Et tu, blue cheese?
Wednesday, 31 July 2019
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Fun and laughter on our summer holiday
Britons have asked their government if it would mind not sending the pound into freefall right before their summer holidays every bloody year.The Daily Mash
Threats of a no-deal Brexit have once again sent the pound plummeting against the euro, the dollar, the Turkish lira and all other currencies of hot countries where the UK has two weeks booked.
Tom Booker of Derby said: “It might be nice to have one holiday where the government isn’t snatching cocktails from my hand and dashing them to the ground. Just one.
“Instead, ever since 2016, the Tories decide to engage in July-August economic brinksmanship and I run out of spending money four days before my flight, while the Germans watch and laugh.
“I suppose last year they did vary things a bit by sending the pound into freefall at the beginning of December, depriving thousands of kids visiting Lapland of a reindeer feeding experience. So that was good of them.”
Chancellor Sajid Javid said: “Thing is, politics is a bit boring in summer so we play a game of chicken with the Eurozone’s larger economies to keep our adrenaline up.
“If it’s ruined your holiday it serves you right for not choosing a patriotic British break. We’re dynamiting the Channel tunnel next year anyway.”
Of course.
Monday, 29 July 2019
Nothing to do with Trump, gott sei dank
The enormous, beautiful and exquisitely scented Orienpet Lily "On Stage" in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers.
Oh bugger. The weather's been utterly lovely today, while we were in work...
Never mind, eh? It's still a Tacky Music Monday, and I have another treat in store. Those creative geniuses at Soft Tempo Lounge recently posted a perfect video for their particular brand of easy listening - a remarkable "ballet" number with the cheesiest-of-cheesy scores, as only ever encountered in the 1970s:
I think I might just have gone one better. The piece is lifted from a German Saturday night telly extravaganza Musik ist Trumpf ("Music is trumps") hosted by Peter Frankenfeld, which ran from 1975 to 1981. And, lo and behold, I have found the entire segment!
Prepare to be blown away in a flurry of chiffon, unusual hairdos, operetta, shonky sets, schlager music, and some of the least attractive "safety gays" ever [and watch out for the perpetually-bored audience]...
I adore it! I think I am going to have to get a lime-green-and-purple maxi dress now.
PS wherever is Thombeau? He'd love this.
Sunday, 28 July 2019
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl who has everything?
"Quadruple Threat.Having trekked across Regent's Park after work on Friday to the Open Air Theatre box office to book tickets for their forthcoming production of Evita, I felt I was in need of some libations, so paid a visit to our customary haunt Halfway to Heaven down in the West End. I was very glad I did, too, as not only was there a decent smattering of "our gang" (well, Paul, Mark and John-John, anyway) and other regulars in attendance, and a flying visit from our currently residing-out-of-town chum Pretty David, but there was a cancellation among the usual Friday night drag fare; this meant that (at short notice) the stalwart of late night cabaret, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT), Edinburgh Fringe and - as she took great delight in (repeatedly) telling us - cast member of the new film of the wildly successful West End musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie [alongside Richard E Grant], Miss Myra DuBois ("The Songbird of South Yorkshire") was in residence!
Acts, Sings, Dances, Pours a decent pint.
Rotherham's finest export since Paul Shane."
I have seen the saintly Myra loads of times before, as pub quiz host, emcee, interviewer and general lynchpin of a number of RVT evenings, but this was the first time I'd caught one of her one-woman shows. She's chuffing hilarious, too!
"I make it my mission to personally connect with every single member of my audience. That’s why so many of them leave the theatre as life-long AdMyras. “AdMyras” being the pet term I give to my fans. Like Lady Gaga has her “little monsters” and Kate Bush has the ‘socially inept’. I have my AdMyras. And there’ll be songs, my goodness there’ll be songs! I can’t put myself on a stage and not sing for my people, it wouldn’t be fair. Songs, laughter and a fully stocked bar. That’s what punters can expect from one of my shows!"I laughed till tears streamed down my cheeks at her acidic repartee, her admonishments of misbehaving members of the audience, and, of course, those "songs"...
Now that's what I call an old trouper!!
Myra DuBois official website.
Saturday, 27 July 2019
¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!
The weather's all back-to-front again - hot and (sometimes) sunny during the week while we're chained to our desks, then damp and mizzly on the weekend. Typical bloody Britain.
Hey ho, here's something to cheer us all up - some perfect holiday music, courtesy of The Mariachis!
Originally assembled as a combo in an advertising campaign for those awful cardboard-with-added-chilli tortilla "snacks" Doritos, they have apparently gone down a storm ever since as the inevitable "novelty act" at a succession of festivals, including Glastonbury!
Being a determined commercial-telly-ad-break-avoider, I had never previously heard of them. Until today, when Our Jen pointed me in the direction of this faboo cover - of The Human League...
¡Está increíble!
Friday, 26 July 2019
It's your time to be a star
Weekend. Payday. Gin. Three little words that make life soooo much better.
As we hurtle into the maelstrom of partying, shopping and other oh-so-stressful activities that will occupy our lives for the next 48 hours, why not let the lovely Miss Gwen McCrae [who I went to see live on stage back in 2011] ramp up the happy mood - and Thank Disco It's Friday!
Everybody that's on the dancefloor
I want you to put your hands together
And just smoothe your hips from side to side
(Keep the fire burning)
Yeah, that's it, you got it, hmmm-mmm
Now, mister DJ (Keep the fire burning)
I want you to countdown with
It's your time to be a star
(Keep the fire burning)
Ooh ooh ooh
Yeah, can you feel it?
You gotta write it, baby
(Keep the fire burning)
(Keep the fire burning)
Yeah, it's good to me
(Keep the fire burning)
I know you feel it somehow
Oh yes, Gwen! We do.
Thursday, 25 July 2019
For you I'd get down on my knees
Yes. People did look like this in the 70s.
The stiflingly unpleasant heat today [I can cope with 38C/100.4F temperatures if the sun is out and the air is moving, but it's been overcast and humid-as-hell - even the thunderstorm just now fizzled out after barely dampening the leaves in the garden] takes us back - as all heatwaves in this normally moist island inevitably do - to the great Summer of 1976.
And so, appropriately, we have a mini-timeslip-moment...
In July forty-three years ago, apart from melting pavements and stand-pipes in the streets (London had fifteen days over 80F, and five consecutive days over 90F), there was also in the news: the raid on Entebbe airport, Nadia Comăneci's seven "perfect 10s" at the Montreal Olympics (and our own gold-medal-winning swimmer David Wilkie in his skimpies setting many a teen-queen's loins-a-tingle), the first photos from Mars taken by the Viking 1 lander, the murder by the IRA of British ambassador to the Irish Republic Christopher Ewart-Biggs, an earthquake in China that killed 242,769 people, three British (and one American) mercenaries shot by firing squad in Angola, and the US Bicentennial celebrations. In our cinemas: The Omen, Bugsy Malone. On telly: The Bionic Woman, The Sky at Night and the Olympics.
And what of our charts that memorable high summer - this week in 1976? The Top 3 remained firmly in place - Elton & Kiki at #1, Dr Hook at #2 and Demis Roussos at #3. Also present and correct were The Manhattans, Tavares, Candi Staton, Dorothy Moore, Jonathan King (masquerading as 100 Ton and a Feather), David Dundas and Queen. But just outside the Top Ten, waiting its turn, was this one [here, in a very strange set indeed]...
It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
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