Sweet as candy

Among such luminaries as Bernadette Peters, Stephanie Beacham, Sir Stanley Baker, Vincente Minnelli, Harry H. Corbett, Cindy Wilson, Barry McGuigan, Ainsley Harriott, Robin Cook, Mike Figgis, Brian Jones, Sir Stephen Spender and the very lovely Tommy Tune...

...it would have been the 80th birthday today of the music-missed Syreeta Wright, one-time Mrs Stevie Wonder, and chart-topping duettist with Billy Preston. Of her hits, however, this is my favourite:

Syreeta - Your Kiss Is Sweet

Oh, for the days when a flame orange maxi-dress with medieval sleeves was in fashion...

Takes me to a brighter day

And so, farewell, another 1970s legend...

Mr Neil Sedaka, one of the most unlikely of pop stars - definitely no heartthrob - yet one of the most talented hitmakers of his generation, has tinkled his last ivories and joined a growing rosta of talent gracing "The Crooners' Stage" at the Fabulon Tiki Lounge.

His dominance of the music scene in the 50s, 60s and 70s was a phenomenon. As a songwriter (of the "Brill Building" school), he gave Captain & Tennille their signature tune Love Will Keep Us Together, he wrote Solitaire for The Carpenters (a hit here for Andy Williams), (Is This the Way to) Amarillo that was a huge hit for Tony Christie, Connie Francis's Stupid Cupid and her iconic "gay standard" Where the Boys Are, Eruption's One Way Ticket, and the English-language lyrics for Abba's first hit Ring Ring.

Among his own classic hits were Oh! Carol, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Calendar Girl...

...and these:

Neil Sedaka - That's When The Music Takes Me

Neil Sedaka - Laughter In The Rain

We had the great pleasure of seeing him hold the 40,000-strong crowd at Proms in the Park in the palm of his hand back in 2010, and enjoyed every moment.

He's a great loss.

RIP, Neil Sedaka (13th March 1939 – 27th February 2026)

I danced my blues away

Go, Joanie, go!

Almost there...

As a hopefully sunny weekend is looming ever closer, it's to time to plan the party to celebrate.

To get us in a suitable mood, let's kit ourselves out in the most outlandish matching purple suits with contrast piping, twirl along with The Trammps, and Thank Disco It's Friday!

The Trammps - That's Where The Happy People Go

Have a good one, dear reader.

Of manners, a national treasure, academia, fossil teeth, phallic bread, ingenious money-saving and Murder, He Says

RIP, Drusilla Beyfus, journalist and doyenne of etiquette writing, who has departed for Fabulon (to educate its denizens on using a fish knife and how to properly address Royalty, no doubt), a few days short of her 99th birthday.

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Icon news: "Auntie Beeb" is planning a series of programmes to mark the centenary in May 2026 of that most beloved of all national treasures Sir David Attenborough. No more than he deserves, I say!
• Academic milestone news: London’s first and largest university, University College London (UCL) has launched a year-long celebration for its 200th anniversary, including a landmark exhibition Two Centuries Here.

• Primeval grin news: Speaking of old fossils, a pebble that looks like a pair of horrific ancient false teeth, discovered by a beachcomber in Northumbria, turned out to be parts of a 350-million-year-old crinoid (a relative of modern sea urchins). So, not a Ken Dodd tribute, after all.
• Assessing the quality of phallic objects news: Six lucky Parisians are getting the chance - in a random ballot - to join the jury of the Grand Prix de la baguette 2026, the annual competition to award the prize of "best baguette in Paris" (and the winner gets to supply their produce to the Elysee Palace for the year)! I judged quite a few "baguettes" when I first went to Paris back in the 1990s, and none were found wanting...
• Beat the system news: In a clever move, a Ryanair passenger from Cardiff refused to stump up the airline's extortionate £30 fee for a second cabin bag on an internal flight from Bristol to Glasgow, so instead she packaged up a month's worth of clothing into a bag and used the InPost courier service, which collects from a locker and deposits it at another at the destination city, which cost her the grand total of £2.59! I imagine she spent the £27.41 she saved in a Glaswegian Wetherspoons, by way of a celebration. I would.
• And finally: Sharing the day with the likes of Fanny Cradock, Fats Domino, Sandie Shaw, Margaret Leighton, Johnny Cash, Erykah Badu, Tex Avery, Josephine Tewson, Corinne Bailey Rae, Max Martin, Emma Kirkby, Jackie Gleason, Tony Randall and Michael-bloody-Bolton, it would have been the 105th anniversary today of the birth of the magnificent Miss Betty Hutton! All hail.

Betty Hutton - Murder, He Says

And the weather? After yesterday's gloriously Spring-like sunny day, today has been grey and breezy - but there's more sun yet to come, according to the forecast...

Nobody cares how you wear your hair, darling!

Sad news reaches us today...

Sir Monti Rock III - surely the campest vocalist of his, if not every generation - has twirled his last twirl, boogied his last boogie and, in a puff of dry ice, ascended the glitterball-strewn stairway to Fabulon.

His career began as a celebrity hairdresser, but his flamboyant clothes and personality led him to become something of a fixture on the TV chat show circuit. Famously, he once accused none other than Liberace of "stealing his look"!

By 1974, the music style known as "Disco" had begun to erupt, and Sir Monti Rock III burst upon the dance scene with a new group - Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes! Their first single, Get Dancin', never failed to fill the dance floor in New York clubs, and their appearances at Trude Heller's and Le Jardin nightclubs were always sure to sell out. The song was written by Kenny Nolan and Bob Crewe (who wrote loads of hits for the Four Seasons). Backing vocals, for a time, were by Jocelyn Brown. Needless to say, he was head-hunted for a cameo appearance as the club DJ in the film Saturday Night Fever, and his legend continued - Get Dancin' was featured in The Simpsons, and Disco Tex and his Sex-O-Lettes were name-checked in Elvis Costello's song Invasion Hit Parade and prominently in the Pet Shop Boys' 1996 hit Electricity.

Here is the classic for which he will forever be so fondly remembered - the song that launched campery of a most glittering kind upon an unsuspecting, and grateful, public in that dismal recession-hit mid-70s era:

Disco Tex and the Sexolettes - Get Dancin'

To quote Sir Monti's "ad-libs" in that song:

America needs you!
We need you to go dance!
We need you to get together, and boogie woogie woogie woogie!
RADAR LOVE IS HERE! THE STAR OF STARS!
THIS IS YOUR NIGHT! THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

No matter how pretty you are,
Nobody cares how you wear your hair, darling!
Just keep doing it!
Do it, baby

You can't think of all the wrong
All the wrong of the world.
You can't think of all the bad things you do.
You just get out.
Get dancing!

And you can't say fairer than that.

By way of a very special bonus, here is the grande dame's very own Coronation - as King and Queen of Las Vegas - in 2010:

Monti Rock's Coronation

There'll never be another.

RIP, darling!

Sir Monti Rock III (born Joseph Montanez Jr., 29th May 1939 – 23rd February 2026)

Overkill

Our culture is full of wonderful creations the public once had great affection for who have been overused to the point we now hate them. All these need to piss off:

Paddington Bear
Once a beloved icon of children’s literature, revived in two magical films, but there’s no coming back after you’ve sold out to have afternoon tea with the Queen. The last film was crap and his plastic replicas on town centre benches are regularly pissed on by students. Post-Baftas, he should be banished to Cyprus in cultural exile like Kevin Spacey.

Harry Potter
The books were enjoyable when you were a kid and didn’t know any better. The films were decent before you learned about acting and that Daniel Radcliffe couldn’t. The Fantastic Beasts films and JK Rowling’s transphobia gave everyone an excuse to walk away forever. It would be irresponsible not to take advantage of it.

Doctor Who
Sixty-odd years is a good innings for a TV show. It gave audiences bangers like Genesis of the Daleks and Blink, but it subjected them to the Colin Baker era, an EastEnders crossover and Russell T Davies’s reimagining of the whole of time and space as subservient to the ideals of woke. Let it die. Maybe come up with something new instead?

Peter Rabbit
Not quite as overused as the others – mercifully, we’ve yet to see the announcement of a shared Beatrix Potter cinematic universe – but what was once a mischievous rabbit became an ASBO arsehole tarnished with the vocal talents of James Corden. Plus he’s anti-farmer so his next appearance will be death by shotgun live on Clarkson’s Farm.

James Bond
They can’t find an actor because the whole concept is anachronistic bollocks. All Bond films are good for is a theme song and padding out the ITV2 schedule on a Bank Holiday weekend. Even in the world of 007 everyone was so tired of him they killed him off.

The Royals
Tolerable when the Queen was still around, like everyone had a gran they’d briefly pay attention to at Christmas if they couldn’t find the remote. But she’s gone, Andrew’s misdeeds have not coincidentally now come to light, it’s time to declare the whole sorry farce over. Kate can stay on as the nation’s Head Girl if she wants.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Magnificent Organ Monday

Oh, sweet mystery of life... Why is it that just when you've started to wind-down and could do with just that little bit extra "R&R", the bloody alarm goes off, and it's back to the grind once more?!

Hey ho. Here we are again. However, on this Tacky Music Monday, I have something particularly splendid to serve as our wake-up call - what better than a whole array of "Victory Roll" hairstyles, cheesy grins and, best of all, the wonderfully stylish Ethel Smith, expertly fingering a big organ?

That'll do nicely...

Ethel Smith and her Hammond organ - Tico Tico [From the film Bathing Beauty (1944)]

Have a good week, dear reader.

Life would be much better

Our gorgeous Iris reticulata “Alida” is the star of the moment.

I've had a busy, productive weekend for a change!

I finally got around to rearranging all the "picture walls" in order to accommodate a number of new treasures I've purchased lately and had framed. As you will no doubt be aware, dear reader, I am an avid collector of autographs. We already had such icons as Eartha Kitt, Rita Moreno, Joan Rivers, Marc Almond, Kylie Minogue, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Collins, Tyne Daly, Bea Arthur, Dame Angela Lansbury and many more on our walls. Recent acquisitions including Dame Shirley Bassey, Liza Minnelli, Dame Judi Dench, Hermione Gingold, Beryl Reid and Hinge and Brackett and more needed space of their own to shine, so began the "Tetris" operation. It's now completed, thank heavens! [For the moment; there's more waiting to be framed yet]

Speaking of "Tetris", the other job that needed to be dealt with was the rearrangement of pots from their temporary places onto the shelving in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers [that the Madam scrubbed-down on his last day off, just in time for a week of pissing rain]. It was - for a change - a sunny, relatively warm day here in London today, so I tackled that job, too! We now have a full "Spring collection" on display [photos pending...]!

Whew.

By way of a come-down after all that activity, how about a little something from our "house band"? [Although all that leaping about by "Mr Tambourine Man" is hardly relaxing...]

Postmodern Jukebox ft. Tara Louise - Bye Bye Bye (60s "Pulp Fiction" Surf Rock Style *NSYNC cover)

Thank heavens for Postmodern Jukebox!

Of Oedipus in Kent, trans lives, the dyke of desire, a giraffe and a Tutu

It was a dark and stormy night on Wednesday - it was pissing-down - but despite the weather I, and a handful of stalwarts including Our Paul, Emma, Toby, Simon and chums, made our way to the cavernous surroundings of the legendary Heaven nightclub under Charing Cross... for the very welcome return of "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari to its home city, after too long away!

With our "hostess-with-the-mostest" Mr Paul Burston presiding, we were in for another treat in store, with another selection of class acts:

Jake Arnott, Alice Denny, VG Lee, John McCullough

First up, Mr Jake Arnott, one of the UK's most successful crime writers - among his works are The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers, both adapted into much-lauded television serials. In his customary style, acting the roles of the characters, Mr Arnott read for us a dramatic segment of his new novel Blood Rival - heavily based around the multiple historic Greek stories of Oedipus - in which the anti-hero Eddie Pierce has "inherited the crown" (and wife) of the previous Kentish gangster kingpin Lee Royle, who was murdered in an apparent road-rage incident. During their efforts to uncover the secrets and lies left behind by his death, Eddie confesses that as a teen he had been raped by Royle - yet still loved him, nonetheless; and it was this desperate desire that drove his ambition to live up to, and eventually take over the "throne".

Mesmerising stuff!

Jake Arnott - Blood Rival

Next was Alice Denny – a Brighton-based performance poet and judge for the Polari Prize 2026 - who read for us some of her pieces, tackling gender, love, loss, sexuality, marginalisation and injustice. Quite downbeat, but heartfelt.

Although it seemed that Paul B was hesitant to offer us a break, I think we needed it. A pee, a fag, a top-up and some mingling - and it was time for part two...

...opening with the faboo John McCullough, another stalwart - he won The Polari First Book Prize 2012 - reading selection of quirky, often quite amusing poems from his new collection Crowd Voltage. Like this one:

You're working-class my lad,
don't you forget it, said Mum.
She was talking to a giraffe,
a lanky boy prone to ideas
above his station, soft ways
of slipping skyward.
I loved being a giraffe,
a vegetarian in fairyland,
the staircase of my neck
leading nowhere sharp.
I loved not being a lion
even though that meant
being hunted, carnivores slashing
at me till I galloped away.
I loved withdrawing to invisible
acacias - cathedrals of leaves
where my elastic tongue,
licked what it liked.
Because I loved discovering
other giraffes, entwining
bodies and probing necks
or simply standing together
as a crowd, a forest
of extravagant breathing.

We love him!

Our final reader was the lovely Polari stalwart VG Lee, everybody's favourite "Provincial Lesbian"! She read for us a segment from her forthcoming new novel Our Shadow Selves her short story The Last Gold Star Lesbian, focusing in on the experience of a lesbian of a certain age, whose life is drifting along in a shabby seaside town, and the frisson that she experiences when a long-distant butch "crush" of hers swans back into town - and she finally gets the attention she deserves!

There is no footage of the actual passage VG read for us, but here she is in full form, a few years ago:

VG Lee on the Polari tour, 2015

Then, by way of an encore, we had a faboo live set from the effervescent Son of a Tutu!

Son of a Tutu - And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

Despite the somewhat smaller then usual audience (I blame the rain), all concerned got a well-deserved ovation:

We love Polari!

Milestones...

It was the - gulp! - 80th birthday yesterday of one of our fave actresses here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Miss Brenda Blethyn, star of Vera, Little Voice, Pride & Prejudice and the magnificent Secrets and Lies:

Secrets & Lies trailer

Today, sharing the date with another varied selection of "names", including Nina Simone, Rue McClanahan, W. H. Auden, Alan Rickman, Léo Delibes, Sam Peckinpah, Kelsey Grammer, William Baldwin, Anaïs Nin, Douglas Bader, Anthony Daniels ("C-3PO"), Charlotte Church (who is 40), David Geffen, Andrés Segovia, Ranking Roger of The Beat, Jean-Jacques Burnel of The Stranglers, Christopher Atkins, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers, Mark McManus (Taggart), and - erm - Robert Mugabe...

...it's the turn of another favourite actress (and friend-of-the-gays) to blow out [gulp, again] 80 candles on her cake - the multi-talented Tyne Daly, star of everything from Cagney and Lacey to Terrence McNally's Master Class [which we saw back in 2012]; she has won six Grammys, two Tonys, a Golden Globe, and has been inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Here, the lady sings a number that could well be my "theme song":

Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris - Nice

I hate nice
I hate lies
It's befriending a bitch you despise
When you just want to punch her

Indeed.

Hey now, baby, what you waiting for?

After what has felt like one of the longest weeks of my life [yes - know I say that every time I go back to work after a holiday!😉], I think we need a bit of a party to celebrate nearing the end of it...

Here's a - ahem - seductive, funky little number, courtesy of the - ahem - super-stud Mr Jimmy Bo Horne that could fit the bill nicely.

[I imagine that in his mind, an overweight singer of a certain age crammed into a ridiculous jumpsuit and sweating buckets is just what will get those under-rehearsed backing dancers to swoon at his feet. That, or the smell of B.O.]

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Jimmy Bo Horne - Let Me (Be Your Lover)

Have a great weekend, dear reader!

What an occasion!

Nobody does pageantry better than Britain. But there’s one bit of pomp and ceremony we’ve not indulged in for a while, and it would draw one hell of a crowd.

We’ve had Jubilees. We’ve had the funeral. We’ve had the coronation. And never has the public needed renewing its faith in the innate marvellousness of the Royals so much as now.

Imagine it. The hushed tones of Clive Myrie, commenting: "I think we’re seeing some movement and yes, there he is, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has stepped onto the scaffold! Such a roar from the crowd.

"There he is, in a traditional knitted silk vest, and he’s approaching the executioner’s block. The executioner who normally works in a slaughterhouse in Ayrshire and told us earlier how honoured he is to play his part in this none more historic occasion.

"Raising his axe high and - yes - the head is off! A beautifully clean blow. We’ll see that again in slo-mo, but let’s just zoom in on the basket and oh, just look at his expression. Makes it all worthwhile."

What an occasion! Crowds waving Union Jacks lining the streets to see the tumbril cart pass by. Andrew gamely smiling. The King himself turning down one final request for clemency. Kate, resplendent in a crimson Alessandra Rich coat dress.

The Americans would love it. They’d be block-booking London hotels. The other so-called crowned heads of Europe? As ever, we’d be setting them an example. Got the balls to execute your princess’s errant son, Norway? We have.

And of course, as on those other great occasions, the British public would respond enthusiastically to being given a day off. We’d be buying plates and mugs commemorating the moment while getting legless in our millions.

It’s what Andrew deserves and what the country needs. Diana cheated us out of our chance in the 90s; let’s not miss it again. Come on Charlie. We’ve had a Royal Knockout, now give us a Royal Execution!

The Daily Mash

Of course.

[The "real" story]

Of daffs, a missing penis, melting-down, Byron rescued, a smashing time at the airport, cats vs octopus and the hit-maker

Do you have a "Sussex Beacon" in your garden? The RHS needs help to map the UK’s daffodils as part of its new ‘Daffodil Diaries’ project, and to find varieties that are thought to be lost.

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• "Penisgate" news: Italy’s state broadcaster RAI has been accused of censorship after using an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man with the genitals missing in the opening credits for its Winter Olympics coverage. It's not the first penis-related controversy to hit the Winter games, either!
• Festival melted-down? news: The eclectic and unpredictable annual Meltdown music festival - previously overseen by cultural giants such as (among others) David Bowie, Grace Jones, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Scott Walker, Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave - is a highlight of the Southbank Centre's summer schedule, and the 2026 event is to be curated this year [to mark the Centre's 75th anniversary] by... former boyband member and modern "style icon" Harry Styles. Ho hum. We shall see what he comes up with that might tempt us (for the first time in years) to even want to bother buying a ticket...

• Byron's moving news: A memorial statue of the 19th Century poet Lord Byron marooned on an inaccessible traffic island on Park Lane for decades and left to deteriorate is to be restored and moved to a new home in Hyde Park. “Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt / In solitude, where we are least alone.” Indeed.
• First road rage, then air rage, now "boarding pass rage"? news: Check-in at the airport can be frustrating, but... this man took it to a new level in Hong Kong International airport! I think I'd just sit in the Wetherspoons and wait, tbh.
• Headline of the year so far: Cats to Blame for Octopus Deity Enshrinement Delay. Love it.
• And finally: RIP Billy Steinberg, the most famous and prolific songwriter you never heard of. A list of just some of the songs he wrote reads like a "Best of" album of the last few decades:
  • Madonna - Like A Virgin
  • Cyndi Lauper - True Colors
  • Bangles - Eternal Flame
  • Roy Orbison/Cyndi Lauper - I Drove All Night
  • Heart - Alone
  • Whitney Houston - So Emotional
  • Divinyls - I Touch Myself
  • Pretenders - I'll Stand By You
  • Tina Turner - Look Me In The Heart
  • Melanie C - I Turn To You

  ...and this one, a fave of mine:

Robert Miles feat. Maria Nayler - One & One

And the weather? Not bad. [Yesterday was a lovely, occasionally sunny, dry day - but bloody cold! More of the same today, but the rain's back later...]

Kung Hei Fat Choy! - and more

Out with the (trouser) Snake and in with the (hung like a) Horse..?

...yes, it is Chinese (Lunar) New Year today - the Year of the Fire Horse. I apologise to anyone who thinks it sacrilegious, but this was the first song that immediately came to mind:

Father Ted - My Lovely Horse

Meanwhile...

In Hispanic/Latin American countries (and across the world) today is Mardi Gras ["Fat Tuesday"], or Carnaval - a time for outrageously OTT feathered costumes, salsa music and a heavy dollop of camp...

...while in Britain, we have Pancake Day. Toss that!

Since there are fewer songs about the latter than the former, try this:

Dario G - Carnaval De Paris

[OK, OK - I know it's actually a number written for a football competition, but it's a great choon!]

Enjoy your fatty, fried, pancake-y treats - or indeed your Niángāo cake!

---

PS

By sheer coincicence - it also happens to be the start of Ramadan, to boot!

Of course, I'm not sure I know an appropriate song for that.

Can even feathers, fouff and faff save us now?

Aaaaaarggghhh!

After a rather lovely sixteen days away - it's time to face the shit all over again, and I am really not in the mood for all this. People had better keep their heads down - "Mama's diet pill is wearing off..."

Meanwhile...

...it is a Tacky Music Monday, regardless - and we need something spectacular to serve as a wake-up call!

With memories of Spain slowly fading into the ether, here's one of that country's finest, the very lovely, late, great Rocio Durcal with a whole scream [I assume that is the correct collective noun] of safety gays (and what could well be her mother and her auntie, to boot), and a number that really fits the bill perfectly:

Rocio Durcal - Final de Las Leandras

Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.

Soft cars?

Yesterday was glorious Spring-like, sunny day - and I spent several fruitful hours in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, clearing sycamore-seed-clag, and "banishing (more) death" by cutting-back any browned and frosted foliage and stems I could see; I sorted out and repotted a few languishing ferns, and had a general move-around of some pots; I also cleared our new shelving ready to give it a scrub and [finally] put some Spring-flowering stuff (bulbs, wallflowers, primulas) into the eyeline of the bench [although I never actually finished that task, as it started to get a bit overcast and gloomy and I'd had enough by then]. Today, it was pissing it down all morning (apparently). It certainly was when I got up a couple of hours ago - so any plans to continue the momentum are on hold, unfortunately...

On my last day of freedom before the grind of work begins again tomorrow, I get to take it easy instead - and what better way to enhance that mood than with a little something from the geniuses at Soft Tempo Lounge - and some vintage cars?

Soft Tempo Lounge - Girls and their Cars

Ah, that's better.

[Music: The Continentals - Undecided]

Happy to have, not to have not

"Saint Valentine used to be the patron saint of lovers, now he seems to be the patron saint of card makers." Edward Stilliard

Yup. "St Hallmark's Day" is upon us - a day that sees hordes of chavs clogging the supermarket queues to buy bunches of red flowers that look like the sort of thing tied to some railings where a cyclist got killed; the only day in the calendar that such horrors as rose-scented chocolates are ever a "thing", and when sales of made-in-China fluffy toys with sickly "love" slogans go up.

John Lydon has the right idea:

Public Image Limited - This Is Not A Love Song

My sentiments, exactly.

I wake the possessed

Paraskevidekatriaphobia - such a lovely word.

Yes, at the end of this rather dismal (weather-wise) extra week off after our Spain trip, it also happens to be Friday the Thirteenth, the bad luck day [if you believe in all that sort of stuff]!

I don't. I believe in being invisible - like our old faves Gravitonas!

Gravitonas - Lucky Star

Cause I look to the east
And I look to the west
And I bless my lucky star
Bless my lucky star
I'm invisible, visible
Un-visible, oh oh

So I bow to the priest
And I wake the possessed
And I bless my lucky star
Bless my lucky star
I'm invisible, visible
Un-visible, oh oh

Thank Disco(?) It's Friday - and have a great weekend, peeps!

Feels like I'm going to lose my mind

Classier times...

Timeslip moment again, dear reader...

We've been deposited with a bump by a Trimaxion Drone Ship forty years ago in the distinctly alien world of 1986 - the year of Chernobyl, the controversial Diego Maradona "Hand of God" goal that won the World Cup for Argentina over England, the "tombstone" AIDS awareness campaign in the UK, Neighbours, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh, the Westland affair, The Golden Girls, Abu Nidal, Andrew and Fergie's wedding, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Suzy Lamplugh, "If you see Sid, tell him", Casualty, the kidnap of British journalist John McCarthy in Beirut, Gary Lineker, the "Zammo Maguire" heroin addiction storyline in Grange Hill and "Just Say No", Top Gun, the Iran-Contra Affair, Russ Abbott, Desmond Tutu, "Den and Angie" in Eastenders, the US bombing of Libya, "Get away from her, you bitch!", the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, Jeremy Bamber, Crocodile Dundee, the Cameroon lake eruption that killed 2000 people and hundreds of animals, Colin Baker as Doctor Who, and the so-called "Big Bang" deregulation of the London Stock Exchange

It was the year Rafael Nadal, Jamie Bell, Lady Gaga, Richard Madden, Charlotte Church, Robert Pattinson, Usain Bolt, Kit Harington, Jenna Coleman, Ellie Goulding, Laura Carmichael, the M25 Motorway, the Mir space station, Comic Relief, the Fox Broadcasting Company, Pixar and Phantom of the Opera were all born; and James Cagney, Pat Phoenix, Wallis Simpson, Cary Grant, Elsa Lanchester, Phil Lynott, Hylda Baker, Christopher Isherwood, Anna Neagle, Robert Helpmann, Benny Goodman, Ray Milland, Lady Diana Cooper, Alan Jay Lerner, Harold MacMillan, Peter Pears and Hermione Baddeley all died, and the Greater London Council and the six Metropolitan County Councils were abolished.

In the news in February of that year? Britain was in the middle of a "big freeze", with heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures; after an absence of 76 years Halley's Comet returned - and was a bit of a "damp squib" [I remember spotting it in a break in the clouds, and it looked like a smudgy fingerprint on glass]; the Wapping strike over digitisation of newspapers became a near-riot; President "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti and President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines were both deposed; Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his Glasnost and Perestroika [openness and transparency] policies; Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated; the UK signed the Single European Act aimed at creating a single market; and we bade a fond farewell to Dandy Nichols, famous as "Elsie", long-suffering wife of "Alf Garnett" in Till Death Us Do Part. In our cinemas: Muppets Take Manhattan; Rocky IV; Spies Like Us. On telly: Blackadder II; The Colbys; Catchphrase.

And what of the charts this week in '86? Billy Ocean held onto the top slot for a second week (and would stay there for another two) with When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going [helped a lot, no doubt, by it being the theme song for The Jewel of the Nile, and the presence of the film's stars Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as backing singers in the video]. Making up the rest of the Top Ten: Whitney-fucking-Houston, one-hit wonders Double (The Captain of Her Heart), A-Ha, The Damned, James Brown, Five Star, (ahem) Nana Mouskouri and (ahem, again) Su Pollard were all present and correct.

However, this song [only held off the top slot by the success of Billy and his chums] was at #2 - a re-release, no less. It's one of my favourite of Our Glorious Leader's choons!

Madonna - Borderline

FORTY-fucking-years? Where did they go?!

To gay or not to gay?

Should you go gay with your male friends to attract women? The pros and cons

Gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry has been a massive hit with women, so would straight men wanting to pull benefit from a change in sexual orientation? Here’s what you should consider first.

Sex can ruin a friendship
People often report that friendships are never the same after you’ve slept with someone. But that’s with women and men lack any form of emotional complexity. So chances are you’ll have sex with your mate Steve and a few hours later it’ll be overshadowed by a heated debate in the pub about the best flavour of crisp.

Your male friends may not be attractive enough
You may – correctly – feel that your male friends are munters and you could do a lot better. It’s one thing saying everyone is beautiful inside when you’re trying to sound liberal, it’s another when you’ve got to bum Gareth. Still, as men have pointed out for years: "You don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire."

You’ll need to find time for all the gay and straight sex
Most orifices are similar, despite what unadventurous girlfriends may claim, so the actual sex shouldn’t be a problem. The challenge will be finding time to have sex with your male friends AND all the female hotties who’ll fancy you now you’re gay. Always be on the lookout for time efficiencies, such as nipping into the toilets of your local for a quickie with Darren while they’re changing the barrel.

Women may turn out to be hypocrites about shagging a gay man
As well as the guys in Heated Rivalry, women often like gay men in general. But there’s still a risk that when you try to pull women after turning gay they won’t be into it, because you’re gay. You don’t know what’s worse – the hypocrisy, the homophobia, or Simon’s clueless blowjobs.

You will have to make big lifestyle changes
It’s always felt slightly prejudiced to you, but gay men have a reputation for dressing well, so you’ll have to buy some smart jackets and trousers that actually fit. In addition, you’ll need to start listening to ostensibly gay music, and if you’re not into Gloria Gaynor, Taylor Swift, Scissor Sisters, Pet Shop Boys, etc. this will be a pain in the arse, so to speak. Just keep telling yourself it’ll be worth it for all the muff.

You don’t fancy men
This is probably the biggest obstacle to turning gay, and may affect your ability to perform in the bedroom. At least if you can’t get it up with a woman they’re usually really nice about it, but the same isn’t true of your mates, who’ll mercilessly take the piss in the pub. Your erectile dysfunction is unlikely to be helped by shouts of ‘BLOBBY BLOBBY BLOBBY!’.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

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STOP PRESS:

The gnomes at Google HQ have deemed this post to contain such objectionable material that they have put it behind a content warning.

I might just change the presumably "offensive" still from a commercially-available television programme to one of two men fisting. That'll teach the twats!

UPDATE:

Maybe they read my message above, or maybe an actual human being read this post - because the content warning has now been lifted...

Of a culinary vamp, tenors, treasure, old farts radio, brutalism, gay disappointment and Bowie in cabaret

Congratulations to the "sex kitten" of TV chefs Nigella Lawson, who steps into the shoes of previous hosts Dame Mary Berry and Dame Prue Leith as the new presenter of The Great British Bake-Off.

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Calling all higher voices news: There is apparently a worldwide shortage... of tenor singers! Will the next Pavarotti please stand up?

• Hoorah for heritage fanatics news: Thanks to a fundraising campaign that brought them support from trusts, benefactors and the public alike, a gorgeous heart-shaped gold pendant linked to the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, found by a metal detectorist in Warwickshire, has been secured by the British Museum for permanent display for the nation. I want to see this...

• Old people need music radio too news: Boom Radio, the independent radio station established by, and specifically aimed at, the so-called "baby-boomer" post-war generation will celebrate its fifth anniversary on 14 February. Three cheers for the plucky older generation!

• Brutal(ist), indeed news: The hideous concrete monstrosity that is London's Southbank Centre [the 1950s adjunct to the otherwise OK Festival of Britain survivor the Royal Festival Hall, it encompasses the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery, and was later joined by the National Theatre next door, and the British Film Institute (BFI) after that] has become a Grade II listed building. It's still depressingly ugly.

• Muddled history news: It is once again LGBT History Month in the UK and, unlike in its heyday when Camden & Islington LGBT+ Forum actively facilitated loads of events that appealed to all sorts of groups who vaguely sat under this stupid "alphabet soup" banner, and we always found at least one or two events to go to, there's not a lot that appeals. Not for several years, more's the pity. It's all "trans" this, "queer" {{shudders}} that and "lesbian" the other; at least in our locale.
  One event on the other side of London did indeed catch my eye, however - a touring dramatisation of a long-forgotten radio script from the BBC all about homosexuality in an age when it was completely illegal: Stephen M Hornby’s play The BBC’s First Homosexual. Unfortunately, and possibly inevitably since its London run is a) cheap (£5) and b) hosted at the teeny-tiny Cinema Museum in Kennington [which I have been dying to visit], it's sold out! As is the centenary celebration of the irrepressible Kenneth Williams at the British Library. Dammit.

• And finally: Sad news arrives of the death of Mr Des de Moor. Latterly known for his passion for real ale and his writings about the subject, he seems an unlikely candidate for a tribute here - but his name rang a bell when I saw it in the obituaries. With very good reason - for, way back in 2003, I happened to purchase a copy of a real oddity: his tribute CD to David Bowie, in cabaret style, with the late Russell Churney [of Fascinating Aida and Julian Clary fame] Darkness and Disgrace! And here, for your delectation, are two tracks from it:

Russell Churney, Des de Moor - Always crashing in the same car

Russell Churney, Des de Moor - The Man Who Sold The World

And the weather? Shit.

Oh, how hot..? *

Slow, slow, slow - that just about sums up how today is going, since our return from Spain late on Saturday. Despite having mental plans of things to do in the garden (while the rain holds off) and/or the flat (I have had some more pictures framed, so there's some rearranging to do to accommodate them before we run out of wall!), all I've really managed is to get some washing done.

Hey ho. I haven't forgotten, however, despite still being on holiday all this week, that it is a Tacky Music Monday - and with that in mind...

...why have just one Spanish diva to cheer us up, when you can have three?!

Lola Flores, Carmen Sevilla, Paquita Rico - Ay que Calor

¡Olé!

Have a good week, dear reader.

[* Ay que Calor = "Oh, how hot" in Spanish]

El regreso...

Leonardo and Martha. A nice couple we met on our holiday? "Nice" would be pushing it... Two of the fiercest "named storms" of the season; unfortunately they both visited Andalusia in the same week while we were there.

We arrived on a pleasant, breezy, quite sunny weekend and enjoyed sitting in the sunshine - but after that it went all grey and blustery and showery with sunny intervals, and by Tuesday we had proper rain (and bought a brolly). One morning we had sleet hitting our balcony! Friday (The Madam's birthday) was particularly schizophrenic - on my way down to our regular beach bar Palm 5, the rainstorm was horizontal and I could hardly keep the brolly up, yet by 2pm we had nary a cloud in the sky, and basked in the sunshine until the sun went down! To finish things off "nicely", as we waited for our evening flight yesterday we were huddled at the back of the bar terrace, freezing, and watching the Palm 5 staff fighting to get one of the windbreak roller blinds back into place as Martha had blown its hooks out of their mounts.

We were concerned about our flight taking off in such a "hurricane", but all went well (we even landed in Luton Airport twenty minutes early). Bizarrely, by the time we were having our first British pint at the Wetherspoons at Kings Cross St Pancras, we were warmer sat at their outside tables at 11pm than we had been at lunchtime on the Costa del "Sol"...

We still had a fabulous holiday, regardless! We felt really welcomed wherever we went, had loads of laughs, ate some great food, caught a bit of sunshine on our skin - and burned the candle at both ends with post-siesta nights in the La Nogilera gay area in Torremolinos (as is our wont). [And we're booked to go again at the beginning of May, so there's that to look forward to...]

But what did we miss while we were away? Not a lot, truth be told. The Winter (yawn) Olympics are on in Italy, apparently; sacked former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson is a bogeyman again, and Prime Minister Starmer's under pressure again; no amount of false posturing from the orange moron in the White House has prevented that evil cunt Putin from bombing Ukraine; among the amazing treasures uncovered during ongoing works on the HS2 rail route are a Neanderthal hand axe, a set of 19th Century gold dentures, a Roman gladiator "good luck" tag, and a gold "three lions" pendant from the 13th-14th Century; and finally - a man had to be rescued from a tree on the Isle of Wight, where he was sheltering from being attacked by an angry cow.

[click any pic to embiggen]

Oh - and tennis totty Carlos Alcaraz became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam. New balls, please...

No doubt what you're asking, dear reader is - did we bring anything back with us to share? Of course. A triple-bill, no less!

Spain's Eurovision entrant in 2024, doing what she does...

Nebulossa - Supersexy

...a proper Spanish number (ish)...

Aaron Sevilla ft. Javi Torres, Alba Dreid & Ruben Hernández trumpet - A tu vera

...and finally, my fave!

Lapili - Fatty Fairy

Is it good to be home? ¡Ni hablar!