There were 50 people high as kites dancing a Charleston just over the hedge

I'll always remember that party summer, by Boris Johnson
The summer of 2020. For many it was a time of Covid, of lockdowns, of furlough. But I and a hundred close colleagues will always remember it as our party summer.

As the days lazily rolled on, the sun shining and the streets empty of traffic, there seemed to always be a party blossoming into raucous life on Downing Street.

Whether wine, cheese and a tableful of bottles on May 15th or the full-on 100-person bring-your-own-booze bacchanalia a week later, the champagne was flowing and spirits were high.

Like Jay Gatsby and his gang in the roaring twenties, we had nary a care. While Covid ravaged the country we chinked glasses and mingled in the Eden of Downing Street’s rose garden.

It seemed those days would never end. Even when Cummings was doing his press conference there were 50 people high as kites dancing a Charleston just over the hedge.

Back then nothing could ever go wrong for us. We were young, and free, and full of life and hope. The whole of Britain being locked down simply didn’t matter to us.

But no summer lasts forever. The months advanced, the days got shorter, the rest of the country was allowed to meet six people from a maximum of two households, and the parties lost their delicious savour. We’ll never have that summer again.

No, it was time to put away the rosé, to fold up the garden chairs, to retreat indoors and to begin planning our absolutely fucking massive party winter.

The Daily Mash

Of course.

They too hunger for the beast below

Happy "Hump Day", dear reader!

The sun's shining again, and the spikes of Crocus, Snowdrops, Daffs and Iris are poking through the soil.

Time for the first "timeslip moment" of the year, and this time we've been dragged by the "Preparation H" tractor beam back two decades to 2002 - the year of HM The Queen's Golden Jubilee and the "Party in the Palace" concert, Die Another Day, Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Ian Huntley, the Potters Bar rail crash, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, David Beckham, Bali nightclub bombings, "Metric Martyrs", Gunther von Hagens, George "Dubya" Bush, Paul Burrell, Ford ending car manufacture in Britain (with 2000 job losses), "The Great Glass Testicle" (London City Hall), Spider-Man, Milly Dowler, Jason Bourne, the D.C. sniper attacks, and an attempted coup in Venezuela; the births of Emma Raducanu, Girls Aloud, East Timor, and the International Criminal Court; and the year we bade fond farewells to Spike Milligan, Princess Margaret, Peggy Lee, Joe Strummer, John Thaw, Richard Harris, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, James Coburn, Dudley Moore, Rosemary Clooney, Rod Steiger and HM The Queen Mother.

In the headlines in January that year: the Euro became the official currency of the EC, Mount Nyiragongo in DR Congo erupted, the foot and mouth crisis was declared over, the hype was building over the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (which opened in February), and fans of his surreal "gobbledygook" routines were saddened at the news that "Professor" Stanley Unwin had "ploddy-ploddy forward into the deep fundermold". In our cinemas: Mulholland Drive; Black Hawk Down; Iris. On telly: the debuts of Mr. Bean, Tracy Beaker and Footballers' Wives.

And what of our charts this week twenty years ago? The recently-deceased Aaliyah was in the #1 slot, having deposed Daniel Bedingfield from his second visit to the top, and also present and correct in the Top Ten were Dr Dre, Sophie Ellis Bextor, novelty act DJ Aligator (Blow My Whistle), So Solid Crew, the Stereophonics, Goldtrix presents Andrea Brown and Lange ft Skye (nope, me neither)...

...and, just crashed into the #2 slot (from last week's #68), there was this slice of genius!

Puretone - Addicted To Bass

I got two pale hands up against the window pane
I'm shaking with the heat of my need again
It starts in my feet, reverbs up to my brain
There's nothing I can do to revert the gain
I'm looking down to the street below
There's nothing in the way, they move to show
They too, know what I know
They too hunger for the beast below
Listening to the radio I feel so out of place
There's a certain something missing that the treble can't erase
I know you can tell just by looking at my face
A word about my weakness

I'm totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

There's nothing I can do to be cool
I don't sleep 'til I've had my fuel
It frustrates if I am deprived
A hunger that grates from deep inside
I feel like I'm doing time
Imprisoned by dependence on a rhythm sublime
In my mind I must overcome the need to define
The solitary silence of a faceless crime

Standing by the stereo I'm feeling so alone
My back against a speaker and I'm moving on my own
Surrounded by so many and they're staring at my face
They're picking up my problem

I'm totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Totally addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

Your bassline is shooting up my spine (wow woah ho)
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Your bassline is shooting up my spine (wow woah ho)
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Sunrise at my window, I look down on the street
People I see everywhere are tapping their feet
Suddenly I realise in a look that I was wrong
Everybody's groovin' to their own song
Down at the scene below
There's something in the way they move to show
They too, know what I know
They too hunger for the beast below

Rhythm's running over me to wash away my fears
The backbeat of humanity it sweetens my tears
There's something that's connected us down throughout the years
No need to feel so lonely, everyone's addicted to bass
Wow woah ho
Everyone's addicted to bass
Wow woah ho

Your bassline is shooting up my spine
Your bassline
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Your bassline is shooting up my spine
Wow woah ho
Your bassline has got me feeling fine
It's filling up my mind

Love. That. Song.

Twenty-fucking years ago?! Noooooooo!

Anatomy lesson

I took sips from your sweet lips and now I can't get free

Monday again.

Sometimes, when one is so rudely awakened with the prospect of another tedious week dealing with idiots to come, on a Tacky Music Monday only an old fave Scopitone starring doomed starlet Joi Lansing will do...

Scopitone: Joi Lansing - Web of Love

Have a good week, dear reader...

Who wants to be a millionaire?

It's been quite nice weather here for a change (especially on a weekend), so, despite the limited daylight hours we were out in the garden doing a bit of (light) pottering today - clearing dead, wet leaves and bloody sycamore seeds from the tops of pots, and lifting the dahlia tubers (which have sadly suffered a lot thanks to the terrible weather 2021 gave us, so we fear this year's show may be somewhat less-than-spectacular again) to dry off and store somewhere out of any risk of frost (usually well-wrapped in newspaper on a dry shelf against the wall of the house, as we don't have a greenhouse in this tiny garden).

Such a gentle way to spend a day - so we need some mellow music to go with it, this time courtesy of (the "precursor" of our usual fave site for such things Soft Tempo Lounge) "Uncle Jerry's Pad":

Uncle Jerry's Pad - Millionaires' Hideaway

Ah, that's just the ticket!

[Music: Syd Dale Orchestra - Fly The Magic Carpet]

Just a mortal with potential of a superman

right-click and "open in new tab" to embiggen

The "God who walked among us", David Bowie would have been seventy-five years old today.

No-one, no thing could ever replace him...

David Bowie feat. Robert Smith - Quicksand (Live)

I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith

If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Ah!
Ah!

Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Ah!
Ah!

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones, 8th January 1947)

---

More Bowie:

Read my week-long series of "Bowie Tracks of the Day" following his untimely death six years ago:

• Wild is the Wind
• Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
• Boys Keep Swinging
• Life on Mars?
• Golden Years
• Rock'n'Roll Suicide
• Queen Bitch

Read my two-part magnum opus in tribute to the great man on his 65th birthday:

• Read part one here
• Read part two here

I cannot begin to understand the thing this feeling does to me

The. First. Week. Almost over...

It has (understandably) been a helluva wrench to actually hear an alarm clock go off and to get up every day this (admittedly short) week - but it'll soon be over. After the frosts and gloom, and with rain forecast for the weekend we could be glum - but no!

Instead, let's get our boogaloo shoes on and greet the wekend with open arms, in the company of some '90s club maestros [who've remixed the likes of Carleen Anderson, New Order, Janet Jackson, Rihanna, Samantha Mumba, Geri Halliwell and Kylie Minogue in their time] - and thank Disco K-klass It's Friday!

K-klass - Rhythm Is A Mystery

An absolute classic.

Have a great weekend, peeps!