I'm irresistible, you fool

Sharing a birthday, as she does, with a whole host of randomly-assorted notables such as much-missed "national treasure" Dame Vera Lynn, the simply faboo Ultra Naté, the Roman poet Ovid, William Hurt, Henrik Ibsen, Holly Hunter, Sir Michael Redgrave, Hal Linden, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Theresa Russell, Paul Junger Witt, Carl Reiner, Spike Lee, David Thewlis and Sister Rosetta Tharpe...

... the sublime Miss Natacha Atlas is 60 years old today!!

A longtime favourite singer here at Dolores Delargo Towers - we have three of her albums in our vast collection, including the marvellous Ayeshteni as pictured above - Miss Atlas was born in Brussels to a British mother and Egyptian father, and hers was a bit of an esoteric "hippy" upbringing by all accounts (despite being brought up in less-than-exotic Northampton in the East Midlands). It was almost inevitable that she would end up in the entertainment industry, taking up belly-dancing and eventually becoming the core singer of the arthouse fusion music group Transglobal Underground - whose blend of techno and house with less familiar Asian, Arabic and African rhythms hit the zeitgeist of the late 90s amid a rise in popularity of "World Music".

She is probably most familiar to a wider audience for her collaboration with David Arnold on his Shaken and Stirred James Bond theme covers project, to which she contributed this:

David Arnold featuring Natacha Atlas – From Russia With Love

Here's another couplet of familiar tunes of hers [I have featured both here before, bien sûr]:

Natacha Atlas - (It's A Man's Man's) Man's World

Natacha Atlas - I Put a Spell On You

This one is a perfect example of the "fusion music" style of Transgobal Underground (who produced it for Natacha's solo debut album Diaspora):

Natacha Atlas - Yalla Chant

A fitting one for today, the Spring Equinox [it's all uphill from here, folks, as the days officially become longer than the nights!]:

Natacha Atlas - Mon Amie La Rose

And to finish, a bit of high camp...

Natacha Atlas - Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)

Makes me want to whop me tablah out and get shimmying... Lord knows, I've got the belly for it!

Many happy returns, Natacha Atlas (born 20th March 1964)

Glitter balls

I think I'll take a break from the Christmas music countdown - this morning at least - mainly because if you trawl (as I do, dear chums, just for you, at the end of every week) the archives of the genre we call "Disco" for Xmas jollies, the results are just too, too awful to even contemplate...

So instead, let's let our eternal sweethearts of glitterball-tastic dance choons The Ritchie Family unwrap their Xmas prezzies a little early...

It's a Man's World, indeed. And as we plan our final parties before the Festering Season, aren't we eternally grateful for that?!

Ritchie Family - It's A Man's World

Thank Disco It's Friday! Have a good one!

Funny, dirty, deeply romantic

"Funny, dirty, deeply romantic, 'Man's World' is a wonderfully evocative novel." - Jake Arnott

The great and the good of the gay literati turned out in force for the launch of Rupert Smith's novel Man's World in the Blue Room at the Royal Festival Hall last night. Among the illustrious audience were Maureen Duffy, Jake Arnott, Mark Simpson, Suzi Feay, Dom Agius, Clayton Littlewood, Kenneth Hill and Paul Burston (and that's just the ones I knew!). And what a fascinating evening it was too (as if we could expect anything less from Rupert)!

Man's World, it appears, is a real labour of love. Having always harboured a desire to write a book on gay history, Rupert spent oodles of his own money and time on this tome, collecting old copies of early post-war men's "physique" magazines such as Health & Strength and of course Man's World (which gave the book its title), interviewing photographers and models from those mags, researching the archives of the Hall Carpenter Archive and drawing on his own and colleagues' personal experiences.

In the end, he admits, a factual anthology was inevitably out of his grasp (and resources), and a fictional tale just about gay lives in the 1950s appeared to be too dry. Thus he decided to weave a story that brings together the experiences of gay men in London from two very different times, over a 50 year period. Bridging as he does the gap (so to speak) between the generations, Rupert said he felt in a good position to knit the contrasting types of experience together in one thread. The story contrasts the contemporary designer lifestyle of Robert, seeking fulfilment in gay clubs, with that of Michael and his secretive gay life in the era of National Service and continued persecution of (still illegal) homosexuality.

In conversation with The Times Arts Editor Tim Teeman, Rupert explained the rationale behind the book, then read some pithy and superb passages from it, before giving us a history lesson in the evolution of men's pictorial (and increasingly erotic) magazines through the decades. These obviously form a mainstay of the thread of the story - particularly that of Michael.

Wrapping up with a very interesting and erudite question-and-answer session (why isn't Alan Turing held in such high esteem as Nelson Mandela in history teaching in our schools?), and a heartfelt thanks to the contributors (one of whom, an eighty-year-old veteran of the pre-legalisation era, was in the audience), out to the bookstall we all trooped to get our copies signed. I can't wait to read it!

A wonderful evening, and here's a fitting piece of music from Natacha Atlas...

Natacha Atlas - (It's A Man's Man's) Man's World

It's a Man's World, indeed.

Buy your copy from Foyle's

Hall Carpenter Archives