March 14th - March 20th 2005
Sunday Black note
Saturday Bowed
Friday Dwarves
Thursday Trumpet
Wednesday Showgirlz
Tuesday Dawn threat
Monday To Do
Sunday 20th March 2005
I say, Prime Minister, frightfully bad news about this report on Army bullying from the Commons Defence Select Committee.
Mmm. Did you see we awarded the first Victoria Cross in forty years? Black chap, from Grenada. That's good, isn't it?
Saturday 19th March 2005
Middlesbrough were able to bow out of Europe with their heads held high last night...
...so no problem with their gymnastic abilities at any rate.
Friday 18th March 2005
Maybe a bit more than a bit. There's my thing about Sondheim, for instance.
Thanks to my belated discovery of (..in the light of recent events, let's call them..) alternative distribution networks I've relit my interest in music, and musicians, and - I blush only a little - musicals.
A while ago, my good friend Gregory told me to watch out for Camp, and I'm glad I did, for lots of reasons, not least the brutal simplicity of the title which oh-so-neatly, adjective and noun, summarises the goings on at a summer school for young performers.
The bit that Gregory particularly remembers, and which I cannot now forget either, is when a new arrival spots a framed photograph of an elegant mature man posed on another student's bedside locker.
"Is that your father?" the straight boy politely enquires.
And Miss Thing gives him such-a-look. Turns on his heel. And says, "No. That's: Stephen Sondheim."
I won't, won't, won't go on about Sondheim's inimitable ability to blend superbly lyrical tunes with superb lyrics. But just look at these lines from my favourite Sondheim show, Into the Woods - from the witty scene where two fairy-tale princes compete as to who is the most neurotically love-damaged of them all.
Imagine a wonderful tune and then read this, aloud:
Cinderella's Prince: If it were not for the thicket-
Rapunzel's Prince: A thicket's no trick. Is it thick?
CP: It's the thickest.
RP: The quickest is pick it apart with a stick -
CP: Yes, but even one prick -
It's my thing about blood.
RP: Well, it's sick!
CP: It's no sicker than your thing with dwarves.
RP: Dwarves.
CP: Dwarves...
RP: Dwarves are very upsetting....
Thursday 17th March 2005
As if there were not enough reasons to be more than half in love with Francis S, he delights in Purcell.
(And doesn't then take a thousand words or so to debate the merits of Sound the Trumpet as against The Trumpet Voluntary, either. Ahem.)
Wednesday 16th March 2005
Ok. It's official. I'm gay: I just watched almost all of Showgirls (as much as got recorded before the tape ran out) and thought it, hmm, not good, obviously, but, well, y'know, kinda watchable. In a tacky way.
Every intelligent person on the planet, or the film critics amongst them at least, think Showgirls is just the biggest crock of shit ever made. From the man who made Starship Troopers? They wanted irony?
Please note: I am only now watching this movie. And I am not filing it under so-bad-its-good. So I'm not that gay. (Hmmm. Maybe I'm bit gay. You know, like Jesus.)
(The italics are a bit of a giveaway though.)
Tuesday 15th March 2005
Spooky premonitions from a 1961 Eagle Annual, number three:
Monday 14th March 2005
Things to do
Go to launderette
Finish washing up
Cook chicken before it goes off
Blog
Fill in VAT form
Pay bills
Shave
Blitz-clean remaining filthy flat corners
Bake bread
Wash
Learn Flash
Work out what to do with fresh turmeric
Watch 'Old Boy'
Design Spinoza pages
Get a boyfriend
Lie in bed reading
Lie in bed reading it is then.
......previous week
