embiggen

Heavens! Eurovision Song Contest sex god Sakis Rouvas - Greece's "answer to Ricky Martin" - and longtime fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers is 50 years old today!

He could shake his loukaniko in my direction anytime...

Every time you wanna play
Turn me on, all the way
Come to me and take the ride
Skin on skin, it's pure delight
Givin' me the passion you're burnin' my heart
Gonna rock you till you drop
Baby you're the reason I'm feelin' so hot
Want you now, I just can't stop...

I would trade my life
For a night with you
Driven by desire
Make that move on me
It's time for you to see
That my world's on fire!

Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Give me some more
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Gimme some more
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Gimme some more
Forever! (yeah yeah yeah yeah)

Everyday I can't resist
Need the taste of your lips
Darlin' it's your body that drivin' me nuts
Let me in I've got to touch

I would trade my life
For a night with you
Driven by desire
Make that move on me
It's time for you to see
That my world's on fire!

Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Gimme some more
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Gimme some more
Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it mi amor
Crazy for love
Gimme some more
Forever! (yeah yeah yeah yeah)

χρόνια πολλά, Anastasios "Sakis" Rouvas (born 5th January 1972)!

Tuesday 4 January 2022

Highbrow and classy

A vibrant, thrilling programme of theatre, art and contemporary dance events are scheduled for this year. Here’s why you’ll miss them:

Sunday in the Park with George, starring Jake Gyllenhaal
Much-anticipated Sondheim revival that there is no way in hell you will get tickets for, even if you’re up at 6am when they’re released poised on six laptops with the necessary £800 to hand. It won’t happen so don’t try.

Francis Bacon at the Royal Academy
You will definitely mean to see this whenever you see the posters. But when you turn up two days before it closes you’ll discover there are no tickets left, which is bollocks because who ever heard of an art gallery selling out? They’re hardly Jake Gyllenhaal.

Julien Baker at the Electric Ballroom, Camden
Your mate’s got a spare ticket for this and you enthusiastically agree when offered, even though you’ve not really heard of Julien whatever. But that was before you found out it was on a Wednesday night. A gig on a school night? What’s the point? You ghost your mate’s texts.

Petite Maman
Award-winning French film about coping with loss that you’ll invite a date to, in order to look highbrow and classy. However the date goes so well that you both admit you’d much rather watch Legally Blonde 3 while eating nachos, so you do that instead.

Any events in Coventry, City of Culture 2022
Who do they think is going all the way to bloody Coventry for some cultural crap? Nobody.

The Overstory on Netflix
Now this is at least possible. A cultural event that you can take in while making no effort whatsoever from the comfort of your own bed. You’re definitely up for this one. Until you hear it’s an eco-epic about nine Americans who have unique experiences with trees, and don’t bother.

A massive fight on your road between three different sets of neighbours
The arts event of the year kicks off at 8pm on June 3rd when a three-way love triangle that began in a hot tub on New Year’s Eve is revealed. Paint is poured over cars, windows broken, women held back from gouging each other and the police are called. The best night’s entertainment of the year. And do arts critics mention it? No. Snobs.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Monday 3 January 2022

Chimp flamenco?

It's the last bank holiday in the UK until April, dear reader, and the final, final end of the extended Xmas/New Year season - but I haven't forgotten it is also a Tacky Music Monday!

For today's - ahem - treat, we're off to Spain [and fingers crossed we will be able to get there for real in just over four weeks' time], in the company of a lady whose skills in the flamenco world in Barcelona attracted the attention of none other than the great surrealist Salvador Dali, who famously sponsored her live appearance at The Olympia Theatre in Paris.

Somehow, in the bizarre drug-fuelled world of 1970s Spanish television special effects, that probably inspired this...

..but why the fucking chimpanzee?! I've said it before; another day, another mindfuck.

Have a good week, my leetle chums.

Sunday 2 January 2022

Ebey'tings comin' up rho-ziz, por me and por chu!


A Public Service Announcement [click to embiggen]

The last Sunday before the madness kicks off again - although tomorrow is still a bank holday, so at least our first week back to work will be a short one - and I'm in the mood for some classy showbiz pizazz!

Here's the megastar Señorita Googie Gomez instead:

[live at the Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (S.T.A.G.E.) in 2011, a gala raising funds for the AIDS Project Los Angeles]

Oh, how I wish I had been in the audience for this event..!

More about the camp classic movie The Ritz [from whence Googie originated] here and, of course, here.