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!
Inexplicable, but fun.
Have a good week, dear reader.
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:
Featuring themes from:
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...
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:
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"!]
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!
Have a faboo weekend, dear reader!
FOOTNOTE:
British Wimbledon hopeful Arthur Fery is primed and ready for action, it would appear...
"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:
Speaking of hits, here are two of her early ones, before she ever met Jim Steinman:
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:
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!
RIP, Bonnie Tyler (born Gaynor Hopkins, 8th June 1951 - 8th July 2026).
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!
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:
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:
Twisting the genres of "dance" and "rock" as he is wont to do (brilliantly), here's another of Mr Bill McClintock's crazy mashups!
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:
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...
As ever, dear reader - let me know your thoughts!
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.”
Of course.
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.
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...
...and - we made it into The Guardian!
We and more than a million people thoroughly enoyed it!
Roll on next Gay Xmas...
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:
Happy Gay Pride, dear reader! Don't do anything I wouldn't do [which isn't a lot, to be honest]...
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!
Happy Pride Weekend, dear reader!
It's another snippets post today, dear reader:
And the weather? Proper summer sunshine. I love it.
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:
Mistress MJ will be breaking that rule as we speak...
