Today is gonna be the day

Many happy returns to the very lovely "friend of the gays" Hannah Waddingham, 50 today!

Another snippets post today, dear reader:

• Sport news: It's the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris today! Let's hope there's not another appearance by the GaGa creature - she has form where appropriating wheelchairs is concerned.

• Architecture news: Contractors refurbishing the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery found a hidden "time capsule" letter from the Late Lord Sainsbury thanking them for demolishing a false column he hated in its lobby area.
• Nature news: A rare "ghost orchid" has been discovered in a British woodland, fifteen years after scientists last saw it, and believed it had become extinct.

• Bearskin/bare skin news: A guardsman who served at HM The Queen's funeral and at the Coronation of King Charles has been crowned "Mr England" in a beauty contest. I'm standing to attention as we speak...
• Hello Barbie, let's go party: Nokia has launched a new "Barbie phone" for kids that has - gulp - no social media access. Poor darlings.
• And finally - Gallagher ceasefire news: You'd have to be living on another planet to have missed the news that famously-bickering Liam and Noel Gallagher have put aside their fierce insults to re-form mega-90s band Oasis for a massive tour next year. Defintely, maybe. To round things off nicely, here's their all-time classic, and my fave track of theirs:

Oasis - Wonderwall

And the weather? An "Indian Summer" is upon us!

A panoply of playable pleasures

It's grey, miserable and cold out there. Time, methinks, for another selection of "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late.

Let's open with a distinctively different take on an old classic...

ZRI (Zum Roten Igel): The Red Hedgehog Tavern Band - I Feel Love (Donna Summer cover)

Here's a rarity - Drag Race alumnus Violet Chakchi sans drag (as Paul Jason Dardo) doing her best Marc Almond impression in a video for Soft Cell's latest? Hell, yeah!

Soft Cell - Light Sleepers

By complete contrast... Any regular reader will be more than well aware of my atheist disdain for all things religious - but when we discover divas with voices like this, we pay them due homage. Just. Fucking. Wow!

The Como Mamas - Come Out the Wilderness

Taking a more sinister tone, here's what a typical week on the office is like:

Fever Ray - What They Call Us

Let's lighten the mood slightly, shall we, with some sleaze?

Darin - Satisfaction

Then, there's this - from Erasure's recently-released expanded "Deluxe Edition" of their 1995 self-titled album:

Erasure - Angel (Love Eternal Mix by TSF)

And finally, a remarkable track and video from a most unlikely artist to ever be considered "enlightened"...

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Pretty Boy

As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...

Backbeat, the word was on the street

An indie band from the Britpop era have announced they are reuniting for a final massive argument.

Lupus Gazebo, who made 43 appearances on tapes that came free with the NME, released a statement on their website telling fans they would be in Sheffield this November for a comeback disagreement.

Lead singer Tom Booker said: “We’re not doing this for the money, we’re doing this for the fans. And also because Carl still hasn’t paid the rest of us back from when he crashed the van without insurance and I’m still massively pissed off about it.

“When I see him and the rest of those arseholes it’s going to be like we never went away. Get ready for some classic rows, including the one about eating spicy food on the tour bus and the one about Martin not sharing his coke even though he bought it with money from the band kitty.

“If it goes really well, who knows? Maybe we’ll get back in the studio and spend three weeks arguing over whether to shout ‘Uh yeah’ at the end of the second chorus.”

The Daily Mash

Of course.

PS the band in question is definitely not this lot...

Oasis - Wonderwall

Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realised what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

Backbeat, the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Today was gonna be the day
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realised what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now

And all the roads that lead you there were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
But I don't know how

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You're my wonderwall

Whatever that is.