Haunting notes, pizzicato strings

You know you're getting old when...

...you find out that Midge Ure is sixty-five years of age!

Former member of Slik, The Rich Kids and Thin Lizzy, Mr Ure was airlifted into becoming the frontman for Ultravox in 1979 (after their founder and vocalist John Foxx left to go solo) by keyboardist Billy Currie (with whom he had worked as part of Visage with Steve Strange and Rusty Egan). Arriving just at the right time for the rise of the "New Romantics" - a style movement they themselves had partially instigated with Visage - this brand-new incarnation of the band became an instant hit, dominating the charts alongside the likes of Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and Human League.

In 1981 alone, Midge (it's a nickname, from reversing "Jim"; the shortened form of his name) and the boys had a string of reasonably successful chart hits, including Sleepwalk, Passing Strangers, All Stood Still and, of course, this one - notorious as "the nation's favourite Number 1-that-never-was", thanks to the awful novelty song Shaddup You Face by Joe Dolce - it is a classic song that (together with its video, which was largely filmed about as far from its eponymous location as possible, in Covent Garden in the heart of London) just about summed up that brave new musical world...

Ultravox - Vienna

We walked in the cold air
Freezing breath on a window pane
Lying and waiting
A man in the dark in a picture frame
So mystic and soulful
A voice reaching out in a piercing cry
It stays with you until

The feeling has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Ah, Vienna

The music is weaving
Haunting notes, pizzicato strings
The rhythm is calling
Alone in the night as the daylight brings
A cool, empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey sky
It fades to the distance

The image has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Ah, Vienna

This means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Ah, Vienna

Mystic and soulful, indeed.

Many happy returns, James "Midge" Ure OBE (born 10th October 1953)

"We are not used to seeing a penis"

Do you find this shocking?

...or this?



Or any of them?











I like to think that male nudity is natural and pleasant (even if the "New Puritans" of San Francisco disagree - but that's America, where "moral outrage" is a money-making scam trend). We tend to think of Europe as being rather progressive where nudity is concerned.

However, apparently the Nackte Männer exhibition has caused quite a stir under the starched petticoats of the burghers of Vienna.

Read more on the BBC.

Tobias Natter, the director of the Leopold Museum said:

"It's quite unusual for an exhibition to focus on the depiction of the male nude. Surprisingly we had many exhibitions dealing with the female nude body, but so far never an exhibition which features the male nude. Somehow it is a taboo.

"On the other hand, we see that the male nude is getting a new presence in modern contemporary society. He is now on posters, he is on stages, he is getting more and more normal."

Erich Kocina of Die Presse newspaper said of the outrage:

"We are not used to seeing a penis - I think that is the main problem for people”

Ain't that the truth?

Nackte Männer: Nude men from 1800 to the present day is on at the Leopold Museum of Art until 28th January 2013.