The sun is rising in a clear blue sky, the weekend is looming, and - after another tedious week in work - we need to start planning the party to celebrate!
As any sign of sunshine always brings thoughts of holidays in Spain, how about an old, old fave [it was in our charts - gulp - 47 YEARS AGO this week!] from one of that country's greatest exports?
Gracias Disco ¡Es viernes!
Have a great one, dear reader!
The AI-generated video of Gaza that Trump shared yesterday was a terrifying glimpse into his mad brain the world was totally unprepared for.Millions of people who watched Trump’s vision for Gaza, which includes bearded belly dancers and towering gold statues of himself, have been driven completely insane by the chilling insight into how his deranged mind works.
Martin Bishop from Woking said: “I thought I’d be immune to Trump’s batshit ideas by now, but no. Watching him sipping cocktails by the pool with a topless Netanyahu pushed me over the edge.
“This must be how he sees everything, weird and tacky with money floating down everywhere while terrible music plays all the time. Why else would he endorse this abomination?
“Seeing a child holding a giant gold balloon shaped like Trump’s head made me realise reality is an idiotic delusion. I used to be a rational man with a career and a family. Now I spend my days shitting in the park like a dog and screaming ‘We’re all going to Trump Gaza!’”Nikki Hollis from Perth said: “I’ve started thinking the gods of Atlantis are talking to me through my toaster, and I only microdosed Trump’s brain for half a minute. Imagine what thinking like that all the time must do to a person.
“Actually you don’t need to imagine. Just turn on the news and you can see a man who thinks Elon Musk is cool.”
Of course.
[The "real" story. Be prepared...]
Another snippets post today, dear reader:
The weather? Typical British Springtime - wet one minute, sunny the next.
STOP PRESS:
* Not at £85 per person, we won't!
More sad news yesterday - one of the last of the great soul and blues divas Miss Roberta Flack has departed to Fabulon, to join the greatest choir in history no doubt.
Facts:
We loved her, and her beautiful mellow voice. Here are her two greatest numbers, by way of a tribute:
And speaking of "heavenly choirs"...
Utter perfection.
She's a huge loss.
RIP, Roberta Cleopatra Flack (10th February 1937 - 24th February 2025)
Sigh. Another weekend over - and, despite the mildness of Saturday, yesterday's drizzle has turned into rain so the commute's going to be a miserable affair...
Never mind all that. I have a treat in store this Tacky Music Monday; a wannabee-diva that Madam Arcati flagged up to me a while back.
Possessor of probably the biggest hair in showbiz (it makes even Dolly Parton's look like a modest bob!), let's wallow in the - ahem - talents of a lady once dubbed the "Polish Yma Sumac" for her vocal range, Miss Violetta Villas (and her safety gays)!
Have a good week, dear reader...
It will be the 80th birthday next Tuesday of one of the UK's finest singers, Miss Elkie Brooks!
Originally a cabaret and jazz vocalist (with Humphrey Lyttleton's band), she went on to form the legendary blues and rock band Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer - earning the reputation of the wild woman of rock 'n' roll, due to her energetic stage performances.
However, it was as a solo singer that she finally hit the big time, with a string of hits in the 70s and 80s - including these:
Perfect "Sunday Music", methinks.
Many happy returns, Elkie Brooks (born Elaine Bookbinder, 25th February 1945)!
I've been pottering in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers again today, dear reader. The weather's been mild, the sun was shining, and our Sarcococca hookeriana var. digyna 'Purple Stem' has been filling the air with scent and attracting the year's first honeybees!
I continued my mission at this time of year to "banish death" from the garden, so more ferns, salvias, hardy geraniums and verbena have had "the chop" to remove the old, tatty, windswept and browned top growth, clearing the clag of leaves and sycamore seeds off each pot as I went along. Still more to do but it's looking so much better out there, and now I can "see the wood for the trees" (to coin a phrase) which of the herbaceous plants I need to prioritise for repotting/division.
A gardener's work is never done...
However, now I'm sat down with a cider in my hand, so I think this number from our "house band" is in order, don't you?
The original song [video here for the uninitiated (like me)] was apparently the big surprise hit of 2024, spending 36 consecutive weeks in the UK Top 100 (twelve of those in the Top 10), and a remarkable 19 weeks at #1 in the US Billboard singles chart. Quite why remains a mystery to me.
The PMJ version is at least listenable...
How has it only been [almost] five days since I got back to work after the holiday?!! It feels like a month has passed...
Anyhoo - just today to slog through, and the weekend is in sight. Time to plan the party in a most appropriate way, with a complete mindfuck!
When I last posted this #adecadeago, I commented about the spectacle thus: "...outfits that look like a combination of the worst excesses of heavy rock combined with bell-bottoms made out of pedestal mats from someone's Gran's house, performing in front of an audience of weirdos who seem to have absolutely no connection to the music whatsoever... No drugs involved there, then."
It's still awe-inspiringly tacky - Thank Disco It's Friday!
Have a good one, dear reader!
Ukraine has begun talks with Panama, Greenland and Canada to settle the US’s petty territorial concerns for it while it is busy.
Noticing that the United States’ negotiation apparatus was all tied up in meetings with Russia, the eastern European nation has kindly stepped in and promised to ‘sort everything out’.Foreign affairs minister Andrii Sybiha said: “The US has a lot on its plate right now, right as Musk’s fired half the government! But anything to help out a friend.
“We’ve put the US argument forward – I believe it’s that they should have whatever they want "because Trump", it didn’t take long – and we’re now hearing representations from the other countries at the table. Some convincing arguments!
“Our key aim is peace, of course, which is worth any price. So with that in mind we’re offering a unilateral withdrawal of US troops and generous reparations.
“I think the US will be delighted when they come out of whatever they’re doing and discover we’ve forged binding agreements on their behalf but without their input. We’ve saved them so much work.
“What, you say? The most powerful side will just ignore the agreements anyway? Oh. How unlike our own situation.”
Of course.
Just a sample of the delights on show at the Orchid Festival at Kew Gardens, that Madam Arcati, John-John and I trolled off to see on Sunday.
It was, as planned, the perfect way to end my holiday (the Madam was already back at work after our trip to Spain), even if the arrangements were a bit discomfiting in comparison to previous visits - we had to queue in the cold for our ticketed timeslot, much of the Princess of Wales Conservatory (where the event is hosted) was roped-off so we couldn't meander past some of our fave specimens as usual, and in general it all felt a bit like being ushered along a conveyor-belt.
Albeit a very beautiful, colourful and floral one!
Here's something - ahem - appropriate to accompany this floral display, from one of our favourite German eccentrics Fraulein Nina Hagen [who has a milestone birthday coming up next month, so I doubt this will be the last we hear of her]!
I love the looks of shock on the audience's faces...
Aaaaaarrrggghhh!
Back to reality. Gawd knows what utter joys are lined up to face me as I stagger my weary way back to work...
...Never mind, eh? Here - in another nod to our beloved Spain, before our tans completely fade and wash off - is a phenomenon, to serve as a real wake-up call on this Tacky Music Monday.
Laydeez'n'gentlemen, may I introduce one of that country's - ahem - finest trans entertainers, Miss Bibi Anderson!
Good heavens.
Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.
Madam Arcati, John-John and I are off to see the annual Orchid Festival at Kew Gardens this afternoon! A welcome break from the grey dankness that continues to envelop us (despite a brief sunny respite yesterday afternoon), and a jolly way to end my fortnight's leave, methinks...
Speaking of jolly - here's our "house band" here at Dolores Delargo Towers, superbly improving (as is their wont) a somewhat forgotten hit from 26 years ago [the year Shawn Mendes, Chappell Roan, Google, the iMac and - erm - Windows 98 were born]:
That mispronunciation still annoys me, decades later.
Five former prime ministers of Canada, Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper have called on all Canadians to fly the flag as a sign of national unity on Flag Day during the 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico.
I have cousins in Canada, but irrespective of that fact I see no reason why everyone shouldn't show solidarity and stand up to such blatant bullying - do you?
Let's hear from one of that country's greatest exports...
Times are gone
For honest men
Sometimes, far too long for snakes
Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain?
Indeed.
Yes, dear reader, "St. Hallmark's Day" is upon us once again. The shops have been groaning under the strain of pink-and-red-themed items - cards, balloons, flowers, chocolates, bubbly; even a prawn medley (how seductive!) - since before our holiday, in the hope that the cash registers will be pinging as lovelorn chavs queue to buy gifts for their beau. Bleurrcchh! All this commercialisation makes me sick.
Never mind, eh? I may still be on leave, but as is traditional at the end of any week [and this is indeed the last weekend for me before the daily grind begins all over again], it's time to start planning that party!
Here's something - ahem - suitably romantic for the occasion:
Thank Disco It's Friday!
Have a great one, folks!
It's another snippets post, dear reader:
Wow!
And the weather? Dankness continues.
I've had a productive day, dear reader - first time pottering out in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers since last Autumn! The main thing I always have to clear at this time of year is all that death that winter brings - so out came the secateurs, and I made a start on pruning off blackened and browned bits on the fuchsias, ferns and (some) salvias, tore down the dead Thunbergia vine, and scraped out more leaf-and-sycamore-seed clag from several pots. Loads more to do, but it was a good start...
Right! Back to Spain it is (we wish!), in the company of another fave camp-as-tits fiery diva who is wildly popular over there [she is actually Mexican, but that's merely splitting hairs], and whose birthday it happened to be while we were there - Señorita Gloria Trevi!
And here's her duet with our other "house fave" Señorita Monica Naranjo:
Whew! That was a battle-of-the-tonsils, alright...
Now, guapo! where is that Tinto de Verano?!
[*"Todos Me Miran" = "Everyone looks at me" in Spanish]
The Assisted Dying Bill is be toughened by replacing a review by a judge with arguing your way past a GP’s receptionist.
The proposed law initially included a requirement for a high court judge to check each person was eligible, but critics believed this was far too low a bar to clear and instead inserted the immovable object which staffs every local surgery.
MP Kim Leadbeater said: “What do judges know about medicine? They’ll wave every case through because it brings back the halcyon days of sentencing criminals to death.
“But a receptionist at a standard practice will truly weed out the undeserving. With judgements like ‘Doesn’t seem like there’s anything up with you to me’, ‘Buck up a bit’ and ‘Sorry, we’ve no more appointments’ they will act as death’s bouncers.
“You’ll have to be really determined to go to your final resting place to cajole your way past them. If you’re being coerced into assisted dying, all you have to do is sit in the waiting room and they’ll ignore you effortlessly for months.
“They are already the nation’s arbiters of illness, so weeding out those who do not deserve an easy death is a natural progression. And for doing so we’ll pay them an extra 22p an hour.”
Receptionist Susan Traherne said: “There are many out there who death’s too good for. Timewasters, generally.”
Of course.
I am craving a Tinto de Verano!!
Yes, we're back - and in full recovery mode - after a lovely and full-on week on the Costa del Sol for Madam Arcati's birthday. We went once again en familia; this time with the Madam's sister Carol (again) and nephew Stu (for the first time) - and, of course, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves...
With only one "off day" - on Sunday night we had torrential storms in the wee small hours, and it remained so horrid there were only a few bars open along the paseo on Monday (all of which we visited, of course) - the sun was very welcome upon our pale British skins. A little shopping here, a lot of lovely food there, and - ¡claro está! - industrial quantities of booze everywhere, it was a much-needed week of utter hedonism. Bliss!
Now we're back in the truly miserable, cold, wet and dank UK, what did we miss while we were away..?
Not a lot, to be honest. There was endless coverage of the orange madman that Americans voted into power - his threats of tariffs against just about anyone including the EU, his crazy talk of taking over Gaza, and, in fact any of the shit that pours from his mouth. Speaking of crazy, our current government appears to be presiding over a remarkable crash of our economy - flat growth and rising inflation all round - which has served to cheer everyone up no end, as one might imagine. Especially if Chancellor Rachel "Nanny Stern" Reeves is genuinely [the screaming headline appeared in The Mail (aka Mein Kampf), so should be treated with extreme caution] considering axing or significantly reducing the annual £20,000 cash ISA (Individual Savings Account) tax-free allowance - my preferred way to save!
In other news...
Meanwhile, at Gobbler's Knob this Groundhog Day, "Punxsutawney Phil" predicted that the US will get six more weeks of winter this year; a woman flew from Cornwall to Malaga in Spain and then up to Manchester to collect her car because it was £250 cheaper than it would be to get the train; and the whole country of Sri Lanka was plunged into an electricity blackout - because of a monkey meddling with a power station!
We missed celebrating the centenaries of both Jack Lemmon and our Patron Saint of Booze Miss Elaine Stritch, the (gulp!) 95th birthday of Robert Wagner, the (double-gulp!) 70th of John Travolta, the 50th of Natalie Imbruglia and the 40th of the ultra-sexy Cristiano Ronaldo...
...and we also missed marking the death of television favourite Brian Murphy (the eternally hen-pecked "George Roper" in both Man About the House and George and Mildred [the original series behind the US hits Three's Company and The Ropers]; he later featured in Last of the Summer Wine).
Finally - did I bring anything back for your delectation, dear reader? How about Spain's entry for Eurovision 2025? It's still (just about) Tacky Music Monday, after all:
[Yes, the singer is the same Melody (minus her "Vivancos" but with another set of safety gays altogether) who was responsible for our regularly-featured earworm El Baile de los Gorilas]I may still be on holiday all this week, but...
Is it good to be back? NO!!
By the time you see this, dear reader, we should be in the air heading for another well-earned week in the sunshine and hedonism of the Costa Del Sol!
As is traditional, here's our send-off song...Vamos a la playa, oh oh oh oh! Indeed.
"Normal" service should resume in about a week from now!
