Saxy!

Our Lilium speciosum var. rubrum is looking lovelier than ever this year!

And so, farewell then, the implausibly-named Plas Johnson, who I just discovered has died, a week short of his 95th birthday.

Who?! I hear you ask, dear reader!

OK, he was a saxophonist and session musician who played on records by myriad artists such as B.B. King, Peggy Lee, Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, Duane Eddy, Ricky Nelson and Bobby Vee...

...but it was for this that he is most well-known [well his playing is, if not his name]!

Theme from The Pink Panther [Henry Mancini]

What a legacy!

Manly-flavoured lollies, anyone?

Ice lolly manufacturers have responded to demand for a product that in no way resembles a cock.

A new lolly, the Ice Block Max, has been developed to meet the needs of male heterosexuals who want to enjoy a lolly without feeling they are basically eating a penis.

The new product is a grey cube on a stick resembling a building material, which tastes of bloody steak for a ‘more manly flavour’ and features a picture of Jason Statham on the wrapper.

A spokesman for manufacturers Walls said: “This lolly is so red-bloodedly male it can practically do 200 pull-ups while grunting ‘Hurr!’

“The unique, perfectly cuboid shape means that it doesn’t have a shaft. Research shows that anything taller than it is wide basically looks like an erection when being sucked.

“Of course we will continue to make the classic phallic lollies – Twister, Calippo, Mini Milk – but sales are likely to fall now men don’t need to look as if they’re well-practised at sucking cock.

“Usually when manufacturers try to make a hyper-masculine product it somehow ends up seeming super-gay. That’s why we’re thrilled to have Jason Statham promoting it.

“He’s straightness personified, especially the way he wrestles that other guy in 'The Transporter' in a big pool of oil, with his shirt off.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

And I've learned to give the well-known witches' curse

Aaaargh! (again)

The eternal conundrum continues to baffle us - why do weekends fly by so damned quickly, yet the working weeks drag so tortuously?

Yet again, we're in need of a bit of a wake-up call.

How fortuitous then, that yesterday happened to be the 86th birthday of one Florencia Bisenta de Casillas-Martinez Cardona, better known as one of our fave divas here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Señorita Vikki Carr!

On this Tacky Music Monday, I think it's appropriate to revisit an old fave of hers that I have featured several times before. Simply because I adore this uber-camp Scopitone clip..!

Vikki Carr - Everything I've Got

Many happy returns, Vikki Carr (born 19th July 1940)

Have a good week, dear reader.

He'll wrap you in his arms, tell you that you've been a good boy

Happy 50th birthday, Benedict Cumberbatch! As I have said before: Magic's come a long way since the days of Tommy Cooper and Paul Daniels...

It's a verrry slow day again today, dear reader. After a mammoth telly-and-film binge (mainly Marvel stuff) at John-John's yesterday [we started at 1pm, and I got home in a taxi at 1am], I didn't even surface today until about 2 o'clock!

At least it's not as searingly hot as it has been of late, so it's quite pleasant to sit out in, and I might, if I feel arsed to, do some pottering in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers.

Meanwhile, some suitable "Sunday music" from our house band is in order, methinks. [The original version of this was used as the theme tune to Peaky Blinders apparently; I wouldn't know, I have never watched it.] .

Postmodern Jukebox feat. Katerina Lomis - Red Right Hand (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds jazz cover)

On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with a red right hand

He'll wrap you in his arms, tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams it took you a lifetime to destroy
He'll reach deep into the hole, heal your shrinking soul
But there won't be a single thing that you can do

Those lyrics bring back memories of cruising grounds of old...

Don't believe me, just watch

I'm off to John-John's today for another "marathon Marvel geek-fest", catching up on bits of the MCU I haven't seen yet, like Wonder Man [above].

Here's something appropriate for the occasion, methinks!

Marvel Uptown Funk

Love it.

Queen of the Night aria?

Gratuitous - but obligatory - Coq Galoise

And so we have crawled, tortuously, to the end of another thrilling working week...

...but in all the - ahem - excitement, I quite forgot that on Tuesday, our leetle Froggy chums were enjoying their biggest day of celebration, Le Quatorze Juillet (or, as it is better known here, Bastille Day)!

To make up for it, who better to start the weekend party celebrations than one of our revered, dearly departed, Gallic Patron Saints, Régine?

Vive le disco, c'est vendredi!

Régine - Reine de la Nuit

Have a great weekend, dear reader!

Nah, Luton Airport!

You know you're getting old when...

...you discover that "Cockney Sparrow" Lorraine Chase is 75 years old today!

She may have been a quiz show regular, she may have been in the soap Emmerdale - but it is for this she will forever be remembered by us Brits:

Campari commercial with Lorraine Chase, 1976

[NB She shares her birthday with a raft of fellow celebrants, including Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck, Angharad Rees, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Chilton, Desmond Dekker, Roald Amundsen, Big Breakfast alumnus Johnny Vaughan (who is 60), Corin Redgrave, Michael Flatley, Denise LaSalle, Stewart Copeland of The Police, Frank Field, Will Ferrell, Corey Feldman, and "Lady Edith" in Downton Abbey Laura Carmichael (who is 40). Many happy returns, all!]

Big hair and bagpipe solos would end the Cold War

You're the Voice by John Farnham, and other dangers of rediscovering 80s soft rock

Everyone loves Bonnie Tyler belting out Total Eclipse of the Heart, but Gen Z should be warned that 80s soft rock is not a safe space. These songs are why:

We Don’t Need Another Hero by Tina Turner, 1985
Archetypal soft rock thanks to its dated keyboards, catchy nonsensical hook and being a blockbuster movie tie-in. Tina Turner was in the film, so knew full well their overriding message was that until society is rebuilt you absolutely do need heroes or you’ll be cruelly slaughtered by bastards like Lord Humungus.

You’re the Voice by John Farnham, 1986
‘We’re all someone’s daughter, we’re all someone’s son. How long can we look at each other, down the barrel of a gun?’ sings John, in the typically impassioned plea for peace which made up around 40 per cent of all soft rock lyrics. It was generally accepted that big hair and bagpipe solos would end the Cold War. And eventually, David Hasselhoff did.

We Built This City by Starship, 1985
Musically it’s got every 80s cliché: synth stabs, power chords, boring anthemic chorus. While taking generic lyrics to a new level with pseudo-meaningful bollocks about ‘corporation games’ and the assertion that rock and roll builds cities, which it doesn’t. San Francisco, referenced in the song, was built on maritime trade and the financial sector.

Glory of Love by Peter Cetera, 1986
Pete pours his heart into it but the song is inextricably linked to The Karate Kid Part II, which is largely about a white boy travelling to Japan to kick ass. Colonialism and white American kids beating the natives at their own game are no longer considered the uplifting themes for a movie they once were.

Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, 1984
You’re torn between liking the tune and hating everything else: the pompous piano intro, the teenage poetry lyrics, a deeply misjudged video about a baby growing into a middle-aged father and passing on his teddy bear. And singer Kevin Cronin’s 1980s mullet is something to behold. It looks as if he’s wearing an Ewok on his head.

Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, 1982
Weapons-grade cheese, with its highly effective riff and lyrics entirely composed of guff about tigers, being ‘back on the street’ and fighting being a rewarding experience. But went from the Rocky III soundtrack to ubiquity, used everywhere from real boxing matches to Dumb and Dumberer, so the vicarious macho excitement is gone and you may as well be putting on The Smiths.

The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News, 1985
Huey and the guys really perfected the art of utterly bland pop rock no-one can object to, the musical equivalent of comfortable socks. However it was written specifically for Back to the Future and since Marty’s girlfriend isn’t in most of the film it should really be called The Power of Your Mum Fancying You. Which today’s porn-addled kids are probably into.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Of ancient bones (in and out of drag), cat Viagra versus pests, a Hollywood horse, witches' marks and Totty of the Day

RIP, Gilda Love, Spain's centenarian drag queen [Read more]
[click any pic to embiggen]

It's another snippets post, dear reader...

• Would you rather be attacked by mozzies - or cats? news: Scientists have discovered that an extract of common catnip - aka feline Viagra, that sends cats into ecstasy - is as effective at repelling mosquitoes as more expensive products, such as DEET. Remind me to seek some out for our trip to Amsterdam in August, and to avoid the oversexed toms. [Not!]

• My kingdom for a..? news: A massive Trojan Horse has materialised overnight in Trafalgar Square to mark the launch of Christopher Nolan's latest film The Odyssey. Money talks, it seems.
• I'm not a witch! I'm not a witch! news: A professor of architectural history in her new book has debunked the idea that etched patterns on the stones in medieval buildings are anything more than the mark of the mason(s) or apprentice(s). Not “witches’ marks” or “ritual protection symbols” at all! But does she weigh the same as a duck?

• Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones news: A fossilised skeleton of a 67 million-year-old 12-foot tall Tyrannosaurus rex has been sold for a record £37.4m ($50.1m) at a Sotheby's auction in New York. Where the fuck would you keep a thing like that? On your front lawn?
• And finally: The England football team's star striker during this World Cup has emerged as 23-year-old Jude Bellingham.

  Discuss:

And the weather? Still warm, but the ongoing breezes are taking the edge off. What I call a good summer!

---

FOOTNOTE:

So Monday's post finally showed up in the Blogger Reading List - THIRTY-FOUR HOURS after it was posted!

What a bunch of wankers the Google gnomes are.

Mein Gott!

Oh, no! Monday again.

Never mind, eh? A little trawl through the archives here at Dolores Delargo Towers has turned up the perfect wake-up choon for this Tacky Music Monday - from Czechoslovakia's finest export, the late, great Karel Gott (whose birthday it would have been tomorrow), and his safety gays and girls!

Karel Gott - Lady Karneval

Inexplicable, but fun.

Have a good week, dear reader.

---

STOP PRESS:

Here we go again...

I posted this at 7.46am. It is now 21.40pm. Still no sign of it in the Reading List!

The Google gnomes are bastards.

The Final Frontier?

As I turn once again, on this warm Sunday, to seek some suitably "cool" music from our house band - I was hardly prepared for this extravaganza:

Postmodern Jukebox ft. Demi Remick - 2001: A Tap Odyssey [Sci-Fi Theme Music Tap Dance Medley]

Featuring themes from:

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind 0:00
• Doctor Who 0:38
• Battlestar Galactica 1:06
• The X Files 1:26
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1:57
• Star Wars 2:38
• 2001: A Space Odyssey 3:10
• Star Trek: The Original Series 4:10
• Star Trek: The Next Generation 5:11

Possibly one of the most bizarre things I've seen from PMJ!

Postmodern Jukebox is on tour again in 2026 [when are they ever not?!], but not "crossing the pond" this time around, it seems...

Hole, again

Agapanthus “BlackJack” [RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year in 2023] absolutely loves the heat!

Another hot day here in London (29C/84F), albeit not as hot as we've had it - and John-John and I are meeting later to attend our former colleague Claire (Mrs R)'s 50th birthday party tonight at the very swanky Lillie's rooftop wine bar, which looks like it could be the perfect venue for a summer's evening...

Meanwhile, there's a running joke between John-John and Claire, as his nick-name for her is "Atomic Mutton", a pun on her sort-of-resemblance to one of this lot, I presume:

Atomic Kitten - Whole Again

Happy birthday, Mrs R!

[Attentive readers will recall I did post this song last year - but in a different version, before they sacked original member Kerry Katona - and wrote of my perennial association of the choon with memories of Gay Pride in 2001 and singing along to it as "You can fill my hole again"!]

These slippery people help us understand

As the UK continues to swelter, with no significant drop in temperatures in sight, let's give thanks for the impending weekend when at least we can get out-and-about rather than be chained to a desk for hours...

There are few good reasons to celebrate, too. I have an actual party to go to tomorrow, as one of the people John-John and I used to work with a few years ago in Scope, Claire turns 50 years old and has booked out a swanky new rooftop cocktail bar in Olympia, West London for the occasion!

It also happens to be the birthday today of the very lovely Mavis Staples, last survivor of her family's classic 1970s gospel-soul-funk group The Staple Singers. And whoever knew that they covered a Talking Heads number?!

It's brilliant - Thank Disco It's Friday!

The Staple Singers - Slippery People

Have a faboo weekend, dear reader!

---

FOOTNOTE:

British Wimbledon hopeful Arthur Fery is primed and ready for action, it would appear...

It's a Heartache

"I wanted to be a singer, not a star. There's a difference between wanting to be famous and wanting to sing well. I have never gone out of fashion. And do you know why? Because I never sought it. When you don't seek it, it's always with you."

We here at Dolores Delargo Towers are distraught at the sad news that Swansea's finest export Miss Bonnie Tyler has donned her last pair of leather trousers and departed for the great pyrotechnics-dry-ice-and-wind-machine-equipped stadium in Fabulon.

We adored her for her down-to-earth, no-nonsense personality, her bounce-backs and - of course - her vocal talents. She's gone far too soon...

Facts about Our Bonnie:

• Her uniquely husky singing voice was apparently the result of an operation to remove vocal nodules in the mid-1970s.
• From working in a local shop, the then Gaynor Hopkins won a local talent contest in 1969 and launched herself as a singer under the name "Sherene Davis".
• Finally, her big break came in 1975 when a talent scout spotted her, brought her to London to secure a record deal, and suggested she ditch "Sherene"; so Bonnie Tyler was born.
• Through her husband, property developer Robert Sullivan, she was related to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones and attended her wedding to Michael Douglas.
• In the 1970s and 80s, she became one of the best-selling artists in the world, with a string of million-selling singles.

Speaking of hits, here are two of her early ones, before she ever met Jim Steinman:

Bonnie Tyler - It's a Heartache

Bonnie Tyler - Lost in France

Regarding the "Steinman years", I posted their collaboration Holding Out for a Hero back in May [when the news first hit that Bonnie was in a coma], so how about this, that rarely gets an outing, despite its outrageously camp video:

Bonnie Tyler - Faster Than the Speed of Night

No tribute on this sad day would be complete, of course, without this song. No, not the original, but the hilarious "literal interpretation" video of her campest ever single - Total Eclipse of the Heart!

Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart (literal video version)

RIP, Bonnie Tyler (born Gaynor Hopkins, 8th June 1951 - 8th July 2026).

Nuovi brani!

Another week, another heatwave here in London! I think, to take our minds off it, we should have a little selection of some of the "newer" tracks that have caught my ear of late - before I disappear like Margaret Hamilton - don't you?

First up - the "Summer of Madonna" [see also here] really kicks off with this one!

Madonna & Sabrina Carpenter - Bring Your Love

Speaking of "icons" [and conveniently getting in first, before Queen Madge releases her own track of the same name from Confessions II as a single] - the very final album from Soft Cell, in part a tribute to [tomorrow's birthday boy] Marc Almond's co-star Dave Ball who died last year, will be released on 25th September - and from it, the title track:

Soft Cell - Danceteria

Madonna's mantra is "on the dancefloor I feel so free", and this trancey choon - that made me sit up and take notice when I heard it on the radio recently - fits the bill perfectly:

Skaiisblue - It's A Beautiful Thing

Twisting the genres of "dance" and "rock" as he is wont to do (brilliantly), here's another of Mr Bill McClintock's crazy mashups!

Huey Lewis and the Trammps - The Power of Disco [McClintock mashup]

Taking one of the catchiest of Eurodance hooks [see here for the original] and making it his own, the lovely Mr Lambert's latest is rather fab:

Adam Lambert - Under the Rhythm

However, saving the best to last - this simply faboo number, for which Signor Bambino has recruited a Disco legend and one of our favourite pop princesses! Ever since I first heard it, it's been gnawing at me what song(s) it reminds me of...

Disco Bambino & Nile Rodgers feat. Sophie Ellis Bextor - Dancing Without You

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

Blank faces and barely perceptible nods

The boss of a company has informed staff of his intention to do an endurance challenge and received no follow-up questions from anyone.

When chief operating officer Nathan Muir, aged 49, asked for a moment of his staff’s time he expected cheers, awe and promises of vast sums but instead got carefully blank faces and barely perceptible nods.

He said: “I’d been building up to the moment I announced I was doing the Swansea Bay Ironman Triathlon next year, so convened a special lunchtime meeting.

“But the big reveal got me nothing. I can’t understand why. It wasn’t from any lack of enthusiasm on my part, or the quality of the PowerPoint and spiral-bound brochures.

“I outlined the course: a mile swim, then biking out through Mumbles into the hills of the Gower peninsula, then a final 13.1k loop along the bay. I invited them along to spectate, but they were staring at their shoes and checking their phones. This is 70.2 kilometres! It is a big deal!”

Team leader Oliver O’Connor said: “So that’s a year of training, boring on about his hydration levels and telling the girls to prod his calves, frequent absences we’ll have to cover and he’s asking us to pay him £50 each.

“Sorry, it’s for charity. Though he didn’t mention which one, presumably because that’s beside the fucking point.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

I'd shout Hooray!

Aaaaaaarrrrgh!

After one of the loveliest of Pride weekends, the reverie is over - and reality kicks in again. sigh...

Never mind, eh?

On this Tacky Music Monday, we have some outrageous puppets to comfort us, as only they know how:

Have a good week, dear reader.

Proud Pinkness!

We had an utterly fantabulosa time at Pride in London yesterday!

Having decided that in the absence of our old "home base" The Shaston Arms [formerly Our Sal's pub - RIP], our somewhat depleted gang [neither Sal nor Lou could make it, and others had alternative plans for what they were doing for Pride] we would meet up in The Kings Head pub in Mayfair close to our favoured spot on Piccadilly near the Burlington Arcade, we had a comfortable few snifters before assuming positions.

As ever, our completely OTT outfits outshone just about anything on the parade/march itself! And so it was, as always, that we had more of the corporate-branded t-shirt-wearing participants taking photos of us than we took of them. It's a shadow of its former self, more's the pity, nowadays. So many boring t-shirts and so few creative costumes.

Speaking of the parade...

Pride 2026 - Gay Bikers

Pride 2026 - Pride Flag

Pride 2026 - adulation

Pride 2026 - Military

Pride 2026 - Peter Tatchell

...and - we made it into The Guardian!

We and more than a million people thoroughly enoyed it!

Roll on next Gay Xmas...

Let the fun begin

By the time you see this, dear reader, we should be in a taxi - on our way to assume our positions, centre stage, for this year's Gay Xmas festivities!

Only one more thing to play now - as always, it's our traditional anthem:

Josh Young - Bring On The Men [Broadway Backwards]

Happy Gay Pride, dear reader! Don't do anything I wouldn't do [which isn't a lot, to be honest]...

P-A-S-S-I-O-N

Happy Gay Xmas Eve, folks! The "Big Weekend" is almost here, the Essex Boys will be heading to stay over at ours tonight (probably including a dress rehearsal), and the excitement is mounting...

To begin the festivities, how about a song from that poppers-dominated dancefloor era, the 1980s - when I first emerged onto the gay scene in an explosion of pink fairy-dust and started shagging my way through South Wales - in the company of everyone's fave "Red Light District scrubbers", the Flirts?! Thank Disco Hi-NRG It's Friday!

The Flirts - Passion

Happy Pride Weekend, dear reader!

RIP-ping Yarns

RIP The Duke of York's Theatre, soon to be renamed the Tom Stoppard Theatre after the great playwright

It's another snippets post today, dear reader:

• RIP: the Halifax Building Society, as its parent Lloyds Banking Group announced it plans to scrap the 173-year-old brand, and either rename its branches as Lloyds or else merge standalone outlets into one. Shame.
• RIP: The World Tonight, one of my favourite news programmes on BBC Radio 4 at 10pm every weekday - which is being axed (after 56 years!) as part of sweeping cuts by Auntie's new Director General Matt Brittin, to be replaced by Newshour, currently only available on the World Service. Why not the other way around, I say? Let "Johnny Foreigner" listen to the kind of quality journalism that has made TWT the yardstick by which other news outlets should be judged, and is aimed at a British audience! Hint to Mr Brittin: "British" is in the name of your organisation, in case you didn't notice when you arrived in post fresh from fucking Google...
• RIP: Humphrey Smith, patriarch of the Sam Smith brewery and pub chain - who ran the organisation in an eccentric, borderline draconian manner. No music, no TV, no dogs, no kids, no mobile phones, no swearing, coal fires, lots of dark wood, only "own-brand" drinks on sale - all this, and more, made any Sam Smith pub instantly recognisable. However, by all accounts, working for the man must have been a nightmare - he lost several tribunals on the grounds of unfair dismissal; he would often pay a visit to one of his many pubs and if he experienced anything not to his satisfaction, close it down then-and-there, with the result that his estate has many pubs that remain shuttered today. Let's see what happens to all this "Victorian values" stuff now Yorkshire's answer to "Mr Burns" is dead.

• And, finally, RIP: Victor Willis, founder-member, lead singer and songwriter of The Village People, who has strutted off to the glitter-ball strewn eternal discotheques of Fabulon, just ahead of our own Gay Xmas (Gay Pride) in London this weekend. He made his name as part of an iconic camp band, yet he was such a paranoid weirdo that - regardless of the group's obvious references to 1970s gay stereotypes/Tom of Finland erotic fantasies, despite their name being a tribute to the then gay heartland of New York Greenwich Village where the recruitment of the band took place, despite the flamboyant gayness of their performances, despite the innuendo-filled song titles such as Cruisin’, Macho Man and so on - he threatened legal action against any media outlet that dared to call his and the group's biggest hit Y.M.C.A. a "gay anthem"! He even allowed that Tangerine Twat in the White House to shake his wizened senile carcass to the song at his rallies. Mr Willis, you were responsible for some memorable choons, but let's face it - nobody in the world could ever think any of your songs were actually about "straight black male solidarity" at all. I rest my case with this:

Village People - In the Navy

And the weather? Proper summer sunshine. I love it.

The True North strong and free

A Mountie always gets his man, they say!

Happy Canada Day to our chums across the water! And congratulations, too - the news has broken that at last, Deadpool has got his wish. Canada (joining fellow former colony Australia) will be entering the Eurovision Song Contest next year!

To celebrate this important occasion, I couldn't resist posting this again:

Kevin "Bloody" Wilson - You Can't Say Cunt in Canada

Mistress MJ will be breaking that rule as we speak...

Just to get away from the fucking kids

The Princess of Wales has announced that if she has to climb three peaks in 24 hours just to get away from the fucking kids, that is what she will do.

Kate completed the challenge of summiting the three highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales and described not being whined at by her children or husband for a whole day as the ‘most fulfilling experience of her life.’

The 44-year-old said: “It’s settled. I’m a climber now. They can’t get me up here.

“I considered a marathon, but Wills said they’d be there to cheer me on every step of the way so I immediately decided ‘fuck that’.

“Instead, in the name of charity or some shit, I shall be climbing every mountain in Scotland exceeding 3,000ft in height. Where I will encounter only taciturn men swathed in Gore-Tex also up here to avoid their families.

“God, the peace of standing on that peak, gazing at the horizon, thinking ‘Even if Louis wanted a biscuit or my husband wanted to bitch about his brother, it would be nine hours before they could get up here to tell me.’ It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”

Prince William said: “Wouldn’t it be nice to all surprise Mummy in a helicopter?”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

[The "real" story]

J'ai plus d'appétit qu'un Barracuda

Sigh. Here we are again.

The heatwave having subsided, this would be a perfect day to potter in the garden. Unfortunately, back to the office we go...

Never mind, eh? To save ourselves from screaming, let's fix our minds on the fact that there's only this week to go, then it's Gay Xmas!

Meanwhile, on this Tacky Music Monday let's join "France's premier electrician" and his cheesy dancers in a morning exercise routine:

Claude François - Alexandrie Alexandra

I feel better already.

Have a good week, dear reader!

Dwie lewe nogi, ale oh, tak zgrabny ma Sweet Georgia Brown

Alongside a cornucopia of "names" including John Inman, Richard Rodgers, Peter Paul Rubens, Gilda Radner, King Henry VIII, Kathy Bates, John Wesley, A. A. Gill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sir Harold Evans, Willy Whitelaw and - erm - Elon Musk...

...it's the one-hundredth birthday today of the peerless Mel Brooks!

Always one of my favourite film-makers way back to when I was a child, his Blazing Saddles, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie and History of the World: Part I remain among my most cherished films, and I particularly adored his classic entourage of regular actors (Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLouise, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman among them).

He also has an unerring eye for camp - I suppose being married to Anne Bancroft for all those years must have helped!

Speaking of camp...

Madeline Kahn as "Empress Nympho" [History of the World: Part I]

[and again:]

Mel Brooks in "Inquisition - the musical" [History of the World: Part I]

"The French Mistake" [Blazing Saddles]

Men in Tights

"Puttin' on the Ritz" [Young Frankenstein]

Madeline Kahn as "Lili Von Shtupp" - I'm Tired [Blazing Saddles (1974)]

Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft - Sweet Georgia Brown IN POLISH

All hail, Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky, 28th June 1926)!

"I've been to the year 3000. Not much has changed" *

click to embiggen

Spot what’s hidden in the picture?

This!

Yes - our little Robin, despite searing temperatures and rapidly dying foliage around her [because we don't want to water the wall pot of fuchsia while she's in there] is still carefully hiding behind the twigs and nursing her clutch of eggs, opposite our back door. It won't be long now till the chicks arrive [fingers crossed]!

Meanwhile, as we have just got through the last full day of this heatwave, according to the Met Office - a day that has been mainly overcast and incredibly humid, and exhausting - we need some respite, courtesy of the wondrous folks at Soft Tempo Lounge. I have seen the future, and it involves lots of plastic, lots of very unrealistic special effects, and lots of pouting!

Soft Tempo Lounge - Lounge 3000

Faboo, as always.

[Music: The Atlanta Disco Band - It's Love; Original film series: Star Maidens (1976)]

[* and the title of this blog? This.]

---

STOP PRESS. 12.30pm:

Here we go again...

Neither this post from last night, nor my tribute post to Ann Blyth from Friday, have shown up the the Blogger Reading List! The Google gnomes need another kick up the arse.

Feel the heat and let it flow

It's the end of another week, dear reader, and heavens! It's been a hot-and-sticky one...

The heatwave continues today, with an extension of the "red alert, only travel if necessary" message from government - but, to be honest, I haven't seen a huge difference in the number of people commuting, or just travelling, through it all in spite of all the dire warnings. We Brits are more resilient than the tabloids (and our "lords-and-masters" in Parliament)  like to think we are, evidently!

As we sweat our way to the weekend, I'm enjoying this little run of "compare-the-decade" posts [here's 1976, and yesterday it was 1986] - so let's leap one more decade to 1996!

This week in June thirty years ago, there wasn't anything more than "average temperatures for the time of year", so nothing comparable at all to today. There was (yet again), however, a load of football shite preoccupying the masses, with the European Cup.

This might explain the fact that among other horrible occupants cluttering our charts [such as the godawful Fugees' massacre of Killing Me Softly at #1, Slime Dion, Mariah-fucking-Carey and Peter Andre] there were two "anthems" to that sport [including the first appearance of Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds] also "bed-blocking" the higher echelons.

Thank heavens, therefore, for this, which held its own for weeks amongst the detritus, and demonstrated that the 90s was, more than anything else, the Decade of Dance!

Thank Disco Eurodance It's Friday!

Livin' Joy - Don't Stop Movin'

You can do anything that you want to do
With your mind body and soul
Do it, prove it to yourself and say
I want (I want)
I will (I will)
I can do anything
It's a difficult world and you got to prove
That you're ready and you can do it
Nothing in this world can stop you
I know I can I will fulfil my dreams

Don't stop movin'
Keep it up
Keep on movin' get it right
Yeah you've got to get it right
Oh yeah oh
Don't stop movin'
I it's your life
Keep on movin' get it right
Yeah you've got to get it right

You can be mystical magical
Physically phenomenal
Good to go
Not slow
Feel the heat and let it flow

You've got to get it right

Have a fab weekend, peeps! Keep cool.

One last time might be forever

As this stifling heat continues [it hit 36.7C/98.1F in Somerset, and 33.5C/92F in London] - and having already taken a trip back to the "yardstick against which all heatwaves are compared", 1976 yesterday - I thought it would be interesting to compare what the summer was like a decade later, in 1986.

Although it's hardly gone down in the record books for its decent weather, it's interesting to note that forty years ago this week, we were indeed in the middle of a hot spell [albeit a shorter heatwave than we have now, with just three consecutive days over 30C/86F]. Also - in a spooky echo of today - in the news headlines was a war in Lebanon, a World Cup, Madonna, and a delusional right-wing US president destabilising the Middle East...

But what was at the top of our charts, I hear you ask?

This!

Wham! - The Edge of Heaven

The last ever single by Wham! before George officially went solo.

Four decades? Where do they go? Sniff.

Ooh ar ooh ar

It certainly has been a hot, hot, HOT day here in London [it hit 36C/96.8F (!) on the south coast - and was definitely not much cooler here] - and I spent three hours of it in a Teams meeting pod in work, with "air-con" that was about as effective as someone wafting a chiffon scarf in my general direction!

Hey ho. As always, any heatwave in the UK is immediately and inexorably compared our most famous one way back in 1976...

...so, simply because this song was indeed #1 in our charts this very week 50 years ago - and in honour of our very own Ms Scarlet, who loves it - let's all sing along to The Wurzels!

The Wurzels - Combine Harvester [Top Of The Pops, 1976]

I drove my tractor through your haystack last night
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
I threw me pitch fork at your dog to keep quiet
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
Now somethin's tellin' me, that you'm avoidin' me
(Ooh ar ooh ar)
Come on now darlin' you got somethin' I need

Cos I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together in perfect harmony
Oh I got twenty acres and you got forrty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

We'll have twins and triplets, I'm a man built for speed (Ooh ar ooh ar)
And you know I'll love ya darlin' so give me your hand (Ooh ar ooh ar)
But the thing I want the most is all the acres of land

'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now let's get together in perfect harmony
I got twenty acres and you got forty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Phwoar, she's a lovely bit of stuff 'n' all

For seven long years I've been alone in this place (Ooh ar ooh ar)
Pigs sleep in the kitchen, it's a proper disgrace (Ooh ar ooh ar)
Now if I cleaned it up would ya change our mind (Ooh ar ooh ar)
I'll give up drinkin' scrumpy and that lager and lime

'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Come on now, let's get together in perfect harmony
I got twenty acres and you got forty-three
Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Who loves ya baby, HA
Weren't we a grand couple at that last wurzel dance
I wore brand new gaiters and me corduroy pants (Hahahaha!)
In your new Sunday dress with your perfume smellin' grand
We had our photos taken, us holding hands

Now I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key
Now that we''re both past our fifties I think that you and me
Should stop this gallivanting and will you marry me
'Cause I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key

Arrr, you're a fine lookin' woman and I can't wait to get me hands on your land, haha!

Only in this country could something like that top the charts for two weeks and end up one of the best-selling songs of the year, in a year dominated by great stuff from Abba, Elton John & Kiki Dee, Queen, Rod Stewart, Miss Ross and Wings, and the year that also saw the simultaneous rise of Punk and Disco...

Your old pal Keir

Keir Starmer has performed one of his characteristic U-turns by walking back yesterday’s resignation, Downing Street has confirmed.

After thinking about it overnight, the prime minister has announced he is remaining in office and consequently that Andy Burnham can get on his little train and sod off back to Manchester.

He said: “If Starmerism is anything, it is making a hugely damaging announcement then changing your mind and ineffectively reversing it. Which is what I do here.

“Why would anyone be surprised? It’s what I did with winter fuel payments, the family farm tax, Mandelson. So I stand before you today to say I am resuming my position as prime minister.

“Your old pal Keir is going nowhere. I’m going to hunker down and weather the Makerfield win with my characteristic stubbornness. I may, in time, offer Burnham a junior Cabinet position and allow him to work his way up.

“You seem too stunned with excitement to speak. I’ve noted this reaction previously. I shall leave the room to reflect on my infallible political instincts but feel free to form a conga line in my absence.”

Voter Eleanor Shaw of Hereford said: “And we’ll do just as we did when he went back on those previous decisions, and ignore it.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

I like big muscles and red corpuscles

Yep! Monday again.

We are shaken out of our reverie by the realisation that the old familiar - and endlessly enjoyable - routine that is called work begins once more...

Hey ho.

To take our minds off it - it would have been the 105th birthday yesterday of one of our most revered of all Hollywood vamps, Miss Jane Russell, so on this Tacky Music Monday, let us indulge in some homoerotic fantasies alongside the great lady herself, shall we?

Jane Russell - Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love [Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953]

Have a good week, dear reader. Keep cool in the heatwave, if you can...

Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten.

We are less than two weeks away from "Gay Xmas" aka Gay Pride in London, and our outfits are all done and sorted. We can only hope that this new heatwave has subsided by then, otherwise we'll look less-than-glamorous, bathed in sweat...

Speaking of all things gay, we're well overdue another faboo classic film review by the lovely "Tired Old Queen at the Movies" Mr Steve Hayes - and when I saw his latest was one of the great British gay films of the 1980s [cf. Maurice, My Beautiful Laundrette], that coincided with my own coming-out, I whooped with joy! Some of the quotes alone are timeless:

Guy Bennett: "But you couldn't help it, could you? Because in your heart of hearts, like Barclay and Delahay and Fowler and Menzies, you still believe, in spite of your talk of equality and fraternity, you still believe some people are better than others because of the way they make love. Now, think of that for a lifetime. Think of the names: pansy, nancy, fairy, fruit, brown-nose."

Menzies: "You'd better take a pull on yourself, Guy!"
Guy Bennett: "I'd rather do it with you."

Fowler: "I have half a mind to ask Barclay for permission to beat you!"
Tommy Judd: "Well, you've half a mind. We can all agree on that."

Guy Bennett: "Fame or infamy, what does it matter? I shan't be forgotten."

Tired Old Queen at the Movies - Another Country 1984 Review

Wonderful...

Another Country is currently available to watch on YouTube - catch it while you can!