HOT HOTTER HOTTEST!

London is currently simmering at 32c - and I am playing Bob Marley in the shop and feeling reet irie! Nothing better than a bit of 70s reggae on a sunny day - failing that Kid Creole and The Coconuts or Tom Tom Club.

Go deh.

WE ARE ENTRANCED...

I have just finished watching Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND on dvd. For some unknown reason I have never seen it before though it must have been on tv countless times. It's not up there with 'Vertigo' but it was damn good and a real tribute to Hitch's storytelling abilities.

Despite knowing the ending (one of the curses in coming late to a famous film) - and having seen Salvador Dali's dream sequence so often out of context - I was engaged throughout mainly thanks to the very fine performances of Ingrid Bergman and surprisingly Gregory Peck. I say surprisingly as he is usually an actor that does nothing for me.. portrayers of American Everyman usually leave me cold - Peck, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Harrison Ford for me all have that stolid, solid dull exterior. However in SPELLBOUND Peck plays 'JB' was immense charm and a vulnerable sense of bewilderment at his amnesiatic state. Tall, dark and apt to faint. I like that in a man.

There was also a genuine warmth and charisma between him and Bergman which carries you through the plot contrivences to actually believe in the love story. A rare occurence these days when the likes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck etc. are so disgustingly self-absorbed on screen.

All this for the cost of a snoozepaper - the dvd was free a few weeks ago with the Saturday Times.

The Tory press can be so handy.

THANK GOD THAT'S OVER!

For the past two days I have been like a giant in New York.. seeing my face reflected in the shiny towers surrounding me wherever I looked.

As I type 224 cd singles are currently on a cyber tressle-table on the information superhighway for the world to look at, pick up, flip over, look again at the cover and then put down in the wrong place.
Yes this week there was a 5p listings day on eBay! And despite 3 months since the last one, was I prepared? Was I bog-roll. Ergo me surrounded by towers of cd singles racing against time to get them photographed and downloaded, then listed and described on Turbo Lister all so they can be uploaded to eBay at the press of a button this evening.

But how easy is the act of 'letting go'? For someone who agrees with Mrs. Woolf that the past does not stay behind but scampers along beside you, how difficult is it to rid oneself of cds I was once happy to spend The Pounds Sterling on. Noel Coward was right when he pointed out the potency of cheap music.

As I was looking at the covers I had Proustian remembrances of past crimes. Parties, good and bad times, memories of streets walked on as I listened to it on a tape then a cd walkman. To say nothing of the ones that were inexorably linked to those exs that I call my mistakes.

How difficult is it to rid myself of these songs from the soundtrack of my life? Very easy thanks to Owen's old cd burner! So step up to the eBay Bring N Buy store, find the Boomboomsheboomboom booth and don't forget your cold hard cash. I'll even throw in a memory or two.

You lucky people.

Just finished watching THE WORLD'S GREATEST SUPERMODELS on Five...

One of my vices is programmes about the history of the supermodel. I cannot get enough of the same old stories! Jean Shrimpton was a breath of fresh air, Twiggy was a breath of fresh air, Lauren Hutton was a breath of fresh air, Cindy Crawford was a breath of fresh air... and Naomi is a bit of a nightmare!

However my outrage was provoked by the outrageous placing of Linda Evangelista at only #8. I mean..... 8??? The woman who coined one of the defining quotes of the age with "I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day"? An outrage I tell you. A bit of revisionism is obviously at work I reckon.

Although this quote was mulled over on the programme not a mention was made of her classic whinge from the 1995 film documentary (and camp classic) about Isaac Mizrahi UNZIPPED when she said to him "Isaac, why do you always give me the flat shoes and you always give Naomi the high heels? Every single time! Do you have something against white women?"

I can't be arsed to hunt out the video that UNZIPPED is on...  I shall off to Amazon or Play.Com International to order it!

What I've been holding down inside of me...

..If I ever let it out, there wouldn't be signs big enough. 
There wouldn't be lights bright enough.
Here she is boys! Here she is world! Here's ROSE!"
 
Ok so my name ain't Rose and I ain't no she. But 'Momma's Turn' from GYPSY is as good a declaration of intent as any other.

A few weeks ago I launched a website on an unsuspecting world and now... the blog! I tremble to think what my next incarnation will be. But I definately draw the line at a 24 hour webcam. No access all hours here. No TRUTH OR DARE. No siree Bob.

Mind you this is the Chris who said he wouldn't be caught dead with a mobile phone. I am too damn suggestable that's my problem.

But it's lucky for you I'm a giver.