All In The Best Possible Taste

As many or none of you may be aware - I am a big fan of Kenny Everett and am currently listening to two hours of vintage Kenny on Radio 2 as part of their 40th birthday radio events schedule. You can listen here live or wait until after 13:00 GMT when the listen again widget will appear. It is a must. Never before have I felt so happy to be 40. After that I might listen again to Ed Stewpot's Junior Choice - woof! woof! (that was Arnold in case you were wondering).

Evil Sai Baba

Hurray - I have managed to make someone cross on Flickr. In Oct 2005 I discovered this on my street - a long way away from one of (evil) Sai Baba's ashrams. I have often wondered how it fluttered its way to a drizzly, dank pavement in South West London. An acquaintance of mine lived in one of Sai Baba's ashrams for over a year and tried to get her sister and I to accept some Sai Baba's 'healing powder' that supposedly comes from his fingers. The said powder was subject to a thorough chemical investigation and was found to be none other than chalk dust! Added to which, there was a great documentary about Sai Baba a year or so ago - he is a charlatan and possible paedophile despite the fact he has done good work for the poor (and is a multi-millionaire with a fleet of jets to boot). He brings a new meaning to 'untouchable' in modern day India. There have been numerous attempts to assassinate him but most have been killed or injured in the process. A testament to how protected he is from those who are trying to expose him for what he really is.

Wolfspirit 1232 doesn't quite seem to agree with me - he/she/wolfspirit comments via my flickr:

Sai Baba is the best, both my parents went to him, and my
father was very sceptical about it, but now he believes it too.
Sai Baba came closeby and
he felt the energies of Sai Baba he said.

And he is not a paedophile, omg.

Well Wolfspirit perhaps your parents were lucky. See here for more information on this dangerous cult leader who enjoys close ties with government and the police. Most who attempt to expose him (pardon the pun) for who he really is are repeatedly beaten, intimidated or killed. His 'miracles' producing cheap watches or jewellery out of thin air have been proven to be 'sleight of hand' - nothing more advanced than a straightforward street con.

Fact.

Vicodin Please

UPDATE: Oh God - thank you the marvellous Great She for alerting me - I must have spoken too soon!


Oh
Good

God
No!

The Croc Wellie. Where will it ever end? In millions of years time there will be people living off croc landfill sites. Deranged teenagers will be smoking them in the streets. Sarah Beeny will be the patron of the National Croc Helpline. We will even be wearing crocwear - garments made out of croc. You will no longer be able to buy a simple crocque monsieur in a cafe without getting a funny look - or a piece of rubbery pink toast. Stop the crocmadness now - they are the orthopaedic shellsuit of the new millenium. Crocs - you have your marching orders!

Message In A Small Plastic Wine Bottle

Due to working solidly since the day I returned from holiday combined with ongoing problematic but improving family life now subject to attending Relate (a helpful assessment so far - yes - your relationship is extremely crap and we can help you) it has been a bit blogscant round here of late. So I am making it all up to you by sharing my jaunt to see The Police at Twickenham Stadium last weekend.

We cycled there which was brilliant - took about 10 minutes. I felt really excited in a rather childish way as the last time I had seen the Police was at The Rainbow, Finsbury Park in 1978. Rather shockingly in hindsight - I was only twelve. Yes, I got into terrible trouble as no one knew I had deceived all for at least a month by saving bus money to eventually buy a coveted ticket in the dress circle which (being a short-arse) I could just about get my chin over to see Sting with no top on and sporting some rather fabulous pale blue bondage trousers. It was very loud and grown up. But that's another story for another post one day.

We had good tickets. Three blocks back from the front and an uninterrupted view of the stage. I always take my camera to big gigs as I love taking photo's of people when they are not looking - like these die-hard Police (or possibly just Sting by the look of the leopard off-the-shoulder number) fans.

I did some quick mental arithmetic - sold out - capacity 150,000 x average age of ticket-holder 42 = a staggering combined audience age of 6, 300,000 which is about how old I felt when I realised if I put my glasses on everything suddenly seemed so much clearer on the stage area. Good grief. There was a lot of bald men in aertex sports shirts and casual sugar pink jumper draped over shoulder with accompanying comfy leather deck shoe action going on. Most of these 'men of a certain age in uniform' were rather unfairly stopped from whirling their arms and legs around in the aisles by the stewards and told to go back and sit down - which they did far too obediently I noticed. Here's a picture of Stewart Copeland banging the introductory gong ELP-style:

and here's a picture of Andy Summers bloody playing for god and like a rather brilliant saggy angel.

Although they all looked like they were at the mercy of a serious stylist - Sting a little bit mutton in skintight black drainpipes with matching lycra t-shirt, Andy Summers in breton t-shirt and expensive looking safari style jacket and Copeland in a Maharishi style sporty breathable top. I have to say they played brilliantly and with good humour. Not a scowl in sight - apart from when I shouted to him who still snores like a bison now he is back in the house 'messy start!' far too loudly after Message In A Bottle - the opening number. Well it was a messy start. It was all over the place. Sting came in a beat too late as far as I am concerned. It's just that I shouted what I thought really loud in the split second before they launched into 'Hello London' bit. A split second later I was greeted by massively audible tut's from Sting's biggest fan in the multi-coloured leopard spandex behind me. I glugged another swig of stadium red from the nasty plastic bottle I was given in exchange for £4.50 from the bar on Level One half an hour before. Here is a picture of Sting's blue fingers tripping out a bit of cod reggae of which they relied on quite a lot to get the audience going - lots of crowd participation 'ee ay ooo' going on - that sort of thing...

Nevertheless - it got better and better and better apart from the eee ay ooo odyssey's which were a bit annoying after a while. The sound was great and the fact that it was generated by three people was quite amazing. At one point it sounded like there were two lead guitars and two drummers - it was tight with lots of clever, percussive and seamless time changes. They weren't shy of pumping out big chugging electric noise either which was the best bit.

More glugs of heinous but strangely drinkable but later headache-inducing stadium red. Of course - nothing beats the first time seeing a band you love. 1978 was much more noisy and rough and overwhelming. This one was loud, accomplished and different. I suppose they have had 29 years of practice. It didn't feel that they had been that long away.

They all looked so happy at the end - especially Stewart Copeland who was the most smiliest in his techno tee.
It was all very civilised - there wasn't even a crush to get out despite being at full capacity. Three small plastic bottles of stadium red obviously had it's effect (I blame the excitement too). Here is a photo I took in the honeywagon's for some reason. Honeywagon is basically another word for nice trailer loo.

Aren't they lovely and clean for gig toilets? And they had pegs to hang your bag on too.

Goodnight.

Bewitched Bothered and B B B Barking Mad

Whatever happened to Baby Jane? Joan Crawford must be turning in her grave. I think this young man needs to get out more - especially to the local surgery where he might get a diagnosis of extreme personality disorder and hopefully (be put down) get some help.

Oh Dear

How unfortunate. Poor little Katy Lee Webster pasted all over the papers this morning - especially The Metro for having a shock of ginger hair aged two months. But really? You would have thought they tried to make her smile or even take the photo from a slightly more flattering angle? Or wait until the 'ugly phase' had passed? Apparently the midwife asked if the child was 'wearing a wig?' and the grandfather said: 'Blimey, look at that hair!'. I say bring back Multicoloured Swapshop! I won't go on as I will be tempted to say something mean mean mean.

Diversion! Diversion! Here's a clip of Human League miming on that very show.