Sunday 31 July 2022

Pottering and a passing

I've spent hours out there in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, drenching and feeding every one of our Fuchsias (all 48 of them - we lost two this year), and trimming off all the burned and crispy leaves that have been annoying me since they were blasted by the heatwave a couple of weeks ago. I'm knackered now, but hopefully they'll repay us with a good show through to the autumn.

It's a real mix of emotions this evening, however - the UK is celebrating the fact that England's "Lionesses" have just won the European Football Championships 2022 (against the "old enemy" Germany, no less)! However, I have just seen the news that the very lovely Nichelle Nichols, better known as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek, has been "beamed up by Scotty" to Fabulon.

From my tribute to her on the occasion of her birthday back in 2008:

...here are a few things that we should know about this remarkable lady:
  • Not only was hers the first non-"servant" part for a black woman on mainstream American TV, but she shared the very first ever inter-racial kiss on TV when she and Captain Kirk had a little intimate moment.
  • Her great-grandfather, James Gillespie, was Welsh.
  • Nichelle always was a campaigner for civil rights - both those of black people and on behalf of gay and lesbian equality.
  • She was a "glamour model" before Star Trek brought fame and fortune, but was also an accomplished singer, performing with Duke Ellington and Dizzie Gillespie.
Here are some examples of her talents (including her [truly incredible] vocal version of the Theme from Star Trek)...


...and here, Miss Nichols speaks out on gay rights:

RIP, Nichelle Nicholls (born Grace Dell Nichols, 28th December 1932)


Footnote:

Following the very first series of Star Trek in 1962, Miss Nicholls had planned to leave the series, having been offered a role on Broadway. Then, at a fundraising dinner, she was told that "a fan" wanted to meet her:

I looked across the room and whoever the fan was had to wait because there was Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with this big grin on his face. He reached out to me and said, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' He said that Star Trek was the only show that he, and his wife Coretta, would allow their three little children to stay up and watch. [Having told him of her decision to leave the show] he said, "you cannot, you cannot...for the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful, people who can sing dance, and can go to space, who are professors, lawyers." Dr. King Jr went further stating "If you leave, that door can be closed because your role is not a black role, and is not a female role, he can fill it with anybody, even an alien."

Saturday 30 July 2022

Oh, she move like the Diva do

It's Our Patron Saint of Dramatic Gestures Kate Bush's birthday today!

All hail.

Here's an old fave magum opus that typifies the great lady's talents - all this, and Miranda Richardson, too...

Many happy returns, Catherine "Kate" Bush CBE (born 30th July 1958)!

Friday 29 July 2022

With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend

And so, farewell then, Neighbours, one of the most successful things to come out of Australia since Dame Edna Everage!

A hugely popular soap right from the beginning in the 1980s, its sunshine and wholesomeness regularly attracted viewing figures in the multi-millions, and launched the careers of stars such as Guy Pearce, Natalie Imbruglia, the Hemsworth brothers (Chris and Liam), Margot Robbie, Delta Goodrem and Jesse Spencer...

...and this pair of "one-hit wonders":

Thank Disco Ramsey Street It's Friday!

G'Day, Cobbers!

Thursday 28 July 2022

Pass the word to Charlie

Sad news. Another "national treasure" has departed for Fabulon...a man whose eight-decade career made him not just a household name, but also a "kindly old uncle" to generations of children, myself included.

Bernard Cribbins (for it is he) was "Station Master Albert Perks" in The Railway Children, the voice of The Wombles, a regular storyteller on Jackanory and never off the playlist of BBC Radio's Junior Choice show with his novelty songs. He had roles on two Carry On movies, starred alongside the likes of Peter Sellers, Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody and Lionel Jeffries in a succession of British comedy films such as Two-Way Stretch and Crooks in Cloisters, and had a long television career, appearing in quintessential shows such as Fawlty Towers, Worzel Gummidge, The Good Old Days, Tales of the Unexpected and Doctor Who [twice - 41 years apart].

He'll be missed.

Speaking of those "novelty songs" - here's the one for which he'll be most remembered:

An absolute classic!

RIP, Bernard Joseph Cribbins OBE (29 December 1928 – 28 July 2022)

Wednesday 27 July 2022

Totty of the Season


Jonathan Rhys Meyers (45 years old today)


Sir Mick Jagger (born 26 July 1943)


Daley Thompson (born 30 July 1958)


Jacques d'Amboise (28 July 1934 – 2 May 2021)


Jason Momoa (born 1 August 1979)

I'm hungry now.

Tuesday 26 July 2022

Headline of the Day


[click to embiggen]

SWISHY-SWASHY HOMOSEXUALS!

Pansy-dans!

Sexual freaks!

The Pansy Set!

Sex-sick creepsters!

THE FAGGOT GAZETTE!

How do I subscribe...?

Monday 25 July 2022

Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring


Boo! Monday's here!

Groo. Another lovely weekend is over - a visit from The Mother on Saturday (she loved our garden!), and a "chill-out" day gently pottering in the sunshine yesterday - and here we are again...

I think we should go completely OTT this Tacky Music Monday, methinks, by way of a wake-up call - in the glittering company of a cavalcade of stars: Cher, Bette Midler, Dame Elton, and - erm - Flip Wilson!

Have a good one, dear reader.

[I have, of course, featured this clip before, way back in 2014]

Sunday 24 July 2022

I, Toña

As you are well aware, dear reader, there is nothing we at Dolores Delargo Towers love more than to discover a "new" diva to explore.

Here's one whose music popped up out of the blue on our beloved Clare Teal's show in her new home on Jazz FM a few weeks ago - Mexico's finest, Señorita Antonia del Carmen Peregrino Álvarez, known by her stage name Toña la Negra!

And here, for your delectation, are two examples of the great lady's talents:

¡Maravilloso!

Perfect sunny "Sunday Music", you will agree.

Saturday 23 July 2022

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Among another slew of random birthdays today including David Essex [who is 75!], Daniel Radcliffe, Emperor Haile Selassie, Jo Brand, Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, Gloria DeHaven, Raymond Chandler, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lord Richard Rogers, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music, Woody Harrelson, Michael Foot, Slash from Guns'n'Roses and - erm - Monica Lewinsky, it's the 80th birthday of the magnificent Madeline Bell!

Former singer with Blue Mink, her backing vocals have been in demand for decades by the likes of Dusty Springfield, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Serge Gainsbourg, Joe Cocker and Cerrone, but it has been a constant source of mystery to me why she was never really a household name in her own right - when she could produce stuff like this!

Many happy returns, Madeline Bell (born 23 July 1942)!

Friday 22 July 2022

Pumping for Love

Earlier this week The (very) Mistress MJ was complaining that merely reading the words "Tina Charles I Love to Love" was suffice to get that song - one she hates - stuck in her brain all day.

As it is the (very welcome) end to a week in sight, and a) I'm in the mood to party, and b) feeling generous and willing to help out in a "brain crisis" - here's some advice I gave you, dear reader, back in 2014...

...should you happen to get an "earworm" stuck in your head today, here's the one addictive song I always turn to in order to get it to shift out of my sub-conscious:

Now that one's stuck there instead. Forever. You're welcome.

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a good one, peeps.

Thursday 21 July 2022

We're So Lovely

To alleviate the slings and arrows of what has been a bit of a gruelling week so far - what with the untypical 35-40C temperatures that swept over London on Monday and, particularly, Tuesday, and work, which has been a bastard - it is an opportune moment, methinks, for a little exploration of some of the "newer" musical discoveries that have caught my ear of late...

...and now that Auntie Beeb has unceremoniously dispensed with fave radio shows such as Ana Matronic's, I have even had to resort to discovering a lot of these all by myself! Such as......

...a camp little Pride number (albeit a tad late for our own London celebrations):

A rather catchy (and very welcome) return to form from a "house fave" band:

A couple of "classical" numbers that might be more familiar than one might expect:

And now for something completely different. As the video's blurb says - "What if Gypsy Woman was released five years earlier, in 1987...in Italy?".It's brilliantly done:

Now, saving the best to last...

Can a dance choon and video get any gayer?!

...and then there's this - the very, very welcome return of those honorary members of the homosexualist Royal Family, French and Saunders Keren and Sarah!

As ever, dear reader - let me know your thoughts...


STOP PRESS:

I forgot to include this one...

Wednesday 20 July 2022

Eating olives instead of pork scratchings

Yesterday's high temperatures caused a man from West Yorkshire to morph into a hot-blooded Continental.

Tom Logan from Leeds was ordering a cheeky pint on his lunch break when he had an uncontrollable urge to ask for an Aperol spritz instead.

Logan explained: ‘Before I knew it I was eating olives instead of my usual pork scratchings and undoing my shirt buttons low enough to reveal my chest hair.

“I couldn’t stop shouting effusive greetings at people I knew, when a surly ‘Eh up’ normally suffices. I never even went back to the office; I just took the rest of the afternoon off. No particular reason, just ‘because’. And it felt like that was okay.

“My colleagues eventually found me sunning myself on a bench in Park Square, or Parco Piazza as I insisted on calling it, wearing polished leather shoes with no socks and flailing my arms around as I spoke.

“They suggested we kick a ball around to try and snap me out of it, but when I began flinging myself to the ground dramatically pretending to be injured, they understood I really was Italian.

“I haven’t quite reached the stage where I’m shouting, ‘Bella! Bellissima!’ at passing women, but I fear I’m not far off, and I doubt the women of Leeds will stand for that crap. Yeah, I’m pretty sure this ends with me getting punched.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Tuesday 19 July 2022

Oh, it's been such a long, long time

As London and much of the UK is braced for what might well turn out to be the hottest day on record, so our thoughts [as ever on such occasions when we actually get a summer, and then the tabloids and other assorted doom-mongers start talking about "an apocalypse"] turn to that every-fondly-remembered Long Hot Summer of 1976...

...the year of Punk, Disco, the Raleigh Chopper bike, I, Claudius, the first Space Shuttle, Dancing Queen, Pol Pot, the Cod War, photos from Mars, Jimmy Carter, Brotherhood of Man, Nadia Comaneci, Entebbe, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, John Curry, Jim Callaghan, The Muppet Show, Patty Hearst, Emperor Bokassa, 10CC, Concorde, The Wurzels, Peter Frampton, The New Avengers, The Omen, James Hunt, the IRA and the US bicentennial; the births of Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Bunton, "H" from Steps, Ryan Reynolds, Apple, Colin Farrell, Ellen MacArthur, The Body Shop, Stephen Gately, the National Theatre, Anna Friel, the CN Tower, Keeley Hawes, Cillian Murphy, Reese Witherspoon, Sean Maguire, Martine McCutcheon, Rob James-Collier, the InterCity 125, the Ford Fiesta and the Seychelles; and the year Rosalind Russell, Sal Mineo, Sir Benjamin Britten, Dame Edith Evans, Busby Berkeley, Dame Agatha Christie, Sid James, Fritz Lang, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Florence Ballard, Margaret Leighton, Howard Hughes, Ulrike Meinhof, Alastair Sim, Paul Robeson, Luchino Visconti, Sir Stanley Baker, Chairman Mao, L. S. Lowry and Field Marshal Montgomery all died.

In the headlines in July 46 years ago? Obviously that year's heatwave (which peaked at 35.9C/96.6F, but went on for months), the Montreal Olympics (and the impressive groinage of champion swimmer David Wilkie), the election of David Steel as leader of the Liberal Party in the wake of the Jeremy Thorpe scandal, the execution of British mercenaries in Angola, the murder by the IRA of the UK amabassador to Ireland, and a fire that destroyed the pierhead of Southend Pier. In our cinemas: The Outlaw Josey Wales; Bugsy Malone; Aces High. On telly: The Bionic Woman, Starsky and Hutch and Mike Yarwood in Persons.

And what of our charts this week in that long, glorious summer? The song that came to dominate the heatwave, Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart had just toppled Demis Roussos from the top slot (and would remain there for six weeks while we sweltered). Also present and correct in the Top Ten were Doctor Hook, Candi Staton, The Manhattans, The Real Thing, Queen, 100 Tons and a Feather (aka Jonathan King) and Bryan Ferry - and this slice of soul perfection!

Scary though it is to note, the heatwave of 1976 is closer in time to the rise of Oswald Mosley and the opening of BBC Broadcasting House than it is to us today...

Aaargh!

Monday 18 July 2022

Because he has a hair in his hand

Another edifying week at work starts again, and as always I am not ready for it.

C'est la vie - at least on this Tacky Music Monday we have the divine (and dearly missed) Régine to help lift the mood...

Mon amour ne fait jamais rien
Mon amour ne dit jamais rien
Car il a un poil dans la main
Mon amour ne boit jamais rien
Mon amour ne peut jamais rien
Car il a un poil dans la main

Il s'endort quand il a des peines
Et dans ses rêves jamais il ne m'emmène
Des heures, des jours et même des semaines
Et moi j'attends, j'attends qu'il me revienne

Which apparently translates as:

My love never does anything
My love never says anything
Because he has a hair in his hand
My love never drinks anything
My love can never do anything
Because he has a hair in his hand

He falls asleep when he is in trouble
And in his dreams he never takes me
Hours, days and even weeks
And I wait, I wait for him to come back to me

Bizarre.

Have a good week, dear reader. Don't get sunstroke!

Sunday 17 July 2022

High on believin'


[click to embiggen]

Oh wow! As we wallow in the ongoing heatwave across the UK (temperatures are due to hit 87F/31C today - and 97F/36C tomorrow and Tuesday!), there is even more reason to celebrate - for none other than the uber-talented David Hasselhoff is 70 years old today.

All hail The Hoff! - the man who (according to him, anyhow) played a major part in the fall of the Berlin Wall, and whose career surpassed Baywatch and Knight Rider to reach the dizzying heights of cinematic glory with the likes of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Ted 2, Kickin' It Old Skool and Piranha 3DD...

...and this masterpiece!

Many happy returns, David Michael Hasselhoff (born 17th July 1952)

Saturday 16 July 2022

Public Service Announcement

You were warned!


Footnote:

Who even knew it was trademarked..?

Friday 15 July 2022

Get your rubber on


Quel dommage! We missed Bastille Day yesterday...

Sun's still shining, and, as I said @adecadeago:

...weekends are always a cause for celebration!

So, I think it's time to grab some friends - all wearing co-ordinating powder blue suits with appliqué detail, of course - and learn some snazzy dance moves, as perfected by The Detroit Spinners. It's the fab Rubberband Man from the long hot summer of 1976 - Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a good one, dear reader!

Thursday 14 July 2022

It's a big hammer

John-John and I went to see Thor: Love and Thunder last night. There were some rather impressive moments, indeed - such as the above. Unpixellated, too.

Yum, yum.

All together, now...

Wednesday 13 July 2022

Endless


Another peek up my back passage (click to embiggen)

The UK is officially in the middle of a heatwave - YAY!

Apparently temperatures are threatening to reach the mid-to-high 30s Celsius, and the tabloids are already full of screaming headlines about disruption to transport and emergency services. Business as usual, then.

Time for an appropriate journey into the impossibly glamorous lives of beautiful people in exotic climes again, methinks, courtesy of the faboo Soft Tempo Lounge:

Sigh.

[Music: Producers Creative Orchestra - El Partenaire
Original film: Interrabang (1969)]

Tuesday 12 July 2022

Tomorrow Never Dies

And so, farewell then, Mr Monty Norman.

Who?, I hear you ask.

If the man was mainly famous for just one thing, it was one helluva good one - for he composed this!

RIP, Monty Norman (born Monty Noserovitch, 4th April 1928 – 11th July 2022)

Monday 11 July 2022

Sing me, sing me a chanson


Our Tower Lily "On Stage" is perfuming the entire garden at the moment...

Whew! What a beautiful sunny weekend (for a change!). I was busy, busy, busy in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers - pruning the rambling rose, re-potting some specimens, and watering, soaking and feeding every single pot.

Consider my tan well-and-truly topped up.

Now, even though temperatures are due to hit 32C again today, it's time to get back to the grind. Unfortunately.

On this Tacky Music Monday, let's have a little Luv to cheer us up!

Have a good week, dear reader - and never forget your sunscreen!

Sunday 10 July 2022

Headline of the Day

Who could blame her?

Saturday 9 July 2022

Rev it up, woo!

OMG. I feel old...

Today is - unbelievably - the 65th birthday of Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond OBE [often simply known round these parts as "God"]!

It seems like only yesterday that we were pointy-dancing in the clubs to this...

Indefatigable as always, despite setback after setback thanks to the dreaded 'Rona, our Patron Saint is back on the road on an extensive tour up and down the UK this year. Among the hits on offer is bound to be this fantastic classic from his back-catalogue - but not in this mash-up version, courtesy of house faves Parralox!

As featured here back in March, he's also found time to go back to the studios with his on-off chum Dave Ball [and Pet Shop Boys], and released a new Soft Cell album, to boot! From it, here's the new single:

Nostalgia Machine? Too fucking right!

Many happy returns, Marc Almond (born 9th July 1957)!

[click any pic to embiggen]

Friday 8 July 2022

Too good to be true


RIP, James Caan

Phew. Another tedious weeek is almost over. Soon be time for a bit of a "boom-boom" bop - and this one fits the bill very nicely!

We all need a little Boystown Gang in our lives...

...so Thank Disco It's Friday!!

You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you
You'd be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much

At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you

Pardon the way that I stare
There's nothing else to compare
The sight of you leaves me weak
There are no words left to speak

But if you feel like I feel
Please let me know that it's real
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you

I love you, baby
And if it's quite alright, I need you, baby
To warm a lonely night, I love you, baby
Trust in me when I say

Oh, pretty baby
Don't bring me down, I pray, oh pretty baby
Now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby
Let me love you

You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you
You'd be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much

At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off you

I love you, baby
And if it's quite alright I need you, baby
To warm a lonely night, I love you, baby
Trust in me when I say

Have a good weekend, dear reader!

Wednesday 6 July 2022

Get down, baby bubba, baby, get down

One of the few musical greats who had massive hits in the Rock'n'Roll era and was almost as successful in the Disco era over a decade later, the marvellous Mr Gene Chandler is 85 years old today!

Although many people will indelibly associate the man with enduring standards such as Duke of Earl it is for this fantabulosa choon that I will always thank him.

I know it's far too early in the week for Disco (that's usually "Thank Disco It's Friday") but this is just too good to wait:

Fine, fine foxy lady
Get down (get on down)
We are, mama, gonna
Snake and boogie
Baby, get on down (get on down)

I know a funky place
We can dance all night
You can be my lady
If you play your cards right

But you gotta get down
Get on down, down, baby
Get on down, down, sugar
Get on down

You're looking real good
In your halter top, yeah, yeah
But get on down (get on down)

You sure got style
Don't you ever stop, no, no
Baby, get on down (get on down)

Girl, you're moving everywhere
You're sure hooked up, girl
You make the people
Stop and stare, ow

Get down, ha, get on down
Get down, baby
Get on down, get down, sugar
Get on down

Get down, baby bubba
Baby, get down
Get down, baby bubba
Baby, get down

Many happy returns, Gene Chandler (born Eugene Drake Dixon, 6th July 1937)

[Ironically Mr Chandler's Duke of Earl never made the UK charts in 1962, but was a Top Ten smash for Darts in 1979 - the very same year Get Down was a hit!]

Tuesday 5 July 2022

Turns out it’s fags

The crucial element of the southern European diet that keeps natives so attractively thin is not olive oil or leafy vegetables but endless cigarettes.

Proponents of the Mediterranean diet claim emulating Spanish and Italian consumption of legumes, seeds and fruit will help you get skinny, but researchers have found their ceaseless consumption of Marlboro Lights has more to do with it.

Dr Helen Archer explained: “Northern Europeans lusting after sexy, olive-skinned Mediterraneans in skimpy swimwear have always wondered what their secret is. Turns out it’s fags.

“We experimented with two groups. One who ate nothing but sardines and artichokes in olive oil. The other who ate whatever the fuck they wanted and smoked four packs a day.

“By week three, the smokers would slip effortlessly among the bathing beauties on a St Tropez beach, while the healthy eaters were more Margate than Montpellier.”

“Turns out it’s not visiting the vegetable aisle but going to the counter that sells the scratchcards that does the trick. You die early, sure, but you die thin so who gives a shit?”

Sophie Rodriguez of Seville said: “Duh. All of my friends back home eat nothing but kebabs. The difference is they eat them between inhaling Camel Blues.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Monday 4 July 2022

Spangled


Gratutous flag-wearing totty time again...

Hell...

After the most splendid "Gay Xmas" weekend, it all comes crashing to earth with a bump, courtesy of that most unwelcome of words: Work.

Never mind, eh? The flag-waving, firework-lighting celebrations of the departure of one of its colonies from Her Majesty's Empire are afoot, which gives us a wide range of options for this Tacky Music Monday!

I've settled on an old, old favourite for the occasion...

In the immortal words of dear old Oscar Wilde: "America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."

Have a good week, dear reader.

Sunday 3 July 2022

One Day Like This

More than a million people present. Over 600 LGBT+ community, activist and protest groups. Representatives of threatened Pride and other gay rights groups from countries across the world including many African states, Iran, China, Pakistan, India, the Caribbean, the Middle East and of course, Ukraine. Proud gay men, lesbians, trans and all other denominations, family and friends, fetishits, nelly queens, dykes on bikes, twinks and drag queens. And of course, the sponsors. The London Mayor's office has described it as the biggest Pride in the capital ever...

...and we were there!

Three years almost to the day since the last one, you can imagine the sense of anticipation and excitement that had been building for months. Our outfits were sorted - most of "our gang" had "got the memo" and remembered the theme we'd chosen [every year, at either the annual birthday picnic or at another late-season mass gathering such as Proms in the Park, we convene a "committee", take suggestions and cast a vote on what we're going to wear at the following year's Pride] back in 2019: black, silver and diamonds - well in advance, so it was like a ticking countdown to the big day.

So came the gathering of the clans at Our Sal's pub early on Saturday, and the festivities began in earnest.

The whole world and his/her/their significant other had turned out for the day, or so it seemed! On the parade - among the cavalcade of rainbows, unicorns, pink, glitter, sequins, feathers, fouf and faff - were nurses and other emergency services [although the police were forbidden to march in uniform this year, after a succession of scandals including the mishandling of the investigation into a serial killer of young gay men in London], all branches of the miltary, council workers and civil servants, lawyers, librarians and archivists, politicos, actuaries, estate agents and architects, players and supporters of an exhausting range of sports (including representatives of all the capital's biggest football teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham), hairdressers, hardware manufacturers, supermarket cashiers, and punters and staff of several gay bars - and a few celebs, to boot. We spotted the newly-out Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes and TV hosts Phillip Schofield, Alison Hammond, Lorraine Kelly, Gok Wan and Linda Robson, and were greeted by the Mayor Sajid Javid [apparently several Labour front-benchers including Sir Kier Starmer were also there].

We cheered like fuck for the original pioneers of the Gay Liberation Front, who organised the original march and led the front of this year's 50th anniversary parade. We were thrilled by the Band of the Grenadier Guards playing the UK's Eurovision runner-up Sam Ryder's Spaceman, and in equal measure the cornucopia of music from all genres on offer - from clubland to Kylie to Bhangra and Afrobeat and beyond.

We were also chuffed at the amount of attention [notwithstanding that from the media] we got on the sidelines from those actually participating in the parade [it was another wristband-only-or-else-join-at-the-back event again this year, more's the pity], of course! And speaking of all that...

Wow. Just WOW!!!!

It's no wonder today has been a bit of a lazy one...

[click any pic to embiggen]