Did you miss me?

Yes, we're back in miserable, dank Blighty, after a wonderful week in the blazing sunshine of Benalmadena. Great friends, great food, booze, totty-spotting, banter, booze, lots of laughs, nights out in the sleazy environs of La Nogilera in Torremolinos and booze - business as usual, really!

Our journey out was knackering: only a meagre amount of sleep, and a taxi at 2.30am to catch a flight from Gatwick at the crack'o'doom - so much so that we didn't even go out on Saturday night - and our journey home from Luton airport was marred by the fact that there were no trains to London, so we ended up on a coach transfer to some god-forsaken hole (Hitchin) to get a connection. At least that train got us straight to Finsbury Park (nearer home than Kings Cross) - but there was no Piccadilly Line either, so we had to get a cab... None of that matters, of course, when the bit in the middle was such a joy!

But - what did we miss while we were on our week of hedonism? Well, there was a massive furore over that plague ship that needed to be evacuated after several passengers died of a Medieval disease; and it was a local elections wipeout for Labour, which has put PM Kier Starmer at risk of being ousted. Then there was the glittering Met Gala (now sponsored by the Google gnomes billionaire Amazon arseholes Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez), the important scientific discovery that beer is good for you as it contains vitamins, the departure of Ted Turner for that great 24-hour-television-channel-in-the-sky - and the man who pulled a car using his penis, while on fire [I'm not making this up, you know]!

We also missed celebrating the 90th birthday of Engelbert Humperdinck, the 85th of Earth, Wind and Fire co-founder Philip Bailey, the 80ths of Sir David Suchet and Thelma Houston (and what would have been the 80th of Lesley Gore), the - gulp - 65ths of Jay Aston from Bucks Fizz and George Clooney...

...and Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday!

David Attenborough's Life of Birds - The Lyre Bird

But did we bring anything back for your delectation, dear reader?

This being a Tacky Music Monday, it could only be Spain's answer to Dame Shirl, the late, great Señorita Rocío Jurado, at her big-haired, OTT best!

Rocío Jurado - Como Una Ola

Is it good to be back?

NO!

¡Empieza la cuenta atrás para nuestras vacaciones!

Just a few more days...

Yep. Monday again. Work again. It's still miserable, grey and dank out there, with more rain on the horizon (particularly tomorrow).

However, the countdown has begun - just five days to go, and we're off to Spain on Saturday! Can't wait...

Meanwhile, on this Tacky Music Monday, here's an old fave - our Patron Saint of Histrionics Señorita Rocío Jurado!

As I said last time I posted it:

With a plethora of safety gays and girls who look like drag queens [I'm sure I spotted a youthful Dame Hilda Bracket in there somewhere], bizarre costume changes, piss-poor miming and a duettist who looks like Ron Burgundy sans moustache - this is just perfect!

It remains so:

Rocio Jurado - medley

Have a good week, dear reader.

She sang to live

The late, great "Shirley Bassey of Spain", our Patron Saint of Big Hair Señora Rocío Jurado would have celebrated her 80th birthday today. If you listen carefully, you will probably hear the sound of hundreds of thousands of Spanish queens across the world wailing, rustling their mantillas and knitting their rosaries as we speak - such is the adulation that the lady they called La más grande ("The Greatest") commanded.

After her death, her body was laid "in state" in her home village of Chipiona in Andalucía:

"...More than 10,000 people paid their respects at the local church, La Regla, where her body lay overnight. At the service, the Bishop of Jerez, Juan del Rio, described her as “a woman who enjoyed life, who sang to live.” Jurado was later buried at a private family ceremony.

In Madrid, 22,000 people are estimated to have paid their respects at a wake in the space of eight hours, amongst them film director Pedro Almodovar and musician Emilio Estefan. The Spanish film-maker said she had the “biggest voice in Spain” and described her as, “a generous, sincere and affectionate” woman. Estefan called her “a great singer and a great person”, while President Zapatero expressed condolences to the family of a “great artist”."

We can but hope to receive a send-off like that...

I have, of course, featured this magnificent lady regularly, but here are two of her emotionally-draining (and camp-as-tits) numbers, for your delectation:

Rocío Jurado - Señora

[Why she's singing to a stole is beyond me.]

Rocío Jurado - Ese Hombre

[Which could easily be mistaken for a Jennifer Saunders parody.]

María del Rocío Trinidad Mohedano Jurado (18th September 1944 - 1st June 2006)

While you were away...

We're back, dear reader, after a much-needed week in the sunshine (and it was indeed very sunny and warm on the Costa del Sol, thank heavens), to be greeted by miserable, pissing-down rain here in London. Sigh. At least I have a second week off to recover sulk...

Our apartment balcony [click to embiggen]

So what did we miss while we were away? The main news is [stifles chuckle] it snowed in the UK! Other news: that Fascist Putin's still waggling his willy at the Ukraine; HM The Queen celebrated 70 years on the throne and the Platinum Jubilee celebrations commenced; the 2022 Winter Olympics continued as usual (met mainly with apathy); Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick [an unfortunate name for a lesbian] finally resigned after a barrage of scandals in the force; some very clever people in Oxford apparently did something interesting with a nuclear reactor; and somewhere "oop North" a pig wandered into a workman's club and had to be lured out with cheese and onion crisps.

We missed three centenaries - Patrick Macnee, Denis Norden and Hattie Jacques! - as well as the 90th birthday celebrations of the film music maestro Mr John Williams, whose long career encompasses everything from Peter Gunn to Goodbye Mr Chips to The Eiger Sanction to Harry Potter and beyond. His list of movie scores is gob-smacking, including The Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Jaws, the Star Wars saga, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T., Home Alone, the Indiana Jones films, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Jurassic Park, War Horse (and much more besides) - and this beautiful number:

Netherlands Orchestra [Simone Lamsma (violin); Davida Scheffers (cor anglais)] - theme from Schindler's List [John Williams]

Also while we were away it was Sheryl Crow's 60th, and what would have been the 70th of the lovely Simon MacCorkindale - and, sadly, the UK bade a fond farewell to television boffin Bamber Gascoigne, presenter of University Challenge for 35 years.

Returning to our holiday however (we wish!) - did we bring any new musical discoveries back with us? No. As creatures of habit, we tend these days to gravitate towards a few bars we know and in which we have made friends - and just about all of them happen to be Dutch, rather than Spanish. However, sticking to the traditions of Tacky Music Monday, here's someone who definitely was - our Patron Saint of Histrionics Señorita Rocío Jurado!

With a plethora of safety gays and girls who look like drag queens [I'm sure I spotted a youthful Dame Hilda Bracket in there somewhere], bizarre costume changes, piss-poor miming and a duettist who looks like Ron Burgundy sans moustache - this is just perfect!

Rocio Jurado - medley

Is it good to be back?

NO!!!!!!

Have a good week, peeps.

El regreso

The view of Castillo de Bil-Bil from our apartment balcony

Dear reader, we have returned from our much-needed sojourn to Benalmadena in Spain...

...and not a moment too soon, it seems. Our flight was like a roller coaster last night, and took much longer than expected, due to the high winds over Europe. Today the peculiarly-named "Storm Ciara" [thoughts: a) why do they need to name a bleeding storm at all? It's not as if the British Isles aren't used to all this weather in winter - and with the number of storms we generally get at this time of year they'll soon run out of names for them; and b) speaking of which, wtf is "Ciara" all about anyhow? Sounds suspiciously like a "council-estate name" to me...] has brought such strong gales that loads of flights are grounded, and because of the rain myriad train lines and roads have been closed up and down the UK. At least it's not freezing cold - but I fear our tans may well wash off.

So - what did we miss while we were away? Nothing much unexpected, really - Coronavirus panic, Trump's aquittal, Huawei, post-Brexit celebrations in the UK, sniping from EU leaders, and the Harvey Weinstein trial - it was banner-headline-business-as-usual for the tabloids. Speaking of hoo-ha, the back-slapping awards season is majorly underway - the Bafta awards were on last week and the media are full of Oscar predictions. What was also surprisingly "of interest" in the UK [as with all things, American Cultural Imperialism wins out, more's the pity] was that thing called the Superbowl that Madonna blew the roof off a few years ago; apparently this time it was the turn of Shakira and J-Lo. I shan't bother to look it up on YouTube. In other news: syphilis is on the rise in the UK, a fox was evicted from the House of Commons, and Cafe Rouge opened a cheese-themed hotel (for some reason).

The world bade a fond farewell to "Spartacus" aka the legendary Kirk Douglas, as well as to the less-of-a-legend mercenary soldier "Mad Mike" Hoare (whose life inspired the film The Wild Geese, starring Richard Burton). We missed what would have been the 95th birthday of Patron Saint Elaine Stritch, as well as David Jason's 80th and that of comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, the 70th of the glossy Morgan Fairchild, the 45th of the lovely Natalie Imbruglia, and the 35th of sex god Cristiano Ronaldo.


Could you not tell?

But of course, the BIG tabloid headline-grabber of the week was when chirpy former children's TV totty and breakfast telly host Phillip Schofield came out of the closet (after 27 years married to a woman) - to the surprise of no-one, really. As I said when some oik in our beach bar asked me what I thought of the news (tongue firmly in cheek): "I haven't been so shocked since the news about 'H' from Steps being gay..."

Enough of all that nonsense. Our thoughts are still firmly in Spain, and not the blustery UK.

So, to that end, here's a performer of the first order, who, despite her death in 2006 remains very much the top diva (Mas grande, indeed) of Spanish music. Quite rightly, she's also somewhat of a gay icon - as I have mentioned several times before (click the label at the foot of this post), she's Spain's answer to Dame Shirley Bassey - and this clip just serves to reinforce that image, methinks. Oh, the hair! The sparkly gold outfit! The histrionics! We love Rocío Jurado..!

Rocío Jurado - Paloma Brava

Is it good to be back? NO.

[PS Sorry, Savvy - nothing salacious - redacted or not - to tell about our trip, really. It was all very quiet and relaxing.]

It begins

We've been busy today (after a very lazy day yesterday to recover from the holiday) - playing "nicey-nicey" with our former landlady to get the bond back on the old place, shopping for a new toilet seat (one of the very first things in a new flat is to replace it; in this case the matter was made rather urgent by the fact that the repair-man who came to fix the the bathroom window vent had actually broken ours off while we were away!), and generally making a start on getting Dolores Delargo Towers #4 into some kind of order - putting up (and filling) the shelves for all our books and our CD collection, emptying bags and boxes, and clearing space for the wardrobes that are due to be delivered tomorrow...

...all this while trying to keep warm in the cold winds and intermittent sleet-showers of North London, and still awaiting a full television service from the shiftless money-grabbers of BT (who left us without internet for a week and, despite offering a cable TV service, apparently require the telly-box to be plugged into a conventional aerial socket as well, which we have no idea if we actually have)!

As our lovely, restful holiday starts fading away in our memories, so, on this Tacky Music Monday we need the services of Andalusia's very own uber-diva and gay icon Señorita Rocío Jurado to cheer us up - here performing a couple of video-postcards from our trip!

Rocío Jurado - Si Amanece

Rocío Jurado - Lo Siento mi Amor

Sigh.

A cuddle by the fire, Spanish-style

Feeling a little chilly today? Here's a little something that should warm you up...

On this, the 140th anniversary of the great Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, here's a magnificent interpretation from his ballet El Amor Brujo ("Bewitched love") of the classic Ritual Fire Dance!

With choreography by Carlos Saura and Antonio Gades (who is also the male lead dancer, opposite the sublime Cristina Hoyos), plus the unsurpassable vocals of our great Patron Saint of Histrionics Señorita Rocio Jurado, what better way to take one's mind off Winter?

Manuel de Falla - El Amor Brujo: Danza Ritual del Fuego & Canción del Fuego Fatuo

Roll on our trip to Spain in February, I say!!

Manuel de Falla y Matheu (23rd November 1876 – 14th November 1946)

La Más Grande y sus homosexuales de seguridad

Ho hum. Another weekend has flown by, and we grit our teeth for our return to the joys of work.

Never mind, on this Tacky Music Monday we have another of our Patron Saints here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the sublime Señorita Rocio Jurado - who would have been 70 (or 72, depending on which source one believes) yesterday - to bring joy and sparkle into our lives!

Regardless of her purported birth date, she will forever be remembered as the mistress of all she surveyed ("La Más Grande", indeed), especially where traditional Copla music is concerned.

However, even such a great diva as she could occasionally turn her talents to a bit of a song'n'dance'n'safety-gays number, as this clip shows - Exitos de Revista, apparently...

Rocío Jurado - Exitos de Revista

That's put me in much better mood.

RIP María del Rocío Trinidad Mohedano Jurado (born 18th September 1946 [according to her family and her headstone], or 1944 [according to her obituaries in Spanish newspapers - and indeed my own tribute to her two years ago] – 1st June 2006)

El valor y el temple de ésta vieja fiesta

The late, great Rocio Jurado: often referred to as "The Spanish Shirley Bassey"

It's Wednesday already, and, although we've been counting down the hours in our heads, I have yet to commence any kind of "countdown" to Spain - where we will be on Saturday.

Let's redress that situation immediately!

Here's one of the greatest and campest of all the (many) divas we have collected from that great country of camp music - Señorita Rocío Jurado (so revered, we are even staying on an Avenida named in her honour in Benalmadena!), replete with with her homosexuales seguridad - and Viva El Pasadoble:

Rocío Jurado - Viva El Pasadoble

More tributes to the lovely lady may be found here, here and here.

A woman who enjoyed life, who sang to live

The late, great "Shirley Bassey of Spain" and our Patron Saint of Big Hair, Señora Rocío Jurado would have celebrated her 70th birthday today. If you listen carefully, you will probably hear the sound of hundreds of thousands of Spanish queens across the world wailing, rustling their mantillas and knitting their rosaries as we speak - such is the adulation that the lady they called La más grande ("The Greatest") commanded.

After her death, her body was laid "in state" in her home village of Chipiona in Andalucía:

"...More than 10,000 people paid their respects at the local church, La Regla, where her body lay overnight. At the service, the Bishop of Jerez, Juan del Rio, described her as “a woman who enjoyed life, who sang to live.” Jurado was later buried at a private family ceremony.

In Madrid, 22,000 people are estimated to have paid their respects at a wake in the space of eight hours, amongst them film director Pedro Almodovar and musician Emilio Estefan. The Spanish film-maker said she had the “biggest voice in Spain” and described her as, “a generous, sincere and affectionate” woman. Estefan called her “a great singer and a great person”, while President Zapatero expressed condolences to the family of a “great artist”."

We can but hope to receive a send-off like that...

I have, of course, featured this magnificent lady regularly, but here are two of her emotionally-draining (and camp-as-tits) numbers, for your delectation:

Rocío Jurado - Señora

[Why she's singing to a stole is beyond me.]

Rocío Jurado - Ese Hombre

[Which could easily be mistaken for a Jennifer Saunders parody.]

María del Rocío Trinidad Mohedano Jurado (18th September 1944 - 1st June 2006)

La más grande

Continuing our countdown to Spain here at Dolores Delargo Towers, I think we are well overdue a healthy dose of Hispanic diva-ness!

Fulfilling that need with a camp magnificence unequalled by any of her compatriots, here's the utterly splendid, the late and dearly-missed Rocío Jurado.

Every performance she did had more histrionics than any performer this side of Dame Shirley Bassey, and it is unsurprising that she is worshipped by the gays of Spain...

Rocío Jurado - Como las alas al viento

Such is the adulation Spain has for her, where we are staying in Benalmadena even has an Avenida named in honour of Señorita Jurado. We curtsey every time we see the sign. [Camp, us..?]

María del Rocío Trinidad Mohedano Jurado (18th September 1946 – 1st June 2006)

Viva prima donnas

Today's focus on Spain turns (inevitably) to the divas. Spain produces many of them, particularly since one of the most popular musical forms is the Copla - a dramatic vocal style that combines the fire of Flamenco with histrionics of which Dame Shirley Bassey would be proud. Over the years, many of these grande dames have commanded incredible adulation, none more so than Rocio Jurado.



Big-haired Andalucian uber-Diva Rocio Jurado's career started in the 60’s and never went away. There was mass hysteria in Spain when she sadly died of cancer in June 2006, with crowds lining the streets at her funeral.

According to a travel reviewer in Notes on Spain:

"Universally loved by everyone (passports can be officially revoked just for saying a bad word about her), and known as La Más Grande (that’s "The Greatest", and not "The Biggest" as I originally thought they were rudely calling her!), this woman’s voice has been known to shift small planets from their orbit. Despite her death, her celebrity lives on."

Más Grande indeed!



A more modern diva is one of our current favourites, Monica Naranjo, whose histrionics and melodrama hit a whole new level, crossing pop and Copla with operatic styling. For Spanish gays, she is even more popular than her French diva-equivalent Mylene Farmer!

I have blogged about both ladies before, but I could not resist posting this duet between the older and the newer diva, for your delectation...

Rocío Jurado & Monica Naranjo - Punto de partida