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...

Oh, By Jingo

Pinkness! courtesy of our extravagant Cyclamen coum

It's been another gorgeous springlike day in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, as we continued digging-out and re-doing our pots and troughs, pruning and clearing the detritus dumped all over everything by the ugly weed trees overhanging from neighbours' plots - in particular the utterly vile Sycamore, whose winged seeds get everywhere, and will each sprout into another forty-foot tree given half a chance.

While enjoying the sunshine and the pottering, we were accompanied by a glut of programmes from the fantastic Clare Teal Swing and Big Band show on Radio 2 on catch-up. And lo and behold, I find it would have been the birthday today of the fabulous Miss Betty Hutton, doyenne of that particular era (before she became more famous for big-screen musicals) - so, by way of a celebration, here's a double-bill of the lady's zaniness...

...first with (I think - it's difficult to tell under the blackface "Minstrel" makeup) Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra:

Betty Hutton - Do You Know About Swinging

...and second, in a spectacular sequence from Incendiary Blonde:

Betty Hutton - Oh, By Jingo

Nobody did it like Betty!

Betty Hutton (born Elizabeth June Thornburg, 26th February 1921 – 12th March 2007)

This is a situation not likely to improve

Oh no.

It's back to work time - after a (frankly, exhausting) three weeks away, and I am not looking forward to it one little bit! It's drizzling with rain, the journey to work now involves two buses, not one, and I can safely guess that there will be loads of stuff that has not been dealt with in my absence, that I will need to sort when I get to the benighted office.

I can't even keep my eyes open, let alone anything else, so I dare say I will sit aimlessly clearing out the dross from my inbox all day instead... To help the process of waking up on this particularly awful Tacky Music Monday, what better than the incredible shouty tonsils of the delightful Miss Betty Hutton?

Betty Hutton - Rumble, Rumble, Rumble

I'm awake now!

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

Pope? Nope!

Today John-John and I are joining the "Protest the Pope" rally and march through London.

Read more about the rally

Many are the evils associated with this man - not least his opposition to contraception, condom use and embryonic stem cell research, the cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy, his rehabilitation of the Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson, and his decree paving the way for the beatification and sainthood of the war-time Pope Pius XII, who stands accused of failing to speak out against the Holocaust.

Ratzinger describes gay people as as the 'destruction of God's work' and 'evil'. He condemns atheists as Nazis - yet he was himself a member of the Hitler Youth.

To top it all, it is our taxes that are paying for this bigot to preach this bollocks on British soil! It makes me so angry, I have to play something to soothe my furrowed brow. And what more appropriate song than this?

Betty Hutton - Papa Don't Preach to Me

This was an illuminating documentary: The Trouble with the Pope

The original "Blonde Bombshell"

Had she lived the lovely Betty Hutton would have been 88 years old today.

Betty was never a conventional singer/actress, having been born into a bit of a wild family, always on the run from police. Eventually her powerful singing voice and comedic acting talents, which had been honed since early childhood from performing in a number of speakeasies and other low dives, were "discovered" in the 1930s by bandleader Vincent Lopez, with whom she sang briefly.

With the support of the eventual co-founder of Capitol Records Buddy DeSylva, she hit the heights of Broadway in Cole Porter's Panama Hattie, and from there was soon propelled to stardom in a number of Hollywood films alongside the likes of Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope and Mary Martin (usually playing "kooky" off-beat characters). By 1945 she was a top-billing star, outshining Miss Lamour, and her triumphal role as the ballsy Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun made her an international hit.

However, Miss Hutton's star was not destined to shine for long. Known for being "difficult", she crossed swords with the infamous Hollywood "studio system" once too often, and by the early 1950s her film career was effectively over. Ventures into television, even with the backing of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, failed spectacularly, and despite myriad concert appearances including Las Vegas her health began to suffer. Dependent on alcohol and prescribed drugs, she had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide after losing her voice in 1970.

Eventually, with the support of former Hollywood colleagues she made a recovery but did not return to the stage until 1980, and then only briefly. She died in 2007, but her eternal legacy lives on in our memories for her superb brassy numbers like these...

Betty Hutton and Howard Keel - Anything You Can Do (I can do better)

Betty Hutton - You Can't Get A Man With A Gun

Betty Hutton - It's Oh So Quiet

Betty Hutton on IMDB