I got the boys to make the noise

The end of what has felt like the longest week of my life is in sight - and we have a three-day break to look forward to, including a visit by the Mother to Dolores Delargo Towers. It's predicted to be a hot one, too, so plenty of opportunity to give the extensive gardens some much-needed TLC after the neglect it's had, with the double-whammy of being disrupted by the presence of scaffolding and us being away. It's probably also the last real chance to get some rays on our skin...

I think we're in need of a celebration - and, in the hands of a "mash-up master", an unusual one. Thank - erm - Disco(?) It's Friday!

Kool & the Gang vs Quiet Riot - Bang Your Head (It's a Celebration)

Who'd have thought Heavy Metal could sound so jolly?

Have a good one, dear reader.

News of the Gay

Dahlings! It's all gay, gay, gay today...

We went to see Kinky Boots last night, and it was all I could do to stop dancing on my broken foot [but more of that later, no doubt...] - fantabulosa!


"My trunks are quite small, it's kind of how it is."

The utterly gorgeous Tom Daley has been swanning around in his teeny tiniest pants again for the Olympics. Cue the saliva...



That magnificently camp jazz singer (and house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers), the late, great Blossom Dearie would have celebrated her 82nd birthday. Here she is, singing her "theme tune", I'm Hip:

Blossom Dearie - I'm Hip!

A very different kind of performer, and no less beloved, Miss Ann-Margret is seventy-five years old! She's "auditioning" for The Rockettes. Apparently.

Ann-Margret and The Rockettes

Oh! And this happened:

Absolutely Fabulous - The Movie trailer

It's a fish!

The ones that fly

It's come around again. So soon.

As we groan and crawl our way out of bed and towards the joys of the office, on this Tacky Music Monday let us once again turn to the delightful Miss Ann-Margret to provide us with a little solace.

It's that anthem to "the way life should be" (composed by Sammy Cahn and tomorrow's birthday boy Jimmy Van Heusen)... The Pleasure Seekers!

Ann-Margret - The Pleasure Seekers (The Ones That Fly)

Have a good week, dears. Roll on our holiday.

My kind of shopping

Oh lordy - back to work time. Again...

Never mind, on this Tacky Music Monday here's a typically brassy number by the all-singing all-dancing Miss Ann-Margret, whose birthday it is tomorrow, and her "safety gays" to wave us on our merry (as if!) way. She's Shopping Around, and who could blame her?

Ann-Margret - Shop Around

Her quick-change for the duet (on Spring Fever) with the super-smooth Perry Como is priceless.

Have a good one, people...

Ann-Margret Olsson (born 28th April 1941)

See that fascinating creature with perfection stamped on ev'ry feature

Another weekend has flown by too soon - but, thanks to my sister and her hubbie and their drilling, we now have our first set of pictures up at Dolores Delargo Towers #3. Slowly but surely, we are making this place into home (as we have done everywhere we've lived, of course)...

So, to cheer us up as we drag our aching bones out of bed and traipse back to the dreariness of the office, on this Tacky Music Monday I have something magnificent to lift our spirits along the way!

As last Thursday was the 83rd birthday of the maestro of the camp musical Mr Jerry Herman, here's the lovely Ann-Margret and her Erté-themed (highly appropriate - we have three of his prints on our walls) version of his show-stopper Look What Happened to Mabel.

This is very special, indeed...

Ann-Margret - Look What Happened to Mabel

Have a great week, folks!

Jerry Herman (born 10th July 1931)

Mack and Mabel

Spare me the eight to five people

Another weekend over too soon, and it was too cold to do any of the planned jobs around the extensive gardens of Dolores Delargo Towers. Dammit.

Never mind, on this Tacky Music Monday we have a typically sultry number by yesterday's birthday girl Miss Ann-Margret to warm our cockles - it's the title song from yet another of her long-forgotten movies The Pleasure Seekers. Va-va-voom!

Ann-Margret - The Pleasure Seekers (The Ones That Fly)

Some people just run from the fun things in life
The boredom they've got, you could cut with a knife
They're the ones who look up as the jets go by
But you take me
I just gotta be
With the ones that fly

Spare me the eight to five people
Those half alive people
I'll take the set that likes to get off and dine
Give me the pleasure seekers
Every time

Spare me the naughty word watchers
Also the bird watchers
In other words they're for the birds not for me
Give me the pleasure seekers
Every time

It's cocktails at nine
At midnight we dine
Then bubbly wine
In a small cafe where the gypsies play
Till the break of day
Olé

No one you know lives twice mister
Take my advice mister
Give what you got before it's not there to give
Get with the pleasure seekers
Lovers and cheeks and chicas
Seek the pleasure seekers
And live!
And live!
And live!

Sentiments very dear to our hearts...

Ann-Margret (born 28th April 1941)

Sex Kitten

"I was very flattered by the sex-kitten thing because I never thought of myself as that."

I was going to save this for a Tacky Music Monday, but hey! - it's a miserable wet Saturday and we need some cheering up.

It's the 71st birthday today of that one-woman show-stopper Miss Ann-Margret (possibly Sweden's finest export after Abba), and I found this clip of her in her younger days, doing what she does best - Isn't It Kinda Fun?. Indeed!

Ann-Margret - Isn't It Kinda Fun? (State Fair, 1962)

Facts about Ann-Margret:

• In 1957, she appeared as a contestant on the "Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour", and lost to a man who played Lady of Spain on a leaf.
• Apparently we have George Burns to thank for helping launch her singing career, when he "discovered" her singing in Las Vegas nightclubs.
• A terrible fall off stage in 1972 resulted in massive fractures to her face that almost ended her career.
• Among her rumoured romances were Eddie Fisher, Frankie Avalon and Elvis Presley.
• In latter years she has tended to collect motorcycles more than men.
• Only this month, she was subject of a rather sick internet hoax story, when rumours were spread (originating in an "entertainment" site that specialises in made-up stories) that she had died in a cliff fall in New Zealand.

Thankfully the lady is very much alive - and the world of va-va-voom is a better place for that.

Grattis på födelsedagen!

Ann-Margret official website

Rescue me!

Another weekend is over (spent mostly in the gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers - very quiet). Now it's time to go back to the drudgery and strife of real life...

Ho hum! Never mind. It's also Tacky Music Monday, and Miss Ann-Margret is here to cheer us up! Life's not so bad after all...

Ann-Margret - Rescue Me

Have a good one!

Scarlet woman

Another scorcher (unfortunately while we all have to go to work!), another Tacky Music Monday!

I think a bit of va-va-voom from Ann-Margret is in order...

Ann Margret - Hold Me, Squeeze Me (George Burns Show, 1981)