Saturday, 15 February 2025

O, Canada

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.

Friday, 14 February 2025

You got to know that that will never do

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!

Thursday, 13 February 2025

Of Romans, boffins, whales, hogs and the Sunshine Band

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

  • Historical discoveries news: The remains of London’s earliest Roman basilica - dating back almost 2000 years - have been discovered under an office block in Holborn.
  • Another festival season we won't be going to news: London rapper Little Simz has been announced as the curator of the 30th edition of the Meltdown Festival at the South Bank Centre. Sigh. It'll be dreadful. Again.
  • Precocious teen you love to hate news: Aged just sixteen, a teenager from Twickenham has landed a $1million deal in Silicon Valley for his self-coded AI program. At his age, my preoccupations were mainly Blondie, Tubeway Army, Not the Nine O'Clock News and masturbation (not necessarily in that order)...

  • Boffin birthday news: Alongside fellow celebrants Peter Gabriel (75), Kim Novak, Stockard Channing, Robbie Williams, Peter Hook of New Order, Joyce DiDonato, Kevin Bloody Wilson and Sonia, and on the same date as the late George Segal, Peter Tork, Jerry Springer, Oliver Reed, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Emanuel Ungaro, it happens to be the 80th birthday today of the marvellously erudite Sir Simon Schama, stalwart of BBC history documentaries and house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers; indeed, we have not one but two of his series lined up on iPlayer to watch.
  • He made his home in that fish's abdomen news: A kayaker in Chile was swallowed - and then spat out - by a humpback whale!
  • Another day, another load of wild beasts on the loose: 20 feral pigs, believed to have been deliberately set loose in Scotland's Cairngorms National Park, have been caught and killed. Hog roast, anyone?
  • And, finally... How old?! news: Unbelievably, it is fifty years since KC and the Sunshine Band first dominated our discos and the charts - and by way of a celebration, the faboo DJ Cummerbund has come up with this [almost 15-minute long] slice of brilliance!

Wow!

And the weather? Dankness continues.

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Everyone looks at me*


Oh, how much are we missing the sunshine of Spain..? Sob.

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]

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

Death’s bouncers

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.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

[The "real" story]

Monday, 10 February 2025

Withdrawal symptoms

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, and - ¡claro está! - industrial quantities of booze, 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... Not being a user of F**book, Tw*tter/"X" or any of that stuff (except Blogger, which is hardly the same), I remain ambivalent to the fact that social media has been compared to cancer by the UK's head of counter-terrorism. Our local council Haringey has (ha ha!) failed in its intention to introduce a new money-making scam tinker with its resident parking scheme, as more than 95% of residents who responded to its public consultation objected. When personal items belonging to the late, beloved, "national treasure" comedian Eric Morecambe went up for auction recently (after the death of his widow last year), his trademark dark-rimmed glasses were won by none other than that more modern "treasure" Robbie Williams

Also: 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 also missed marking the death of television favourite Brian Murphy ("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!!

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Vamos, de novo!

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!