On Sunday afternoon we went to see PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
DEAD MAN'S CHEST. Never has so much money been spent on something so totally forgettable. I have no problems with a trilogy. But dear God do something in the second film rather than just run around with unnecessary plotlines trailing behind you. So much was being thrown at the screen that there were several times I found myself totally at sea with the events happening at sea.

Johnny Depp is given his head to reprise his foppish, whacked-out, cowardly Jack Sparrow and again gets by on the goodwill generated by previous performances. Sadly those two planks of wood in human form, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, are back on board and in danger of serious warping as so much water is thrown at them. I have come to the conclusion that Knightley is an amalgam of Helena Bonham Carter and Elizabeth Hurley. Her performance here is lamentable. Her lines are intoned in a flat Knightsbridge accent - like a Benenden headgirl playing Shakespeare - and moments of drama are best expressed with a knitted frown and clenched fists. Jonathan Pryce reappears in a mortgage-holding role as Knightley's father.

Four new supporting characters are brought in: Tom Hollander is a smarmy officer in the East India Company who is there to be hissed at by being nasty to the planks of wood, Stellan Skarsgard is unrecognisable as Bloom's ghostly father trapped among the crew of Davy Jones played with great relish by Bill Nighy - equally unrecognisable with the face of an octopus! Naomie Harris plays a Jamaican ju-ju woman and is a welcome relief from the white bread Knightley.

We also saw the ad for pirate (no pun intended) dvds - you know the one, several scenes from the latest blockbuster which then shrink down to a tiny screen while a voice-over berates people who would want to watch it on the small rather than big screen. Funny how they change they tune when the dvd is officially released!

AFTER 90 YEARS...

it looks like the 300+ English soldiers shot during WWI by their own side for alleged cowardice and desertion will finally be given a pardon. It's is shocking it has taken this long for this to happen. So many times it appears the men were suffering from shell shock and suffering mental trauma after witnessing the death of so many friends and colleagues. Finally the Defence Secretary Des Brown is doing what his pathetic fellow Labour MPs Geoff Hoon and John Reid failed to do when they had the chance as DS.

Of course the hidden stories also reveal a more frightening thing. The men were by and large all ordinary soldiers. Only three officers were executed. The men were usually shot as "an example to others" and their court martials were usually over within 30 minutes with the men refused defense lawyers or even the chance to have a friend to speak for them. The Shot At Dawn campaign website highlights several cases which linger in the mind as truly chilling.

Thomas Highgate was 18 when he became the first British soldier to be shot for desertion 35 days into the war. He had been involved in the Battle of Mons and had been so affected by the carnage he hid in a barn. He was undefended at his trial because all his regiment had been killed, wounded or captured.

Aged only 16, Herbert Burdon from Lewisham was too young to join up so he lied and said he was 18. Ten months later he was court-martialled for leaving his post when he went to comfort a friend whose brother had been killed. His unit had been ordered to the front just before he left. He was found guilty of desertion and shot aged 17, still technically too young to even be in his regiment, probably as a warning to his unit which had already had two deserters .

Harry Farr was a former soldier from Kensington when he signed up leaving a wife and one year-old daughter. After having survived the horrors of the Somme and Neuve Chapelle he collapsed in 1915 and 1916 with jangled nerves and spent 5 months in a field hospital so traumatised his letters home were written by nurses. In September 1916 he again broke down and while attempting to seek treatment refused to return to the trenches as he said he could not bear the sound of the artilery. He was charged with Cowardice and was shot the following morning. He was 25. His wife was deprived of his state pension, was turned out of their home and had to find work in service. She died in 1993 aged 99 having been denied the chance of her husband's name being cleared by then Prime Minister John Major. His daughter aged 93 hopefully will live on to see it soon.

HAVE YOU CONFESSED YET?

On Sunday we saw Madonna for the last time at Wembley.

When I first saw it I thought it wasn't as good as the RE-INVENTION Tour but now I have seen it 3 times I find... I've changed... my mind (see what I did there?) There is a unity to the show which effortlessly segues into each new phase. The RE-INVENTION tour had some dizzying highs but it also had the slight longeur of "Hanky Panky" and "Deeper And Deeper" as well as the "Paradise (Not For Me)" segment which had 2 dancers on swings. But CONFESSIONS flows from song to song and conjured up some amazing imagery to go with them, making the show a real multi-media event.

I have mentioned a few highlights already in my first blog so here are a few more: The great sounding LIKE A VIRGIN with great stabs of synth as M clamboured aboard a rotating saddle and pole twirling around a platform above the audience

ISAAC with it's galloping dance pulse and the haunting vocal of Yitzhak Sinwani - who would have thought this track would be one of the standouts? The film of a trapped eagle being set free was echoed on stage by a caged shrouded woman who, when released from her cage, throws off her cloak to show she is a glittering belly dancer who runs and dances with wild abandon.

SORRY absolutely shook the Arena and it was nice to hear Neil Tennant's vocal lifted from the PSB remix used as the intro.

The glorious guitar thrash of I LOVE NEW YORK with the blinding white strob lighting and minimalist NY skyline.

The lovely version of PARADISE (NOT FOR ME) sang as a duet with Yizhak against a lovely film backdrop of a cherry blossom tree shedding it's petals against a darkening sky. This song obviously means a lot to M as she has included it in the last 3 tours.

HUNG UP brought the evening to a explosive close though I still yearn for the sheer optimistic, tear-spangled joy that was HOLIDAY which closed the RE-INVENTION tour.

It is being filmed tonight and tomorrow for showing on NBC and no doubt a subsequent DVD release but M must be experienced live if only to feel the sheer energy she puts out that is still travelling when it hits the back wall.

It's laughable really that the Catholic Church were up in arms about the use of the huge mirrored cross she appeared on while singing LIVE TO TELL (my Disco Jesus moment) while ignoring the context the song was set against, the screens showing the faces of children in Malawi and numbers spinning ever upwards from 0 to 12 million which is the UN estimate of AIDS orphans in Africa.

Added to this, the wonderful dancehall style SORRY video which intercut the posturing faces of Bush, Nixon, Blair, Condelezza Rice, Kohmeini, Cheyney, Hitler, Ahmadinejad, Sadam Hussein, The Pope, Rumsfeld, Mussolini, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il etc. with the words DON'T TALK DON'T SPEAK and you have an evening to make you think as well as dance.
You haters can say whatever you damn well want to... ain't no shifting me from my love of her.

Who said SUPERMAN RETURNS was a dog?

MADONNA 2












Back to Wembley tonight for a second helping of M.

Now that I wasn't on edge wondering if I would like it while trying to take in everything that was happening on stage etc. I loved it all the more.... really relaxing into the show and letting it wash over me. We were closer than on Tuesday, this time facing the right-hand side of the stage and a little closer to the central runway. As usual I was next to the tallest bloke in the auditorium *sigh* but we finally both managed to nab a balloon (gold balloons fall from the gantry during HUNG UP, the last song of the night) - hurrah!!

It was wonderful to again be so close to her, she looked fantastic and seemed to be having a much better time tonight too. I suspect the first night is always going to be a bit cagey as she is getting a feel for the stage and the venue but after 2 shows she seems to be at home in the space and it was great to see her working the runway and smiling broadly at our reactions.

The show seemed to run smoother too and her dancers were even more effortless in their athleticism and physical daring. The CONFESSIONS songs are sounding better and better and I'm really appreciating the tweaks the back catalogue songs have been given to fit in the overall soundscape.

Before we went in we had a chance to soak up the atmosphere in the new piazza in front of the Arena what with dancing fountains, lit-up trees on terraces - and Madonna's handprints of a Walk of Fame.

One kvetch: why are other people's mobile phone cameras ALWAYS better than your own? It's so pissy to get blurred shot after blurred shot and the bloke in front holds up his and you can see he's getting a perfect close-up of her... GRRRRRRRRR.
Anyhoo this was my best of the evening.... look how close we were!!

"JUST WATCH ME BURN..."

One of the lines in LET IT WILL BE has been running through my mind since leaving the Wembley Arena after seeing MADONNA on her opening night.

We had excellent seats on the floor - quite close to the stage and right in front of one of the side platforms so she WILL have seen me. We were also about halfway down the centre runway which extended from the stage to the middle of the floor - so a lot of time was spent looking behind us to see if she was going to pop up there or on the stage. She caught me out a few times!

It's a show that is growing in my mind the more I think about it and I'm really looking forward to seeing it again.

Instant highlights:
Her first appearance in a huge glitterball that lowered from the gantry to the stage and split open to reveal herself in Gautier's amazing equestrian outfit with top hat and mane.

JUMP where her amazing dances leapt in, around and over metal frames around the stage - she also had a go!

RAY OF LIGHT which had the audience jumping up and down while the whole stage lit up in white light

LET IT WILL BE - just Madonna dancing the length of the runway obviously feeding off the energy of the audience

MUSIC blended in with the opening riff to DISCO INFERNO wonderfully ushering in the final Disco segment of the show with some fierce rollerskating from the excellent ensemble

LUCKY STAR - a nice surprise to be included in the set as M flashed around the stage in a DANCING QUEEN cape with lights inside it!

During her longest break offstage we were treated to an excellent remix of SORRY accompanied by a mash-up video of authority figures. I can't think of many performers who would include footage of the Pope followed by Osama Bin Laden, Condeleeza Rice, Ahmadinejad, Tony Blair (nicely booed), Mussolini, Sadam Hussein, Adolph Hitler and George W. Bush while the lines loop "Your sorry just won't do" and "I've listened to your lies"...

After much soul-searching I deceided to wear one of the tour shirts from the '87 WHO'S THAT GIRL tour. Odd to think my shirt was older than several in the audience. I was stopped twice when leaving by guys who obviously recognised I was a longterm fan asking how I thought it compared to other tours. That was nice. Even though the first bloke who sounded foreign said "I had to ask as you are old...". I was in such a good humour I didn't crack him one in the snoot.

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #11

2004 found me and Owen going twice to Earls Court and once to Wembley Arena to see the RE-INVENTION tour. By far the best of all her tours the stage teemed with life and sound - and the fact that I was three rows back at Wembley was the big glistening cherry on the cake - unforgettable.

*thinks: where are those bloody tickets*

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #9 & 10

2001. Eight years on... and I was seeing Madonna alone at Earls Court. OI THE TSOURIS.... had a nice seat halfway back on the floor in the block behind the mixing desk, sat there gawping about... 5 minutes before startime a steward showed up asking to check my ticket! 5 minutes later there I was in the front office having my tickets checked with about 5 other people whose seats were double-booked - bloody Ticketmaster!!! I stood there, the last to have a new seat allocated - as I heard the muffled screams of the audience as the gig started. I was freaking out - demanding to be seated *hand arcs above the head and finger snaps* NOW.

FINALLY I had a seat allocated and raced to my new seat - nearly halfway down at the side with a great view across onto the stage so actually all worked out in the end! A wonderous theatrical spectacle which managed to be intimate and barnsorming... I screamed myself stoopid!

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #7 & 8
1993, last time at the stadium and the last time seeing Madonna with Steve. THE GIRLIE SHOW was a bit of a comedown after the glorious excess of the BLONDE AMBITION tour but it still had it's highpoints although ultimately it all seemed a bit remote. The tour was subsequently released on the LIVE DOWN UNDER dvd.

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #5 & 6

1990, back to the Stadium for the BLONDE AMBITION tour, this time was Ann Molloy and - ahem - Valerie Singleton. Loved this much more than the WTG? tour... Gautier's conical bras. the BEWITCHED top-knot and fall, the LIKE A VIRGIN harem scene, the FAMILY AFFAIR/KEEP IT TOGETHER medley... The tour was sponsored by Pioneer so the concert could be released on Laserdisc - remember them? I wonder if that's why it's never been released on dvd. Maybe they think there's enough of the concert footage in the documentary IN BED WITH MADONNA?

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #3 & 4

You might be discerning a trend soon....
This was the brochure for the WHO'S THAT GIRL? tour in 1987, the first time I saw Madonna on stage when she played Wembley Stadium. I went with my mate Steve who sadly died ten years ago. It was her first appearance in the UK as her Virgin tour two years previously had only toured the States. The tour is available now on the CIAO ITALIA! dvd.

2 DAYS 19 HOURS AND COUNTING.....

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #2

I am badder than the baddest thing. I have been remiss in digging things out of the bedroom to share with you Constant Reader.

So here's a lovely little item again from Barcelona. I bought this 'desktop centre' in Poble Espanyol at the workshop/gallery of glass designer Luesma Vega. Poble Espanyol is a strange place, built in 1929 for the International Exhibition on the road up the side of Montjuic mountain, it was laid out like a small Spanish village with buildings designed to represent the different regional architecture of Spain. Since it opened it has had a chequered existence - you won't find too many references in it's literature to the fact it was an internment camp during the Civil War - but in 1997 it started to regenerate itself into a large centre for Catalan arts and crafts which is what sustains it today. Not bad for a project originally meant to stand for the exhibition's span of 6 months. We walked around Poble Espanyol late one afternoon, Owen found some small handmade cards of the Gaudi Chimneys of Palau Guell and Casa Mila which he has since had framed and I found a small shop run by a nice old lady who made figures out of straw, Yes I bought some donkeys! After this we found Vega's gallery and were struck by the originality of his designs. My frosted glass dish with the glittery green and yellow inset centre has yet to find it's right place in the house but I'll keep it safe in it's box for now.

WOTCHA MATES!

Happy birthday for tomorrow (Weds 26th) to the one and only Danny La Rue who is 79!

Danny La Rue - born Daniel Carroll in Cork - always seemed to be on television when I was growing up, either in variety shows like Sunday Night At The London Palladium or The Good Old Days and chat shows etc. He always seemed to be on in the West End in big expensive pantomimes and was mentioned in newspapers frequently as his club in Hanover Square was an in-spot for celebs. My Ma was a huge fan - well he *was* Irish after all - and even had a few of his albums. One in particular I remember was called LIVE AT DANNY LA RUE'S, a recording of one of the late night floor shows at his club. Now why did I always get the jokes riddled with innuendo? Had I caught on early thanks to the likes of the CARRY ON films or was there a deeper meaning to my enjoyment? I'd like to think so.

I remember me and my Ma went to see his show DANNY AT THE PALACE at - no, honest - the Palace Theatre where it ran an astonishing two years in the early 1970s and have two abiding memories: the sheer glamour of it all with outlandish frocks - all trains and feathers - and that the jokes were even ruder - and I still got 'em. Obviously bred in the bone. Danny La Rue ruled that stage.. holding the audience like a true star and managed to bring the house down with a look. He kinda disappeared off the tv in the late 70s when his shtick of poking fun at Dietrich, Bassey etc. appeared hackneyed but never stopped touring - he even appeared as Dolly in HELLO DOLLY in the west end in the 1980s.

He was working constantly up until a heart attack in March this year. I hope he's ok. His appeal was that he always 'guyed' the image, making a huge entrance in a flowing beaded gown flashing his legs and saying in a deep voice "Wotcha mates" - always the first one to reveal he was a 'cock in a frock'.

A real star and a gay legend.

Latest score:
Lebanese dead = 380+
Israeli dead = 42

and in the meantime the world looks on saying "You shouldn't be doing that you know".

Been meaning to post this since June.

Martin - who I work with on a Saturday - was shopping in his local open-all-hours mini-market in Walthamstow for a multi-fruit drink. Sure enough he bought something called FRESH 100% FRUIT or some such cheap import, got it back home and in mid-glug he turned the carton around to find he was drinking something quite surprising in it's original language....

On Friday I went with Angela to the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre to see the London debut of Jason Robert Brown's off-Broadway musical THE LAST 5 YEARS. I remembered how small the theatre was - seating only 150 - from when O and I saw the sensational production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE there in December... but we ain't in December now.... it was quite an ordeal. The sweat was rolling off me from the get-go and being so closely packed in on the bench seats made it ultimately an uncomfortable 80 minutes.

I wish I could say I enjoyed the show as much as rest of the audience seemed to - comprising a few groups of gushing O MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING drama students who no doubt know this score by heart. Brown is one of the new breed of Broadway writers who owe a debt of allegence to Stephen Sondheim - word-heavy and somewhat plodding - they haven't his skill of marrying his own unique style to a noticeable Broadway tradition. Brown offers his own spin of Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG which tells the story of 3 friends in reverse - you first meet them as jaded, cynical, former-friends then follow the story back to when they are about to leave college full of hope and optimism in the future and their friendship. In THE LAST 5 YEARS we follow the marriage of Jamie, a successful author, and Cathy, a struggling actress, from first date to break-up - Jamie's story is told linear fashion, Cathy's in reverse so the only time they actually appear in the same timeframe is when they marry.

I thought when I heard the premise that it sounded tricksy and sadly the form works against it in the end unlike MERRILY where the ending is touchingly poignant. It's difficult to convey a span of 5 years in such a short running time - and in what appeared to be two costumes each! - and ultimately I didn't find the characters had any real depth. As the songs are mostly soliliqueys due to the nature of the piece, I found myself thinking more often than not "I bet this is used a lot at auditions". Lara Pulver and Damian Humbley give it all they've got so there is no need for them to be over-amplified too. Was it the sweatbox atmosphere or the sound that left me with a nagging headache? MENTAL NOTE: DON'T GO TO THE MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY THEATRE IN THE SUMMER.

Oi Gevalt Productions... the heat.

It's been a funny old week what with London going into thermo-nuclear meltdown, WWIII kicking off in the Lebanon and poor O being sans internet - he has been acting quite strangely. Phoning up just to hear me connecting to the internet was going a little far I thought. Oh and on Tuesday I had my diabeatnik clinic where amazingly I was given a gold star and a tick by the doctor. My IMO blood test has been normal for over a year now so all the doc could say to me was "Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it". I only wish I knew what it was! I don't think I've changed my lifestyle THAT much. Of course for me it means when I go next in January I am going to have to live up to this track record. Just after Christmas too. Eeeek!

On Wednesday we sweated it out at the exquisite heat-trap Bush Hall seeing Owen's own Sandi Thom for the second time this year. Echoing Dawn's thoughts in her blog it is rare to be in a venue where I actually felt able to move about if needed. I'm not sure how many of the acts I like would play there but it would be nice to go to again with the pretty carvings and the chandeliers.

And what of la Thom? I can't say I'm crazy about that kind of singer/songwritery stuff but it was good enough to spend an hour or so listening to. I found some of the songs almost identical and she should probably be thinking about expanding the set-up of her, 2nd guitarist and packing case thumper as it really does restrict her sound. A little more stage presence wouldn't go amiss. Her stage patter when first seen was charmingly jokey but now with a number one album and single under her belt I think her audience will be expecting more than "Isn't it hot? Still.. better than it being cold." The audience however seemed to cheer everything loudly - despite a lot of talking during the ballads as usual.

It will be interesting to see what she is going to do next. I guess it also depends on how much ground she can steal from the omni-present and fellow Scotty K.T. Tunstall (who leaves me totally cold) - I really cannot see much room for two of them in the market. She announced she would be in the foyer "signing and chatting". Cue a stampede by her demographic audience of young girls - and um... me and O. I got her to sign a poster - fighting the temptation to get her to sign it to eBay - and O had brought his copy of her cd with him, just in case! She was as charming as when we met her last time so one hopes she does manage to maintain interest.

So... no police officers will be charged over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Didn't see that one coming...

I saw this last week on the way to work and thought it was funny...

















But then I saw this yesterday at the same place....


















*sigh* ...so that's another year over then

Went with Owen to see X-MEN:THE FINAL STAND this afternoon. One of his must-see films of the year, I was happy to tag along as I must admit to having liked the last two - although the big action fantasy picture is a genre that usually leaves me cold. The previous films were directed by Bryan Singer who brought an interesting brooding quality to them. The eclectic cast have always made their odd characters interesting, imbuing them with more watchability than usual for this kind of film and the underlying thread of the place of the misfit in normal society is mined for all it's worth.

This film is directed with the less delicate hand of Brett Ratner who slams the action scenes home with crunching impact but his handling of the dramatic scenes is a bit flat, not really doing enough to bring life to the many different characters elbowing onto the screen for the surprisingly standard running time of 104 minutes which is already groaning under the weight of several plotlines including the main one: a serum is invented which can change the Mutants to 'normal' human beings, do the Mutants accept this or should they revolt against it?

Luckily the old hands grab all opportunities going: McKellen lording it effortlessly over the film, Hugh Jackman shading the character of Wolverine (no thanks to the script which saddles him with irritating Bond-ish one-liners), Anna Paquin making the most of few scenes, Halle Berry is given more to do this time out and the always watchable Famke Janssen as the reborn Jean Grey with the unleashed psyche of the erotically-charged Phoenix. They are joined surprisingly by Kelsey Grammer - not the most obvious action-film actor - as the political face of the Mutants and by Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut who smashes things. Stunning casting stroke I know...

All in all, I enjoyed it. Just a shame Singer wasn't on board who would have been better I suspect dealing with the choice of the outsider being medically altered to the norm or the frightening untapped power of a strong woman. Mind you... we saw a trailer for his upcoming SUPERMAN movie which looks a bit uninspiring.

BEDROOM MEMORABILIA #1

I have deceided to tidy my bedroom. I think Osama Bin Laden might be hiding out in some of it's more unapproachable regions.

However as I am - to misquote Cole Porter - The Laziest Boy In Town I shall be doing it bit by bit so I shall be sharing with you what I come across each week!

First to hand... a nice heavy-duty smallish carrier bag from Gaudi's Palau Guell in Barcelona! Sadly back in 2004 we didn't get to see too much of the interior as they had started the renovation which has since closed the whole building till January 2007 but we did get to see the roof with the famously weird and wonderful chimneys. This is one of the four Gaudi UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Barcelona. I love me a nice carrier bag... now what to use it for?

Owen's blog about The Kinks' LOLA - http://swowen9.blogspot.com/2006/07/i-met-her-in-club-down-in-old-soho.html - sent me scurrying off to Google out of curiosity to see if I could find the cover of the TOP OF THE POPS Music For Pleasure album I had 'a' version of it on...

Fug me!

A MEMORABLE KNIGHT

Saturday night was Gladys Knight! O and I saw her at the Royal Albert Hall and she was great.

Not the best soul room in the land I was a bit trepeditious about the evening. I was expecting it to be a supperclub performance plus orchestra with maybe a toe-curling "I wanna take you back with a medley of my hits" segment with a mid-tempo skip through her deep soul classics from her Motown and Buddah years. It didn't bode well from the start when her support act was a comedian. We sat it out in the bar which soon filled with bemused punters who had expected a soul singer. This of course meant that the bar staff of two had no time to fill the interval drinks orders so when the interval soon arrived, the bar was bedlam. I know this as I was trying to be served at the time.

We had checked out our seats when we arrived and were gobsmacked to find we were 3 rows from the stage! Owen had told me we were towards the back so I hadn't bothered checking. Needless to say thanks to the RAH's low stage we had a great view of Gladys and her on-stage band: conductor, 3 backing singers, 7 travelling band members and a London string section. She walked out to a standing ovary (me included) and launched into a frantic "Friendship Train" - a lesser-known Motown hit - followed quickly by the 1988 hit "Love Overboard". It was great, lights were flashing, the band was tight and Gladys' white flowing diamante-flecked outfit was loose! She was in glorious voice all evening, effortless in range and power. She mined the depths of soul for "If I Were Your Woman" and "Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)", maintained the tense vocal for "Licence To Kill" with ease (a surprising appearance in the set), earned a standing ovation for a lovely "The Way We Were" - owning the song now as much as Streisand - and jazzing it up with 5 selections from her new Verve cd BEFORE ME of classics from earlier singers who inspired her.

The show ended when she was joined onstage by older brother Bubba who was also one of the Pips! They dueted on a funky cover of Al Green's "Love And Happiness" then managed to bring the house down and the audience to it's feet with "Midnight Train To Georgia". They encored with a downhome rendition of their version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", a hit for them before Marvin Gaye.

A fan of 30-odd years, I have always thought Gladys as one of the great soul singers, after seeing her live I now think she is possibly the greatest. Even a hellish journey afterwards back to O's after which lasted well over two hours has been forgotten in the glow of Gladness.

Ooo-weee another Record Bag night at Ye Olde Retro. After trying valiantly to get together a snappily-titled "5 FROM THE 50s" which sadly didn't fly this time out (but will continue to be worked on) I cobbled together a set list using the tried and tested formula of them being songs I wanted to hear played loud!

Madonna "I Love New York" (film remix)
Pet Shop Boys "West End Girls"
TLC "Creep"
Alexander O'Neal "Hearsay"
Gnarls Barkley "The Last Time"

I love the M remix, PSB and TLC sounded good back to back on iPey one day and Alexander O'Neal and Gnarls B were tracks I've wanted to play for a while. As usual I enjoyed myself bigly but we must start nabbing tables towards the dj booth - it would be nice to see my compadres when I am spinnin' em up. Owen made it there, the first time out properly since his back problems and after today's jour de enfer he deserved a cheer-up.

As usual I was visited by a resident fixture of the night *just* as I was relaxing into the set and proceeded to mumble away about sod all for what seemed like ages. He even accused me of wearing a knocked-off Keith Haring t-shirt. Happily he was suitably chasened when I showed him the Pop Shop label. Clown.

Rob asked me when I was playing TLC did I like 'lady groups' from the period 'cos when cleaning out the Retro kitchen he had found loads of cds and I could have any I wanted. "Sure" says I, so when I finished the set he came over and dumped them all on the table. After about a minute the penny dropped... they were all mine! I had left them there after the Sunday Retro Car Boot Sales almost three years ago. I roared.... amazingly most of them I would have sworn blind I had sold on eBay! I happily dumped them back with Rob who left them on a table for punters to take what they wanted. It's that Giver thing again you dig?

Um.. I just HATE drawing attention to myself but I thought you might like to know I've added a page to my website about the trip to Mexico which has some PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED pictures. Oh and Dawn... there's a new Tiger cat one!

I have also started a page of dvd reviews... dunno how long I'll keep that up for but as I've said before... it's lucky for you I'm a giver.

Eeeek - my tickets for the first of Madonna's London dates arrived today!
Last Saturday I received the dvd/cd combo of I'M GONNA TELL YOU A SECRET so have been on a Madonna tip all week.

Official: I am getting excited.

38 days to go......

Last night I re-aquainted myself with James Marsh's disturbing docu-drama WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP on dvd. Originally shown under the Arena banner on BBC2 the film was later given an art-house release in the US (which was news to me).

It's based on a 1973 book by Michael Lesy who had discovered a large archive of images by Charles van Shaik, the town photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The photographs dated from 1890-1900 and Lesy linked the pictures of the town's inhabitants with extracts from the local newspaper about odd incidents that occured there during the late 19th Century. It took Marsh 5 years to make his film owing to the difficulty in getting funding due to the bizarre subject matter. It's bizarre alright... a David Lynch film made reality.

Black River Falls had been in existance for 30-odd years when the film starts, it's population primarily drawn from Norwegian, Swedish and German immigrants seeking a better life in the US. The depression that gripped the midwest in 1893 did the town no favours. Widespread unemployment, the town bank's closure, as well as a particularly savage winter, saw suicides among the farming community and an increase in admissions to the local insane asylum at Mendota. The film breaks down into seasonal segments chronicling further strange news stories: a diptheria epidemic kills a large percentage of children, unexplained suicides, ghost-sightings, paranoia, arson, murders... There are also two women who reappear several times: opera singer Pauline L'Allemand who appeared in the original production of LAKME somehow wound up in Black River Falls thinking it would be a cultural mecca but ended up in a small rundown shack eating animal feed and Mary Sweeney, a one-time school-mistress who after an accident which involved a thump to the head became addicted to cocaine and travelled around the state smashing in windows. The police would arrest her, release her and she moved on to another town to continue her window smashing. Needless to say both opera singer and possible proto-feminist anarchist ended up in the insane asylum.

These news items - written by the English-born editor of the local newspaper - are dryly read by Ian Holm's amused and conspiratorial off-screen narrator over the wonderfully crisp b/w cinematography of Eigil Bryld who deservedly won a BAFTA award. Taking his lead from van Shaik's 1890's photographs his cinematography conjures up monotone still lifes of... well... real people's monotone still lives. Using local actors and townspeople as his cast director Marsh and Bryld come up with haunting images that stay with you: a brother is reflected in a pool of his sister's blood after he has shot her, the slow camera pan which looks up into the branches of trees to reveal the bare feet of a suicide, a 14 year old bride is posed next to her husband aged 64, and a mother sits serenly staring out at the lake where she has just drowned her three children, one of whose body lies a few yards away.

A genuinely creepy American Gothic original which I found hard to shake off - especially as I finished watching it in the dark small hours. My only complaint is the usual problem with documentary makers cutting cloth to suit length - the original timeline of 10 years used by Lesy in his book is reduced dramatically to all the events seemingly happening in the space of one year which strains the credibility somewhat, you end up thinking 'why did people stay in this possessed town?'. However the hypnotic imagery and disturbing content keep you gripped throughout and makes you appreciate the irony in starting and ending the film with the newspaper editor's words "It is safe to assume that nowhere in the length and breadth of this great continent of ours can be found a more desirable residence than Black River Falls”.

That's Beverley Knight MBE actually.

Congratulations Bev!!

It's been nearly a month since I posted about Big Brother 7, let's see how they have shaped up from my initial thoughts...

Pete {indecipherable chinny twat, turn the gas on now!} became the front-runner among the housemates alarmingly quickly. I find his willingness to be used as the cuddly toy for the women profoundly annoying tho'.

Lea {the love-child of Jodie Marsh & Pete Burns or Jayne Mansfield after the car crash} is fast becoming paranoid about former mate Richard for no apparant reason other than he pulled her up on something. Her unnatural mothering of Pete is frightening and her constant mantra of "I don't back-stab" is becoming to look as threadbare as her bikini top.

Imogen {a Welsh bar hostess. Just dwell on that. This year's Saskia?} Well I got that right... her pairing up with the obnoxious Sezer echoed the Saskia/Maxwell assumption that they would naturally win. Will probably survive until the last week. Sadly.

Mikey {vile sexist clown, vile hair. Will be found dead in the pool} Regretfully that has yet come to pass. Has done nothing so far but slurp the vile Grace and be unintelligable and by staying so anonymous, like Imogen, will probably be in the last week. Sadly.

Glyn {indecipherable Welsh lifeguard, Byker Grove meets Baywatch} Still indecipherable but has provided a few amazed laughs - like his admission to learning "life skills" such as making toast.

Richard {Canadian mary. A sexual terrorist - or waiter} Not the outrageous character I think he was expected to be. Indeed his striving for fairness and balance in the household has seen him become a figure of hatred by most!

Lisa {Oriental Su Pollard - says she's 27, looks 73} Has done nothing to endear herself by her unrelenting bitching about others - even her swearing is boring. Now she appears to be coming adrift from Pete it can't be long before she's 86'd. Hopefully.

Nikki {Chantelle played by Sophie Thompson, couldn't stop a pig in a passage} A genuine BB original. Reminds me of the Arabella Weir FAST SHOW character who becomes a simpering ickle gurl whenever a big man walks in the woom and demands cuddles fwom vem. Then two seconds later becomes a spitting screaming garden gnome Vanessa Feltz-lookalike. As watchable as her schizo ravings are I could happily see her smothered.

Aisleyne My heart sank when she appeared as a new housemate - another vapid blonde Chantelle-a-like. However the nastiness shown to her by Sezer, Imogen, Grace and Lisa made her quite sympathetic and I must admit to kinda liking her. How she will act now she can get her claws into the vile Mikey as Grace is no more might change this however.

Susie Has not really made much impact on me since her winning a place in the house - a typically delightful double-edged sword as BB has done everything it can to make the housemates hate her. The immediate sniping at her by Grace, Imogen and Lisa has of course made me view her in a favourable light.

Voted-out:
Bonnie {"indecipherable fat cow, TK Maxx cover girl"} deserved to be voted out as she was this year's "Watch me stir it up in there" self-promoter only to sit there not saying anything and fiddling with her hair.

Sezer {Entrepreneur ladies man, will probably be turned by Richard} Ah Sezer... a wet rat dunked in a bucket of pubes whose morphing into this year's Maxwell figure was quite jaw-dropping. His pure cockiness and sureness of being loved by the women viewers made his being voted out on a massive 93% of the vote one of the most joyous tv experiences of the year.

Sam Every year the housemates whine about wanting new housemates after a few weeks. Then they get them and do all they can to drive them out. Never fails. Sam was simply too nice and - like Richard - trying to be nice to everyone in this particularly vicious house only lead to accusations of falseness. Sam's genuine distress after being unfairly accused of backbiting was particularly uncomfortable to watch.

Grace {Faux Sloane, will probably get pregnant by Mikey} Well I damn near got that right. Even by Big Brother standards she quickly revealed herself to be a deeply nasty and manipulative cow. Showed her true character when she threw a glass of water over Susie as she left the house. Was described brilliantly on the Popbitch board as "An old head on young shoulders. Literally". Voted out by a massive 87.9% of the vote.

Booted-out:
Dawn {possible serial-killer, "Monster" played by Whoopi - I think we have found a heroine} NOT! another one who promised more than she delivered. Anonymous in the house - much more entertaining after she left, threatening to go on hunger strike if Endemol didn't turn over all her footage!

The walkers:
Shabaz {Kemal de jour, came out of the car like an asian Liza Minnelli drag act} an Asian thermo-nuclear meltdown more like. Must have been profoundly difficult to live with but his hounding by the housemates was chilling to watch and did none of them any favours - particularly Richard.

George {"Public school ugbo, hates hyper-gay men"} quit the house as he felt he could not handle the fame when he left. Yeah. Right. Surely not because he couldn't face being nominated?

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there"

...according to L.P. Hartley's "The Go-Between". Well L.B. I bought me a ticket there this afternoon! I was poking about in HMV this afternoon and I was gobsmacked to see a cd reissue of Labi Siffre's THE SINGER AND THE SONG.

This was released in 1971 and I got it for my birthday that year as I had recently seen him support The Supremes at Hammersmith Odeon - as it was and always will be!

I played it when I got back to the shop and found myself singing along! I swear I haven't heard it for 30-odd years. Lovely gentle ballads and more uptempo songs like "Thank Your Lucky Star" drifted down through the years.

There are certain albums you never expect to see on cd... this is one of them.

It looks like all his albums have been remastered and released on cd so hopefully it will make this fine gay performer some money. He gave up performing his music in 1999 and now channels his talent into his poetry. Here's his poetry blog - I like the one called "stupid boy".

Hmmm

Channel 4 showed the new video from Madonna for the upcoming release of GET TOGETHER as a single.

*pulls face * I don't like the video. Footage of Herself performing the song at Koko in London last year have been cartoonised and superimposed over some futuristic cityscape with lava-lamp effects.

It looks cheap 'n' tacky.



It's my favourite track off the album too.

I must have a word in August....

At last Constant Reader... I am back from internet wilderness! On Monday my landline went bang and it took a feckin' week for them to work out the fault was at the exchange.

Now it will come as no surprise that I have been known to go online during work hours. Indeed I can state it's my means of production... if the internet's not on then I can't work. Simple as that. But the fact of being unable to access my broadband connection at home was HORRID.

I have truly become an internet junkie. Don't need a fix 24-7 but I need to know I can access it whenever I damn well want to.

Two fun nights out are to be chronicled... for the first time since God was a child I did the Retro Bar pop quiz with Dawn and Tall Paul - the team being filled out by the ever-smiling charmer Kevin. The subject was Dead Or Alive? in keeping with the date being 06/06/06. 20 Questions and we had to guess whether the singer was dead or alive. We scored 19 outta 20 - it would have been 19.5 had Dawn listened to me when I said Jimmy Ruffin was in the rudest health and not brown bread like his brother David. Oh and it would have been 20 if Kevin really DID know what Joe Cocker's voice sounded like as he kept saying. We also had to put up with the spoiler tactics of one Kim Phaggs go-go dancing for every song and Justin Bond who even went to the extremes of slithering through the open window from the street outside. Don't try this at home kids.

Needless to say we lost as two teams got 20 out of 20 namely Gerald and Stephen's team and DJ whats-his-eek who does the Who's In Your Record Bag? night at the Retro. I voluntered to be adjudicator for the face-off and indeed judged DJ w-h-e to be the winner.

On Friday O and I made it to the Albery Theatre-as-was, the Noel Coward theatre as is - be a cold day in Hell before I call it that - to see one of my favourite shows from last year AVENUE Q I think we were both concerned about the show - it seemed such an American show when we saw it on Broadway that I wondered how it would survive it's trip across the Atlantic but it was greeted with cheers, laughs and a standing ovation. Now I will say that a lot of people seemed to know the score so maybe it was playing to a large selection of people familiar with the cast recording but I'm sure heaps didn't so I am hopeful for a successful run. It was great to see it again - laughs a plenty - and it was great to see Ann Harada recreating her role as Christmas Eve, the Japanese therapist. Among the London cast the standouts had to be Julie Atherton playing 'Kate Monster'/'Lucy The Slut' and Jon Robyns as 'Princeton'/'Rod'. Giles Terera plays 'Gary Coleman' but wasn't as good as the woman we saw do it on Broadway!

However Constant Reader - run to see this show!!

Last night O and I headed off to the wilds of Hammersbush to see a double-bill of ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (TODO SOBRE MI MADRE) and TRANSAMERICA at the Riverside Studios. I should start going more often - two films for £6.50. I would have to learn to put up with the dispiriting train journey, leaving work early, the low screen and alarming carpet!!!

Let's get one thing straight here... it's a tough call for any film to have my full and undivided after having to follow ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, one of my favourite films... (pause for Kim Phaggs effect) of all time. I respond to this film like few others, losing myself in its vivid colours and textures, laughing with the characters and crying with them too. So many scenes leave me with tears rolling due to the extraordinary performances and emotional truth of Almodovar's storytelling. I still remember the experience of watching it on a plane - an emotional wreck with an aisle-seat. Like any great work I always find something new - a reference, a hidden connection that makes the film fresh. I really wanted O to see this but it had to be on the big screen - the film has to overwhelm you phystically to get the full effect. Once again I was struck by the thought: does anyone photograph the colour red like Almodovar? Towards the end of the film Marisa Paredes is seen on stage rehearsing the mother's speech from Lorca's "Blood Wedding" describing her son's blood seeping into the earth: likewise this film seeps into my soul.

It was a bit of a struggle to adjust to TRANSAMERICA after that.
No fault of Duncan Tucker's film it just felt like finishing off an excellent meal with an ice-lolly. The central performance of Felicity Huffman as pre-op transexual Bree could not be faulted. In her 3 quarter-length outfits in tasteful pink coral and carefully modulated voice she is all set for her gender-realignment in a week's time when she receives a call from the 17 year old son she never knew he had! After bailing her son out of jail and posing as a Christian church out-worker assigned to his case, Bree sets off to drive her son back to his step-father's home and then to get back to L.A. Bree really should get out more and see more road movies. With predictability running alongside charm and warmth, Bree realises there might have been a reason why Toby ran away in the first place and that when you absolutely need to get to the coast America is a mighty wide continent.

Huffman and Kevin Zegers made for an intriguing and excellently acted partnership - always abrasive but with growing curiosity for the other and it's grudging and wary resolution was welcome. But I second guessed the film all the way down the line and it also reminded me of the 1999 Janet McTeer film TUMBLEWEEDS, a small-budget low-key road movie of an American mother and daughter. Interesting enough both McTeer and Huffman won Best Actresses Golden Globe awards for these performances only to lose out on the later Academy Awards.