Geoff and Betty are off on holiday to sunny blobby Cornwall so I thought I’d do a quick post especially for them – something to talk about on the journey – especially impossibly yellow tight shorts. This clip made me realise where I must have got inspiration for this from.
Yes! Paula Yates of course. Anyway – here she is looking rather fab in tight rock t-shirt and leather jeans reclining on an unmade bed (where else?) with Jools reminiscing about how impossibly fabulous Wham’s version of ‘Love Machine’ actually was on the Tube in 1983. And I have to say – it is rather brilliant. Have a lovely holiday Betty and Geoff – I guess we’ll all be here wittering away about the good old days when you are back. Don’t go into any of those fancy tea-shops with tinternet connections and locally knitted potplants will you?
Goodness – I am on a creative roll this morning. There has been a bit of cultural talk over at Dick and Istvanski’s over the last few days about Romania. Here are a few of my pictures from my weekend visit to Bucharest in June 2004.
The wad of notes on the table was what I got out of the cashpoint when I typed in £20. The currency was buggered and had so many noughts after it even the Romanians had trouble keeping up with adding up stuff in shops etc. Put it this way – there wasn’t enough room on a normal calculator to calculate the total of a few simple items.
View out of taxi window. It had Aer Conditionat and you had to get in quick as the taxi driver didn’t want to upset the temperature balance and let any hot air in!
Main drag. I had to go to a ‘mall’ to find something to wear for an end of shoot party. When I got there there weren’t any clothes shops – just lots of people sitting around eating icecream and a plethora of plastic shoe and meat and chemist shops.
Up the road from the mall – bottoms on the side of a building. I took the photo and then started humming Queen’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls (make the rockin’ world go round)’ to myself. Then I hailed another Aer Condiionat.
Serial Killer Chicken downtown….bloody Coca Cola everywhere (‘ahh – coka cole – symbol of free West as Mr Balowski (Alexei Sayle) once said so profoundly in the Young Ones)
View from the hotel room at dusk. Quite grey. There is a lot of grey in Bucharest. Nice parks though and great antique shops stuffed full of art deco gems.
Ceaucescu’s monstrous palace/bunker on mega wobbly zoom. The third largest building in the world after the Pentagon. 4600 chandeliers, a thousand rooms and hallways, 300 ft reception hall, nuclear bunker, 12 million pieces of marble, hideous.
Resting – feet on coffee table.
Thank you – that was Romania from a Sat lunchtime to a Sunday night.
It’s amazing where a simple thought can lead you. I’ve just been over at Llewtrah’s clogging up her comments box about the ‘minced Corgi incident‘ which was featured on the news earlier this week. Which then led me to mention the ‘poodle-pie eating incident‘ with Robert Morley in the very famous Hammer film ‘Theatre of Blood‘. I use to love Hammer Horror films as a child despite the fact I used to scare myself rigid by watching them in the dark and having to peep through my hands that were covering my face for most of the film. I guess we used to make our own ‘themed’ nights in those days……..So off I trot to youtube in search of that infamous scene thinking I might put it up on here for everyone to laugh at. But instead I got side-tracked by Kate Bush’s performance of Hammer Horror in 1979. I wonder who the man in the balaclava and dance tights was? Of course I would never slag off the Mighty Bush but this clip made me laugh almost as much as if I had found the clip of Robert Morley being forced to eat poodle pie. Enjoy it for all is datedness – late 70’s picture feedback trails, dodgy interpretive dancing and Kate almost asphyxiating balaclava man with her mighty boosh of hair flicking.
Is it just me being a bit over-sensitive or do other people feel a bit left out when they have been a regular reader and commenter of someone elses blog for a considerable length of time and for some reason you just don’t seem to make their blogroll. Ever. You watch other readers come and go and yet – they make the blogroll but you don’t. Does it actually matter? Is it just an oversight? Or is it personal? Does blogging just bring out the insecure in all of us at some point?
I’ve been pondering this quite a bit of late as each time I comment on a certain blog I get a pang of feeling unwelcome – but I don’t know why. And then I thought – am I just being paranoid? Am I actually ridiculously pathetic and should stop bothering myself with this forthwith! Is there some form of blogrollers etiquette that I should be aware of? Ie: am I not on their blogroll because even though I comment on their blog I don’t qualify for the blogroll as they don’t read mine. The thing that irks me a little is that they are on my blogroll so you think they would reciprocate? That reminds me – I must update my blogroll! You see – maybe it’s not personal at all – just slack on their part and awfully over-dramatic on mine? Apologies to all my commenters and readers that aren’t currently on my blogroll…and for my current state of woedom.
Breaking News on the BBC: The government is considering giving all police officers across the UK “stop and question” powers, the Home Office has confirmed. The proposal, allowing police to ask people about their identity and movement is among measures being considered for a new anti-terror bill. This sounds like a blinged-up version of Thatcher’s disgusting SUS laws to me. It’s all going to go horribly wrong and IS terribly wrong. We are the most ‘watched’ nation in the world, now we will be the most ‘monitored’. It reminds me of the late 70’s/early 80’s and the horror of the SPG. I predict a riot! We don’t live in a democracy anymore and we shouldn’t take it. Our government has managed to ‘criminalise’ youth and kill most social resources for those that need it. What have we been left with? A load of CCTV camera’s and a health and education service on it’s knees. Bad. Bad. Bad.
(Photo: My Punk and Disorderly III The Final Solution Vinyl LP Cover) UPDATE:I posted a comment about my views on the recommended new stop and question laws on the bbc news blog tonight – apparently I have to wait for it to be ‘moderated’. My point entirely!
Big thank you to Geoff for this brilliant piece on well, censorship in the USA really. Why is Bush still alive and Zappa gone? Zappa wanted to go into politics and I so wish he had lived long enough to realise his plans. Somehow I can’t help thinking that the world would be a different place. This rather long piece is well worth watching to the end. Big up to the main mother of invention himself.
Aow Arfa’ where’s me comments gone?
Rockmother 
