I wanna take you to...

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

• You couldn't pay me to go there news: Glastonbury Festival 2025 - the 55th anniversary event - opened its doors yesterday. As one might imagine, the queues appear to resemble the Seventh Gate of Hell - let alone the prospect of camping for five days in a muddy field with all that racket going on!

• Brainbox news: A stash of academic papers by mathematician and gay figurehead Alan Turing - that were rescued from being thrown away in a house clearance - sold for £465,400 at auction!
• Queeny goings-on news: New plans for a memorial to HM The Queen in Green Park have been unveiled by design contest winner Lord Norman Foster + Partners. The Duke of Edinburgh is also to be honoured with a statue as part of the memorial - looking bored and grumpy, no doubt.
• Awww news: A pair of young brown bears escaped from their enclosure at Wildwood Trust's site in Ottery St Mary in Devon - and promptly headed straight for the food store, where they ate a week's worth of honey. Then went back to bed. Typical teenagers.
• Papa Don't Preach news: Madonna has found out she is related to the Pope(!!), and tweeted: "Would it be possible to meet up one day to discuss some important matters? I’ve been excommunicated three times. It doesn’t seem fair. Sincerely, Madonna.”
• And finally: There are plans afoot to open a gay bar at Chicago O'Hare airport! I wonder if their punters will be restricted to 100ml or less of fluids?

We know a song about that, don't we?

Electric Six - Gay Bar

And the weather? Warm and muggy, thanks - and another "heatwave" on the way for the weekend, apparently.

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STOP PRESS - [20:00] Nuclear Wintour news:

Queen-of-fucking-everything Dame Anna Wintour has made the shock announcement she is quitting her role as editor-in-chief at American Vogue!

Arise...

...Celia Imrie, Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and Dame Anna Wintour, Companion of Honour!

Also honoured [among many others - 1,171 in total] - Companion of Honour Sir Ian McEwan (prize-winning author and screenwriter, Atonement, Amsterdam, The Good Son); Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Sir Terry Waite (former Archbishop's special envoy in Lebanon, held captive by terrorists for five years); Knights Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE): Sir Stephen Frears (film director, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons, Prick Up Your Ears, Mrs Henderson Presents, Florence Foster Jenkins), Sir Ben Bradshaw MP (the second British MP who was openly gay at the time of first election), and Martin Amis (prize-winning novelist, Money, London Fields and The Information) was postumously knighted; Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE): actor Kenneth Cranham, violinist Tamsin Little, fashion photographer and music video-maker Nick Knight; Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE): former footballer Ian Wright, Caron Wheeler of Soul II Soul; Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE): broadcaster Ken Bruce, actress Vicky McClure, presenter Davina McCall, TV newsreader and broadcaster Sally Magnusson.

Congratulations, all!

Let's leave the last word to Miss Imrie, shall we..?

Celia Imrie - Have You Met Miss Babs? (Acorn Antiques The Musical)

HM The KIng's Birthday Honours List 2023

Des yeux qui font baisser les miens

Good grief. As we crawl towards another weekend, most surprising news reaches our ears - Dame Anna Wintour, fashion maven and transcendent being that she is, will be (gulp) seventy years old this Sunday...



Also having a bit of a celebration is fellow fashionista and our "Patron Saint of Snarling", Grace Jones, who has just been announced as the next curator of the Southbank Centre's showpiece, the Meltdown Festival. That should prove interesting.



So, to get the party (parties) started - and ours on the weekend will be the celebration of our friend John-John's 60th - here is the lady in her full menacing glory. Thank Disco It's Friday!

Grace Jones - La Vie En Rose

Des yeux qui font baisser les miens,
un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche,
voilà le portrait sans retouche
de l’homme auquel j’appartiens.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras,
il me parle tout bas,
je vois la vie en rose.

Il me dit des mots d’amour,
des mots de tous les jours
et ça me fait quelque chose.

Il est entré dans mon cœur
une part de bonheur
dont je connais la cause.

C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie,
il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie.

Et dès que je l’aperçois,
alors je sens en moi
mon cœur qui bat.

Des nuits d’amour à plus finir,
un grand bonheur qui prend sa place,
les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent,
heureux, heureux à en mourir.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras,
il me parle tout bas,
je vois la vie en rose.

Il me dit des mots d’amour,
des mots de tous les jours
et ça me fait quelque chose.

Il est entré dans mon cœur
une part de bonheur
dont je connais la cause.

C’est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie.
Tu me l’as dit, l’as juré pour la vie.

Et dès que je t’aperçois,
alors je sens en moi
mon cœur qui bat.

Indeed.

Have a good one!

I'm all designed up, I've got my lipstick on... and I am ready to rock

From today's Guardian:

When Anna Wintour arrived in the editor’s chair at American Vogue in 1988, Ronald Reagan was US president. The White House has seen five further incumbents since then; Wintour, by contrast, has not budged an inch.When the curtain goes up on New York fashion week later this week she will be watchful and inscrutable behind the ever-present sunglasses, the waxed Cadillac curves of her power bob ensuring she can be seen from every seat in the house.

Wintour’s three-decade reign in the front row has seen fashion’s place in popular culture expand from a niche, mostly female interest – an updated version of embroidery, if you like – into a pop culture channel that the whole world is watching.

She's certainly an icon. If not actually "God".

To celebrate her thirty-year milestone, this:

Malcolm McLaren - Deep In Vogue

...this:

Andrea Doria - Bucci Bag

...this:

Kristen Wiig - Fashion Forward

...and, of course, this:

Pet Shop Boys - Paninaro

"Would you like a bit of Bolly, sweetie?"
"Just a smidge..."

Queen of fucking everything...

...here, sat with HM The Queen.

This unlikely pairing was in the front row of the London Fashion Week show by relative newcomer Richard Quinn [recipient of the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II award for British design; that's why HM was there].

Speaking of Queens, and of Fashion:

David Bowie - Fashion (at the Fashion Awards '96)

Listen to me - don't listen to me
Talk to me - don't talk to me
Dance with me - don't dance with me, no
Beep-beep
Beep-beep

Indeed.