But what kind of holiday is this?*

The weekend's almost upon us, the sun is blazing (it's 29C/85F, and likely to get even hotter next week!)...

...and it would have been our Patron Saint of Terrifying Head-Flicks Signorina Raffaella Carrà's birthday today!

Sufficient excuse (if any were needed) to revisit this - as La Carrà and her impossibly-tight-trousered safety gays show us how to party. Thank Disco Raffaella It's Friday!

Raffaella Carrà - Santo Santo (Ma che vacanza é)

Have a great weekend, dear reader...

[Ma che vacanza é = "But what kind of holiday is this?" in Italian]

---

FOOTNOTE:

I'm taking bets on how long today's post will take to arrive in the Blogger Reading List... Wednesday's and yesterday's both arrived together on the dot at 9am - that's more than 36 hours for the former, and 19 hours for the latter! Someone needs a good kick up the arse at Google HQ.

Caramba, Carambita!

Oh, yes, dear reader, it is time to get up for work again - and I am not in the mood for this...

Hey ho. It pays the bills.

One of our late, great(est) Patron Saints the divine Raffaella Carrà would have celebrated her birthday this week, so I think it only polite to hand over the "duty" to cheer us all up on this Tacky Music Monday to her and her safety gays..!

Raffaella Carrà - Super Rumbas Medley

Bella, bella, Raffaella!

Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni (aka Raffaella Carrà, 18th June 1943 - 5th July 2021)

Have a good week, folks.

Ay ay caramba!

It may be Monday again - but the countdown to Gay Pride on Saturday has begun!

What better way to kick off on this Tacky Music Monday than with one of our campest Patron Saints [again!] Raffaella Carrà (who would have celebrated her 81st birthday on 18th June), and her Disco Samba medley?

Raffaella Carrà - Disco Samba [Fantastico 3]

Safety gays in pink tights?

How fantabulosa!

Have a good week, dear reader...

Fidati di me!

Oh. Thank. Heavens.

Another short-but-excruciating week is coming to a close. It's always hell trying to catch-up with everything after a fortnight's holiday - but this one has been completely knackering!

Never mind, eh? The weather may well be on our side this weekend, so as well as lots of sleep, there's some pleasant pottering to look forward to.

Meanwhile...

I am informed by our friend Houseboy Alex that, because of bloody TikTok - and a raccoon, of all things - our much-missed, late, great Patron Saint of dangerous head-flicks Signorina Raffaella Carrà is apparently back, hovering around the lower echelons of the UK charts...

Jaxomy, Agatino Romero, Raffaella Carrà - Pedro

Personally, I prefer the original - complete with its utterly preposterous safety gays (and no rodents in sight)! Grazie Disco È venerdì!

Raffaella Carrà - Pedro

Have a good one, dear reader!

La fête à Séville

Sigh. It's been a splendid weekend - the Diva exhibition on Friday, and two days of warm (if very windy) weather, potting-on, refreshing and generally pottering in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers. Now it's over, and the same old, same old joys of a working week resume.

There's larks and merriment on the horizon, however - we're off to Spain again in May! We'd already booked our apartment for a week in Benalmadena, but prior to that we are doing a little bit extra. Our hotels are now booked for day #1 in Seville, #2 in Cadiz, and #3 in Jerez! So, three cities (two of which we have never been to before) in a row, then off to city #4 (Malaga) on route to the Costa del Sol for our usual seven days of doing bugger-all by the Mediterranean...

Bliss.

In keeping with all that anticipated joy five weeks away, on this Tacky Music Monday I have just the thing...

I said when I posted this joyful number back in 2017: "...how can one resist the espectacular that is Raffaella Carra hosting a stage-full of crap flamenco dancers, children and safety gays, with a tribute to the music of Seville? Not me!"

Indeed!

Rafaella Carra - Popurri de Sevillanas

Have a good wek, dear reader.

What a holiday this is

The cusp.

Just tomorrow to get out of the way, and then it's Round #2 - the stupidity of the sales, the "yellow sticker clearance" shelves at the supermarkets, and stocking the buffet for our New Year's Eve party!

As the "day-of-sherry-for-breakfast" falls on a Monday, and because we haven't heard her for while, let's have a "Tacky Music Xmas Eve" instead - in the company of our Patron Saint of Terrifying Head-Flicks Signorina Raffaella Carrà and her impossibly-tight-trousered safety gays!

Raffaella Carrà - Santo Santo (Ma che vacanza é)

Enjoy...

La Wandissima

It's been a packed weekend, dear reader - the V&A's spectacular Diva exhibition on Saturday [more of that later, no doubt], followed by a very rainy day at Kew Gardens with Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex. I feel I really need another day off to recover...

But life determines otherwise, so here, to help ease us into the grind yet again on this Tacky Music Monday is a diva [in fact three of them] shamefully not featured in that exhibition, in a post I did @decadeago:

It has been ages since I featured that campest-of-camp grande signora of Italian entertainment, described in The Guardian as "a rather camp Latin mix of Mae West and Mistinguette", Miss Wanda Osiris.

But it is Tacky Music Monday, after all (and we always need cheering up at the start of a working week) - so here she is, in full "Norma Desmond" drag (and a bit croaky, but we always forgive an old broad many sins), topping a bill that includes two of our favourite Italian divas Mina Mazzini and Raffaella Carra, performing in a typically understated number, A Capocabana:

Wonderful...

Facts about Wanda Osiris:

• Born Anna Menzio on 3rd June 1905 in Rome, she was 16 when she joined a vaudeville company, something that was almost unheard of during those strict times.
• Often nicknamed "La Wandissima", she went on to become one of Italy's most successful stage performers of the 1920s to the 1950s.
• Ground-breakingly flamboyant, she was credited with being the first to use chorus boys in her act. [She invented "safety gays"!!]
• Among her myriad revues was Carousel of Variety in which she appeared with (among others) Josephine Baker and Anna Magnani.
• She retired in the mid-'60s and after that only occasionally performed on television.

Wanda Osiris died on 11th November 1994, aged 89 - her obituary (in Italian, of course).

Have a good week, dear reader.

The faster I can leave, the faster l'll be celebratin'

Monday again

After a fab weekend - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever followed by drinkies with chums on Friday, managing to get all the houseplants cleaned up and indoors and plant up the last of the tulips and daffs for Spring before the rain set in on Saturday, and a visit to the garden centre yesterday (braving the murk and mizzle) to get some violas and primulas to decorate said pots through the winter months - it's time for grim reality to set in.

Dammit.

Never mind, eh? As long as we have our late, great Patron Saint of Head-Flicks Raffaella and her safety gays to cheer us up on a Tacky Music Monday, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel!

Raffaella Carra - California

Have a good week, dear reader.

Missin' several angels

Go, girl! *

It's the final, final countdown - not merely the end of a week, but the end of a year!

Having depressed everyone yesterday by opening the "Book of the Dead 2021", it's time to (sort of) make amends - with a party. We shan't be hosting a real one again this year, more's the pity, thanks to fucking Omicron ["our gang" will be gathering via Zoom/Teams/wotever instead] - but let's get some dance choons lined up for a (solitary) boogie nonetheless!

Every track on this playlist is from someone who has departed for the ever-growing dancefloors of Fabulon this year - so let's raise a glass to the memory of each and every one of 'em, and Thank Disco It's New Year's Eve Friday!!

Tavares - Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel

The Supremes - You're My Drivin' Wheel

Patrick Juvet - I Love America

Kool & The Gang - Celebration

The Gap Band - Oops Upside Your Head

Eartha Kitt & Bronski Beat - Cha Cha Heels

Baccara - Yes Sir, I Can Boogie [Starparade 02.06.1977]

Raffaella Carrà - Do It, Do It Again [Top of the Pops 27-04-1978]

Have a faboo New Year, dear reader! Clink, clink. It can only be better. Can't it?

[* Scary fact: the boy in that classic "meme-y thing" is now 39 and living in Boston]

Addio, bellissima

Oh no! Dig out the black armbands...

...our Patron Saint of Neck-breaking Head Flicks herself, Raffaella Carrà has departed to lead the fiesta in Fabulon, aged 78...

Mere words cannot express what a sad loss this is to us here at Dolores Delargo Towers. Signorina Carrà was always an integral feature of any of our house parties - in particular this number:

Raffaella Carra - Do It, Do It Again

...which was given a whole new lease of life by none other than DJ Bob Sinclar a decade ago:

Bob Sinclar and Raffaella Carra - Far L'Amore

Our Raffaella was, of course, a regular and venerated fixture in our Tacky Music Monday slot, right from the launch of this very blog - and this was the first such slice of her joyful safety-gays-filled madness I featured way back in 2008. It's Rumore!

I couldn't just leave it at that, ovviamente - so let us wallow in a Cavalcade of Carrà!!

Raffaella Carrà - Night And Day [Ma Che Sera, 1978]

Raffaella Carra - Tuca Tuca

Raffaella Carrà - Mi Spendo Tutto

...and, saving the best to last - this:

Raffaella Carrà - Hay Que Venir Al Sur

RIP, Raffaella Carrà (born Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni, 18th June 1943 – 5th July 2021)

Thank you for all the joy you gave us.

Cantar, cantar, cantar

Current mood: Cruella de Vil

Bleuuuurgh!

It's the first day in a fortnight that I have actually had to get out of bed in the morning. The first day back to the old routine of being chained to a laptop the size of a Danielle Steele paperback, and ten times more banal...

Hey ho. As long as we have Raffaella on a Tacky Music Monday, there's always some semblance of cheer!

Raffaella Carrà - Quiero cantar una cancion

Have a good week, dear reader.

I won't.

Motivi per essere allegri

"John Coltrane's soprano, Adi Celantano
Bonar Colleano
Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3)
One, two, three!"

Ever wondered who all those people were in that classic Ian Dury number?

Well, today's birthday boy is one of 'em!

Adriano Celentano [for it is he] is a true "national treasure" in Italy. The man widely credited with introducing rock'n'roll to that country in the 1950s, in his eight-decade career he has sold millions of records, appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, and worked with just about everybody who was anybody in the Italian entertainment world, from Federico Fellini to Mina Mazzini, and, of course - our Patron Saint of Neck-breaking Head Flicks herself, Raffaella Carrà!

And this, dear reader, is their finest hour - something I stumbled across many moons ago that is so gob-smacking, so brilliantly camp, it made me thankful for the invention of the internet...

Nobody has a clue what Prisencolinensinainciusol actually means, but who cares? I love it!

Adriano Celentano (born 6th January 1938)

That Monday Feeling

I'm with Alexis!

It's gorgeous out there, and I'm sat in the living-room dealing with work stuff...

Never mind, eh? On this Tacky Music Monday, there is always Raffaella to cheer us up! A whole set, no less...

Raffaella Carrà - Super Exitos

Oh, joy!

Have a good week, dear reader.

Definitely no zero

After a beautiful sunny weekend, reality hits, as we embark on yet another week in the (ahem) delightful atmosphere of the office...

Bugger that! We're continuing our countdown to Gay Pride this weekend - and what better way to do that on this tacky Music Monday than with the most bizarre, most outrageous discovery we've had in ages?

Lords, ladies and gentlemen (and everything in-between), meet Renato Zero!

Renato Zero - Giorni

Renato Zero - Navigaro

Renato Zero with Raffaella Carra - Money

Wow. Now that's what I call a wake-up!

Surely "the Queen has spoken"?

Sigh. Weekend over. It's like Groundhog Day again.

Untypically, the weather continues to be sunny and warm - nay, actually hot - here in Londinium. More's the pity it's not going to do us any bloody good, as we sit in the benighted office for another five days...

Hey ho, one can always rely on Our Patron Saint of head-flicks Signorina Raffaella Carra to cheer us up on a Tacky Music Monday!

Rafaella Carra - Lo ha dicho el Rey

Apparently this song translates as "The King has said it" or "The King has spoken", but I think Raffaella (and most of her fanbase, to be honest) is more deserving of the title "Queen".

Have a good week, sweeties...

Ma che vacanza é

Another day, another wartime baby... Yesterday we celebrated the 75th birthday of one "Queen of Sequins", Barry Manilow. Today it is the turn of another; as to our amazement we discover that none other than Our Patron Saint of Dramatic-Head-Flicking Signorina Raffaella Carrà has hit the same milestone!



Raffaella Carrà is 75?!! Fuck.

On this Tacky Music Monday, let us celebrate the divine madness of the great lady. She was simply born to occupy our traditionally OTT start-the-week spot - fabulous costumes, frenetic choreography, safety gays and all - so here's a double-bill for your delectation...

Raffaella Carrà - Santo Santo (Ma che vacanza é)

Raffaella Carrà - Adios Amigo

Buon compleanno, tesoro!

Raffaella Carrà (born Raffaella Maria Pelloni, 18th June 1943)

Moda, vuelta izquierda

Having just booked our February holiday in Benalmadena, I feel in the mood for a celebration...

I know this sort of thing is usually much more at home on a Tacky Music Monday, but how can one resist the espectacular that is Raffaella Carra hosting a stage-full of crap flamenco dancers, children and safety gays, with a tribute to the music of Seville? Not me!

Rafaella Carra - Popurri de Sevillanas

¡Hola, Raffaella! indeed!

Aaah, voglia di ballar con te!

After a weekend that involved paying tribute to one "triumph of art over nature", it is time to applaud another!

Lord knows we need some cheering up in order to drag ourselves out of the glorious sunshine into the morbidly boring confines of the office - but, on this Tacky Music Monday, who better to provide that cheer than yesterday's birthday girl Signorina Raffaella Carrà?

She's Ballo, ballo-ing her tits off!

Raffaella Carrà - Ballo, ballo

Have a good one, peeps...

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom

After a fabulous fortnight's break, it is time to bite the bullet and accept it - I am not Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham after all. I do, indeed, have to return to work. Oh dear.

However, there is - on this Tacky Music Monday - some respite. After all, who could not be but cheered up by the spectacle of our peerless Patron Saint of Trashy Italiana, Signorina Raffaella Carrà, singing a beloved Cole Porter standard, in "space", accompanied by a bevy of safety gays and other assorted backup clad as (variously) eye-patched robots, glittery space angels, and, most bizarrely of all multiple Aladdin Sanes?

Not moi!

Raffaella Carrà - Night And Day [Ma Che Sera, 1978]

If you thought Marika Rokk was weird, think on.

Have a good week, peeps! I won't.

Out of the ruins, out from the wreckage

There can be few better ways we would wish to start our week's countdown to Gay Pride in London next Saturday than by celebrating our Primo Italiano Patron Saint La Carrà's birthday!

Especially when she, and her set-designers, and her wig-makers, and her safety gays, and her plastic-costumiers, and her smoke-machine-operators have all had a little too much Prosecco - and decided to let loose on Tina Turner's Mad Max classic choon We Don't Need Another Hero...

Raffaella Carrà - We Don't Need Another Hero

Apocalyptic is definitely the word!

We love it.

Many happy returns, Signorina Raffaella Carrà (born 18th June 1943)