Dot to dot

Cartoon canvas wow
Whaam! slambam
Thank you maam
Dem benday-dots
Were pop comic
Art Spiegelman said
Roy did no
More or less
Than Andy Warhol
Did for soup

Tick tock

Tick Tock

Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose encore encore encore!

December binge
January bulge
February fling
March stirrings
April sugary
May optimism
June bloom
July festival
August escape
September shedding
October hocus pocus
November burning

Machete 2010 trailer

10 rollicking reasons to love this don't-fuck-with-me film!

1. It's called Machete.

2. Danny Trejo is very ugly, but very macho and...you would. He was Tough Prisoner #1 from 1991′s Wedlock.

3. Machete decapitates 3 people at once in the first 10 minutes and a naked woman hides a mobile phone in her fahita.

4. It's classic OTT shlock Rodriguez!

5. The women are all smart and kick-ass!

6. Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan all have cracking roles, great lines and sizzle!

7. The men ain't so bad either, check out la creme of Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, Steven Seagal, Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Cheech Marin and Tom Savini.

8. It's very violent and bloody.

9. It's also darkly humorous.

10. Machete rides off into the sunset...in more ways than one.

Pure sway

Laconic, psychedelic, lovely
A little high on le le life
Pure sway on summer lawns
Barefoot on the daisies

At last some inspiration
It's been way too long.

Keef's beef

Musings from the drug/drink-addled mind of badboy hellraiser Keith Richards reveal the following:

Keith was a heroin addict for a decade and only quit cocaine a few years ago after falling out of a coconut tree and incurring even more brain damage and a metal skull plate. Seems a blow to the head was his wake up call to give up on Charlie.

On the night of the infamous 1967 Redlands drug bust, Keef was so far gone on LSD that when the police arrived at his Sussex country mansion, he mistook them for uniformed dwarves, welcoming them in with open arms.

Despite so much substance abuse, Keith has a razor wit. On the night Brian Jones was taken to hospital after throwing a punch at then-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg and smashing his fist into a metal window frame. Keith quipped:"He was never good at connecting with Anita."

He's also not averse to a spot of bitchery about Mick's trouser region. He says of ex Anita Pallenberg's dalliance with Mick: "She had no fun with the tiny todger." But according to Jerry Hall: "Mick is very well endowed. I should know – I was with him for 23 years. Keith is just jealous."

Hmmm, Jagger's Jumping Jack Flash crotch holds no clues about girls not getting 'No Satisfaction.'

Ah, it's only rock n roll but I like it!
Life - serialised in The Times - about to be released soon.

Fright Bites!

Care for a denta vagina dainty? How about a little roadkill fancy? Or a shiver sliver of heart and maggot cake?

Glorifying all things gooesome and gory, 'Eat your heart out' is a collaborative cake/art venture from the fecund, troubled minds of various food fetish artists and confectioners, including George Morton-Clark, David A Smith, Miss Cakehead, Lily Vanilli and lots more. The whole event is curated by the Mad Artists Tea Party. It's deliciously dangerous and just the thing to give your Halloween party the goth factor.

These X-rated cakes are pure evil, but edible if you can stomach them. Not available at your local Greggs!

http://evilcakes.wordpress.com/
Eat Your Heart Out opens its gory doors from 28th - 31st October, in the 'dungeon' (basement) of Maiden, at 188 Shoreditch High Street, London E1.

Rock & Roll!

Okay, its 8.30pm and I'm sitting outside a showy prime people watching spot, al fresco pastaria in Greenwich when in walks, or should I say sashays, a certain Jaggeresque look-alikey with a similar partied hard face and whippet-lithe physique dressed in a white outfit and shades that wouldn't have looked amiss on Hendrix. The waiters fussed as he sat down and I wondered who the hell he was. As it happened I bumped into him coming out of the bathroom and we chit-chatted for while - he about England and his daughter - me about me and stuff. He was charming, not at all arrogant, but maybe a little off his face.

I always wondered who the hell he was because everything about him screamed 70s rock star. Then I saw a shot of him in Empire and then he's just been on the Huey show. From the original 70s punk rock band - The New York Dolls - although I think they're more glampunk fusion, yes, David Johansen. Here with Syvain Sylvain (great name) and Huey of FLC. Enjoy!

huey morgan, fun loving criminals, bbc radio 6

Complete Knits!

I love this - it's sooo creative! Knitters are yarnbombing all over the place from London to Lima!Get this, there's a guerilla knitter called Deadlyknitshade, who is the brains behind Knit the City, “a crack team of woolly warriors” and “part of an ongoing campaign to guerilla knit the city of London, and beyond that the world.” A founder of Stitch and Bitch London, she describes herself as a ‘graffiti knitter’. She’s making our world a woollier, more colourful place and we salute her.

Feelgood Friday

Sassy, soulful vocals, chirpy tune, delicious dancing, spectacular outfits – just what's needed to get your groove on for the weekend!

Ted Hughes - tortured or twisted?

You reap what you sow

Ted Hughes widow has just released a poem about his reaction to Sylvia Plath's suicide. It reveals Ted's tortured state of mind and apparent guilt about Sylvia's suicide. Ted was all man - big, bold and brusque and yet this was tempered with incredible sensitivity as revealed in his poetry.

But Ted was full of dichotomies and essentially flawed. A serial adulterer, his self-destruct dial was set to max, and because of this, not just one, but three lives were lost.

Sylivia Plath's suicide is often recounted and blamed on Hughes, but what about Assia Wevill and her four year old daughter Shura? Assia also committed suicide and took Shura with her when Hughes cheated on her. Granted Assia was no angel and as often happens in these unfortunate circumstances – she reaped what she had sown.

Their affair had started after Wevill and her husband, David, visited Hughes and Plath at their home, also in Devon, in 1962. Assia claimed that Hughes had kissed her when they were alone together in the kitchen. Five weeks later, Hughes hurried to a London agency where Wevill was working, scribbled a note and left it with the receptionist. It said: 'I have come to see you, despite all marriages.'

Assia couldn't resist the thrill of responding and from her office window, she noticed that a gardener was mowing the lawn below - and found her inspiration. She went down, picked up a single blade of the freshly cut grass, dipped it in Dior perfume and sent it to Ted. Three days later, an envelope arrived at Assia's office: in it, the blade of grass lay beside one from Devon and the die was cast.

What a tangled web they weaved – one so murky and bloodstained it was worthy of a Jacobean horror play. Assia's husband David found out about their liaison and took an overdose of sleeping pills, but survived, otherwise Ted would have had four deaths on his conscience.

It's ironic that Assia told friends that Ted's lovemaking was so ferocious that 'in bed, he smells like a butcher.' Because that's exactly what he was...metaphorically.

How horrific that within two days of Sylvia's suicide, Ted and Assia starting sharing her bed in the London flat where she died. Assia was probably already pregnant by Ted and used the same bed to recover from an abortion six weeks later.

The couple parted in 1968 after Ted embarked on another affair. The following year, at the age of 42, Assia gassed herself, just as Plath had done. In a diary entry, she blamed the ghost of Plath for making her suicidal.

With so much blood on his hands, no wonder Ted was a tortured soul. The tragedy is he had the power to prevent Sylvia's, Assia's and Shura's deaths – but chose otherwise.

Deliciously debauched

Surreal video with teeth, hair and testosterone - genius!

Freakshow!

After long, hard weekend, I walked into the grainy world of Diane Arbus at Nottingham Contemporary and walked out to a grey, rainy afternoon floored by such an intimate slice of 60s life. And walked wondering why this talented woman with the world at her feet had gone the way of Sylvia Plath, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other members of the 60s/70s suicide club.

Arbus came from a privileged Jewish background – her father was a wealthy furrier. She married young (18), had two children, divorced. But it was only really after her divorce that she gave free expression to her creativity, walking on the wild side, visiting the Bowery and Upper East side cataloguing New York’s downtrodden, deviants, freaks and the retarded and marginalised in society.

Look at the shots and witness her obsession with grotesquerie. The dwarves, the giant, the twins (spookily reminiscent of The Shining), the painted ladies, the trannies, the naturists…all on the fringes of society. All too often labeled abnormal, stared at and pitied. Even the blonde showgirl with pneumatic breasts who drips glamour looks bizarre set against a shabby dressing room that’s more Cynthia Payne bedsit Streatham than Las Vegas.

"Freaks were a thing I photographed a lot," she wrote. "It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

Maybe that was the problem, maybe Arbus' reality became twisted by her subject matter. Maybe she saw only too clearly that life itself was a freakshow and she looked too deeply into the heart of darkness until the angst and pain became unbearable and pills and the razor seemed the only escape. I think Bukowski’s poem, Cause and Effect sums up her suicide perfectly.

Cause and Effect

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

Charles Bukowski

This Is England '86 | Episode 1 Clip: Shaun & Bikers | Channel 4

This what great British drama is all about! We've been forcefed dramaLITE for so long, backfilled with inane reality TV and godawful flaccid Big Brother. But at last something visceral, something gutsy and northern and real! Something that made me laugh, made me cry, made me want to kill!

Yes, yes yes! This is England is up there with Boys from the Blackstuff, Room at the Top, Cathy Come Home...all those classic gritty greats!

I've just watched Part 4 and feel at once elated, because it's been so good, yet emotionally bruised by the brutal finale. Parts 1 & 2 were punctuated by some cracking comic moments (like the clip shown and on a par with Shameless for bellylaugh value) where we were re-aquainted with the central characters Lol, Woody, Milky, Sean, Smell, Gadget and Combo.

We witnessed Woody's liver-livered lack of manhood, Gadget as Trudy's shelf-fixing toy boy and almost becoming Clark Gable complete with tash and sweater, Sean's (Ginge) leaving home and rite of passage into manhood, Milky's crisp-fixated 'last stand', Combo's wounded return and the enigma that was Lol.

In Parts 1 & 2, there was something deep and brooding about Lol. Her hard bovver girl swagger and untouchable exterior belied a hurt and fragility that gradually surfaced as we saw her unravel in Part 3. And the reason for her passive aggressive bristle hit us like a molatoff!

Scenes of unspeakable violation were set against a grim, grey backdrop of Sheffield's depressing highrise landscape. And the screenplay was so powerful, you could feel Lol's bottled up pain and anger. A hurt that cut so deep, it could no longer be contained, spilling over into bloody, inevitable revenge. It has to be said Johnny Harris' bearded, brooding portrayal of Mick was harrowing but genius!

1986 was a year of political turmoil, miner's strikes, high unemployment, the World Cup in Mexico and 'we was robbed' by Maradona's handball. Shane captures it all brilliantly, even filming a prosaic pub shag scene with touching sensitivity. He delivers up a cast of characters who are trying to make their way in life despite all the shit that life throws at them. Their fragility, their strength, their humility, hopes, fears and even Combo turning out to be a psycho with a heart. We lived it, we loved it!

Angsty, edgy, provative and evocative, The Bitterest Pill by the Jam was truly a fitting ending to the tragi-comedy that was This is England 1986.

Bring it on Shane Meadows, write more...!!!

John Ogdon

We saw John Ogden play at Oxford's sublime Ashmolean
A year before his sudden death
The blue frescoed domed ceiling
Gave the evening a celestial air
The purity of his notes swooped and soared
Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. Op66a
A flittering, manic, tortured sonata
Not unlike John's spinning bipolar mind
And my sonata partner at the time.
Both in parallel twisted realities then
Both dead virtuosos now.

Say Nope to Pope

Shame on the Pope and the catholic church for the hundreds of child abuse victims he/they brushed under the papal carpet. FOURTEEN of the 22 Catholic priests convicted of sexually abusing children in England and Wales since 2001 are still listed as members of the clergy, according to press reports.

Whilst he sits on a vast array of wealth and riches like Jabba the Hut, there are millions living in poverty in the world. The catholic church was built on the pillage of indigenous peoples and remains today far removed from the trials and tribulations of ordinary mortals.

If the pope had anything about him, he'd out all those corrupt, kiddy-fiddling clergymen so they could face justice. He'd actively promote contraception in impoverished countries across Africa and do something to halt the stampede of AIDS. He'd give his blessing to gay couples who want to adopt. He'd welcome women into the clergy. And moreover he'd distribute some of that vast wealth to help the poor and needy.

Being an aggressive atheist in a third world country is far better than being a hypocritical despot living in a gilded cage!

Come On Over

Amazing laconic vocals by Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell set against the steamy backdrop of southern swamplands in a sexed up va va vampire infested orgiastic delight. Necks at the ready!

If You Let Me

Her face shows the ravages of time, but Chrissie Hynde's deep raspy-edged rock voice still cuts it. Feisty, cool, angry, distrustful, trademark heavily kohled eyes under her slab of fringe, guitar pistoned against her tight-jeaned hips, she's a fucking inspiration at 57! A woman among the boys.

A survivor - 2 marriage wrecks and 2 children she brought up single handedly. Thank god we have women like this in the world who show it can be done. Life's not all sugar and spice - it's full of twists and turns and mostly hard knocks - the trick is to keep getting up, getting up!

The single is out today August 24th!

moving

A perfect fusion of music and retro imagery.

The content for She kills for thrills is certificate 18 only and will be posted on my other blog naughtyfortysville. Please also check out slinkymalinky my review website.

She kills for thrills

Carpe Diem

Him:
“Well hellooo lady in red - waiting for someone or all alone?"

Me:
(Sardonically) “Just killing time…before meeting friends.”

[He offering a hand to shake]
Him:
“Giles… but Guffer to friends.”

Me:
(coolly), “ Well hi there err… ‘Guffer’.

At this point he flashed an, ‘I’m in here!’ look over to his cronies, which made me smirk inwardly with a self-congratulatory…little does he know smugness. Lacking the complexities of the female psyche, men were easy to read. Centuries of education and civilization can’t wipe out that inane hunting instinct. They’re borne to it. You can see it in their body language, the way they stand square on, the inflection in their voice, that glint in the eye. It bigs up their ego and I was happy to play prey to slowly, slowly catchy monkey.

He had old Etonian written all over his port-reddened face and he wore arrogance like a starchy Gieves and Hawkes shirt. He came from a world of priviledge and excess, as removed from my world as Hampstead and Hackney. He knew nothing of hustling and sleeping rough, stealing to eat. It was a past that shaped my present and made me the perfect glacial, lust for blood killing machine.

I felt his pudgy, smooth white hand touch my bare forearm – it was decidedly clammy and unpleasant and his breath was wino thick with alcohol. He exuded that stale formaldehyde half cut smell that tramps on the tube give off. But it meant the Roho (Flunitrazepam) would work a treat! I’d gotten the old version from a friend in the know; the sort that was tasteless, odourless and left no blue residue. He’d done a long lunch session and was a touch unsteady on his feet, so he’d be none the wiser. But before I spiked, I wanted to make sure his friends were oiled enough not to be bothered about him.

I needn’t have worried, they were ordering an inordinately expensive bottle of Cristal – and had already zoned in on some other women to share it with.


[Motioning to the drink]
Him:
“Another…?”

Me:
“Don’t mind if I do…”

Him:
“Are you…married?”

Me:
“Single. You…?”

Him:
“I didn’t catch your name?”

Me:
“Lynn…Lynn Bracken…

I already knew the answer to this because I’d seen him discretely slip off his wedding band into his pocket before he came over. But I wanted to hear the lie – it justified his end.

She kills for thrills

The Letter S

The big station clock chimed 9 as I sat at the bar sipping my second cocktail in a cocoon and waiting...While outside gentle spit spots of rain tapped lightly against the window. As I looked out, the city was a live hive of city types with big black brollies spilling over bridges and pavements and into roads. Making their way home in cabs and buses and tubes where they'd avert their eyes in a speechless daze behind redtops and broadsheets and glossy style magazines that plied their stock-in-trade hyped images of fast cars and designer homes with the latest trendy wallpaper this, and shiny flooring that, and Italia furniture features and ads where they could play out their dreams of a shiny happy people glossy life.

Only to look up when their stop or station loomed large and the bus or train spewed them out into the glistening street or acrid-aired station where they made their way home to their flats and pads and gaffs and cottages and loft apartments and country piles in Hampstead and Wimbledon and Richmond, and the further reaches of Ascot and Epsom and St Albans and Leighton Buzzard and Epping Forest. So many people in search of the perfect world trying to live out perfect lives going home to their Persian cats or their French bulldogs or their Swedish wives or Gambian husbands.

All this against a backdrop of runaways, drug abuse, asbos, unwanted pregnancy, teenage binge drinking, sex traffickers and immigrants.

Three city traders walked in trying to outdo each other with jibber jabber of the day's acquisitions and the state of the Dow Jones and Footsie and the Nikkei and how wheat prices were rising along with the Yen and BP share prices were falling and how much they stood to make in bonuses and blah blah blah!

I observed with interested detachment, comparing their hamster wheel mainstream existence to my own rootless one. I leant slightly leftwards to catch the gist as their conversation turned more conspiratorial and they looked my way. The dagger tip pricked my thigh and a blood stain seeped dark against the silky material of dress. It reminded me of the delights of the night ahead and what sport I would have with one of these stuffed pig city traders. I could hardly contain my disgust and delight as one of them walked over...

She kills for thrills

The Letter S

It took me silently along the river to Shoreditch and the sort of bars where the hardcore city boys hang out. The types who wear their egos like a Hugo Boss shirt – loud, proud and obnoxious. Bolly swigging, learing, groping fools. The sort who’re limited by their Home Counties accent and their boarding school upbringing, all back-slapping old boys’ club guffaws. The sort who dated and married nice Emilies and Charlottes and Samanthas but secretly bedded women for sport and wore their misogyny like a badge of honour.

They were left brain. I was right.

They measured out their lives in stocks in shares.
They dad danced to a different tune.
Their were blacks and navys and greys.
They hung out in packs.

I hunted alone.

Dressed to kill in a long strawberry wig and tight red, curve skimming forties-style dress and black satin raincoat, I looked the part. Ce soir, I was that Kim Basinger femme fatale, Lynn Bracken in LA Confidential – all swishy, long curled hair, red luscious pouty lips and stocking tops in a mischievous mood to murder.

A flick of the hair, lip of the lips, discrete glimpse of bestockinged thigh and resistance would be futile. Cameleons, comedians, corinthians and caricatures, they thought they were oh so clever, oh so worldly wise...these suited and booted arrogant boy-men, but that was before they met me. One of them would not be returning to the comfort of friends tomorrow. He would be my crimson quarry!

"Tainted love, tainted love, touch me baby tainted love..."

...it rang in my head as I staked out the bar plying the barman with small talk as he mixed me a mean martini and did a great line in bottle spinning. A big heavy fly buzzed circuits lazily around the spinning ceiling fan overhead. I watched its mesmeric dance of death as it droned round and round just skimming the blades. Slowly and deliberately, I swirled the olive with my tongue, taking it in my mouth and biting into its silky smooth oily skin, whilst savoring the feel of the steely silver warmed by my thigh and secreted in my filigree killer stocking top. And I felt a piercing, plunging, pronging, pricking, shanking, sticking shiver of excitement.

Because S was for stabbing!

She kills for thrills

In the beginning

You either exist or you live! I took a walk on the wild side – struck up a love affair with suped-up recreational excess, if you will. In life, there are those who settle for a comfy, sedate sofa ride in a family saloon. And those who lust after a need for speed shot of foot-to-the-metal, pulsating, heart-pounding, 2-litre white hot ride that gives you a headjolt of adrenalin, and makes your body tingle with sweaty anticipation. Faster pussycat kill kill!

Yes, the first time was murderously, velvet-sweet. But just like dabbling with substance, sooner or later you get drawn down into a whirlpool that sucks you in and spits you out. You kick, spit and struggle...no, resistance is futile. Looking back, I always knew I was going too far and that sure as night follows day, life would fade to black...

But hells bells, I’d already decided not choose a beige future. Just pull a letter out of the hat and see what gives. Life just took a turn for the weird.

Welcome to my vermillion twisted stream of consciousness.

she kills for thrills

I’d just given birth to triplets, two girls and boy – but soon as they were born, a white masked, unknown somebody took them away to a glass room in the far corner of my vision. Exhausted and still sky-high on the pethidine, my reality was blurred, not unlike the sensation of swimming underwater with scratched goggles. “Bring them back, they need feeding. Bring them back they need feeding… bring them back…”said the drum and bass voice in my head on a rhythmic loop. The girls were vernix waxy with waa-waa Siamese cries and I nuzzled them instinctively into my heavy, milky breasts. But where was the third – the boy? They brought him back to me as I fed but his body was lifeless…

Bang! Bang! Bang! Urgent, insistent, determined knocking in the distance. It kick-started my reality. “Noooo! Don’t answer it, I shouted – for fuck’s sake, don’t answer it!” Too late…three masked men burst my bubble of maternal heaven.

Loud, loud, louder, unbearable Guns N’ Roses – ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ blasting out. Psychological torture – menacing, they’d planned it perfectly – even down to the sounds.

The girl babies – innocent…oblivious in a nirvana of milky feed. Ear-piercing music jolted their startle reflex and stilled their bird-mouths. Then they swooped like black crows, violently snatching the girls from my breast, a Beretta ’34 fitted with a modern silencer to the tiny temples and two final dull kthuds…

She's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain
Her hair reminds me
of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by

Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine

Where do we go
Where do we go now
Where do we go
Sweet child o' mine

Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)

Class act from from the welch pairing and cracking lyrics! Be scared Alicia & Jay-Z...be very scared! New York is sooo over!
Let's hear it for Newport!

Leaders | Robin Hood Tax - Film

Leaders | Robin Hood Tax - Film

Let's go to it and make those damn bankers pay for all the global misery they've inflicted on so many because of their out and out greed. Why can't they give something back as penance? I'm a lapsed catholic, but didn't Jesus say something damning about the moneylender...? It's a moral obligation me-thinks!

Palinode

Mrs Malaprop’s Top 5 Gaffes

We've got Prince Philip with his 'slitty eyed, natives off the booze' gaffes over here. Over there, wearing the crown of cringeworthy comment, is none other than the US’s finest Republican gun-toting, bible-bashing, malappropriate, moose-shootin, botox-filled, lip-plumped uber babe – Sarahlicious yeee haaa, go girl...!

1. "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." --a Tweet by Sarah Palin, which she quickly removed after being ridiculed for inventing the word "refudiate," July 18, 2010

2. "Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real." --a second Tweet by Sarah Palin, which she also removed after misusing the word "refute," July 18, 2010

3. "'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'" --a follow-up Tweet by Sarah Palin, proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010

4. "What the federal government should have done is accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solution that they wanted presented ... The Dutch and the Norwegians, they are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills." --Sarah Palin, on solving the Gulf oil spill crisis, June 15, 2010

5. "Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It's catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it." --Sarah Palin, blaming the Gulf oil spill disaster on "extreme environmentalists," Facebook message, June 2, 2010

Thank god Obama got in –heaven help the world if those dumb-ass republicans made it to power! Summed up by a Democrat: “For someone who maybe wants to run the country, to be so careless with her use of language shows an intellectual laziness that is a little bit dangerous.”

Justin Timberlake Senorita Eddie Arroyo Remix

Now why didn't Danny Tenaglia play this on Sunday? Great dance music with a latino spin!

Antony And The Johnsons 'Fistful Of Love' 2005

Truly seraphic and poignant!

Union Carbide Rap

Warren Anderson must stand trial and take the rap!

How corrupt is a legal system that allows a mass murderer get away scott-free and live the life of luxury on Long Island, USA - while thousands still suffer the after effects of Bhopal 25 years on. That mass murderer is Warren Anderson - Chairman India of the then Union Carbide company - a man who knew full well the defects and bad build of the chemical plant in Bhopal but chose to overlook them in the name of profit.

Since 1992 Anderson has refused to stand trial and is protected by a legal system that calls his crime 'a rash and negligent act' which isn't deemed to be cause for extradition. How insulting to the 20,000 who died in Bhopal that the company was fined just 11,000 dollars - 55 cents per death! How insulting for their relatives and how galling for the victims of the resulting birth defects that the Indian perpetrators who stood trial on Monday were fined a paltry amount and got 2 years sentences - of course they're already out on bail!

The worst thing about this tragedy is the wretched condition of the survivors – people who in return for nearly 22 years of suffering with dreadful illnesses have received 'compensation' of around $500 – just enough to buy one cup of tea per day. (By contrast, the Times of India reported that Alaskan sea-otters during the Exxon-Valdez disaster were fed airlifted lobster at a cost of $500 per otter per day.)

In the free Sambhavna Clinic (which opened in 1996, funded by donations received from the public in the UK and elsewhere) doctors are seeing evidence of a menstrual chaos among the affected population. Girls who had been babies, or in the womb at the time of the gas, have now reached puberty. Some do not menstruate at all, or have a period only once in three months, while others bleed three times a month. No work is being done on this, except by Sambhavna. It remains an officially unacknowledged epidemic. Other things, too, were missed. A report from the Clinic observes, “The alarming rise in cancers, tuberculosis, reproductive system problems and other problems such as growth retardation among children born after the disaster remain undocumented.”

This is a massive miscarriage of justice!

Please join me to demand action against this terrible injustice visit: www.bhopal.net Go to Action: Dharna2010 - send a letter to the Indian MP who promised to take action against Anderson.

Laurence Of My Labia

Sex and the Shitty was a cross between 'take me up the aisle' and 'carry on shagging' (pardon the pun). Anyway it was a right royal farce with OTT costumes, lots of gaydom and au naturel, the fab 4 faghags in an Arabian Nights like adventure with souk loads of emotional baggage.

Best line (as always) goes to Samantha for 'Laurence of My Labia' delivered with more 'Up Pompei' euphemistic clout than Frankie Howerd. However, it was spoken about a shag interest (Dick Schtiff) who was supposed to be Danish but sounded more ecky thump than Sean Bean! Great eye candy - shame the casting crew couldn't get the accent right.

Reaching 10 on the decadometer - it was a film with more product placement than Times Square...Louis Vuitton, Rolex etc etc etc. Then there were the cameos and bit parts – Liza Minnelli croaked her way through All the Single Ladies but put in some impressive dancing and showed great pins for a 64 yo. And some great actors and comedians had bit parts in the whole shebang – Art Malik, Omid Djalili, Penelope Cruz...to name a few, but not vomit-inducing whiney Miley Cyrus! Wonderful scenes shot in Morocco, a hotel to die for and Natacha Atlas' - 'Kidda' which is the best belly dance track ever!

So apart from lots of froth, fripperies and Samantha fcuking on the bonnet of a 4x4, what was it all about...? Well, in a nutshell: Marriage turns men into TV watching muppets. Men feel threatened by strong women. Don't kiss and tell. Women want shoes...more shoes, clothes, romance and black diamonds. Having children makes you lady ga ga. Muslim women wear Armani underneath their niquabs. Men looks at tits all the time. Menopause can be cured with hormones. But apparently bad casting can't! Voila!

All of you people...

There's something wild and free about the 70s and 70s music that we've lost today... the sheer joy of dance expression and letting the music flow through your body and move ya' - workin' those serotonin receptors in your brain - better than cocaine. I want to dress freaky- funky and be part of that soul train and get people all over the world struttin' their stuff and movin' their butts without worrying what they look like! Perhaps then we wouldn't have weight issues or need antidepressants and alcohol.

Plan B - Stay Too Long (Explicit Director's Cut)

funky, funky, jazzy, groovy - and the OTT decadent, gangsta style vid's pretty good too!

Plan B - Stop Me (Like A Version)

Stop me oh, oh, oh stop me... I just seem to keep finding so much i love from the multi-talented Ben Drew singing Mark Ronson's incredible lyrics with such brilliant intensity.

it's a cracker!

Let's face it, The Sun is a comic. Never in a million years could it pretend to be a serious paper. Although Murdoch revels in the power of 'It's The Sun Wot Done It!' ie won the election for the 'Snories'! And I loathe that distasteful egotistical man.

Ayway I digress...despite my derision for the lack of quality reporting - I do have a secret admiration for the comic value of Sun headlines. And seeing the Nike footie ad with glimpses of England in Roo ins! ( Roonie - geddit) reminded me of some real stonkers of headlines. So feast your eyes and have a good laff!...

feel

Lissie - When I'm Alone (Live). Am busier than Clare Sweeney at panto time - but not too busy to be inspired by this. Poetic lyrics that speak volumes, a voice that packs a 240V power punch and a ballsy rock chick edge...lovin' Lissie!

Feel

Feel the funk, feel the soul, feel the electricity!!! Legendary video with Tarantino-style Death Proof car chase, the soulful/funky/rappy voices of Bobby Womack and Mos Def - amazing animatics and Bruce Willis in super cool badass mode. Hooked!

http://www.footymix.com/south-africa/video-nike-viral-ad-write-the-future-full-length-version-stars-rooneydrogba-ribery-ronaldo-and-ronaldinho/

Back of the net! Also check out Rooney in a caravan outtakes on YouTube. A stroke of genius!

http://www.footymix.com/south-africa/video-nike-viral-ad-write-the-future-full-length-version-stars-rooneydrogba-ribery-ronaldo-and-ronaldinho/

"Suzanne" Ft. Leonard Cohen - Plan B A2 Media Studies Advanced Productio...

totally, utterly, gobshitely realistically chilling with some kind of leonard cohen poetically ethereal edge without sounding
pretentious but loving the grim reality of the lyrics!

Smitten

Plan B is my new musical obsession - body-shiver voice, totally switched-on lyrics, incredible swagger - what's not to love, love, love!

Writing's On The Wall - Plan B (Live at Cafe de Paris)

What an amazing soul voice - love it!

MyDavidCameron.com | I grew up on an Estate too

MyDavidCameron.com | I grew up on an Estate too

funnies!

Discombobulate!

A right old duffer of a word…cumbersome and evocative of something just out of moth balls, but used liberally in the Sunday Times mag yesterday.

WTF!

What is it with ‘mot du jour’ words the press latch onto. What the hell’s wrong with confound, confuse, fox, bedevil, befuddle, throw, bewilder, befuddle, dumbfound, flummox, baffle, mystify, nonplus, perplex, puzzle, stupefy, amaze, gravel, vex, pose, stick, beat?

Flummox is a far superior word – sharper, quirkier and symmetrical with a dash of flair and flourish to convey its meaning far more clearly than discombobulate.

Thank you!

The Disappearance of Alice Creed - Official Trailer

Greed fucks everyone! Low budget - big thrills!!!

The Disappearance of Alice Creed - Official Trailer

Greed fucks everyone! Low budget - big thrills!!!

The Disappearance of Alice Creed - Official Trailer

Greed fucks everyone! Low budget - big thrills!!!

Frozen River-movie Trailer 2008

Totally amazing movie - have meant to watch it for some time. Though dark at times, the characterisation is so vivid and the themes so universal - it grips like a vice. Let's hear for great roles for women and fabulous female directors!!!

respect

last saturday's guardian ran a feature by leading poets on ageing. roger mcgough - one of my all time favourite beat poets
revisited this poem, updating it 40 years on. i couldn't find the updated version on the tinterweb but i love the original anyway.


Let Me Die a Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough

PaRTY PIEce

He said:

'Let's stay here
Now this place has emptied
And make gentle pornography with one another,
While the partygoers go out
And the dawn creeps in,
Like a stranger.

Let us not hesitate
Over what we know
Or over how cold this place has become,
But let's unclip our minds
And let tumble free
The mad, mangled crocodile of love.'

So they did,
There among the woodbines and guinness stains,
And later he caught a bus and she a train
And all there was between them then
was rain.

Brian Patten

Cake

i wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate each other.

Roger McGough

Viva la revolucion!

A few days ago, I was transfixed by a documentary about the many ways Cuba is boosting its internal food production. One of them is the growing use of highly productive organic allotments found between tower blocks and all sorts of land that would be otherwise unused. Cuba has over 7000 urban allotments know as “organopinics” — around 40,000 hectares. These organopinics are green, use waste and feed whole communities for mere pesos. What a great idea!

How do they do it? Cuba imported global organic expertise and is celebrated for its use of permaculture. Permaculture uses complementary planting and biological techniques to reduce digging and to make it easier to produce crops. Instead of monoculture, where one uniform homogenous crop is grown, interplanting makes it easier to avoid pests and to maintain soil fertility. Organic waste such as vegetable peelings is composted and used to restore soil nutrients. Worm bins are particularly important. The worms accelerate the breakdown of compost, turning waste into horticultural gold.

That isn't Cuba's only commitment to being green. While US President George Bush attempted to derail international action on climate change, Cuba has been a world leader. It was one of the first countries to sign the Convention on Climate Change and its successor the Kyoto Protocol. The country was one of the first to move to low energy light bulbs to cut CO2 emissions.

While Cuba now swaps oil with Venezuela in exchange for health care, it has developed renewable energy on a large scale, including solar and wind generated electricity. In March, Cuba’s deputy minister for industry, Jose Manuel, told the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Environmental Respect that Cuba had saved the equivalent of one million tons of oil in 2006 and 2007.

As Michael Moore's film: Capitalism - a love story exposes the pitfalls of capitalism where 90% of the wealth is held by 10% of the people and employees are referred to as 'dead peasants' – greed is not good! Capitalism as we know it is unsustainable. By creating unsustainable consumer patterns in industrialised countries and sowing impossible dreams throughout the rest of the world, the developed capitalist system has caused great injury to mankind. It has poisoned the atmosphere and depleted its enormous non-renewable natural resources, which we'll need in the future.

But as Cuba shows, an eco-socialist model does work. Other Latin American countries are following its ethos of consume less, share more, be happy. Perhaps we should follow its example?

Ban the Burkha

I'm all for multiculturalism and acceptance of different religions, but I cannot accept the burka, which is growing like a virus. Nothing in Islam requires women to wear the full veil. But the premise for wearing it is that a woman should not reveal herself to anyone outside her family. Fine, but the men dress freely, so one rule for men and another for women. It's more a statement about the position of women and the threat of men who apparently cannot control themselves if they see a woman's face, hair, hand or ankles, than an item of clothing. It also physically cuts women off. Maybe that's the intention. Keep women covered up and in the home, whilst the men are free to do whatever they like.

France is the first European country to propose a ban. It hasn't happened yet, but the debate is ongoing. Interestingly, Fadela Amara, a Muslim female politician in France, has come out in favour of a ban. Only a tiny majority – 1,900 according to one estimate – of France’s 5m Muslims wear the garment. But its spread is seen by some political leaders as a worrying sign of the rise of fundamentalist Islam in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community. Sarkozy has spoken of "this feeling of sharing less and less a common culture, a common imagination and a common morality." In his view, becoming French means "adhering to a form of civilisation, values and behaviour." And surely that's the whole point of social integration. Whereas the burka encourages separation.

According to a poll for Le Point magazine last week, 57 per cent of French people are in favour of a total ban on the burka and figures from a Harris poll show similar numbers back it here in the UK. I'm one of them.

R.I.P the pug!

Man...we all loved that pug so much! And in his short life he brought so much joy to so many. He was a god amongst dogs!

If only the good die young - he was the very essence of James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Bonham, John Lennon, Elvis, Brian Jones, Phil Linnot, Bon Scott, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious,
Curtis Mayfield, Jeff Buckley, Tupac Shakur, Joe Strummer, Luther Vandross, Michael Hutchence, Ian Curtis, Ronnie Van Zant,
DJ Screw, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious, Aliyah, Notorious BIG, Johnny Cash,
Marc Bolan...and any others rock dogs I've missed!

8th wonder?

On a cold, cold day last month, I walked and walked from uptown to central Madrid in search of the Prado. Little did I know how far it was or how cold it was gonna be in Spain's capital at that time of year. Despite wind-chill factor 10, one of the great pleasures of walking was happening upon this amazing vertical plant wall at the CaixaForum Madrid. It's an art exhibition space sponsored by The La Caixa Foundation that opened in February 2008 as part of their social and cultural outreach efforts.

Designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc, this wall of green has 15,000 plants of 250 species covering a 460 m2 wall in the square in front of The CaixaForum. Blanc's theory that plants don’t need earth, only water, minerals, light and carbon dioxide, clearly hangs. And on a parallel level, it got me thinking about how much we think we need in life to sustain us. And how much our consumerist society feeds our need for greed and having the next best thing. But in reality a roof over our head, work, food and love – the basics are all we really need for happiness.

Queen Bitch!

Genuis, pure genius. I love these images as they capture the spirit of Queen Bitch!

My all time favourite line...

'she's so swishy in her satin and tat with her frock coat and bipperty bopperty hat'

I'm up on the eleventh floor
And I'm watching the cruisers below
My heart's in the basement
My weekend's
at an all time low
He's down on the street
And he's trying hard
to pull sister Flo

'Cause she's hoping to score
So I can't see her
letting him go
Walk out of her heart
Walk out of her mind

[CHORUS]
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat
and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that

She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
And she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it,
she don't make false claims
But she's a Queen,
and such are queens
That your laughter
is sucked in their brains
Now she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
But it could have been me
Yes, it could have been me
Why didn't I say,
why didn't I say, no, no, no

[CHORUS]

So I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
Oh the cot is so cold
It don't feel like no bed at all
Yeah I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
But he's down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I'm phoning a cab
'Cause my stomach feels small
There's a taste in my mouth
And it's no taste at all

It could have been me
Oh yeah, it could have been me
Why didn't I say,
Why didn't I say, no, no, no