The great educator

It is the birthday of the greatest of all British televisual icons, Sir David Attenborough (88 today).

Oh, how we love him - he can make even the most mundane of creatures infinitely fascinating. Even a caterpillar!

David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth - How caterpillars survive on plants

It will be a very, very sad day when he goes...

Many happy returns!

Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM CH CVO CBE FRS FZS FSA (born 8th May 1926)

I can't get off my high horse

Timeslip moment again - and it's a corker!

An under-rated diva of our age, Miss Jocelyn Brown had her greatest (and biggest selling solo) hit this week in 1984.

Thirty years ago, queens like us were all doing the arm-movements while miming along to this one (and some of us still do)!

Jocelyn Brown - Somebody Else's Guy

I-I-I-I.....can´t get off my high horse
And I can´t let you go
You are the one who
You are the one who makes me feel
So real
Yeah yeah yeah
Oh! What am I supposed to do
Oh! What am I supposed to do baby
When I'm so hooked up on you
Then I realise
Oh I realise
That you are somebody else´s guy

Oh yeah
Why you wanna do this to me boy?

Can you remember the times we spent together
Sharing our days in the sun
Then I found out that you were somebody else´s
lover
After all the plans we made, now were shattered

Still I can´t get off my high horse
I can´t let go
You are the one who makes me feel so real
Ooh what am I supposed to do
When I'm hooked so on you
Then I realise that you´re somebody else´s guy

That day in September, I'm sure you can remember
That´s when all the stuff hit the fan
You told me a lie and you didn't have an alibi
But baby yet I still cared

You know I loved you so baby that I can´t let go
no, no
You are the one who makes me feel so real
Ooh what am I supposed to do
When I'm hooked so on you
And realise you´re somebody else´s guy

You know I loved you so baby that I can´t let go
You are the one who makes me feel so real
Ooh what am I supposed to do
When I'm so hooked on you
And then I realise that you´re somebody else´s guy


Phew!

Jocelyn Brown official website

Wakey, Wakey!

As I awake once again (after a fab long weekend) to the uncomfortable reality that we didn't win the Lottery and (with all that stress over the past couple of weeks worrying about redundancy) I do still have to get up for work, I think it's time for something cheerful.

On the 105th birthday of the ebullient Mr Billy Cotton, here he is with his band - many years before he/they became a mainstay of British light entertainment, and long before he coined his catchphrase "Wakey, Wakey!" - with this rather smutty little ditty from 1932:

Billy Cotton and his band - I Lost My Little Yo-Yo

Have a good week, my pretties...

Billy Cotton (6th May 1899 - 25th March 1969)

NB His son Bill Cotton went on to be the saviour of light entertainment at the BBC - read more.

A Sunny Faye

Anemone du Caen in the gardens at Dolores Delargo Towers

It is another Bank Holiday here in the UK, and potentially a sunny one - yay!

Speaking of sunny, it's not just Tacky Music Monday but also the birthday of Miss Alice Faye (who would have been 99 years old today) - so here, to jolly things along, is the lovely lady herself on the Dean Martin Show:

Dean Martin & Alice Faye - Hello Alice/When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'/You're A Sweetheart

Have a great Faye May Day, dears...

Alice Faye (5th May 1915 - 9th May 1998)

The Power of Knob

We're back from Brighton, after a whirlwind visit (a celebratory one, thank goodness - I got the job in the restructure in work!), suitably ruddy from the brilliant sunshine, to find we could have gone to another intriguing event today (as reported by the BBC):

More than 5,000 people are attending a "knob throwing" competition in Dorset.

Other events include a knob eating contest, knob darts, knob weighing, and knob painting.

The Dorset Knob Throwing and Food Festival event in Cattistock involves participants tossing the locally made, spherical biscuit as far as they can.

The winner receives their winning biscuit and a plaque, while their name is added to a board in the village hall.

Which news, of course, has reminded me that tomorrow marks the centenary of that legend of amatory prowess - Mr Tyrone Power.

Being the tasteful individual I am, I thought immediately of this slice of '90s kitsch by way of tribute...

20 Fingers feat. Gillette - Short Dick Man

Happy Sunday!

Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. (5th May 1914 – 15th November 1958)

Listen to the ground: there is movement all around

A dreadful week crawls to its close, and it is time to start planning to party!
[Admittedly, this may be celebration or commiseration if they announce today whether or not I still have a job...]

We're off to Brighton this evening for a much-needed (if brief) getaway, and we'll be sure to pack our tightest jump-suits and copious quantities of Elnett hairspray - just like the Brothers Gibb (including a weirdly beardless Barry)!

Topping the UK charts this week in 1978, it's the magnificent Night Fever. Thank Disco It's Friday!

Bee Gees - Night Fever

Listen to the ground:
there is movement all around.
There is something goin' down
and I can feel it.

On the waves of the air,
there is dancin' out there.
If it's somethin' we can share,
we can steal it.

And that sweet city woman,
she moves through the light,
controlling my mind and my soul.
When you reach out for me
yeah, and the feelin' is bright,

then I get night fever, night fever.
We know how to do it.
Gimme that night fever, night fever.
We know how to show it.

Here I am,
prayin' for this moment to last,
livin' on the music so fine,
borne on the wind,
makin' it mine.

Night fever, night fever.
We know how to do it.
Gimme that night fever, night fever.
We know how to show it.

In the heat of our love,
don't need no help for us to make it.
Gimme just enough to take us to the mornin'.
I got fire in my mind.
I got higher in my walkin'.
And I'm glowin' in the dark;
I give you warnin'.

And that sweet city woman,
she moves through the light,
controlling my mind and my soul.
When you reach out for me
yeah, and the feelin' is bright,

then I get night fever, night fever.
We know how to do it.
Gimme that night fever, night fever.
We know how to show it.

Here I am,
prayin' for this moment to last,
livin' on the music so fine,
borne on the wind,
makin' it mine.

Night fever, night fever.
We know how to do it.
Gimme that night fever, night fever.
We know how to show it.

Right from the opening bars, you just knew this was always destined to be a classic.

Have a great May Day Bank Holiday weekend, one and all!

Idle-diddle-daidle-daidle man

Sheldon Harnick, Tony- and Pulitzer-winning lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me among many other shows, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday.

As a solo writer or in collaboration with the likes of Jerry Bock, Richard Rodgers, Cy Coleman or Michel Legrand, the man's tally of songwriting credits is phenomenal.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Broadway première of his Fiddler on the Roof.

So, to mark these two very special milestones, let's hear my favourite (and highly appropriate, given the precarious situation I am currently going through in work) song from that show:

Topol - If I Were a Rich Man [Fiddler on the Roof]

"I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show."

Indeed.

Sheldon Harnick (born 30th April 1924)