Chris Lowe (65 years old tomorrow, 4th October)
George Peppard (1st October 1928 – 8th May 1994)
Jake Shears (born Jason F. Sellards, 3rd October 1978)
Clive Owen (60 years old today)
Guy Pearce (born 5 October 1967)
Yum, Yum.
[click any pic to embiggen]
The delightful and still-sexy-as-fuck Mr Jake Shears is (remarkably) 45 years old today - and was recently announced to be taking on the role of "Emcee" in Cabaret in the West End!
Let's celebrate by wallowing in some of my favourites from his back-catalogue, shall we?
Many happy returns, Jake Shears (born Jason Sellards, 3rd October 1978)!
It would appear that Ms Scarlet may be right - it certainly feels like that elusive "Indian Summer" is upon us. Yay!
Time, methinks, for a little round-up of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late...
Let's open with the very welcome return of one of my favourite 80s synthpop bands, shall we? It's sublime:
Here's darling Jake and his latest (and very catchy) choon:
If "Dafydd" from Little Britain got a load of naff tattoos and started hanging around with a woman who wouldn't look out of place in one of the windows in the Red Light District of Amsterdam...
This is hilarious! Described by none other than Whigfield as "Like Borat, but with music", this piss-take of all things "90s Eurodance" is a work of genius:
Cute gay pop-muppet Troye Sivan is back with an earworm...
Now, here's a formidable team-up of talent! Two "house fave" ladies for the price of one...
With a complete change of tempo altogether, here's (a very short clip, unfortunately, of) something I heard recently on Radio 3 from the late, great Medievalist Belinda Sykes and her band :
But, finally, there is only one song for which the anticipation has been building - Our Princess Kylie's new one! It's brilliant:
As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts!
It's been a hectic few days!
On Saturday, a smattering of "Our Gang" gathered for the first time in ages at The Perseverance pub off Great Ormond Street for another "Film Club" evening, then on Easter Sunday Madam Arcati and I took Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex to Kew Gardens (a first for Steve, and Alex hadn't been since he was a little kid) to see it in its Spring magnificence!
No sooner did we get back home, but I was off with them back to Braintree - and spent a happy (if miserably wet and windy) couple of days touring the numerous garden centres and nurseries up and down the county. I came back last night on National Express (in total it took four hours from being dropped off at the airport to getting home!), laden with a haul of twenty-seven new plants - 22 of them fuchsias! Phew.
How about a little selection of newer music that has caught my ear of late, to ease the aches and pains..?
Let's start out a bit classy, shall we, with a first-time collaboration between two favourite vocalists here at Dolores Delargo Towers:
Time to crank it up a little, with this jolly little number:
Miss Ware says "it's time to shake it 'til the pearls fall", and who are we to argue?
Could this one sound more Eighties if it tried?
Dame Sophie of the Ellis-Bextors' recent single from her new album Hana is a joy:
Speaking of joy, this is one I've brought back with me from Braintree, where we certainly did whoop with joy when we discovered it!
As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...
Despite being in recovery mode after another "gathering of the clans" boozy session in the Wetherspoons pub in Holborn (Penderel's Oak) last night, I foolishly decided to tackle the black mould under our front room bay window, and it's taking longer than I thought.
Time, methinks, for a break, a fag, and a collation of some of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late...
First up, an object of lust here at Dolores Delargo Towers makes a very welcome return-to-form (with a fab video, to boot):
Slowing the pace a little, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore pay a fitting tribute to their friend and bandmate Andy Fletcher, who sadly died last year:
Bringing the tone back up again is an artist who is more than a little inspired by the Depeche Mode boys [and also happens to be the mastermind behind the live band that accompanies the "ABBA-tars" at ABBA:Voyage]:
Here's a quirky little number by one of the godmothers of electropop:
And now for something completely different (not quite "new", of course, judging by the masks in evidence):
Then, there's this complete and utter work of genius from the sadly under-appreciated Waldeck:
And, finally - the big number. I love this!
As ever, let me know your thoughts...
The British weather continues to confound us all - yesterday and my birthday were mainly sunny (contrary to all forecasts by the Met Office), and today it has stayed warm yet grey and grizzly; all of which has meant I have been busy getting a few late-season pottering jobs done in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers including rearranging pots, shifting ones that are "over" and moving those yet to flower into their place. Our lovely local garden centre sent me a birthday voucher, which I put towards another beautiful new salvia [as above] yesterday (and I potted that up), and I also lugged home a sizeable new terracotta pot from Homebase today and repotted the Scilla peruviana into it (in the vain hope it might actually flower next year). Now I'm pooped.
Time, methinks, for a selection of some of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late...
First up, a bit of class (with a capital "k"):
Something perhaps less classy, and quite bewildering - it came highly recommended from the "Cabinet of Curiosities" that is Dangerous Minds blog:
A very welcome return for "prime totty" Jake Shears with this one - apparently a "leftover" from an old Scissor Sisters session. It reminds me of something else, but I can't put my finger on it...
Next up, something that (again) is not new at all - it's from 2017, in fact - but I had never heard it until Jake's former bandmate Ana Matronic played it on her Radio 2 Dance Devotion show, so it counts as "new" as far as I'm concerned:
Speaking of "club bangers", M'Lud - this one definitely is a recent release, and it's faboo! [...and features just about everybody who is anybody in Noo Yawk's clubland in its video, to boot.]
Leaving the best to last, however - Miss Chachki's getting kinky again, with a song that bears more than a passing resemblance to Miss Kittin and the Hacker, or indeed several choons from the 1980s. Which is no bad thing, in my book!
Phew.
As ever, dear reader, enjoy - and let me know what you think!
Oh! The relief...
I have finally had my hair cut - the first time in five long, long months!
Because I am in such an ecstatic frame of mind, how about an old favourite from an appropriately-named band to whip up the mood a bit more?!
I am filthy. And I'm gorgeous.
The prime minister is to enliven her speech by bringing out a goat dressed as Boris Johnson then strangling it.
Theresa May, hoping to win members round after the warm reception afforded to her rival yesterday, believes the goat-strangling will appeal to ordinary Tories’ desire for wanton cruelty.
A Conservative insider said: “Mainly she’ll be saying all the exact same things as she’s been saying for two years, because she’s broken inside and we just can’t stop her.
“But halfway through she’ll bring on the goat, which with its stupid fancy horns and inhuman slit-pupilled eyes actually does resemble the former foreign secretary, and just belittle it.
“She’ll mock its record as Mayor of London, its terrible stint in office, its inability to keep its goaty penis in check, its shit columns for the Telegraph and how it pisses in its own beard, all of which the audience will eat up.
“Then she’ll wrestle the goat to the floor, say ‘Brexit means Brexit and I’m determined to make a success of it’ and strangle it with her immaculate yet powerful hands.”
Following the speech, polls are predicted to show BoJo the Goat as the runaway leader in the race to head the Tories with posthumous election guaranteed.
The Daily Mash
Of course.
And on this, the scrumptious Mr Jake Shears' 40th birthday, an appropriate number [and faboo video!] for the mood at that conference:
I can't decide
Whether you should live or die
Oh, you'll probably go to heaven
Please don't hang your head and cry
No wonder why
My heart feels dead inside
It's cold and hard and petrified
Lock the doors and close the blinds
We're going for a ride
Indeed.
Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears has revealed he is working on another musical, but this time he's teaming up with Elton John.Exciting news, indeed!
Shears, who currently stars as Greta in the LA production of Bent, wrote the musical adaptation of Tales of the City which premièred in San Francisco in 2011, and his second show will be a collaboration with the British icon.
He told The Advocate: "I'm working on my second musical now with Elton John. And it's making me realize when writing lyrics and stuff, it's giving me another perspective on writing for theatre that I never had. I feel like I'm getting a lot out of this, even just from the perspective of writing for theatre.
"I'm just learning a ton."
Sir Elton is no stranger to theatre, his previous work for the stage includes The Lion King, Billy Elliot and Aida, and it's not the first time he's collaborated with Shears either.
He co-wrote the band's 2006 hit I Don't Feel Like Dancin', which was a number one hit in eight countries.
Pushed on what the musical would be about, Shears wasn't giving anything away.
"I wish I could say! We haven't made an official announcement about it, but I'm very excited."
