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The sun is out The sky is blue There’s not a cloud To spoil the view But it’s raining..... (Dit-dit-diddle-iddle um) ....Rainin’ in my heart Ah, Buddy Holly’s words ring down so true through the years. It’s Bank Holiday weekend so I’m having a bit of a relaxing time at present. Jenny’s away in Devon so I’m doing all the usual things one does when one’s flatmate is away - you know, cooking vast meals, having a bath with the door open, drinking far too much drink (I wrestled with a bottle of Absinthe last night and frankly, the bottle won), and - naturally - walking around the flat with no clothes on. Jenny doesn’t know I’ve been doing all those things so please, be sure not to mention it to her. Our special guests today are as welcome as they always have been. Donna came down to visit this week in a whirl of delightful Scottishness. She and Jenny proceeded to make a ghastly girly tip of the flat (and you know how much I despise messiness) and had a much better time than me by going out, having a whale of a time and coming back late going "SSSSSHHHHH!!!" really loudly, just to make sure I would not be disturbed, bless ‘em. But while I may sound like I’m complaining, I am always fell privileged to meet new people, especially lovely people. And I never say no to a visitor to the flat (unless they are taxmen, policemen, The Queen, council officials, solicitors, politicians, people with nervous twitches, anyone carrying knives or guns, old people and Nimrod). Donna was a welcome guest in The Funky Pad and has made herself always welcome here. Come back soon Donna and bless us with yourself. Jenny, please can you forward this to Donna with my love? Cheers. Our other guest is the gorgeous Kathryn. Kathryn is the first line of defence against the public at the Centre for Visual Arts. Kathryn allows people to enter - like a petite bouncer, and in our "Public Comments" book (where we invite people to explain why they thought the place sucked), Kathryn gets more compliments than our exhibitions do. Kathryn is also a trained Ninja, Buddhist Warrior Monk, Assassin and Jedi, and has recently become a soldier of fortune, fighting for truth, justice and the Birmingham way. Hooray! As usual, don’t forget to visit the Whimsy website and be sure to e-mail any comments you may have: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~codmate/whimsy/index.html Oooooohshouldn’thavedrunkthatabsinthenowiseethelittlepixies Welcome to you all Bond Film of the Day - I don’t buy the Radio Times or any other kind of TV guide ‘cos I like to turn on the TV and have a pleasant surprise every time I do. However, I am aware that there is always a Bond Film on during a bank holiday. This time round I believe it is For Your Eyes Only. This is one of the better Roger Moore ones and was a marked contrast to the ridiculous posing done in the previous Bond Film, Moonraker. For Your Eyes Only was specifically written as a ‘Back to Basics’ Bond where he relied more on his wits than on silly gadgets. Nevertheless it’s still not as good as the classic Connery films. Mind you, there is much to recommend about For Your Eyes Only: 1) The Bird (played in a low-key fashion by the French goddess Carole Bouquet). She fires a crossbow and is tough and resourceful and never screams. She also is well fit with the most gorgeous eyes and delicate olive skin. Rhhrrrhrhrhrhrhhrrrrhrhrhrrhhrrrr 2) The Villain. Unusually for Bond, the Villain doesn’t reveal his identity until about halfway through the film. Normally, Bond is told of a ‘suspect’ (usually a rich and apparently philanthropic industrialist with designs on taking over the world hahaha!) and he goes to confront him in an opulent surrounding and then it’s fairly obvious where it all heads off to. With this one, the dastardly Kristatos is initially shown to be a pleasant chap, and unlike most Bond Baddies is not out for world domination (HAHAHAHA!!!) and is instead involved in some typical Cold-War double agentry. Nor does he tell Bond he was expecting him. 3) Roger Moore. Always a pleasure, never a chore. Grandpa Moore delights as always and his eyebrows are well and truly a-twitchin’ throughout. His sub-bass voice also rumbles along like it never stops. Moore performs like a forestry plantation, but Bond never asked for really good acting. Just look at Timothy Dalton’s brief tenure as an "emotional" Bond. 4) Charles Dance. Keep your beady eyes open for the blondly British cad supreme. He barely figures in it but he is plainly visible. 5) The ridiculous chases. A car chase with a Citroen 2CV! A ski chase! A submarine chase! Top stuff. Yes indeed, these are all excellent reasons for watching For Your Eyes Only. But why oh why oh whyyyyy ruin it with one of the shoddiest Bond songs ever? The mind boggles..... Spice Girl of the Day - Today’s Spice Girl has to be the magnificent Geri Halliwell aka Ginger Spice aka Old Spice aka The Ugly One. Geri oozes ambition - from her early days as a nudie model (tasteful - snigger! - pics too!!!) to her current incarnation as an old slapper who will sleep with anyone as famous as she is - Geri has always wanted to be famous. But she has no discernible talent so how has she managed it? Well she certainly can’t sing, can’t act, spouts twaddle philosophy, can’t write songs, isn’t terribly gorgeous and, if you’re being really picky, is basically quite obnoxious. Yet there is something about Geri which makes the public want to forgive her again and again. It’s amazing that anyone would be prepared to stand up for her - especially after that excellent documentary that was shown about a year ago. Did you see that? The one where Geri can’t see that she is rich, successful and famous (basically everything she’s ever wanted to be) and yet spends the whole time whining to the camera about how wretched her life is and sounding thoroughly ungrateful - also brilliant for George Michael making a hilarious appearance behaving like a hairdresser. And yet she bounces back yet again! Her album sucked and everyone bought it, she had a fictional fling with Chris Evans and is now romping around with another solipsistic and ungrateful Pop Brat, Robbie WinkyWilliams. I wish her well. Reason to be Miserable of the Day - I watched Top of the Pops the other night and found it to be full of obscene young people making a fearful racket and wearing incredibly unsuitable clothes. Their songs had no decent tunes and they all looked unhappy. In my day, pop groups looked pleased to be on telly. Now that nice young Lou Reed, he didn’t have much of a voice but had such lovely songs, didn’t he? Ooooh yes he did and he used to be so funny with his Nazi insignia stencilled in his hair and his songs about beating up women. And that Iggy Pop chap. Always got his penis out didn’t he? And he used to slash his chest with a Stanley Knife onstage, bless ‘im. What about that Ian Curtis though? Killed himself didn’t he? Poor dab. And what about that Fleetwood Mac? they were a popular beat combo you know. They blew $20 million on Cocaine in three years. Now that’s good old-fashioned talent for you!! Eeeeh, now these new bands are a bit pathetic aren’t they? No manners or real sense of dignity. Look at that Britney Spears girl, she can’t keep her chest in can she? Most of these modern bands wouldn’t know a decent tune if it came up and smashed them in the face..... Fish of the Day - Trout. Always in the shadow of it’s cooler relative The Salmon, the Trout is nevertheless a noble fish. Now I have always enjoyed fishing and yes, I’m well aware that it is a blood sport. I don’t care. Trout taste good and I’m gonna catch me some and there is nothing you can do to change my mind. There’s something about standing up to your thighs in freezing water in the pissing rain for eight hours waiting for one fish to decide to spear itself on a bent safety pin. Eventually you catch one tiny fish, take it home and eat it. It gives me an enormous sense of a day well spent! Musical Genre of the Day - The devil comes in many forms. He once came to Earth in the form of music. He managed to mix jazz with pop music and it became.....FUSION!!!!! This is truly awful stuff. It’s that cheesy late seventies, excessive and noodley style of playing . Really fucking awful stuff! It is like the gaze of Medusa. Should you hear it, your blood will freeze and your flesh will turn to stone. Astonishingly, for a while it looked as though it could take over the world. It has to be said that even Jimi Hendrix was tempted by its seductive grasp. Why do so many quality players turn to this jazzy but pointless wankery? There are many practitioners of Fusion - far too many in my opinion. Fusion was actually developed and conceived by the great and fabulous Miles Davis. I think had he known how bad it could get he would have left it well alone after his "Bitches Brew" album. But no, he ploughed the furrow too far. So far that his comeback in the 80s saw him writing some of the worst jazz tunes in history whereas once he wrote the greatest. There are - astonishing as it may seem - some great fusion tunes. What are they? Well....er.....um.....oh! There’s ‘Birdland’ by Weather Report - a fabulous adrenaline rush of a tune with skilful sax (Wayne Shorter) and nimble bass (Jaco Pastorius), not to mention the driving pulse of Alex Acuna on drums. Wicked tune, no contest. Are there any other good tunes? Er....well....um.....ah.....No, not really. Are there any shit tunes one should avoid? Oh yes, plenty of them. Anything by Spyro Gyro, the rest of Weather Report’s oeuvre, Chick Corea’s Electric Band, Frank Gambale, Tower of Power, The Yellowjackets, Kenny G - you know, this list could go on for ever and it would still not fill Hell up with all the deserving souls who have listened to Fusion and found it to their liking. And no, Steely Dan is not fusion. Neither is Joni Mitchell’s later stuff. So don’t pick on me. Shop of the Day - WHSmiths. Pronounced "wuh-smiffs" by me until I was shown the light at the age of 22, WHSmiths is one of the great British shops where you can buy loads of stationery, loads of books and loads of magazines. They used to be the only shop in town that would keep "The Joy of Sex" within the grasping reach of inquisitive 9 year old boys, so there is a certain amount of fondness in my heart for such a place.... Well I Never Bloody Knew That of the Day - I was watching Ray Mears’ World of Survival on BBC2 last night (fabulous programme - I heartily recommend it) and he was talking about survival at sea. Aside from the usual stuff about drinking plenty of water, fighting off sharks, giant squid and keeping a positive mental attitude, Ray also mentioned that sea birds are an excellent source of food. Apparently, old sailors short of food used to make a noose and place it on the deck. In the middle of the noose would be a piece of fish. A seabird , usually a pelagic (open ocean) species such as a Booby - a relative of our native Gannet - would then try and grab the meat. A hardy old sea dog would then snap the noose tight and if he was lucky, a large seabird would then serve as a decent meal. And that is where the name "Booby-trap" comes from. Well I Never Bloody Knew That! Top TV Totty of the Day - I am relinquishing this one for today and instead I bring you the wise words of my good chum Adam Lane, largely to prove to you that it isn't just me who does all that furtive thigh-rubbing: My Top Totty of the moment - Charlotte cannot understand this but I find Davina Macall really quite Horny - I have always gone for the older woman (probably some Freudian reason behind this). Also she is bouncy, fit, wears tight tops and (an essential requirement) appears to be very bendy. I therefore watch everything she is in. Member of the Aristocracy of the Day - Charles Spencer. Whilst lounging in my flat yesterday after stuffing my face with food and drinking too much absinthe, I watched an appalling programme about Charles Spencer (brother of Diana). Sue Barker (Britain’s greatest tennis player since Virginia Wade, former shag of Cliff Richard and Des Lynam’s replacement as the front line of BBC TV’s sport coverage), was embarrassingly asked to host a programme where she fawned over Earl Spencer and his grotty little estate, including the stagnant fishpond where Diana is buried on an island. It was pitiful to watch a member of the aristocracy try and justify his miserable life (lonely as a child, nervous, buggered at public school - actually not really, but you never know) especially as after Diana’s funeral (where he did an awful speech which - hooray! - did piss the Royal Family off but still made him come across as a trumped up little Lordling trying to grab the spotlight) he had a messy divorce which showed he was an upper class bully and love rat. Now he has about 70 acres of Northamptonshire that cost him loads of money in upkeep every year and he has nothing to show for it. Well I for one feel no sympathy towards him. I laugh at the parlous state of the Upper Classes! HAHAHAHAHA!!! Thought for the Day - When Autumn comes, why do trees go red and gold instead of blue and purple? Answers on a postcard to the usual address please. Dan Greensmith Whimsy Archive |