Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

One of my favourite comedy routines - The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Darlings! We have a centenary to celebrate...

Sharing a birthday (as he did) with another random selection of notables such as Spike Milligan, Sir Charlie Chaplin, Sir Peter Ustinov, Dusty Springfield [as featured yesterday], Georgian-era academic and collector Sir Hans Sloane, Dame Joan Bakewell, Kingsley Amis, Guy Burgess, Gerry Rafferty, Claire Foy (who's 40), Robert Stigwood, Bobby Vinton, Anya Taylor-Joy and (erm) Jimmy Osmond, Mr Henry Mancini was born one hundred years ago today!

A true musical genius, he wrote the music for numerous classic films and TV series such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Charade, Arabesque, Two for the Road, The Thorn Birds, 10, Victor Victoria...

...and these!

Henry Mancini - Pink Panther/Baby Elephant Walk/Peter Gunn Theme [Parkinson, 14th December 1974]

And here's possibly his most enduring standard, from the aforementioned Breakfast at Tiffany's:

Andy Williams - Moon River

A remarkable man!

Henry Mancini (born Enrico Nicola Mancini, 16th April 1924 – 14th June 1994)

I'm alive, the man with the second face

Because of football, the media here in the UK (including the BBC and all the newspapers) have been going mad for reminiscences of 1996 [the last time the England national team came close to winning the European Championships; they're playing against Italy tonight in this year's final], so I thought I'd do an appropriate post...

Scary as it seems, dear reader, each and every one of these classic choons is a quarter-of-a-century old!

Underworld - Born Slippy (Nuxx)

Faithless - Insomnia

Los Del Rio - Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)

Gina G - Ooh Aah...Just A Little Bit

Beautiful South - Don't Marry Her (Fuck Me)

Prodigy - Firestarter

Spice Girls - Wannabe

Stretch & Vern presents Maddog - I'm Alive

Babybird - You're Gorgeous

Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!! Where have they gone?

It's such a crazy world you'll see

The Beluga whale spotted in the Thames has changed course after finding out the price of a London pint.

The majestic creature, which had planned to check out Madame Tussaud’s and perhaps the Tate Modern, has drawn the line at paying more than seven quid for a drink.

It said: “Bloody hell, almost eight pounds for a pint? I don’t care if it is craft beer. How good can beer be?

“And crisps are nearly two quid.”

The disappointed mammal said that the excursion had also been marred by the appearance of a persistent seagull that only wanted to discuss Brexit.

The whale added: “I had to shoot a load of water out of my blowhole just to get him to shut up.”

The creature is now heading back to open water, where the daily battle for survival is still more relaxing than time in the UK capital.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Now, let it never be said that I would ever make a [totally bizarre] comparison between the Thames Beluga whale and Mr William "Frank Cannon" Conrad [who would have been 98 years old today], but... hell, why not? Here is the great man himself, singing a Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini classic - in German...

William Conrad - Moon River (in German)

No comment.

I must say, I am amazed...

RIP the beauteous actress Patricia Neal - one-time wife of Roald Dahl and grandmother of Sophie, star of The Day the Earth Stood Still and Hud. She turned down the role of Mrs Robinson in The Graduate and played the original mother in the pilot for The Waltons, had an affair with Gary Cooper and remarkably survived a massive aneurysm [and that rather sensitive episode from her life was played out by Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde in The Patricia Neal Story].



In the annals of history, there are many reasons to celebrate Miss Neal - not least for her role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, in which she played the inimitable Emily Eustace Failenson. And her famous line ("I am a very stylish girl") in that particular film was forever immortalised by Dimitri from Paris in this song - one of our enduring favourites here at Dolores Delargo Towers!

Dimitri from Paris - Un Very Stylish Fille

Patricia Neal - a career in clips - article from The Guardian

Patricia Neal on IMDB