Sunday 31 December 2023

RIP, 2023

Just one more task to perform before the party kicks off and Dolores Delargo Towers descends into madness...

...it's time to open the "Book of the Dead" for 2023. Once again, it's quite a list...

Fred White (US drummer, Earth, Wind & Fire)
Kelly Monteith (US comedian, star of eponymous 1980s BBC comedy show)
Marilyn Stafford (US-born British photographer and photojournalist, The Observer)
Alan Rankine (British (Scottish) musician, The Associates)
James D. Brubaker (US film producer, Rocky films, The Right Stuff, The Nutty Professor)
David Gold (British businessman, Ann Summers, and (soft-porn) publisher, long-serving chairman of West Ham United)
Fay Weldon (British author, essayist and playwright, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil)
Gianluca Vialli (Italian champion football player and manager, Chelsea FC, Sampdoria, Italian national team)
Owen Roizman (US cinematographer, The French Connection, The Exorcist, Network)
King Constantine II (last King of Greece)
Gerry O’Hara (British film director, The Bitch, Maroc 7)
Jeff Beck (British guitarist, The Yardbirds, solo, Hi Ho Silver Lining)
Yukihiro Takahashi (Japanese drummer and singer, founder member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra)
Robbie Bachman (Canadian drummer, Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
Tatjana Patitz (German supermodel, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue; George Michael's Freedom! '90 video)
Lisa Marie Presley (US singer-songwriter, only child of Elvis)
Paul Johnson (British journalist, the New Statesman and the Spectator, historian, Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the 1980s)
Gina Lollobrigida (Italian actress and icon, Venere Imperiale, Beautiful But Dangerous, Come September, Falcon Crest)
David Sutherland (British (Scottish) comics illustrator, The Beano: "Dennis the Menace and Gnasher", "The Bash Street Kids")
David Crosby (US singer-songwriter, The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash)
Top Topham (British guitarist, The Yardbirds, session musician for Christine Perfect (McVie))
Lloyd Morrisett (US educational psychologist, co-founder of the Children's Television Workshop that created Sesame Street)
Cindy Williams (US actress, Laverne & Shirley, American Graffiti)
Donald Trelford (British journalist, former editor of The Observer)
Sylvia Syms (British actress, Victim, The Queen, Ice Cold in Alex)
Tom Verlaine (US singer, guitarist and songwriter, founder member of Television)
Barrett Strong (US singer and songwriter, Motown, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home), Papa Was a Rollin' Stone)
Lisa Loring (US actress, the original "Wednesday" in The Addams Family TV show)
Charles Silverstein (US academic, writer and gay rights campaigner, who succeeded in getting homosexuality removed from categorisation as a mental illness in 1973)
Kit Hesketh-Harvey (British cabaret comedian, Kit and the Widow, screenwriter, Maurice, Vicar of Dibley and national treasure)
Paco Rabanne (Spanish fashion designer, couturier, costume designer for Barbarella, and perfumier)

Hilary Alexander (New Zealand-British fashion journalist, fashion director, Daily Telegraph, stylist and broadcaster, Britain's Next Top Model)
Burt Bacharach (US composer and legend, Walk On By, The Look of Love, Anyone Who Had A Heart, I Say A Little Prayer and hundreds more)
Princess Marie Gabrielle of Luxembourg
Hugh Hudson (British film director, Chariots of Fire, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan)
James Flynn (Irish TV and film producer, The Banshees of Inisherin)
Trugoy (US hip-hop artist and songwriter, co-founder of De La Soul, Me Myself and I, The Magic Number)
Raquel Welch (US actress, sex siren and icon, One Million Years BC, The Three Musketeers, Myra Breckinridge)
Stella Stevens (US actress, The Poseidon Adventure, The Nutty Professor)
Gerald Fried (US film and television music composer, Man from U.N.C.L.E. , Roots, Star Trek, Killing of Sister George)
Dickie Davies (British broadcaster, presenter of ITV's World of Sport from 1968 to 1985, national treasure)
John "Motty" Motson (British BBC sports commentator, "the voice of football" for more than four decades, national treasure)
Sir Bernard Ingham (British journalist and civil servant, Margaret Thatcher's chief press secretary throughout her time in office)
Peter Tábori (Hungarian-British architect, low-rise brutalist housing including Highgate New Town estate)
Walter Mirisch (US Oscar-winning film producer and centenarian, In the Heat of the Night, Mr. Majestyk, Dracula)
Baroness Betty Boothroyd (British politician, member and speaker of the House of Commons)
Burny Mattinson (US character animator, Sleeping Beauty to Mulan (and more), longest-serving member of staff at Disney)
Ricou Browning (US actor and underwater stunt co-ordinator, James Bond films, Flipper, the "Gill-Man" in Creature from the Black Lagoon)
Irma Serrano (Mexican actress, singer, politician and media personality)
Wally Fawkes (British-Canadian satirical cartoonist, Flook by "Trog", jazz clarinettist, Humphrey Lyttelton band)
Steve Mackey (British bass guitarist, Pulp)
Christopher Fowler (British novelist, gay memoirist, raconteur and blogger)
Bob Goody (British actor, Royal Shakespeare Company, writing partner and double-act with Mel Smith)
Tom Sizemore (US actor, Saving Private Ryan)
Robert Haimer (US musician and songwriter, Barnes & Barnes, Fish Heads)
Gary Rossington (US guitarist, last surviving founder member of Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Kenneth Montgomery (British conductor, Ulster Orchestra, Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra)
Lynn Seymour (Canadian ballet dancer, choreographer and director)
Topol (Israeli actor, Fiddler on the Roof, Galileo, For Your Eyes Only)
Mystic Meg (British astrologer and TV personality, born Margaret Anne Lake)
Robert Blake (US actor, Baretta, In Cold Blood)
Napoleon XIV (born Jerrold Samuels; US comedy singer, They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!)
Bill Tidy (British cartoonist, Punch, Private Eye, "The Fosdyke Saga" for The Daily Mirror, writer and television personality)
Baroness Sue Masham of Ilton (British Paralympian, founder of the Spinal Injuries Association, longest-serving member of the House of Lords in history)
Dick Fosbury (US Olympic athlete, popularised the high jump manoeuvre that became known as the "Fosbury Flop")
Leslie Hardcastle (British film industry veteran, controller of the British Film Institute’s National Film Theatre over five decades)
Jacqueline Gold (British businesswoman who transformed Ann Summers sex shops into a female-friendly high street chain)
Lance Reddick (US actor, The Wire)
Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins (US singer, founder member of Parliament-Funkadelic)
Mick Slattery (British guitarist, founder member of Hawkwind)
Darcelle XV (US performer, world record-holding oldest working drag queen, appeared in Maisie Trollette biopic)
Keith Reid (British songwriter, co-founder of Procol Harum, wrote Whiter Shade of Pale)
Peter Shelley (British singer-songwriter, Love Me, Love My Dog, producer, Alvin Stardust, co-founder of Magnet Records)
Nick Lloyd Webber (British composer and arranger (Fat Friends The Musical, The Last Bus), son of Sir Andrew)
Christopher Gunning (British composer, Poirot theme, Martini adverts, and arranger, Won't Somebody Dance With Me for Lindsey DePaul)
James Bowman (British operatic countertenor)

Paul O'Grady (British comedian, aka drag queen "Lily Savage", chat show host, TV and radio presenter, Blankety Blank, Paul O'Grady on the Wireless, national treasure)
Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japanese musician, Yellow Magic Orchestra, composer, The Last Emperor and actor Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence)
Seymour Stein (US music executive, co-founder of Sire Records, signed Talking Heads, Ramones, The Pretenders and Madonna)
Heklina (born Stefan Grygelko, US drag queen and actor, founder of Trannyshack)
Lord Nigel Lawson (British statesman, former journalist, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, The Times; MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher; father of Nigella)
Michael Roberts (British fashion journalist, illustrator and photographer, Tatler, Vanity Fair, New Yorker)
Nora Forster (German music promoter, The Slits, Sex Pistols, The Clash; John Lydon's wife)
Nicola Heywood-Thomas (British (Welsh) TV and radio broadcaster, BBC Radio Wales, Radio 3, HTV newsreader for sixteen years)
Paul Cattermole (British pop singer, S Club 7)
Lasse Wellander (Swedish guitarist, ABBA)
Michael Lerner (US character actor, Barton Fink, Eight Men Out, My Favourite Martian)
Al Jaffee (US cartoonist, Mad magazine, centenarian)
Dame Mary Quant (British fashion designer and trend-setter of "The Swinging Sixties", national treasure)
Judith Miller (British (Scottish) writer, Miller's Antiques Price Guide, antiques expert, Antiques Roadshow)
Murray Melvin (British actor, A Taste of Honey, Alfie, The Devils, Barry Lyndon)
Ahmad Jamal (US jazz pianist)
Barry Humphries (Australian comedian, actor, author, satirist, chat show host, performer and legend, aka "Dame Edna Everage" and "Sir Les Patterson")
Len Goodman (British ballroom dancer and coach, former head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, national treasure)
Maria Charles (British stage and screen actress, Agony, Never the Twain, and singer, The Boy Friend, Good Old Days)
Harry Belafonte (US singer, Banana Boat Song, Island in the Sun, actor, civil rights activist and legend)
Jerry Springer (British-US journalist, former politician and television host, The Jerry Springer Show)
Wee Willie Harris (British rock and roll singer)
Barbara Young (British actress, I, Claudius, Family Affairs, Last of the Summer Wine, mother of Liza Pullman of Fascinating Aida)
Tim Bachman (US guitarist and vocalist, founder member of Bachman–Turner Overdrive)
Elizabeth Scott, Duchess of Buccleuch
Gordon Lightfoot (Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist, If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown)
Linda Lewis (British singer, It’s In His Kiss, backing vocalist, Bowie's Aladdin Sane LP, Joan Armatrading, Jamiroquai)
Don Short (British showbiz columnist and journalist, created the term "Beatlemania", first reported the death of Brian Jones and the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton)
Grace Bumbry (US mezzo-soprano, first black headliner at the Bayreuth festival)
Terence Hardiman (British character actor, Crown Court, The Demon Headmaster, Secret Army)
Peter Day (British visual effects designer for the BBC, created the "Davros" villain for Doctor Who)
Rolf Harris (Australian-born TV personality, Animal Hospital, singer, Two Little Boys, painter and former British "national treasure", convicted sex offender)
Kenneth Anger (US film-maker, Scorpio Rising, scandal-writer, Hollywood Babylon)
Barry Newman (US actor, Petrocelli, Vanishing Point)

Lord (Peter) Brooke (British politician, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland under Margaret Thatcher)
John Dobson (British operatic character tenor, Royal Opera House)
Stanley Appel (British TV executive and producer, Les Dawson's Blankety-Blank, Mike Yarwood Show, the man who began the death-knell for Top of the Pops)
Helmut Berger (Austrian actor and sex-symbol, Ludwig, The Damned, Salon Kitty, Madonna's Erotica video)
Andy Rourke (British bassist, founder member of The Smiths)
Martin Amis (British novelist, London Fields, Money, Time's Arrow)
Ray Stevenson (British (Northern Irish) actor, "Volstagg" in the Marvel Thor films)
George Logan (British (Scottish) drag performer and "national treasure", "Dr Evadne Hinge" of Hinge and Bracket)
Dougie Squires (British choreographer, The Young Generation)
Tina Turner (US singer and legend, River Deep – Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits, What's Love Got to Do With It?, Simply The Best)
Cynthia Weil (US songwriter, You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', Here You Come Again, Make Your Own Kind of Music, On Broadway)
Margit Carstensen (German actress, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Martha)
Marcus Plantin (British television executive producer and director, The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game, Blind Date, Cracker, Heartbeat)
Astrud Gilberto (Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer, The Girl from Ipanema)
Pat Robertson (US televangelist, homophobic bigot)
Yannis Markopoulos (Greek composer, Who Pays the Ferryman? theme)
Ted Kaczynski (US terrorist aka "The Unabomber")
Roger Squires (British crossword compiler, world's most prolific, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Times Educational Supplement)
Silvio Berlusconi (Italian statesman, four-time prime minister, billionaire, scandal-ridden convicted criminal)
Ronnie Knight (British nightclub owner and convicted gangster, married to Barbara Windsor for two decades)
John Romita Sr. (US comic book artist, Marvel Comics, The Amazing Spider-Man, Punisher, Wolverine, Luke Cage)
Treat Williams (US actor, Hair, The Ritz, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead)
Cormac McCarthy (US novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, No Country for Old Men, The Road)
Sir James Hardy (Australian winemaker, Hardy's)
Glenda Jackson (British actress and "national treasure", Women In Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Elizabeth R, A Touch of Class; Labour MP for 23 years)
Angela Thorne (British character actress, To The Manor Born, Three Up, Two Down)
Winnie Ewing (British (Scottish) politician, long-standing MP, MEP and MSP for the Scottish Nationalist Party, its president for eighteen years)
Sheldon Harnick (US songwriter-lyricist, Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me)
Baroness Margaret McDonagh (British politician, General Secretary of the Labour Party from 1998 to 2001)
Julian Sands (British actor, A Room With a View, Smallville [went missing in January, body discovered in June])
Dame Ann Leslie (British journalist, Daily Mail, "The First Lady of Journalism")
Carmen Sevilla (Spanish actress, singer, dancer and gay icon)
Alan Arkin (US actor, Freebie and the Bean, Grosse Pointe Blank, Little Miss Sunshine)
Meg Johnson (British character actress and singer, Victoria Wood's shows, Emmerdale, Coronation Street)
Janet Dale (British theatre and character actress, Coronation Street, "Mrs Sugden", Joe Orton's landlady in Prick Up Your Ears)
George Armstrong (British child actor, "Alan Humphries" in Grange Hill and Tucker's Luck)
Milan Kundera (Czech-French writer, The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
John Nettleton (British character actor, Yes Minister)
Derek Malcolm (British newspaper columnist, former film critic for The Guardian and the Evening Standard)
Jane Birkin (British-French singer, Je t'aime... moi non plus, and actress, Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun)
Geoffrey Davies (British actor, "Dr. Dick Stuart-Clark" in Doctor in the House and its sequels)
Tony Bennett (US singer and legend, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Rags to Riches, The Good Life)
Ann Clwyd (British (Welsh) politician, MP for 35 years, Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party under Tony Blair)
Vince Hill (British singer and entertainer, stalwart of light entertainment shows for three decades)
Inga Swenson (US singer and actress, Soap, Benson)
George Alagiah (British journalist and presenter, BBC News)
Trevor Francis (British footballer, Nottingham Forest, England national team, Britain's first £1m transferee)
Sinéad O'Connor (Irish singer and campaigner, Nothing Compares 2 U, Mandinka, Thank You for Hearing Me)
Edward Sexton (British Savile Row tailor, fashion designer and consultant to the stars)
Adrian Street (British (Welsh) professional wrestler, "The Exotic One")
Randy Meisner (US musician, singer, songwriter and founding member of the Eagles, Take It to the Limit)
Jim Parker (British television theme composer, Midsomer Murders, House of Cards, The House of Eliott, Mapp & Lucia)
Paul Reubens (US comedian and actor, best known as "Pee-wee Herman")
Carl Davis (US-British composer and conductor, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Pride and Prejudice, Liverpool Oratorio)
Sir Michael Boyd (British theatre director, Royal Shakespeare Company)
Beth Porter (US-British actress, the group's manager "Kitty Schreiber" in Rock Follies of 77)

Walter Charles (US stage actor, La Cage aux Folles)
Carmen Xtravaganza (Spanish-US trans model, singer and "house mother" on the New York "ballroom" nightclub scene, depicted in Paris is Burning)
William Friedkin (US film director, The French Connection, The Exorcist)
DJ Casper (US DJ and songwriter, Cha Cha Slide)
Jamie Reid (British visual artist, Sex Pistols record covers)
Doreen Mantle (British character actress, "Mrs Warboys" in One Foot in the Grave)
Peter Vaughan-Clarke (British actor, "Stephen" in The Tomorrow People)
Robbie Robertson (Canadian guitarist, founding member of The Band, songwriter, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down)
Tom Jones (US theatre librettist and lyricist, Try to Remember (from The Fantasticks))
Patricia Bredin (British singer, the UK's first Eurovision Song Contest entrant in 1957)
Renata Scotto (Italian soprano, opera director, and voice teacher)
Jerry Moss (US record studio executive, co-founder of A&M Records with Herb Alpert)
Sir Michael Parkinson (British journalist, broadcaster, chat-show host and "national treasure")
Nicholas Tresilian (British broadcaster and entrepreneur, co-founder and presenter on Television South West (TSW) and also Classic FM)
Ray Hildebrand (US singer, aka "Paul" of Paul & Paula, Hey, Hey Paula)
John Warnock (US computer scientist, inventor and businessman, co-founder of Adobe Systems)
Denis LePage (Canadian musician and songwriter, Lime)
Yevgeny Prigozhin (Russian businessman and mercenary, co-founder of the notorious war criminals the Wagner Group)
Bob Feldman (US songwriter, My Boyfriend's Back, I Want Candy, Sorrow)
Bernie Marsden (British rock guitarist and founder member of Whitesnake, songwriter, Fool for Your Loving, Here I Go Again)
Bob Barker (US TV host, presented The Price is Right from 1972 to 2007)
Jamie Crick (British radio presenter, Classic FM, Jazz FM, Scala Radio, co-founder of Gaydar Radio)
Mohamed Al Fayed (Egyptian millionaire businessman, owned Harrods, Hôtel Ritz Paris and Fulham FC, father of Princess Diana's boyfriend Dodi)
Jimmy Buffett (US singer-songwriter, Margaritaville)
Gayle Hunnicutt (US-British actress, Sherlock Holmes, Dallas, The Saint)
Steve Harwell (US singer and founder-member of Smash Mouth, Walkin' on the Sun)
Joe Fagin (British singer-songwriter, That's Livin' Alright, As Time Goes By)
John Stevenson (British screenwriter, wrote for Coronation Street for 40 years)
María Jiménez (Spanish singer and gay icon)
Mike Yarwood (British impressionist, comedian, entertainer and "national treasure", hosted top-rating one-man TV shows from 1971 to 1987)
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Zulu homeland
Nico Ladenis (British chef and businessman, Chez Nico, first UK restaurateur to attain three Michelin stars)
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut (British scientist, pioneer of cloning and stem-cell research, created "Dolly the Sheep")
Jean Boht (British actress, "Nelly Boswell" in 80s sitcom Bread, "national treasure")
Perrie Mans (South African champion snooker player in the 1970s, also won Pot Black TV show)
Marc Bohan (French couturier, chief creator at Christian Dior from 1960 to 1988)
Barbara Mullen (US supermodel of the 1950s)
Roger Whittaker (British singer-songwriter, guitarist and whistler, Durham Town (The Leavin'), The Last Farewell)
Lou Deprijck (Belgian singer and record producer, Two Man Sound Que Tal America; was the true voice of Plastic Bertrand Ça plane pour moi)
Hildegard Neil (South African-born British character actress, Boy Dominic, Diamonds; wife of Brian Blessed)
Katherine Anderson (US singer, founder-member of The Marvelettes)
David McCallum (British (Scottish)-US actor, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Sapphire and Steel)
Sir Michael Gambon (Irish-born British actor, Royal National Theatre, The Singing Detective, Gosford Park, Harry Potter films)
Dianne Feinstein (US politician, longest-serving female senator in US history)
Pat Arrowsmith (British activist and co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), lesbian icon)
Rosemary Squires (British light entertainment singer, sang the "Now hands that do dishes..." jingle for the Fairy Liquid adverts)
Terence Davies (British screenwriter and film director, Distant Voices, Still Lives)
Anthony Holden (British writer, broadcaster, columnist and critic, biographer of Tchaikovsky and the Royal Family, professional poker-player)
Piper Laurie (US actress, Carrie, The Hustler, Twin Peaks)
Suzanne Somers (US actress, Three's Company (the US remake of Man About The House))
Osvaldo Desideri (Italian art director, The Last Emperor)
Tony Husband (British cartoonist, Private Eye)
Haydn Gwynne (British actress and singer, Drop the Dead Donkey, The Windsors, Billy Elliot the Musical)
Sir Bobby Charlton (British world champion football player, Manchester United, national team, survivor of the 1958 Munich air disaster, national treasure)
Bill Kenwright (British West End theatre producer, Blood Brothers, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cabaret, actor, "Gordon Clegg" in Coronation Street)
Richard Roundtree (US actor, Shaft)

Li Keqiang (Chinese statesman, former premier of the People's Republic of China)
Matthew Perry (US-born Canadian actor, "Chandler" in Friends)
Peter White (US actor, "Alan" in Boys in the Band)
Pete Garner (British bassist, The Stone Roses)
David Berglas (German-British magician and TV show host)
Anne Hart (British stage actor and singer, widow of Ronnie Corbett)
Andrew Lumsden (British pioneering gay rights campaigner, co-founded the Gay Liberation Front (UK), Gay Pride and Gay News)
John Whitney (British television producer, Upstairs, Downstairs, founding managing director of Capital Radio, director general of the Independent Broadcasting Authority)
Anna Scher (Irish-born British drama teacher, the Anna Scher Theatre; launched the careers of numerous household names including Kathy Burke, Phil Daniels, Martin Kemp, Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson, and numerous future cast members of EastEnders)
George "Funky" Brown (US musician, founder-member of Kool & the Gang, songwriter, Ladies' Night, Celebration)
Dame A. S. Byatt (British multiple-award-winning author, Possession: A Romance, The Children's Book, The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye)
Ben Dunne (Irish businessman, former director of his family's business Dunnes Stores)
Rosalynn Carter (US former First Lady, wife of ex-President Jimmy Carter)
Joss Ackland (British actor, White Mischief, The Hunt for Red October, the Old Vic theatre company, Royal Shakespeare Company)
Annabel Giles (British (Welsh) model, television presenter, Razzmatazz, Posh Frocks and New Trousers, and author)
Larry Fink (US ground-breaking photographer, Social Graces)
Marty Krofft (Canadian puppeteer and artistic director, The Banana Splits, creator of H.R. Pufnstuf)
Jean Knight (US singer, Mr. Big Stuff)
Russell Norman (British award-winning restaurateur, author and TV chef, Saturday Kitchen)
Terry Venables (British football player and multiple cup-winning manager, Queens Park Rangers, Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur, England national team 1994 to 1996)
Geordie Walker (British guitarist and songwriter, founder-member of Killing Joke)
"Sticky Vicky" (born Victoria María Aragüés Gadea, legendary Spanish adult X-rated stage entertainer in the resort of Benidorm)
Dean Sullivan (British actor, "Jimmy Corkhill" in Brookside for 17 years)
Henry Kissinger (German-born US statesman, diplomat and politician, Nobel Prize laureate, centenarian)
Lord Alistair Darling (British politician, former MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer)
Shane MacGowan (British-born Irish singer-songwriter, founder member of The Pogues)
Tony Allen (British stand-up comedian, pioneer of the "Alternative Comedy" scene in the 1980s)
Sandra Day O'Connor (US attorney and politician, first woman to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1981 to 2006)
Brigit Forsyth (British (Scottish) character actress, "Thelma" in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Boon, Playing the Field)
Concha Velasco (Spanish actress, singer, television presenter and gay icon)
Lady Glenys Kinnock (British (Welsh) politician, former Labour minister and MEP, wife of ex-Labour leader Lord Kinnock)
Denny Laine (British musician and singer, founder member of the Moody Blues, guitarist and songwriter with Wings, co-wrote Mull of Kintyre)
Norman Lear (US screenwriter and producer, All in the Family, and centenarian)
Benjamin Zephaniah (British writer, poet and actor)
Ryan O'Neal (US actor, Love Story, What's Up Doc?, Paper Moon)
Shirley Anne Field (British actress, Alfie, The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning)
Michael Blakemore (Australian-British award-winning theatre director, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company; Privates on Parade, Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury, City of Angels)
Richard Kerr (British songwriter, Mandy, Looks Like We Made It [hits for Barry Manilow])
Steve Halliwell (British soap actor, "Zak Dingle" in Emmerdale for 29 years)
Wilf Lunn (British inventor, prop maker and television presenter, Vision On)
Laura Lynch (US country musician and singer, founder member of the Dixie Chicks)
Francis Dymoke (British peer, Lord of the Manor of Scrivelsby, honorary and hereditary holder of the title King's Champion, carried the Royal Standard at the Coronation)
Richard Franklin (British character actor, Doctor Who, Crossroads, Emmerdale)
Henry Sandon (British antique expert, author and lecturer, long-time ceramics specialist on Antiques Roadshow, "national treasure")
David Kernan (British actor and singer, Side by Side by Sondheim, A Little Night Music, That Was the Week That Was)
Jacques Delors (French politician, former European Commission President, European integrationist)
Tom Wilkinson (British actor, The Full Monty, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Michael Clayton)
John Pilger (Australian-born, British-based journalist, writer, scholar and documentary filmmaker)

RIP, (almost) one and all!

The countdown begins...

As the Madam and I do the final whizz around cleaning in preparation for receiving visitors, and I turn my attention to preparing the buffet - I think some musical highlights from 2023 are in order, to get the juices flowing for a party!

And the "Song of the Year":

However, as my 60th year passes into the ether, let's have another outing for my song from my birthday post - this:

Happy New Year, dear reader!

Saturday 30 December 2023

Arise...

...Companion of Honour Dame Shirley Bassey, Dame Jilly Cooper (for services to the "bonk-buster" novel?), [founder of Glastonbury Festival] Sir Michael Eavis, [founder of that other great British institution Wetherspoons] Sir Tim Martin.

Also honoured: Dame Judith Weir [Master of the King's Music], author Sir Alexander McCall Smith, former Home Secretary Sir Sajid Javid, Knight Grand Cross Sir Ridley Scott and Dame Grand Cross Dame Margaret Beckett.

Among those awarded Commander of the British Empire (CBE): lyricist Don Black, TV chef Paul Hollywood, former rugby players turned fundraisers Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield, former England footballer Peter Shilton, TV historian Professor Ronald Hutton and author Kate Mosse; Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) include legendary DJ Tony Blackburn, singer Leona Lewis, business guru Mary Portas, soprano Carolyn Sampson and England football team captain Millie Bright; Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) include DJ Steve Wright, actress Emilia Clarke, broadcaster James Whale and England footballers Lauren Hemp and Mary Earps.

Congratulations, one and all!

New Year Honours list 2024 in full

Friday 29 December 2023

Turn it up and party down

It's the last weekend of the year, dear reader, and true to form I'm off today to leafy Chiswick in West London to go charity shopping with John-John. Then the rest of the weekend is merely a build-up to the Grand New Year's Eve Party chez nous!

Let's get things off to a flying start, shall we, in the company of the eternally-gyrating-but -never-quite-in-time Legs & Co, and the Players Association - and Thank Disco It's Almost New Year Friday!!

Hope your weekend goes well!

Thursday 28 December 2023

Eclectic viewing...

...at our "film club day" at John-John's yesterday!

This all-time John Waters classic:

A bit of this, the show that launched Alan Cumming on an unexpecting world:

This brand new slice of genius from Aardman Animations [home of Wallace and Gromit]:

And, best of all, this!

A remarkable film - all the more so for the unexpected (and excellent) presence of one of our house faves here at Dolores Delargo Towers, more well-known for her singing than acting prowess...

A great way to spend "that bit in the middle", I'd say!

Wednesday 27 December 2023

Buffet, anyone?

...none of which will (hopefully) be on the table at John-John's, where we are headed today for another mammoth "film day"...

Tuesday 26 December 2023

Where is the harmony, sweet harmony?

Thank fuck for that! It's all over for another year, bar the screaming.

Time to put Mariah-fucking-Carey, Slade, Shakin' Stevens, Cliff-fucking-Richard, Paul McCartney, The Waitresses, Brenda Lee, Wizzard, Boney M, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Jona Lewie, Wham!, Michael Bublé, Chris de Burgh, Darlene Love, Greg Lake and all the rest of those tinsel-clad bastards back in their box...

...and get on with some proper music! Who better to provide it than our "house band" here at Dolores Delargo Towers - with a favourite, a true diva on board - and a remarkably apposite message?

Wow!

That certainly helps with the hangover...

Monday 25 December 2023

The old Xmas carols are the best...

...it's traditional.

Gawd bless Australia.

Bah Humbug!

Sunday 24 December 2023

What a holiday this is

The cusp.

Just tomorrow to get out of the way, and then it's Round #2 - the stupidity of the sales, the "yellow sticker clearance" shelves at the supermarkets, and stocking the buffet for our New Year's Eve party!

As the "day-of-sherry-for-breakfast" falls on a Monday, and because we haven't heard her for while, let's have a "Tacky Music Xmas Eve" instead - in the company of our Patron Saint of Terrifying Head-Flicks Signorina Raffaella Carrà and her impossibly-tight-trousered safety gays!

Enjoy...

Saturday 23 December 2023

Please, Santa, Please!

On this Xmas Eve Eve Savvy], is it too late to put this on my list..?!!!

"Treguna mekoides trecorum satis dee!"

Friday 22 December 2023

There is no other, there is no other

Our Patron Saint of Outliving the Apocalypse Cher has been in overdrive lately, doing the rounds - even the Royal Variety Performance! - in an effort to promote her new Xmas album. From it, this (admittedly catchy) choon:

Nah. Bah Humbug.

As we sigh the blessed sigh of relief at the prospect of the next twelve ten days away from the tedium of work, let us instead hark back to a far more relatable, camp, kitschy Italian-Spanish-tinged number of hers to get our party started [our holiday in Benalmadena is only eight weeks away, after all!] - and ¡Gracias discoteca es viernes!

The Festering Season may be whooping up to a frenzy as the countdown to the madness begins - but at least with the Solstice today, Spring is in view!

Have a good one, dear reader, and (ahem!) enjoy the crowds at the tills!

Thursday 21 December 2023

Queer things, Boobs

I stumbled across the above picture in a recent Tumblr-scrolling-haze (as is my wont), and that prompted me to revisit an eternal "house favourite" of ours here at Dolores Delargo Towers!

Ruth Wallis (for it is she), according to her New York Times obituary [coincidentally, tomorrow would have been the 16th anniversary of her departure for Fabulon]...

...began her career performing jazz and cabaret standards, [but] soon became known for the novelty songs - more than 150 of them - she wrote herself, all positively dripping with double entendre. Even today, only a fraction of her titles can be rendered in a family newspaper, among them The Hawaiian Lei Song, Hopalong Chastity, Your Daddy Was a Soldier and A Man, a Mink, and a Million Pink and Purple Pills. Her signature number, The Dinghy Song, is an ode to Davy, who had “the cutest little dinghy in the Navy.”

So let us start this compendium with that, shall we?

Here's another wonderful number for which she was famous notorious:

We are eternally thankful that so much about Miss Wallis has been preserved by the fabulous Internet Archive, including this drag queen favourite!

...and a faboo tribute to the lady on the sadly now-defunct Queer Music Heritage website [archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine]

We adore Boobs [bet you never thought you'd read those words here, did you?], but there is another of her classics that also gained a "life of its own" when it was featured in 1994's "Gay answer to Ghost", To Die For (or as it was renamed, Heaven's A Drag):

I have, of course, featured the lovely Miss Wallis before - here, and here [a post that even had a comment of thanks from her son Alan, which was very touching].

Some artistes deserve to have their memory preserved, and Ruth Wallis is most definitely one of 'em!

Remarkably, her CD Boobs - Ruth Wallis' Greatest Hits is yours for $100 on Amazon!

Wednesday 20 December 2023

When it’s not winter

Despite the song’s claims, Christmas isn’t the most wonderful time of the year. It barely scrapes into the top ten. These occasions are far more wonderful:

Pay day
For a weekend you’re rich. Buying pints for strangers, throwing lavish parties with crisps in bowls, eating at the best restaurants available like Nando’s and Pizza Express. Then your various direct debits come out and you’re back to haunting the "Whoops!" aisle like a malnourished ghost. But for those two days you lived like a king.

When your car passes its MOT
The driver’s door doesn’t open when its cold. The windscreen washers haven’t squirted since June, 2018. The weird squeaking sound is still there, and it doesn’t like to corner at above 30mph. Your car is fucked, but miraculously the garage calls mid-morning and it’s passed! You can squeeze another year out of it! Hallelujah!

When your kid’s on a sleepover
Not at your house. That’s an evening of Netflix on your phone on the toilet. But when your kids are at some other luckless knobhead’s you’ve got a stress-free evening for you and your partner to spend quality time together. To talk, to rediscover the magic of your relationship, to make love. Or at least to stay up past midnight.

Good Friday
The two days off at Easter are far superior to the two days off at Christmas. You can’t go the pub at lunchtime on Christmas Day for ten hours without annoying repercussions like children crying and divorce, but Good Friday has no such restrictions. You only have to buy eggs. You don’t have to see family. EastEnders doesn’t kill anyone. It’s great.

When it’s not winter
Any day when it’s not winter is better than any day when it is. You can get up in daylight. You don’t wince when your feet touch the kitchen floor. You don’t have to wrestle into three layers to defrost the car. One day, Christmas long behind you, you’ll realise you’re outside in a T-shirt, flowers are blooming and soon you’ll be bitching about how sodding hot it is.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Bah Humbug.

Tuesday 19 December 2023

Fashionable

In typically British manner, cometh the Festering Season, cometh the rain! That'll make the commute even more special than usual...

Never mind, eh?

Time, methinks, for a little showcase of the very latest Autumn/Winter fashions...courtesy of the eternally à la mode Soft Tempo Lounge!

Ah, that's better.

[Music: Alessandro Alessandroni - Primavera]

Monday 18 December 2023

Pitt the Elder

























"I'm one of those people you hate because of genetics. It's the truth."

"When you see a person, do you just concentrate on their looks? It's just a first impression. Then there's someone who doesn't catch your eye immediately, but you talk to them and they become the most beautiful thing in the world. The greatest actors aren't what you would call beautiful sex symbols."

"Fame makes you feel permanently like a girl walking past construction workers."

"Heartthrobs are a dime a dozen."

Mr Brad Pitt is 60 years old today! Gulp.

Needless to say, of course, I would...

Beer, chips and giant dancing penguins


Aldi own-brand clothing? The height of sophistication.

From Eurovision fansite ESC Extra*:

The song, which is named after the cheapest beer brand available at discount supermarket Aldi, has been making waves [in The Netherlands]. It’s rapidly becoming a classic on any party where there’s room to play guilty pleasures galore. The song speaks of a holiday lover from a skiing trip in Austria. Obviously, that requires a blasting chorus in German. As Chantal used to host The Voice Kids in Germany, the German chorus won’t have given her any issues. With profound Dutch lyrics in the verses like “Our love didn’t last long, but it was hotter than a deep fryer”, it’s a sing along for a good party.

On this Tacky Music Monday, I'll let you be the judge of that, dear reader! It's a complete mindfuck...

Have a good week, folks - it's the last one before the Festering Season kicks in in earnest!

[* Ms Janzen co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam in 2021]

Sunday 17 December 2023

Hark...

...do I hear carol singers?

Bah Humbug.


I prefer Saturnalia myself.


Sticking with the delightful Fascinating Aida, they've just released another new clip from their ongoing 40th anniversary tour:

You were warned!

Saturday 16 December 2023

C'mon Barbie, Let's Go Party!

We're off to celebrate Our Sal's birthday tonight, at her pub The Shaston Arms off Carnaby Street. If she can leave Ryan Gosling alone long enough, of course...

Time to revisit a quirky little number I discovered earlier this year, by way of a celebration, methinks!

Now, time to go and get sequinned-up...

Friday 15 December 2023

Let your body fly


Jump for Joy!

Another weekend is almost here - and it's the last full one before the Festering Season is upon us [Xmas Eve is a week on Sunday]!

We have an actual party tomorrow - for Our Sal's birthday, so it will be sparkly! - but let's be greedy, dear reader, and start the celebrations early in the company of a young Jocelyn Brown and her chums, with an irresistible classic, practice our synchronised jumping...

...and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a great weekend - and don't knacker yourselves out shopping!

Thursday 14 December 2023

Nieuw muziekfeest!

I said I'd try and get another one of my "Pick of the Pops" compilations done before the Festering Season crashes upon us, and 2023 crawls to its inevitable close - so let's have another look at/listen to some of the "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late, shall we? [I promise there'll be no "seasonal music"...]

Let's start as we mean to go on, with something quite kinky. Not sure even Billy Idol would have gone this far!

Next, yet another in a long line of choons that stands out from the crowd, yet turns out to be nowhere near new [it's from @adecadeago, in fact] - but I had never heard it before the faboo Liza Tarbuck played it on her Radio 2 show, so it's as good as...

And now for something completely different! A bizarre collaboration between an Italian folk-pop band and an operatic tenor? Right up our street, methinks:

Even more off-the-wall, we always love an unexpected rendition of something familiar:

...and we also love "kooky choreography"! [Thanks, Melanie!]

Marianne Faithfull is GOD. Thus it is only appropriate that a host of "alternative" artists have given their time and talent to release an album of covers of her songs as a fundraiser for her (as she recovers from "Long COVID"), including Cat Power, Iggy Pop, Joan As Police Woman, Lydia Lunch - and these two [duetting on one of my fave Marianne songs]!

Changing the tone completely, here's something extremely "retro" - yet utterly brand new! Giving a nod to the "blue-eyed soul revival" that swirled around a few years ago when Amy Winehouse, Duffy and their ilk ruled the roost, this Amsterdam band has it nailed:

And, leaving the best to last... This! Campness abounds!

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

Wednesday 13 December 2023

Jollity?

A Santa hat teamed with hi-viz on a worker down the council recycling centre unaccountably fails to lift the spirit. As it does on these other occasions:

  • On a Big Issue seller you feel even more guilty for ignoring than usual
  • On a retail employee for whom this period is a hell where every key change of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day is embossed upon her brain
  • On your grandfather in a care home who hated Christmas but no longer has the strength to fight
  • On your partner asleep in the front room after vomiting lavishly in the downstairs toilet, unable to explain where it came from or how he got home
  • On your child, crying with disappointment because this was all they got in the lucky dip at the Christmas Fayre which you subsidised to the tune of about £60
  • On somebody’s fucking Staffy straining at its lead to bite while the owner explains she’s never like this
  • In blue-and-white varieties on Man City and Everton fans for who the very existence of the colour red is a grievous insult inciting violence
  • On a grim-faced manager demanding extra work from everyone because there’s only a fortnight until end-of-year results
  • On a grim-faced manager at the North Pole demanding extra work from all his elves because there’s only a fortnight until Christmas
  • On the staff at your work canteen dishing up dry turkey and bullet sprouts for the mandatory Christmas lunch
  • On a hammered bloke down the pub clearly up for a fight in the car park
  • On a barmaid serving the far-too-pissed, clearly counting the minutes until her shift ends
  • On a scowling girl on a night out with her friends who has had the hat removed by drunk blokes as an overture to romantic advances once too fucking often
  • On your own reflection in the mirror as you try to sober up, wishing the pisshead colleagues you’re with would agree to a taxi home
  • On the bloke you’ve just kissed in a desperate attempt to stop him droning on in the pub
  • On the bloke you’ve just snogged outside the club when you realise how ropey he looks
  • On your bedroom floor when you wake up wondering who the fuck this guy who stinks of gin snoring next to you is
  • On Instagram, where your fumbles with the bloke have been thoroughly documented by your colleagues who apparently weren’t as pissed as you thought

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Bah Humbug!

Tuesday 12 December 2023

Wrap me around your finger, see me fall




Could we get any more 80s if we tried..?

A mini-timeslip, dear reader! We're gone into warp drive and find ourselves in a long-forgotten world - 1982: the year of of the Falklands War, E.T., the SDP, CND, AIDS and the IRA.

In the news headlines in December forty-one years ago: the re-opening of the Spain-Gibraltar border after more than a decade, the murder of 17 people and wounding of dozens more by terrorist splinter group the INLA in the bombing of the Droppin Well disco in Ballykelly, the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, the closure (with the loss of 1200 jobs) of the Round Oak Steelworks in Dudley after 125 years, and we bade a fond farewell to the wonderful Marty Feldman [NB and Nicki Minaj was born]. In our cinemas: Gandhi; The Plague Dogs; Tron. On telly: the famous Only Fools and Horses episode involving a priceless chandelier; The Snowman; and the final public performance by ABBA on The Late, Late Breakfast Show.

And in our charts this week in 1982? Just in time for the usual "Xmas novelty hit" season, Renee and Renato's cheesy Save Your Love had just rocketed to the #1 slot (where it would remain until the New Year). Also present and correct were (last week's incumbents) The Jam, Culture Club, Shakin'-bloody-Stevens, Madness, Lionel Ritchie, Human League, Wham, Modern Romance and that duet between David Bowie and Bing Crosby.

Just departing the Top Ten, however, was this eternal house favourite here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

You keep me running round and round
Well, that's alright with me
Up and down, I'm up the wall
I'm up the bloody tree

That's alright with me
Yeah, that's alright with me
Well, it feels alright to me
Yeah, it looks alright to me

And I'm so tall, I'm so tall
You raise me and then you let me fall
And I'm so small, I'm so small
Wrap me around your finger, see me fall

You keep me running round and round
Well, that's alright with me
Nothing, nothing, nothing's gonna
Step in my way

Living on the ceiling
No more room down there
Things fall into place
You get the joke, fall into place

And I'm so tall, I'm so tall
You raise me and then you let me fall
And I'm so small, I'm so small
Wrap me around your finger, see me fall
Here we go

You keep me running round and round
Well, that's alright with me
Up and down, I'm up the wall
I'm up the bloody tree

Hiding from your questions
Questions you won't ask
Why am I up the tree, you say
Why are you down there, I say

And I'm so tall, I'm so tall
You raise me and then you let me fall
And I'm so small, I'm so small
Wrap me around your finger, see me fall
Hey

Faboo! But so very, very long ago...

Sob.