A long, grey, chilly week shivers to its conclusion - and it's time to celebrate!
In fact, let's make it a double celebration, for yesterday was the 85th birthday of the simply faboo Miss Candi Staton, one of the last presiding "Queens of Disco" -
- and, indeed, of House!
Thank Disco Candi It's Friday - and have a great weekend, dear reader!
'Sorry, do you mean al-you-min-ee-um?' Britain asks US
The UK has admitted it has never heard of the ‘Aloo-min-um’ the US is supposedly imposing a 25 per cent tariff on.
The unknown substance has been grouped together with steel, suggesting that it is a metal of some kind, but extensive searches have not found anything answering to the unusual name.
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “A loo is a toilet. So perhaps they’re referring to some kind of ‘loo minimum’.
“But we don’t even export toilets to the US, because they require reinforcing with titanium to accommodate their weightier citizens. Does Donald Trump want a loo? We can send him a loo. I’d imagine he’s already got one.
“Aloo-min-um. It sounds almost musical, like a cross between ‘allelujah’, ‘luminous’ and ’minim’. Perhaps it’s some form of orchestral supply item? Maybe the New York Philharmonic is gasping for it so they can perform a Gershwin season.
“Either way we’ve no clue what it is, so we’ll have to hope the tariff lasts longer than 48 hours then see if we can spot it on the export documents. Aloo-min-um. It’s fun to say!”
He added: “Aluminium? Can’t be that. The spelling’s completely different.”
Of course.
“Dress as though your life depends on it or don’t bother!”
That was the mantra of the ultimate dressing-up queen, Leigh Bowery - and it was he and his circle of misfits and remarkable creatives around which the simply faboo exhibition Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London [that Our Sal, Hils, Crog, Madam Acarti and I trolled off to see at Zandra Rhodes' Fashion & Textile Museum in Bermondsey on Sunday afternoon] revolved.
With most of us being true "children of the '80s", it was practically compulsory!
Although "my era" - the New Romantics of the early '80s, epitomised by the likes of Steve Strange, Spandau Ballet, Marc Almond/Soft Cell, Human League, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode - had led the way, and peaked, a little earlier than when Leigh Bowery's Taboo club and all that came with it were scandalising the streets and the tabloids alike, the style, the home-made, vintage, recycled "looks" on show were all-too-familiar. And I loved it!
From TimeOut:
Taboo, the short-lived nightclub on a corner of Leicester Square, swiftly became a home for Leigh and other noted creatives – like Boy George, John Galliano and Pam Hogg – to dance, indulge and, most importantly, dress up. The dance floor is replicated next door, a crowd of mannequins dressed in all manner of get-ups posing under one glittering disco ball. There are some terrific clothes here, stuff that stops you in your tracks because it is so bizarre or inventive (it’s hard to miss David Cabaret’s pin-stripped bulbous catsuit, also shown in a blown-up photograph of him wearing it on a Wednesday night Heaven at the end of the show). You’ll wonder how our wardrobes all got so homogenised and boring.But it’s not just a case of ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ at the clothes. What this exhibition does so well is situate the pieces in the wider context of London as a global creative hotspot. A sprawling timeline sketches out the socio-economic context, detailing how the availability of squat housing coupled with free higher education and market culture helped to pave the way for the creativity of the decade, against the backdrop of Thatcher’s rise to power and the introduction of Clause 28. Not yet constrained by capitalist pressures, these creatives could experiment, innovate, be silly and make clothes purely for their own pleasure.
The whole thing was simply boggling - the fact that the majority of items on show weren't behind glass, allowing a really close view of original clothes not just worn by the clubbers themselves, not just those designed, made and sold by designers such as Pam Hogg, Rachel Auburn, BodyMap, Red or Dead, John Galliano and Stephen Linard (largely at Kensington Market), but also outfits that were worn and popularised by the likes of Neneh Cherry, Kim Wilde, Martin Fry of ABC, Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive, Marc Almond, Lana Pellay, Maggie De Monde of Scarlet Fantastic, Alannah Currie of Thompson Twins, Mark Moore of S-Express, Bros and (of course) Boy George!
It took co-curator Martin Green (himself a former club kid) two years to track down the clothes for the exhibition.
This was a brilliantly dazzling show of creativity [sometimes poignant, given that all this hedonism took place just as the AIDS era was making a massive impact upon the gay scene at the time; indeed many of the labels crediting the visionaries behind the designs revealed the salutary information that many of them died in their early 30s, Leigh Bowery among them] that was not only an eye-opener, but gave me (and our gang) a shudder of nostalgic memories.
I'm incredibly happy we got to see this before it closed!
...and, speaking of Taboo, here's one of its regulars with his/her one big hit, filmed at that very club:
[click any pic to embiggen]
We ask you: is Britain fucking trying to lose Eurovision?
After a narrow escape with Sam Ryder, is the UK choosing our Eurovision entry so we fail and dodge the expense of hosting its humiliating spectacle?
Hannah Tomlinson, entomologist: “The group we’ve chosen reached the quarter-finals of 'The Voice' in 2019. That is by definition the cream of Britain’s musical talent.”
Denys Finch Hatton, barrister: “67 years of flamboyant freaks with light-up nipples singing upside down in a flaming longship winning, and we enter a girl group. Nul points in the bag.”
Oliver O’Connor, town crier: “Remember that year we almost sent them Katie Price seven months pregnant in a pink PVC catsuit? In retrospect it was obvious we’d Brexit.”
Will McKay, theatrical dresser: “Where’s it being held? Switzerland. Neutral. So it would seem the organisers of Eurovision knew continent-wide war was coming.”
Steven Malley, roofer: “But nobody will vote for us anyway, because everyone hates us. We’re Europe’s Millwall.”
The Daily Mash
Of course.
But I think I'll let you, dear reader, be the judge...
Thoughts?
Back to the grind again...
Never mind, eh? As long as we have our Patron Saint of "if a thing's worth doing, it's worth over-doing" Señorita Sara Montiel - whose birthday it would have been today - and her "homosexuales seguridad" on a Tacky Music Monday, all's well with the world...
Have a good week, dear reader.
[* "Las Camareras" - "waiters" (or, more accurately "waitresses", so we know what role those safety gays really play!) in Spanish]
On another beautiful Spring day, "our gang" (well, Madam Acarti, Hils, Crog, Our Sal and I, anyhow) have been wallowing in the memories, styles, sounds and images of an incredible era five decades ago - at the marvellous Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition at the Fashion & Textiles Museum in Bermondsey [on its last day, indeed]!
More on that later, no doubt...
...meanwhile, here's one of the songs that was playing as we wandered, eyes agape at the spectacular array of weird and wonderful outfits on display:
It's all such a long, long time ago... Sob.
Another busy day in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers - I gave the bench a second coat of teak oil (after Madam Arcati had scrubbed all the algae off and given in a first coat on his day off on Monday), and more hardy geraniums and our favourite blue phlox have been split up and repotted - and all day it was so sunny and warm, it might have been early May!
Meanwhile...
On this International Women's Day, sharing a birthday are a raft of impressive women - including Cyd Charisse, "Little" Peggy March, Lynn Redgrave, Claire Trevor, Harriet Samuel (Victorian entrepreneur behind one of the UK's biggest jewellers, H. Samuel), Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling (pioneering British motorbike racer and aeronautical engineeer during WWII), Louise Beavers (prominent African-American actress, co-star in Imitation of Life)...
...and Carole Bayer Sager!
Here's the lady herself (with a sort-of-appropriate number):
Love it!
