According to pagan mythology, the Samhain day of feasting that started at sunset yesterday continues through till the sun goes down today. As if anyone needs an excuse...
Speaking of "feasting", here's a girl after our own hearts who knows how to over-indulge. She wants candy, and she's going to get it!
By sheer coincidence [honest, guv], it was original vocalist Annabella Lwin's - gulp - 60th birthday yesterday.
Cheers!
We had a faboo time at the Film Club gathering for John-John's birthday last night and, despite not starting till 6pm (being a Friday), we managed to get in both Werewolf by Night - in the spirit of Hallowe'en - and [yet another outing for] one of our house favourites here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the campest Western ever made, Johnny Guitar! [I had bought it for John-John's birthday, and he'd only just opened it!]
Speaking of Hallowe'en spirit, the faboo Steve Hayes aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies has uncovered a truly spooky film for his seasonal selection:
Is there anything scarier than a scary child?!
Meanwhile - for my dear sister [who loves this clip; hee, hee!], an old fave:
It's traditional.
RIP, Sir Patrick Stewart. A truly sad loss - whether Shakespeare, Star Trek, Jeffrey or X-Men, we loved him!
Very sad.
However, it is the end of a particularly gruelling week - and time to party, in a most "appropriate" way. Yes, it's this slice of genius again...
Thank Disco(?) It's Friday!
Have a good one, dear reader!
FOOTNOTE:
We actually do have a party to go to tonight - it's our friend John-John's birthday today, and he's hosting one of our legendary "Film Clubs" at The Perseverance pub in Bloomsbury tonight!
Fan, as he is, of all things ABBA(esque) - by way of a little celebratory gift, THIS:
And so farewell, das Lebewohl to the uber-glamorous Fraulein Elke Sommer, who has pouted her last pout and departed for Fabulon, aged 85.
She was most famous, of course, for her "comedy foreign-accented sexpot" roles in Carry on Behind and in the "Pink Panther" film A Shot in the Dark [as well as in the inevitable soft-core smut and horror genres], and also starred opposite Paul Newman in murder-mystery The Prize, Dean Martin in The Wrecking Crew and Michael York in Zeppelin.
...but who knew she sang?
RIP, Elke Sommer (born Elke Schletz, 5th November 1940 – 28th October 2026)
Thanks to Google, once-in-a-lifetime spectacles can be seen from the comfort of your phone at any time. Including these.
The Northern Lights
You could go to Norway, freeze your bollocks off, and pay £14 for a hot chocolate in the hope of seeing a natural phenomenon that often occurs in less-glamorous Scotland. But there’s no guarantee of seeing the Lights, as they don’t give a toss what you paid. Do you know where they’re certain to appear? At the click of a button on your phone in high-definition, if you can be bothered to close YouTube.
The Pyramids
Googling the Pyramids offers multiple advantages, such as not having to endure punishing Egyptian heat or a camel ride that causes permanent testicular damage. These ancient tombs have survived millennia of wars, invasions and desert storms, only to be reduced to content you swipe past while watching videos of a cat falling off a sofa and a woman explaining her skincare routine.
The Taj Mahal
A breathtaking monument to eternal love, built by an emperor for his favourite wife. Not to be confused with the local curry house where you took your ex on a Tuesday because it was two-for-one poppadoms. If in doubt, the one that ranks higher on an image search is the one you’re after.
The Grand Canyon
A vast geological wonder that developed over millions of years. Best viewed on a phone, where you can appreciate its immense scale by rotating your device from portrait to landscape. Then you can look at a picture of a dog. Or some breasts. The depraved miracle of the internet truly is another wonder in itself.
Petra
An ancient city carved into rose-red rock in Jordan. Spectacular architecture, extraordinary history, and absolutely no need to negotiate with a taxi driver when viewed on the same device you wank over. You can even post screenshots to social media if you want to trick friends into thinking you’ve visited in person.
Machu Picchu
The lost city of the Incas, perched high in the Andes. Traditionally reached by a gruelling hike, it can now be visited from the sofa, where the only altitude sickness comes from standing up too quickly after three hours of scrolling. Saves you bumping into tedious gap year types taking selfies for dating apps as well.
Of course.
It's another snippets post, dear reader:
And the weather? Stormy and horrid.
Aaaargh! Reality kicks in...
...as we gird our loins for the return to the madness, so it falls to a British icon of days gone by to give us a much-needed wake-up call.
Sixty years ago, the lovely Miss Alma Cogan departed for Fabulon, far too soon (aged just 34!). Had she not been taken so soon, who knows in what musical direction she could have gone [heaven knows, she left us quite a legacy!] - but, needless to say this alone will suffice for a Tacky Music Monday:
Have a good week, dear reader.
It is (remarkably) the 20th anniversary on Tuesday of the album that launched a (doomed) legend upon an unsuspecting world - Back to Black by Amy Winehouse!
Everyone knows the songs - but in case you need a "refresher", here's Mr Scott Bradlee of our "house band" Postmodern Jukebox fame, with this medley:
However, not many people realise that one of her most famous songs was a cover*:
Ha, ha!
[*not really]
Happy 90th birthday [gulp] today to Mr William George Perks - better known, of course as Bill Wyman, long-serving member of the Rolling Stones.
Apparently when Brian Jones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were trying to recruit a bassist, they decided on Bill mainly because he had a spare guitar amplifier and always had cigarettes, as well as owning a bass guitar that he had built himself... Still, he stayed with them for the next 31 years, so something clicked!
Of course, Bill always had side-projects with other blues players, but briefly struck out on his own - and this cult hit from 1981 was the result:
Love it or hate it, once it's in your head, it's a difficult one to shift..!
Another weekend slithers its way into view - and it's time to plan the party...
It was Mr George Mcrae's birthday earlier this week, so it would be remiss of me not to revisit this favourite slice of madness - as "the Founding Father of Disco" struggles manfully against the background of coked-up dancers ("camel toes", "moose knuckles", the lot) to bring us his most famous hit...
...Thank Disco It's Friday!
Have a great weekend, dear reader! Please try and dodge the torrential rains of Storm Austen, if you can...
It's another snippets post, dear reader:
And the weather? It absolutely pissed it down all day here. Yuk.
The French have a lower retirement age and free universities because they’re not afraid to set a shop on fire. They would riot over any one of these British shit-sandwiches:Southern Rail
The disgrace of Southern Rail’s late-running, extortionate service is so monumental that Britain simply cannot confront it. A Frenchman experiencing its knackered rolling stock would head straight to Whitehall with a can of petrol. Thankfully they’ve been deterred from visiting and witnessing our national disgrace by centuries of simmering hostility.Meal deals
If you’re confused as to why the paprika crisps shelved right next to the sandwiches aren’t included in your lunchtime meal deal, think of our continental neighbours. If they were told the items in their hands were not part of the deal, the till would be through the window in moments and Boots awash with tear gas before ten minutes had passed.Porn age-verification checks
Erotic imagery is every Frenchman’s God-given right. Every trip to the boulangerie, patisserie or tabac is enlivened by seeing at least five tits. The thought of scanning your face to gaze upon a fanny? Their reflex for writing angry signs would kick in. They’d sooner surrender to the Nazis again than give up easy access to female nudity.Axing the triple lock
Thanks to organised violence, the French people have kept their retirement age down to 64. And that’s after a lifetime of toiling through four-day weeks with two-hour lunches. Threatening the triple lock would be good for at least one head-of-state decapitation and a fortnight of looting, if our shite high streets had anything they’d want to steal.Oat milk
Our calling the crap we cook ‘food’ has enraged our Gallic neighbours for decades, but at least it came from solid animal-cruel sources. To make milk, milk which masquerades as being from the cow, from oats? Paris would be in flames before the furiously-discarded disposable coffee cup had hit the cobbles.Comparative lack of riots
Traditionally, the UK holds riots during the summer. This alone would have French people taking to the street to overturn bins. ‘No riots?’ they would cry, ‘But then how can this be called a functioning democracy? We riot… for the riots!’ Not that you’ll understand, because your entire knowledge of French is ‘Hello, my name is John, thank you.’
Of course.
Sigh. Here we go again...
The skies may have cleared this morning, but everything in the garden's looking rather sodden after last night's downpours.
Hey ho - it is a Tacky Music Monday, after all. And, sharing a birthday today (as she does) with another odd assortment including Divine, John le Carré, George McCrae, Sir Michael Gambon, Auguste Lumière, Jennifer Holliday, Simon Ward, Philip Pullman, Gloria Jones, John Lithgow, Peter Tosh, Mavis Nicholson, Bernard Hepton and Sinitta, is one of our fave camp divas to bring some much-needed cheer into our lives!
"Ella vive de amores prohibidos
Porque dice son más divertidos"
Which translates as:
"She lives on forbidden loves
Because she says they are more fun"
Indeed!
Have a good week, dear reader.
After a sunny start, today has turned to rain again - and it's getting colder, to boot. Dammit!
I think a little "Sunday music", courtesy of our house band is in order, don't you?
I never even knew the original, but needless to say, this is better!
We love Postmodern Jukebox.
"Old age is no place for sissies" - Bette Davis.
"All the boys think she's a spy, she's got Bette Davis eyes" - Kim Carnes.
Hurrah! Another light has appeared at the end of another tunnel, as the weekend hoves into view! As we try and crank up the adrenaline in preparation for the start of another weekend, so we call upon The Ultimate Party Band to provide our music...
...and, as we missed lead singer Marcia Barrett's birthday on Thursday, it's even more apt. So let's don our tightest white trousers and inappropriate levels of lurex, shake our tail feathers - and get spinnin' along with Boney M!
Wild about Daddy Cool, indeed.
Thank Disco It's Friday!
Despite some flashes of sunshine, this blustery day with all its grey clouds is not exactly conducive to a good mood.
Let us instead wallow in the cavorting of swinging young things way back in the mists of time - courtesy of those lovely people over at Soft Tempo Lounge - shall we?
Yeah, baby! Yeah!
Ah, that's better.
[Music: Nora Orlandi - Soho]
It's another snippets post, dear reader:
And the weather? A bit breezy and a bit cloudy, but still mild for October. Thankfully!
Ever-reliable box office draw Tom Cruise has made a frighteningly expensive flop with recent film Digger because he broke his own Tom Cruise rules:
Don’t get clever
The most complex storytelling we want from a Tom Cruise movie is the bit where he explains how to break into the thing to get the other thing. Digger features genre shifts and a metanarrative. If his audience wanted their brains to hurt, they’d read a book.
Stick to sci-fi, action or sci-fi action
Do we want to see Tom as an amoral hitman? Fucking around in a mask at sex parties? No. He should be punching criminals, killing aliens or operating a cool computer with holograms instead of keys. Ignore that if your PC worked like that you’d be knackered after every Facebook post.
Tom must win
Tom always wins, and in a way that makes the audience happy. Valkyrie wasn’t brilliantly received because those watching it wanted von Stauffenberg to succeed in killing Hitler and win the heart of Eva Braun. They could change the history books if it needs to be a true story,
He should not have a personal life
Tom messed up with his bizarre Oprah couch jump, making it tough not to be distracted in dull moments by stray thoughts like: ‘I wonder what Nicole Kidman really knows about Xenu?’ To prevent further damage to the Tom we know and love he should put in an induced coma between films.
Running must feature
It’s become a joke, but we still want to see Tom running as fast as his little legs will carry him. We don’t pay £10 for the reliable Cruise brand and come away from the cinema feeling disappointed and cheated. We’ve got Ridley Scott movies for that.
He should learn his limits
Tom’s two acting skills are a winning smile and a surprised face with his mouth open, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be Christopher Walken to twat an alien with a pneumatic fist . When he overreaches it turns out badly. It’s impossible to watch Far and Away without coming out hating the Irish for what he did to their accents.
Tom must be the good guy
Tom has played a handful of bad guys, including a vampire, an assassin and a Hollywood producer, and his character in Digger is not a traditional Cruise hero. Audiences hate this. Tom must to stick to playing good guys who are unquestionably on the right side, such as members of the US military.
Of course.
After a tumultous time, health-wise, last week, and a busy weekend retrieving ancient relics stuff from our childhoods from the old family home in Wales, it's time to "face the music" and re-open that bloody laptop to discover what kind of a shit-show faces me on my return to work.
Fuck.
Meanwhile, however, it is the utterly gorgeous Mr Hugh Jackman's birthday today, so after blowing his candle out [wouldn't I just?], on this Tacky Music Monday let us wallow in his superb showbiz talents...
Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.
Well, this turned out to be a week I wasn't really expecting, what with the health issue, operation and clinical follow-ups. Needless to say, I have been off work since.
Regardless, a weekend is always something to celebrate - even if it will be a busy one. My sister and I (and History Boy) are off to our old home town of Caerleon in Wales for a short stay. Mother's tenant [for thirty-two years!] in our former family home handed in her notice a few weeks ago, and since the prospective repairs and upgrades needed to modernise the place for future letting are prohibitive, she has decided to sell the house. We're there to welcome several estate agents, a clearance man for the attic, and to generally give the place a bit of a scrub.
We'll be back on Sunday...
Meanwhile, let's get the party started with a double-bill from today's birthday girl, Miss Crystal Waters - and Diolch i Ddisco ei fod yn ddydd Gwener!
Have a great weekend, dear reader!
Alongside another cavalcade of ill-matched fellow notables, including Baroness Betty Boothroyd, King Zog I of Albania, Albert Roux, Matt Damon, Paul Hogan, Juan Perón, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bruno Mars, Chevy Chase, Bill Maynard, Robert "Kool" Bell, Frank Herbert, Ardal O'Hanlon, Johnny Ramone, Ray Reardon, Ursula von der Leyen, Anne-Marie Duff, Sadiq Khan, and - erm - the wonderfully-named Ralf Minge [ a German football player/manager, apparently]...
... it's the birthday today of the lovely Sigourney (nee Susan) Weaver! Having taken her stage name from a F. Scott Fitzgerald character in her teens, it was obvious that she was born to be a dramatic actor. She studied at New York's Yale drama school alongside Meryl Streep, and progressed onto the stage in a number of critically acclaimed (albeit uncommercial) productions. It was from this vantage point that she caught the eye of one Woody Allen, who introduced her to Hollywood and to later legendary stardom.
It is obviously for the Alien series of movies that she really became an acting legend. Indeed, "Ripley" became a rare thing in the genre of horror/sci-fi - a believable and memorable character. Ever the tenacious actress, Miss Weaver never allowed herself to be typecast, however, and went on to take leading roles in such differing movie genres as Ghostbusters, Working Girl, Half Moon Street, Avatar, Paul and of course Gorillas In The Mist, for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. I particularly love her cameo as a "healer" in Jeffrey:
Sigourney Weaver's dedication to acting, to environmental campaigns and to human rights, and in particular to gay rights, is legendary. Often cited as a lesbian icon for her portrayal of strong, not simpering characters, she is in fact happily married with a child but continually stands up for the issues of gay marriage and anti-homophobia. Her ground-breaking film Prayers for Bobby set out to tackle the issues of religion and homosexuality.
And she sings!
...but, to conclude - this! [Of course.]
Many happy returns, Sigourney Weaver (born 8th October 1949)
Off to the hospital again this morning, for a CT scan. Oh, the joys...
Time, methinks, to distract ourselves with another little selection of some of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late:
First up, darling Robbie hits the dancefloor - with a vengeance!
One of the best of all British girl-bands is back again, with another banger - and a suitably gothic flavoured video for the Hallowe'en season [just around the corner]:
Speaking of "the best" - Our Glorious Leader teams up with another currently dominant force of nature, combining their storytelling into one faboo number!
In complete contrast, another house favourite set of divas prove you can't keep a good libido down, no matter your age...
Also getting "down-and-dirty", the "junior Princess" teams up with a band of fellow Aussies [best known for rock music], on what is definitely what I call an earworm!
Saving (possibly) the best to last - let's finish with perhaps the dirtiest-of-dirty dancing queens of the lot! Love this:
As ever dear reader, I love to hear your thoughts...
Autumn is the favourite season of the arty and pretentious while being a bloody horrible time of year decent people abhor. This is why:
Rotting leaves
Girlfriend babbling on about the vivid carpet of colours autumn brings? Those leaves are the scarlet of death. Trees shed all their foliage, not giving a shit about the mess they’ve made, and a few days’ rain on those crisp leaves and they’re a mushy, slippery sea of rot.
Dark evenings
Every day brings an earlier reminder the long, hot summer is over and the next few months are to be suffered through. Soon it’ll be dark when you wake, dark when you come home, grey all day and the sun a stranger. You might as well have been born a bat and use sonar to navigate to and from your desk.
Hallowe'en
In more sensible days unravaged by this hideous American holiday you called it "begging" when ragged little brats whined for sweets on your doorstep rather than fucking off while you watched the telly in peace. But now you have to keep a bowl of treats by the door and pretend to be terrified by a five-year-old in a witch costume from B&M.
Fireworks
Which overlaps with four weeks of explosions outside your home, making you sympathise with those poor Ukrainians or Iranians or whoever. It would be worth the celebration if the Gunpowder Plot has been successful, instead of leaving us with the curse of politics to this day.
Spiders’ webs at face height
Why do spiders build webs at the perfect height for you to run into? Because they’re bastards. You can wave a hand ahead of you like Dumbo’s trunk but you’ll still get caught and the devil’s candyfloss will get into your hair while the spiders hide in a corner pissing themselves laughing.
Christmas advertisements
Still tastefully avoiding the season at present, but in a month they’ll have unleashed a heartwarming, jingling hell. The commercially-driven reminders you’ll soon have no money in the company of relatives you despise will be omnipresent. The only positive of Hallowe'en is at least it holds this back for a bit.
Of course.
They read my mind!
Did you miss me, dear reader?
Apologies for my uncustomary absence for the last couple of days. A "slight medical emergency" of the most annoying kind...
We were having a fun time at our friends Jim & Jude's home on Saturday night (they're lovely people, and perfect hosts), when it was time for the BBQ main course, steak with all the trimmings. Smelt delicious, looked delicious, I took my first bite, swallowed, and it got stuck. Fast. Not going up [I tried all that], and definitely not going down [nothing would pass it, no liquids - even saliva immediately came back up]. Dammit.
I spent the rest of the evening on their patio, spluttering and hoping it might eventually shift. It didn't. Nor did it shift overnight after we got home. Finally, yesterday morning at around 10.30am I decided - it's off to A&E after all...
Knowing those places are tantamount to one of Dante's Gates of Hell, I'm glad we didn't head there on a Saturday night. Sundays, it seems, are relatively quieter. Of course, even with a "fast-track" ticket, everything takes forever, and it wasn't until 4pm that we were transferred with great fanfare [literally: blue-light flashing, traffic parting, the lot! How exciting!] to another hospital further out that specialises in ear, nose and throat. It's at this point that we should all say "gawd bless the NHS" [it's all free], but FFS! Why different hospital trusts are completely incapable of corresponding with each other is a pain in the arse. Thus (apart from bloods), I had to go through a load of procedures (x-ray etc) I had already had done at the other place. Waiting around to get all that sorted wasted another few long hours [hospitals are not the sort of place anyone in their right mind wants to be longer than they need to], before I finally got to the point where an operation was possible - and went in for anaesthesia at 10pm! Ironically, the whole op only took the team half-an-hour to complete, before they bedded me down in the recovery room overnight and poor Madam Arcati - who had also not eaten all day - went home.
Suffice to say, now I'm finally out and back home again, I'm feeling a lot better. I shan't be eating steak ever again in my life..!
MEANWHILE:
We need something to make us smile on this Tacky Music Monday - and really, only today's birthday girl Mrs Miller will do on an occasion like this!
An uncanny knack for landing squarely between the beat - read my post about her from back in 2017 for more [if you dare]!
Have a good week, dear reader.
Slowly, slowly, the weekend is coming...
We have some jolly japes to look forward to, as tomorrow we're off en famille to leafy Fulham for a barbecue day at our chums Jim & Jude's place.
Meanwhile - it's time to get the party started!
Sharing the day with another ill-assorted slew of names, including the notorious Richard III, Mahatma Gandhi, Groucho Marx, Graham Greene, Donna Karan, Rex Reed, Bud Abbott, Annie Leibovitz, Sting (who is 75 years old!), Don McLean, Anna Ford, Trevor Brooking, Mike Rutherford, Tiffany (who's 55), Robbie Nevil, and - ummm - Badly Drawn Boy...
...it's Phil Oakey of The Human League's birthday! [He's 71...]
You might argue that this is an unusual choice for my traditional end-of-week dance slot, but I used to dance my tits off to it when I was a young aspiring New Romantic - so let's Thank Disco Synthesizers It's Friday!
Have a great weekend, dear reader!
It's another snippets post, dear reader:
[click to embiggen]
And the weather? Very pleasant, sunny and warm, considering we have arrived in October...
You know you're getting old when...
...you discover that one of our favourite super-cool divas, Miss Angie Dickinson (remarkably) blows out 95 candles on her cake today!
As a kid in the middle of the 1970s, with power cuts, hyper-inflation and general pessimism in the UK, I loved settling down to watch some preposterous American cop show for escapism [Columbo, Banacek, Cannon, Starsky & Hutch and so on] - and Police Woman was one of the best. I often dreamed what it would be like to live in Angie Dickinson/"Pepper Anderson"'s glamorous world of sleek Halston outfits, Martini cocktails and "woman-in-peril" missions. Sigh.
By way of a little tribute, the classic theme music - and those legs:
...but who knew she sang [after a fashion]? I suppose, married as she was for years to Mr Burt Bacharach, it was unavoidable:
Many happy returns, Angeline "Angie" Dickinson (born 30th September 1931)
China’s Xi Jinping has stunned rivals by bribing Trump with two adult panda bears. How are other world leaders going to beat that?
Anthony Albanese, Australia
You can’t top Oz when it comes to exotic animals, mate. We’ll give him a numbat, a duck-billed platypus, a Tasmanian devil, a breeding population of chlamydia-infected koalas, a couple of cassowaries, a dropbear and a genuine boxing kangaroo that hops around and beats shit out of people. All on the condition he leaves us the fuck alone.
Vladimir Putin, Russia
Fuck animals. I will give him what any dictator truly craves: territory. Ukraine is part of Russia obviously, nobody disputes that, but once it has been reunited with the motherland my forces will march on and when we conquer the EU we shall award him whichever countries he should choose. We just need to get past this bit we’re stuck in. Any day now.
Kim Jong-un, North Korea
From one lonely leader to another, I shall give the gift of friendship. Understanding. The empathy of another man who has hit the peak, who has climbed higher than lesser men ever could, and still craves the world’s respect. We will hold hands.
Lee Jae Myung, South Korea
Typically cheap gift. If what Trump truly desires is exotic pets, we shall give him the most exotic of all: his own K-pop band. Called QEEDTH, they will comprise four boys and five girls raised in complete isolation from all human contact, trained to perform sterile hip hop in a foreign language and never to make eye contact.
Andy Burnham, UK
Britain doesn’t have any exotic animals because it is at heart a deeply boring country. But we do have music, so I’ve given him Adele, Morrissey, Robbie Williams, Ian Astbury and Matthew Murphy, lead singer of The Wombats. Hopefully he won’t realise they all already live in LA so I’ve put a big shiny ribbon on fuck all.
Javier Milei, Argentina
I give him penguins – Gentoo, Magellanic, Rockhopper and King varieties – the steamer duck, the Cobb’s wren, and many, many sheep. And I also give him the territory these animals live upon, Las Malvinas or as you call it, the Falkland Islands. Try getting that back off him, Britain.
Of course.
...now you don't!
Yes, at last, that pair of bastard weed trees next door are gone - and we are thrilled!
Next job: get rid of the neighbours, their screaming "demon spawn", their stinky barbecues, and their fucking yappy dog.
Here's an appropriate song for a Tacky Music Monday, methinks - those outfits! the stoned stares! - now we have all that sky...
Have a good week, dear reader.
After a tortuous two-and-a-half-hour journey to even get to the venue [the Piccadilly Line was down for "planned maintenance", our local train line was (as we only discovered when we got to the station) completely up the creek and trains cancelled, so we had to get a bus to Finsbury Park to connect with the Victoria Line, all of which took over an hour, and when we got there that line was itself running a haphazard service so we were crammed in like sardines, before getting to Oxford Circus to change for the Central Line], we had a fun time again at our "film club" evening. We managed to watch two films, despite the delay, and I had never seen either of them - the hilariously slapstick Clue, with its great cast including Lesley-Anne Warren and the late, dearly-departed and sadly-missed Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn and Eileen Brennan...
...and Barbie, with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling! It was a surprising, clever, and brilliantly performed movie indeed, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Missing from its soundtrack, for some inexplicable reason, was Aqua's mega-hit tribute to the classic doll - and, it being Sunday, I was delighted to discover that "our house band" here at Dolores Delargo Towers had indeed done a version of it!
We love Postmodern Jukebox.
"It’s a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of over-smoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate." Julie London
It is the centenary today of the birth of the Queen of the sultry laid-back style we call "Sunday Music". A pin-up girl during WW2, the young Gayle Peck was inevitably destined to become a star. Born into a vaudeville performing family, Miss Peck was working as a lift attendant when she was "discovered" by Hollywood agent Sue Carol.
However, it took a few more years before the renamed Julie London emerged into the musical spotlight with the multi-million-selling Cry Me A River - an eternal standard of the late-night music genre.
Her movie career never really made the same kind of impact and, as with so many of her contemporaries, Miss London turned to TV - with numerous special guest appearances on shows hosted by Bob Hope, Pat Boone, Dina Shore, Jack Benny and the like, as well as her own TV specials. She was one of the stars of US paramedic drama series Emergency! for many years before she retired from regular performing.
But what a legacy she left..!
Julie London (26th September 1926 – 18th October 2000)
PS:
On this most gloriously sunny late summery day, we're off en masse to
go and sit in the function room of
The Perseverance
in Holborn/Bloomsbury for another of our lengthy
drinking sessions film clubs.
Shame it's not in a beer garden, really...
Another tiresome week ebbs away...
...and it's time to get our party togs on! It's payday, John-John and I are off to see Avengers: Endgame Encore in Leicester Square tonight, and tomorrow it's another "gathering of the clans" for a film day to mark History Boy's birthday. Bring. It. On!
To get us there, here's something from the vaults, having just entered our Top Ten way back in 1977 - Thank Disco It's Friday!
Thirty-nine years?! Sigh.
Have a good weekend, dear reader!
