Of Sundance, Bowie, Fry, nuns, stones, Titchmarsh and vodka

RIP Robert Redford, gorgeous man that you were!

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• An icon gets his own museum news: David Bowie’s personal archive (consisting of 90,000 items!) has now opened to the public at the V&A's new East Storehouse in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park near Stratford.
• Nuns on the run news: Three Austrian nuns ran away from their care home and broke into to the convent they had been forced to leave because "they were homesick".
• Ham it up, you got to ham it up news: A trailer video for The Importance Of Being Earnest, starring Olly Alexander and Stephen Fry(!), has been released, ahead of its transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End tomorrow:

The Importance Of Being Earnest 2025 cast reveal

• Cozy teatime show bloodbath horror news: Fans and former contestants of the long-running Channel 4 early-evening word-game show Countdown, gathered at a meet-up in Blackpool, were horrified when one former champion knifed a rival whom he accused of cheating! It's like a plot from Midsomer Murders...
• Cheating tossers news: Several competitors at the World Stone Skimming Championships were disqualified after it was discovered that their stones had been artificially modified and enhanced. Oh, the shame of it.
• You could be sitting on a national treasure's loo news: Much-loved TV gardener and makeover programme host Alan Titchmarsh has put his country house and garden up for sale. Worth going for a nose around, even if you don't actually have £4 million to spare...
• And finally: It's the centenary today of the very lovely musical theatre and cabaret singer, Sondheimite and comedienne Miss Dorothy Loudon! Here's my favourite of hers:

Dorothy Loudon - Vodka

And the weather? Grey. Very grey.

Not going left - not going right

Having sidestepped it steadfastly so far by clicking "revert" to access the more familiar blog editor, today it seems the "new Blogger interface" is unavoidable, and the option to use the "legacy" system has gone. Shame - I do resent being forced to change for change's sake, but I suppose I'll just have to "put up and shut up". Who am I kidding? It is clunkier than the old system, especially the HTML editor, some things are not working (the list of previous "labels" appears to be missing, for example) and looks downright ugly. All that orange...

It's endemic these days for companies to tinker around with their sites just to appease people who do everything on their phone, rather than on a PC as I do (I reverted back to a simple Nokia from a "smart" phone years ago). Sod the rest of us.

Rant over, and on with the show. 

Today would have been the 95th birthday of the wondrous Miss Dorothy Loudon, so let's let her sum up the mood with the help of Mr Sondheim... 

Dorothy Loudon - Sondheim medley: Losing My Mind/You Could Drive a Person Crazy

 

 Fantabulosa!

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STOP PRESS:

3.10pm - I have been informed in the Help Forum that if one has more than 5000 labels on one's blog, then when creating a new post no drop-down list of labels will appear, so one has to type them in manually. It also took TWO HOURS after publishing for this post to appear in the Reading List. Shoddy.

When I take a little nip, I begin to slip

Had she lived, the marvellous Dorothy Loudon (most famous as the original Broadway "Miss Hannigan" in Annie) would have been ninety years old today.


[A bizarre line-up of Piaf impersonator Juliette Koka, Grace Jones, Melba Moore, Broadway actress and dancer Gretchen Wyler and Dorothy Loudon]

Facts:

• Miss Loudon started off as a nightclub act before landing slots on top US television shows hosted by Perry Como and Ed Sullivan.
• She replaced Carol Burnett on The Gary Moore Show, but when two of her top stage roles ("Miss Hannigan" and "Dolly Otley" in Noises Off) were filmed, it was Miss Burnett who was cast.
• She succeeded Dame Angela Lansbury - what an act to follow - in Sweeney Todd.
• For several years, she was the chosen host/performer at the annual Tony Awards.

... and it is from one of those very galas that this magnificent paean to alcohol comes - it's Vodka:

Dorothy Loudon - Vodka

Of all concoctions alcoholical
I know but one that's diabolical
I simply thrive on old Champagne and sparkling Burgundy
Whiskey, Cointreau, Moselle
Or Eau de Vie are just like tea
But, vodka, don't give me vodka,
For when I take a little drink
I forget to think
What a little drink can do to me

Vodka, don't give me vodka,
For when I take a little nip, I begin to slip
And I start romancing with the man that I am dancing with
For vodka, makes me feel oddka
I go and grab a six foot two, anyone will do
If he's only wise enough to see
I'll not scream should he kiss me
Couldn't if I would, wouldn't if I could
Vodka, you ruin me!

I prefer gin myself, but I forgive her!

Dorothy Loudon (17th September 1925 – 14th November 2003)