I realised that boats have been my downfall. They have ruined me financially and they have seen me through two marriages. Boats are crap. But they are highly addictive.

My first was an ugly but functional Birchwood Continental, on the Medway. The second, a Sailfish 18 on the Severn Estuary at Weston -Super-Mare. And for two years we lived on a Sagar Traditional narrowboat called "Psalter". All of them money pits. All of them quite wonderful. All of them took you to paradise. Aaagh - boats. They drive you crazy. They transport you to heaven, and in the immortal words of Mr Toad,

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats

another one of mine

pure fantasy of course, but as cute as i ever get.
And it seems better now than it did at the time.

Vile Films - The Sound of Music

As if one needed evidence for the existence of pure evil in this world, it is the motion picture, The Sound of Music

Dubbed by Christopher Plummer (Von Trapp) "The Sound of Mucus", this film epitomizes Oscar Wilde's aphorism that, "Sentimentality is the Bank Holiday of Cynicism". A friend of Plummer's described the experience of watching it as, "Being beaten to death with a Hallmark Card".

It won multiple Oscars, including "Best Picture", which just shows you that Hollywood was full of sentimental old poofters, long before "BrokeBack Mountain" came along.

Sad then, that the family Von Trapp, who were the real life inspiration for this pit of puked up Vodka Red Bull and Doner Kebab, were heroic, decent people, who espoused charity and common sense.

The A to Z of movies "C"

Now, I could waffle on about Casablanca, possibly the best example of a movie that should have been a "B" picture, should have been a dud, but somehow became, for all the accidents and serendipity behind the making of it, a screen gem.

But I wont.

Instead, let me tell you about another little gem, "Cool and Crazy".
Cool and Crazy is a documentary about a disparate group of men in the Norwegian province of Finnmark, who are in a choir.

"Yeah", I hear you say as you exhale the smoke of your Lambert & Butler, in a slow, Kentucky Bourbon drawl.

In this film, director Knut Erik Jensen reveals what the blurb in the contemporary trailers for "Casablanca" promised - "all humanity is here".

It is dramatic: you become gripped by the stories of these men, and how they all coalesce, to some extent, in the Berlevåg male voice choir. They are men of hope and belief, men of fortitude and tenacity, men of quiet desperation, in a word -MEN.

You can get it on DVD, and really, you should.

(film may be edited for smoking scenes, inhalation and preparation of an on-screen hand-rolled cigarette, and therefore, this DVD may not be available in Scotland)

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR - Colonel Mustard

Yes folks I'm back. I confess. I am an utter b'stard. In the Conservatory with Miss Scarlet? mmm? That was me. I did it. Isn't Norman Kember an utter James Blunt? Wasting time in Iraq when he should have been at home selling flags for the old poofs retirement home. (Larry Grayson and John Inman, patrons) Send him Cockle Picking in Morcambe bay in heavy duty cord trousers and a chamois leather jerkin. This blog is such a load of Auntie's pants.

You like old movies don't you, Weas? Did you know they are doing a remake of Brief Encounter called, "Meet the Thong"? It'll be all Sharon Stone and no knic....well, all Sharon Stone. And of course there is the sequal to BJ Malkovich - Being Corinne Bailey Rae - except the entrance of the portal is sighted up her arse, and once you get inside all you find is a deep pink fluffy void.

oops at least two more "B" movies (in the A2Z)

Cannot let this pass without reference to BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and BRIEF ENCOUNTER.
Both stunning movies in their different ways.

If you want to learn to talk "like thet" and "frightfully, terribly, medley in laaav" then Brief Encounter is the one. Famous for being shot partly on location in Carnforth and curious because the leading man (Trevor Howard) was discharged from the army for being a psychopath.

Being John Malkovich is very funny and surreal. Take a journey into someone else's psyche - in this case John Malkovich. But what if you use the portal to go into your own psyche? What if you work at an office where the ceilings are only 5 feet high? Go ask Alice, when she was just small. It's Magritte with feet, a real treat!

Bad Day at Black Rock - A to Z of important motion pictures

Gravitas. That is what Spencer Tracy had. That and the adoring attentions of Katherine Hepburn.
In BDABR he is a man on a mission - a one armed man at that.

Some one horse, dustbowl town. Even the Joad family have left it. The train only stops once a day. Spence gets off the train and is asking too many questions and the locals are getting jumpy. What is the secret they are trying to hide?

Will he ever get out of town, now that he knows too much? Don't underestimate him - he can use his one, remaining arm to devastating effect!

It is really High Noon all over again, though the hero never has any doubts about confronting the bad guys. It was made in 1954, a good year. There is that sort of "trapped" device that Spielberg uses to such economical effect in "Duel" - the road aint blocked, but somehow, he never manages to escape. Well, let's see if he does shall we?

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR - Colonel Mustard

Hello Weasel, you old euphemism for a shriveled dick! Thought you could get rid of me eh? Well not that easily. hahahahah muuwwahhhh!

You think you can write a blog and get away with this crapulous plop! You might have been right about Tony Blair though.

The Commonwealth games? We are crap at that too. Why do the BBC waste time on this load of tits? Watching overly endowed men in tight fitting lycra is there for one thing and one thing only - to excite and titilate the lovies at the BBC sports department cos they are all nancy boys.

Text messges? Can you understand them?

You wont get rid of me that easily ol' Weas....

Important

Someone calling himself "Colonel Mustard" has hijacked my blog!

He has hacked into it and is intent on causing mayhem. I have contacted blogger.com about him and they have said they are doing what they can to "remove this menace" who has apparently appeared all ove the blogosphere.

Ignore him. He will get fed up and go away.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR - Colonel Mustard

Hello plebs! It's time for meeeeee to take over this insufferably hip, tawdry and gloppy blog! I am Colonel Mustard, and I will be dropping in from time to time to let you know the real truth - the TRUTH about Tony Blair and the sequined lavatory paper - the real truth behind Lester Piggot's training bra - the real truth about Angela Lansbury's moustache. Mad? Me?

Notice how Gordon Brown only washes his hair on Budget Days? He had a new shirt too because his usual shirts all curl at the collar. Does not bode well for a potential leader eh? EH?

Anybody want to buy a used Abu Hamsa glove puppet? Too late, I have put it on e-bay so you can fuck off.

Risibilis - Chirac storms out of "English" speech

The BBC reports:-

French President Jacques Chirac showed his temper at the EU summit when a French business leader addressed delegates in English.

He stormed out of a session when Ernest-Antoine Seilliere said he chose English "because that is the accepted business language of Europe today".

Shock! The terrible aftermath of the photo shoot

Don't go down to the woods today!

Read this first and click HERE As if Dwight D Escondido's revelations about Cole D Loxx were bad enough (see below), this is what they did to Cole after the front cover for the album was taken. Cole was apparently lynched by the Forbaires, though nobody is saying anything.

Who's been getting up my nose?

Urgent Warning!

It has come to my attention that inadvertantly popping a whole JAFFA CAKE in your mouth UPSIDE DOWN can lead to a strange sensation. It is very weird - much odder than it should be. The sponge bit tends to stick to the roof of your mouth, and the gooey choclatey bit attempts to ooze out of the corners of your mouth. Don't try it unless you are being supervised and have a suitably trained masseuse available.

Will you be wearing Lederhosen, blindfolded, whilst a dominatrix places the aforsaid sweetmeat in your mouth at a party? I wont.

This message has been brought to you by www.nannystate.com "We know best"

Franka Potente - again

Another contribution from my Franke Potente shrine. No reason for publishing it apart from sheer obsession and lust.

An now its time you visited my MARTINI link again

Alphaville - an A to Zee of important motion pictures

"Her name was Beatrice
She said she was a Seductress, Third Class
I was struck by her sad, yet hard, face
Something’s not in orbit in the capital of this Galaxy"

Thus begins the hard-bitten Chandleresque narrative of its chief protagonist at the outset of Alphaville, Jean Luc Godard's sci-fi/pop art/futuristic 1965 film.

The dreamy, dirty, black and white night-world of stark brutalist architecture is a suitable background for the confrontation between logic and humanity

"You have come from the Lands Without

What were your feelings...

...when you passed through galactic space?

Johnson: The silence of infinite space appalled me

Alpha 5: What is the privilege of the dead?

Johnson: To die no more

Alpha 5: Do you know what illuminates the night?

Johnson: Poetry"

Question Time

Now that the Mary-Ann Leneghan case is over bar sentencing, and I hope the bastards never, ever get out of jail, is it not time to consider two salient issues: the Probation Service, long run and informed by the soft, credulous liberal humanists who dont want to be nasty to poor young men from broken homes and the Blair government for totally failing to tackle organised drug dealing and the gun crime and violence that goes with it?

And one other thing. What was a sixteen year-old girl doing out that late without the police being alerted to her absence? Nobody is willing to ask, but I want to know what the parents were doing, letting her get into that situation in the first place.

Since it has emerged that these scumbags who did the torture, rape and murder were known to the police, why is it that they were allowed to operate freely as gun toting drug dealers?

People you never suspected of having a wooden leg, No1

Sarah Bernhardt - for one.

Not related that much but:

Heather Mills McCartney was left limping in agony after allegedly having her false leg knocked off by one of Jennifer Lopez's bodyguards during a fur protest at J. Lo's fashion headquarters. ARTICLE HERE

I don't make these up you know.

Einstein Comments:

Thanks Al. Couldn't have put it better myself.

The Norbert Song

I wonder? Is the world ready for my genius, the apogee of which is the NORBERT DENTRESSANGLE song.

Norbert Dentressangle
He's the one for me
I dont want Eddie Stobart
just give me Norbert D

When your distribution's in a tangle
Call for Norbert Dentressangle
Norbert's the one for me.

AMOROSO AMORI CONDOLEEZA

Cole D Loxx and the Forbaires

It is never easy trying to track down people who made sublime albums in the sixties and seventies and then went to ground. Cole D Loxx and the Forbaires are a case in point. But for your writer, serendipity once again prevailed and, during a stopover at Bryan Ferry International Airport I found my self sitting next to, of all people, DWIGHT D. ESCONDIDO, One of the original FORBAIRES! Dwight was on route to a conference of the Mitochondrial Medicine Society in Bruges.

He was understandably nervous about my approach, apart from suspecting I was gay; it has been a long time since the fan worship and heavy tour schedule brought on so many internal band pressures that the Forbaires imploded, and Cole D Loxx with it.

At last he relented and D.D. began the story.

“Everone jumps to conclusions about the origins of the name. Forbes is one of the colleges LINK HERE at Princeton University. Raoul Fargas, Carlos “The Stoat” Ortega and Manuel “Manny” Goldstein and I all met there as students. We were doing typical Ivy League barber shop material: songs from the thirties and forties, all dressed in straw boaters and stripy blazers,with a novelty potter’s wheel act as a filler."

It was then I made my mistake. I asked about Cole D Loxx.

“You had to bring him up didn’t you? You guys don’t care as long as you get the story! The thieving conniving bastard! Cole took us for everything, the little turd. He always made us wear those cheesy crimpeline slacks while he got to look cool in front with white polo necks and the Cerruti suits. I always made sure I wore a suit and tie for Album Covers, which pissed him off, but the other guys were saps and believed the “smart casual” spiel. He got his lawyers to put a contract together that more or less froze us out of the royalties on AMOROSO AMORI CONDOLEEZA and made sure the Forbaires picked up the tab for the kitten in the chilli incident including the lawyers’s bills and the repairs to the mincer.

With that, Dwight Escondido got up and left. I felt bad, but of course everyone asks about Cole. Sorry DD. (As far as I can ascertain, Cole D Loxx reverted to his real name of Rex Satan and is well known on the accounting software exhibition circuit. He no longer plays the pink oboe)

The Mcartnees

Coral, Marilyn, and Fulmore Hinkley, along with Dad, Harlan had a long history of local talent shows around Big Spring Texas and of course, neighbouring Lubbock.

Coral takes up the story:

“We were known in all over Howard County and always played the Rattlesnake Round Up and the Commanche Trail Park Amphitheatre with a band we called “The Mazdaznan”. Dad took a keen but amateur interest in syncretistic religions at the time, so “The Mazdaznan” was a kind of homage to that and to naturism, which was Dad’s real obsession. (Only Fulmore ever kept up the naturism after Dad went to Huntsville. He is on the internet a lot since the auto crash, with what he calls, "virtual naturism".)

Anyway, We were not getting many shows in ‘64 because everyone wanted to be like The Beatles and no one was into syncretistic religion so Dad had the idea of changing the name to “The Mcartnees” after Paul in The Beatles. Dad used to write a lot and sent a storyline to Screen Gems about a band called “The McCartnees” who did madcap stuff to a musical soundtrack, but nothing ever came of it.

The worst part was learning the guitars left handed. Marilyn was ok because she played the Theremin, but Fulmore and I, well I guess it took us the best part of a week to get the hang of playing Hoffner Violin guitars upside down. Dad said, “You can’t have a band called The Mcartnees and then play regular bass guitars”. Farnon, that’s the brother who played drums hated it and left to go to Frisco. (It meant we were without a drummer for a while so Dad told us just to shuffle and grind rythmically.) Farne was with a band called The Thirteenth Floor Elevators but hated that too and settled for a night job escorting Mexicans I believe and helping them to settle in Texas.

Our big break with The Mcartnees was when the single went out on the local radio. The early morning DJ at K-JOY played “Wrong Way Bass” over and over. We got a call from Ahmet Ertegun. It then got exciting and we flew out of McMahon-Wrinkle into a life we could have only dreamed of.

Coral has kindly allowed me to reprint some of the lyrics to Their hit, WRONG WAY BASS:

You can shout from the hilltops

You can make a long face

But you jest can’t get nowheres

With that darn wrong way bass

You can play a harmonica

Or a cheap tin Kazoo

But that darn wrong way bass

Gets the better of you…

CHORUS

Wrong Way Bass

I'm a slappin' it

An' a pluckin' it

All over the place

(Editor's note: The music to Wrong Way Bass bears an uncanny resemblance to the Mary Ford and Les Paul version of Mockingbird Hill)

Cover Story - Bobbie Ann Rogers

I have managed to track down BOBBIE ANN ROGERS, (above) the girl who modeled for the seminal 1962 Bert Kaempfert album cover "Living it Up"!!!

Bobbie writes:

"It was autumn in Ventura. We were getting cold and in those days you couldn't show the nipples or anything so I had to kind of hide them, so it looks as though I am ducking. My ass was the only warm part that day. It was only my second professional shoot after winning “Miss Seal Beach” in spite of me not being interested in caring for animals or foreign travel.

Frank Ditmann was the male model. He was well known then for doing the Coppertone ads and had stepped in to do the shoot when Lloyd Bridges dropped out with a verucca. Hence the flippers. It was supposed to be a “Sea Hunt” theme (Sea Hunt was Bridges' successful TV show)

We had a bad time with the flippers. The photographer wanted us to share the single, yellow flipper but Frank, seeing as he had done the Coppertone ads, literally put his foot down and refused on hygiene grounds and kept asking for some gel to ease them on. “I need gel, I need gel, and get me my own flipper” he kept saying that"

Bobbie lives alone in Sacramento with a Blue-Tongued Skink called "Rimmer", collects Native American Leisurewear and makes regular guest appearances at Bert Kaempfert fan conventions. Frank Ditmann moved to Florida, went into real estate and drowned during the Boca Raton Annual Apple Bobbing competition in 1991.

Thanks Bobbie for taking the time.

Broken Hearts are for Assholes

Einstein-a-gogo

Here is a clever little piece of nonsense to warm the cockles. Einstein here will write anything you want him to. Just go along to THIS LINK and have fun! Credit to DEVIL'S KITCHEN and CHICKEN YOGHURT for it.

Risibilis - green ink number

Do you realise, the arsholes in the EC (that's on behalf of you and me, by the way) are handing over squillions of Euros to the effing Palestinians, who when I last looked, were killing, abducting and generally abusing the very Western non-governmental orgs who are trying to help the ungrateful bastards.

I know it is not a one-sided issue, i know that, but when do we stop making excuses for these barbarians and take a stand against violence and terror?

200 Nikes and bowl of kumquats

When I was about nine years old I would sit and watch Lost in Space, in the days before Star Trek.
We all thought we would wear silver suits like the Jetsons and drive hover cars. I remember thinking that in 2006 I would be too old to enjoy all of this.

The little girl in the picture may be barefooted among the daisies, but she is just about to tread on some dog shit.

Not quite what I imagined, eh? We are polluted, wartorn and millions die of starvation and apart from the advent of personal communicators we do not seem to have gotten beyond being able to buy 200 different kinds of training shoes or exotic, inedible fruit.

There is progress, I admit. I walked into a big fruit and veg shop in Newcastle in 1974 and asked for avocado pears, and they had no idea what I was talking about. The poor girl assistant produced a can of del monte pears in syrup from the back of the shop.

And what about the future?

"Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest. Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skill that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone." (Alivin Toffler) click the name for info.

Dry Ginger

Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.

wierd that. women can do that sort of thing.

Formula One - Can you be arsed?

With last year's American fiasco still burned into my memory and the preposterous set of rules applied to competitors, I wonder if watching this year's Formula One Grands Prix will be any better? No, then why not excite yourself and put on this hip Bert Kaempfert disc to get you bopping?

I am not sure about the touching bottoms whilst putting on flippers game - is it still legal? Can anyone play?

Sorry Mate, I didn't See You

That's it! I am invisible! When I was kid I wanted to be invisible so that I could go around shouting "Boo!" in peoples ears. Oh what innocent fun.

Nowadays, I am invisible because of my age. And I still say "Boo!" but no one is listening, and I am afraid that unless I lose 25 years from my age or become black, gay or a woman, no one ever will.

John Profumo dies

Impropriety there was not in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler, no there was not.

Looking back at this, it was a very British affair: a posh bloke what was a minister in the Macmillan government and a young "model". This was presumably on the basis that one does not have sordid affairs with one's social equals. A bit of rough was required, that way you don't run into them in Waitrose when the wife is with you.

But I am more interested in THE CHAIR. The famous chair in the Morley photo is a cheap copy of the Arne Jacobsen original, with the addition of a small aperture in the back, done to avoid the obvious patent violation. For a comparison go HERE

The Jacobsen chair oozes style - the copy, even though it was from Heal's, oozes IKEA.

"She later said she kept her knickers on. She didn't, but I won't argue with that." (Lewis Morley - photographer)

Several people wanted to be in it.

John Profumo himself was not particularly good looking, and latterly could have earned a bit of money doing YODA impressions.

Quote of the Week

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., Speech in Detroit, 7 Oct. 1952
US diplomat & Democratic politician (1900 - 1965)

You don't see this anymore

I remember being given this stuff to eat. I am not so sure it was that pleasant, and I probably resembled the miserable one on the packet.

Legend has it that the photographer got the grimace by placing a rag soaked in ammonia under the child's nose.

I liked to visit my great grandmother because she gave us sweets. We always got sweet cigarettes, made by Barretts. They couldn't sell those anymore.

Artist of the Week - DMITRY SHOSTAKOVICH

VIOLIN CONCERTO no.2 in C sharp minor, Op.129 David Oistrakh

It is so strange that in the era of flower power and the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour there came in the month of September 1967 the premiere of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto no 2, written for and performed by David Oistrakh. Strange because the first time I heard it, it had an almost hypnotic, drug-like effect on me.

It had been playing on Radio Three on the BBC one lunchtime. I was listening in the car, and had to pull over. The intensity of the piece made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else, let alone driving, so there I sat, in a lay-by, riveted until it finished. It made me listen. It buried its soul in my heart. The only music I can think of now, off hand, that does that to me is Mark E Smith's band, The Fall.

Ken Livingstone - if you tolerate this....

Ken Livingstone is alright. He stood up to Thatcher in the eighties and has been a consistent and committed campaigner for the honest political left.

In what both he and I both saw as a neo-McCarthyite revival, his standing up to the nasty little tyrant who was just after an easy news story has caused him to be suspended from the office of Mayor of London - not by an elected body, but by a bunch of unelected officials.

Here is his statement if you want to read it. Go on, you know you want to .
link

Say "No" to unwanted facial hair

ICE CREAM

When did you last eat ice cream? Did it feel like a treat? Have you ever said, "Oh No, not ice cream again"? No. You never said that. Nobody did.

I bet Tessa Jowell is pissed off

Mills: Will you sign this darling?

Tessa: What is it?

Mills: oh, nothing really. I have to move some money around for a couple of weeks - you dont really want the details do you?

Tessa: I am too busy with my boxes and I am sure you know what you are doing darling

Mills: Yes, just there on that line. Molto Bene!

Tessa: What was that, dear?

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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats

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