If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air

I deserve a lazy Sunday...

Along with a wide-ranging and eclectic gang of fellow "famous names", including Ken Dodd, sex god Alain Delon (who is 85!), out-lesbian reggae singer Diana King, Nerys Hughes, Virna Lisi, Dr Christiaan Barnard, Leif Garrett, Bonnie Raitt, Richard Curtis, June Havoc, Gordon Ramsay, Bram Stoker, Rickie Lee Jones, Edmond Halley, Marie Prevost, Minnie Riperton, Arnold Bax, Margaret Mitchell, Roy Wood, Sam Sparro and (ahem) Chi Chi LaRue, it would have been the birthday today of Miss Patti Page.

Most famous for her Tennessee Waltz [which was her only (minor) hit in the UK, eclipsed by Alma Cogan's later version] and (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window? [which was a big hit in the UK for Lita Roza], her vocals were nonetheless immortalised in the late 1990s, courtesy of a pair of electronic music wizards from South London...

Groove Armada - At the River

Perfect "Sunday Music", indeed...

More monsters

Convoluted connections, #568 in a series...

Still basking in the afterglow of the faboo time we had being the "alternative element" at Gay Pride on Saturday - we were the ones NOT covered in rainbows, the ones NOT on the march, yet the ones getting more than their fair share of attention nonetheless - on returning to the office this morning with particularly foul resentment flooding through my veins, I was cheered up somewhat when I came across a new interview with John Waters [courtesy of the ever-fabulous Feuilleton, bien sûr], in which he reminisced about Divine:

"People thought Divine - they always think wrong - was trans. Divine never dressed as a woman except when he was working. He had no desire to be a woman. He was fat. It was too hot to wear all that shit. He couldn’t wait to get that wig off. The tits were so hot. He hated it. He didn’t want to pass as a woman; he wanted to pass as a monster. He was thought up to scare hippies. And that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to be Godzilla. Well, he wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor and Godzilla put together."

Amen to that!

To close the circle quite nicely - I have had a certain song [that might well have been a tribute to the erstwhile Harris Glenn Milstead] going through my head as an earworm over the past few days.

It also happens to be a choon that brings back happy memories of a much, much earlier Gay Pride event in London: 1999, in fact - the year I started a Mexican Wave upstairs on a double-decker bus from Finsbury Park to Camden by singing this to a (ahem) larger lady as she was teetering up the stairs in heels to try and get a seat...

Groove Armada ft. Gramma Funk - I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Remix)

I see you baby
Shakin' that ass
Shakin' that ass
Shakin' that ass

Ah, memories.