Friday, 16 August 2013

And you can dance, for inspiration



Reasons to be cheerful: it's the end of my first few days back in work after Amsterdam, the Vivien Leigh archive - including her diaries, which I hope are salacious - will go on show at the V&A next year, and it's the Queen's 55th birthday today!

Many happy returns to Madonna Louise Ciccone, Our Glorious Leader, and let us all get Into The Groove...


Thank Disco It's Friday!

Madonna

Thursday, 15 August 2013

One more covered sigh



Timeslip moment again...

Thirty years ago this week, one of my favourite songs in the world entered the UK charts.

It is significant for a number of reasons:
  • It forever evokes thoughts of sultry, beautiful summery weather - it was sweltering in 1983, as I recall.
  • Emerging from the ashes of The Jam, The Style Council managed what many "post-post-punk projects" did not, and became almost as successful and respected as its predecessor.
  • With its homoerotic video, evoking the zeitgeist of the wildly popular Brideshead Revisited, this was the first time that I ever found Paul Weller sexy. Definitely a factor in my coming-out the following year.
As Britain has actually had one this year for a change, here's the highly appropriate Long Hot Summer...



I play out my role
Why I've even been out walking
They tell me that it helps
But I know when I'm beaten
All those lonely films
And all those lonely parties
But now the feeling is off-screen
An' the tears for real not acted, anymore

I'm all mixed up inside
I want to run but I can't hide
And however much we try
We can't escape the truth and the fact is

Don't matter what I do
It don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
'Cause I end up hurting you

One more covered sigh
And one more glance you know means goodbye
Can't you see that's why
We're dashing ourselves against the rocks of a lifetime

(In my mind different voices call)
What once was pleasure now's pain for us all
(In my heart only shadows fall)
I once stood proud now I feel so small
(I don't know whether to laugh or cry)
The long hot summer just passed me by.


Simply gorgeous.

The Style Council

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Just what the world needs



From the BBC:
All 823 of Barbara Cartland's novels, including 57 previously unseen works, are to be published as a result of a new distribution agreement.

The collection includes 160 manuscripts the prolific romance novelist left behind when she died 13 years ago.

Branded The Pink Collection, 103 of those works have already been made available via the author's website.

It will be accompanied by The Eternal Collection, made up of dozens of existing titles, and a Spanish language collection.
Barbara Cartland official website

More Barbara Cartland at The Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp

While you were away



We have only been away for a slightly extended weekend, but in that short time what have we missed?

That favourite of busybodies everywhere, the "anti-smoking crusade" took another pathetic turn. As usual The Daily Mash has it nailed.

The British dispute with the way Spain is behaving over Gibraltar continues. Let us hope that means the cost of holidays on the Costa del Sol start to come down - we are planning to get there again next February...

WordPress - the supposed biggest rival to Blogger (although I personally hate their interface) - removed an exposé by a trainee journalist on the vile fascist homophobic group calling itself "Straight Pride", supposedly as a response to a claim over US copyright law, and is now battling accusations of censorship.

We must have been awake on Monday night, but somehow managed to completely miss the massive Perseid meteor shower that was apparently visible over Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. If one of the bars or the sauna in Amsterdam had a glass roof I suppose we might have caught it.

Worst of all, we lost not one, but two of our most beloved divas here at Dolores Delargo Towers...

On Thursday, the night before our flight when we were staying with the boys in Essex, the lovely kooky-eyed portrayer of many an "outsider" role - and camp icon (if, for nothing else, her roles in Airport and Trilogy of Terror) - Miss Karen Black departed to Fabulon. Here she is singing in her own inimitable way; with an all-girl grunge band, of course:


And then on my actual birthday - although we wouldn't have noticed, as we never switch on the news or read a paper when we're away - came the very sad news of the death of Miss Eydie Gormé (who I only recently featured on the occasion of her husband Steve Lawrence's birthday)...


[PS Miss Gormé features as our latest exhibit in the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp]

RIP both.

Now we're definitely back to reality.

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Grachten, cocktails, broodje and Angela Lansbury



We had a fab time in Amsterdam!

We toured the grachten...



We drank...



We sang...



We did the infamous "Kylie Wave" to All The Lovers...




We ate (mainly broodje, with the occasional pannenkoek)...



And drank...



We paid tribute to Angela Lansbury (we all wore badges with "I am Angela Lansbury" on them - it's an in-joke amongst our gang)...



...and to Tante Leen...




And drank some more...



Thanks to Madam Arcati (Tony), Hils, Crog, Baby Steve, Alex, TJ, John-John, Russ, Joe, Paul, Jim, Ange, Alistair, Mark, Johnno and Ramon [and to the hosts at the Golden Bear Hotel, Café Rouge, De Spyker, Café Americain, Eetsalon Van Dobben, Café 't Mandje, de Engel van Amsterdam, Café De Barderij, Café René and the Queen's Head - plus, of course, to all the splendid men of the Thermos Sauna] for making it all so very, very memorable indeed...

In all, the absolute best way I could possibly have spent my 50th birthday!

Friday, 9 August 2013

Kleine jodeljongen



And so, dear reader, by the time you read this we should be well on our way for a well-deserved weekend - for my 50th birthday tomorrow - in the city of all cities, Amsterdam! I really cannot believe it has been three years since we were last there (I used to go at least once, if not more times, every year).

To celebrate, I have chosen some examples of the type of music we go there for!

We love an old-time pub sing-a-long. Over here, it is in in the tradition of Music Hall tunes (Roll Out The Barrel, Oh What A Beauty, Down At The Old Bull And Bush, Let's All Go Down The Strand, that sort of thing).

In Holland, this tradition is called "Levenslied" ("Songs about Life").

And here are some of our beloved masters of that genre...





Ik houd van Nederlandse muziek!

"Normal" service will be resumed on Tuesday...

Thursday, 8 August 2013

When green was cool



We couldn't really do a countdown to our Amsterdam trip without dipping at least once into the delights of the Eurovision Song Contest. It's almost as if Dutch oompah music and Eurovision were made for each other...

As this marvellous performance - from 1972, an era when green clothing was cool, and when all men simply had to look like Engelbert Humperdinck and all women like Sally Geeson - by Sandra & Andres proves. It's Als het om de liefde gaat [which according to the announcer means "What do I do?"].

All together, now!


Indeed.

Sandra Reemer

Dries Holten ("Andres")