There's nothin' to it, just say you wanna do it

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!

George McCrae - Rock Your Baby

Have a great weekend, dear reader! Please try and dodge the torrential rains of Storm Austen, if you can...

What We Do in the Shadows

Benoît Prévot (b. 1968)

Of diamonds, cult cinema, Punk, Pooh, priest, sailors and a diva duet

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• A girl's queen's best friend news: The utterly gorgeous nine-carat Grand Condé Pink Diamond [pictured above] - a rare survivor from the former French ruling dynasty the House of Bourbon - has gone on display in the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris, for the first time since it was stolen a century ago. The gem was recovered soon afterwards - when a chambermaid at the thieves' getaway hotel bit into an apple, in the core of which the diamond was hidden! - but a replica has been on display ever since. It would match some of my outfits perfectly...
• Sing-a-long-a-salvation news: The cult favourite Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square - the West End's home of art-house and cult films, as well as sing-a-long versions of The Sound of Music and The Rocky Horror Picture Show - has been saved from closure and redevelopment by its landlord after a two-year campaign that included a 170,000-strong petition, massive publicity, and a listing by Westminster Council, culminating in a new 25-year lease. Let's do The Time Warp again, indeed!
• 'You have to destroy in order to create' news: A new exhibition coming to our beloved V&A Museum next year is Punk to Pop: Celebrating the creative explosion across music and fashion from 1972–85. From its promo material, it is described as "Bringing together around 300 objects, the show follows this trajectory from the confrontational aesthetics of punk's earliest years through to the polished, technologically-driven pop image-making that followed, tracing continuities as well as ruptures between the two moments." We'll be the judge of that... The exhibition opens on 13th March 2027.

• A Silly (very) Old Bear news: That worldwide favourite children's character Winnie The Pooh celebrated his centenary (of the first publication of AA Milne's book) this month. Tributes on offer include a series of themed programmes broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the inevitable official merchandise - and a set of Royal Mail stamps. Scrub all thoughts of "licking pooh" from your filthy minds, immediately!
• Judgement day? news: A Catholic priest was killed when a wooden crucifix fell on him during livestreamed mass in Ecuador. Ironically, his theme was a reflection on the fleeting nature of human life.

• And finally: Happy Trafalgar Day! Our Patron Saints Mitzi and Ethel know the perfect song to lead the celebrations...

Ethel Merman and Mitzi Gaynor - A Sailor's Not a Sailor (Till a Sailor's Been Tattooed)

And the weather? It absolutely pissed it down all day here. Yuk.

It would have French people taking to the street to overturn bins

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.’

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Ella vive de amores prohibidos

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!

Veronica Castro - Macumba

"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.

So Easy

A view up my back passage today - not bad for mid-October! [click to embiggen]

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?

Postmodern Jukebox feat. Tatum Langley - So Easy (To Fall in Love) [1940s-style Olivia Dean cover]

I never even knew the original, but needless to say, this is better!

We love Postmodern Jukebox.

Thought for the Day

"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.

She's crazy like a fool

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!

Boney M - Daddy Cool

Wild about Daddy Cool, indeed.

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Swinging!

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!

Soft Tempo Lounge - Discothèque '68

Ah, that's better.

[Music: Nora Orlandi - Soho]

Of a wych tree, a London legend, a military Ren, gladiator sex, "come play with us", Jonathan the tortoise and a big willy

"The Bendy Tree", a wych elm on the blustery seaside promenade of Newcastle, Northern Ireland, has been named the UK's Tree of the Year 2026

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Very old steak preserved news: The building that houses London's oldest restaurant, Rules (founded in 1798), has been gifted to the National Trust - which will now be in a position to conserve its vast archives as well as the structure. Specialising in traditional British food [beef, lamb, pies, salmon, cod, potatoes, cheeses and so forth], customers over its long history include Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, Graham Greene, Charlie Chaplin, Laurence Olivier, John Betjeman, David Bowie, Liza Minnelli, Madonna - and Madam Arcati and I!
• The smallest recruit news: Meet Comando the chihuahua, who has been adopted by the Mexican national guard...

Comando the chihuahua

• Old as the hills news: The world's oldest-known terrestrial animal, an Aldabra giant tortoise named Jonathan estimated to be about 194 years old, may hold clues to longer life, according to scientists.

• Heeere's Johnny! news: Among the items in The Stanley Kubrick Collection going on sale at at Bonham’s in London on 3rd February 2027 are the axe infamously wielded by Jack Nicholson's psychopathic character in The Shining, the original script from Kubrick's 1960 classic Spartacus, the great man's director's chair and, estimated to reach as much as £800,000, the model of a foetus that takes a prominent role at the very end of his 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have my eyes on the dresses worn by the spooky twins at the Overlook Hotel - "Come play with us..." - myself, but I don't think they'd fit either Madam Arcati or I.
• Homoerotic classic news: Remarkably, it is fifty years since Derek Jarman's groundbreaking gay film Sebastiane was released [and promptly banned, no doubt, in many places] - and the anniversary is being held at the cinema that hosted its premiere way back in 1976, The Gate, Notting Hill in London.
• And finally - Big Willy news: It is the centenary today of Willy Alberti, one of Amsterdam's most revered singers, whose repertoire included popular songs in both Italian and Dutch, and even opera! Here's a double-bill, for your delectation:

Willy Alberti - E Lucevan Le Stelle [Puccini: Tosca]

Willy Alberti - Zondag in Amsterdam

And the weather? A bit breezy and a bit cloudy, but still mild for October. Thankfully!

You don’t need to be Christopher Walken to twat an alien with a pneumatic fist

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.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

[The "real" story]

You can have your dreams, but you can't have me

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...

Hugh Jackman - Not the Boy Next Door [The Boy From Oz]

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

From the back to the middle and around again

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!

Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)

Crystal Waters - 100% Pure Love

Have a great weekend, dear reader!

Get away from her you BITCH!

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 as Debra Moorehouse 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!

Sigourney Weaver - Back in the U.S.S.R.

...but, to conclude - this! [Of course.]

Ripley vs Alien Queen

Many happy returns, Sigourney Weaver (born 8th October 1949)

Pop, pop, shoo-wop

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!

Robbie Williams and Miss Monique - Beauty In Us

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]:

Sugababes - Ghost

Speaking of "the best" - Our Glorious Leader teams up with another currently dominant force of nature, combining their storytelling into one faboo number!

Madonna & Charli xcx - Danceteria (Afterhours Mix)

In complete contrast, another house favourite set of divas prove you can't keep a good libido down, no matter your age...

Fascinating Aïda - Let's Fuck

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!

Rogue Traders and Dannii Minogue - Dirty Dirty Disco

Saving (possibly) the best to last - let's finish with perhaps the dirtiest-of-dirty dancing queens of the lot! Love this:

Troye Sivan - Party

As ever dear reader, I love to hear your thoughts...

The devil’s candyfloss will get into your hair

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.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

They read my mind!

Magic? Not so much

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!

Mrs Miller - It's Magic [from The Cool Ones, 1967]

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.

I wanna be tall, tall, tall

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!

The Human League - Empire State Human

Have a great weekend, dear reader!

Of another sad loss, an erect bloomer, a bad boy on the High Street, wool, living pink, a sperm factory and a can-can

RIP Dame Esther Rantzen, presiding hostess of the wildly popular satirical consumer affairs programme That's Life! for 21 years, charity campaigner and national treasure.

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Monster plant news: For the first time in the venerable botanical gardens' 260-year history, a giant Agave montana is about to flower at Kew. It can grow to around 5m/16ft tall, so should be spectacular - but after it does so, it dies. Doomed after erecting. Like Cecil Colby or Kemal Pamuk.
• Bad boy of fashion news: In a surprising move, none other than John Galliano has designed a new collection for Spanish high street chain Zara! Judging by everything else Zara sells, you'd need to be young and really skinny to wear any of it...
• Sheep news: Happy Shetland Wool Week! Unfortunately, famous knitter Tom Daley didn't put in appearance. Dammit.

[click to embiggen]

• Think Pink! news: A bizarre pink house that has been erected in Kentish Town (near Camden in London) was recently featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs programme. I think it looks like something out of Dr Seuss's 5000 Fingers of Doctor T myself - which gives me a perfect excuse (as if any were needed!) to feature one of my all-time favourite uber-camp clips!

Hans Conried - Do-Me-Do Duds (The Dressing Song) [The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T]

• Speaking of weird homes news: A couple in Great Abington, Cambridgeshire have been forced to demolish the home they built instead of a horse semen laboratory, for which they had planning permission from the council.
• And finally: In Bordeaux today, 168 dancers attempted to set a new world record for highest number of participants in a can-can routine! [link is to a news site in French] I wonder if Buster Bloodvessel of Bad Manners was amongst them?

And the weather? Very pleasant, sunny and warm, considering we have arrived in October...

Red hot chili Pepper

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:

Police Woman opening titles

...but who knew she sang [after a fashion]? I suppose, married as she was for years to Mr Burt Bacharach, it was unavoidable:

Angie Dickinson & Burt Bacharach - I'll Never Fall in Love Again

Many happy returns, Angeline "Angie" Dickinson (born 30th September 1931)