For Piley - Sluts In Leotards

There was a small discussion on the last post about the merits of Legs and Co or Hot Gossip - well quite frankly I feel Hot Gossip win hands down! You can't go wrong with a bit of strutting suggestively in a high-cut leotard. So because I know Piley really wants to see some Hot Gossip - here they are:



Believe it or not - Hot Gossip recorded an album in the early 80s titled Geisha Boys and Temple Girls produced by the former Human League and then current Heaven 17 member Martyn Ware. The album was an unmitigated commercial failure. The group was once spoofed on The Benny Hill Show as "Hot Gossamer". A few real-life former Hot Gossip dancers went on to appear on the Benny Hill show in its last fading years as part of the Hill's Angels dance troupe.

Oh the shame.

Which one was your favourite? Everyone always swooned over Peri Lister and Debbie Ash although my favourite was Carol Fletcher. You see - I know all the names!

Interlude: Funking For Jamaica in Underwear

I should probably have entitled this post interlube as opposed to interlude - anyway - whilst looking for 70's car adverts for the Austin Princess I stumbled across Legs and Co from 1978 dancing in nothing but french knickers and not much else to Tom Browne's excellent tune Funkin' for Jamaica. Perhaps they ran out of themes for that week and thought 'oh fuck it, we'll just do it in our pants this week shall we girls?'

How High the Moon?

Listen to the wonderful syrupy sound: Les Paul and Mary Ford - incredible.




and then look at how lovely the sky was yesterday


I'm off to go and see this today. Toodlepip.

Ways Of Seeing (now with fixed links)

Does anyone else see the word WANKER when they look at this picture?

Apparently The Krypton Factor is having a makeover and making a comeback to our screens soon. We used to call it the Cripple Factor in our house. In fact, we never used to call anything by it's proper name - even each other. Anyway, I digress.



Wooh - did you see those shellsuits? Branded the 'toughest show on telelvision - the quiz was hosted by Gordon Burns for its entire 18-year run. For the mighty comeback, its producers have promised to use "the latest technology" to challenge the next set of participants' observation skills, intelligence and general knowledge.

There will also be a return for the assault course which has been described as "iconic, menacing and 100% entertaining". Here is a little clip centred around the 'rapid response round' - check out the 'specially-designed speed chariots' about 2 minutes in. It is almost vintage Monty Python.



Someone on Youtube has commented that they thought the theme tune (by Art Of Noise) was the best theme tune on tv ever. No it wasn't - it was this!

I'm All For Democracy But....

these freakoids need to be put down for their own good:

Quelle Surprise! Quelle Horreur!

I got a letter today (oh boy)! It was from my pathetic pension company Lincoln Assurance - oh I feel so assured thank you. Not. Only yesterday I was surmising that my pension must be a bit buggered considering that I knew the aforesaid pension company is US owned and based on 'slow moving commodities' Doh! Big doh! Anyway - guess what the letter said? Yes - you guessed right.

Sorry - due to there being no money left your monthly pension payment needs to go up - that way we can possibly recoup some of your money that we have squandered over the years and eventually tell you that it has not performed when you are old and ready to retire only to realise that you can't.

Actually - it was much worse than that - it really said -

due to an 'error' it appears that your premiums have not been automatically increased by 7.5% per annum which they should have been since you took out the policy. We have identified that a number of these increases have been missed, which you may have also noticed from the annual mailings and statements we send you (er..no.). Please accept our apologies for this. (So you are admitting that it is your error then?). To correct this we will reinstate the automatic increase from the next policy anniversary in 2009. The level at which your premium will increase is not yet known (why not?) and so we will let you know this nearer the time. If you do not wish us to reinstate the increase then please complete the enclosed reply slip and return to us in the pre-paid envelope. (So I have a choice - then? Oh whoopee.)

Not that I am paranoid or anything but:
(a) they have been trusted with my money every month for the last 12 years
(b) if they have made 'an error' then shouldn't they be compensating me for loss of pension performance/revenue to date?
(c) do they think I was born fucking yesterday? It appears they have a massive shortfall to correct due to the current nonsense world money meltdown situation and are possibly using this 'ploy' to recoup the money back in a sort of mini bail-out plan
(d) I will get to the bottom of this and they will become tired of speaking to me
(e) how do I get my hands on the little money I have invested in my idiot pension over the last 12 years with these buffoons?

This is all I have to say to them: (photo: courtesy of Big Al Davies - ukelele player extraordinaire to the stars)

I'm off to my dearly beloved most favourite person ever Godfather's memorial/scattering/wake tomorrow - I may be gone for some time. Hit me for six if truth be known. I'm dreading it. Here is a picture of us at Chessington Zoo when I was nearly two (ish). I remember everything about it - it was a cold winter's day and that was my favourite coat but I didn't like having my hood up and I kept grabbing Chris's eye sockets because he was the tallest man in the world - and the best. He will be so missed.

Chris Heneghan Always My Favourite 1945 - 2008

Update: My turn to scream

It's the radiator! Noooooo.

The mechanic told me to stop thinking of my car as a love affair and put it on ebay.

Was It Something I Said?

I have been doing this all day (see above). Yes. It is a woman screaming. Let me tell you why:

09:00 Car seems a little weird to drive. There is a burning smell front left. It is an old Saab 900. It is 'the Wagon of Rock'. It is about to kill me. How could it? I have just shelled out a whole year's worth of road tax on it and I love it so. I nearly burn my hand off undoing the water reservoir thingy (some of you (notice I didn't say 'some male readers') may know the correct term for what I am describing). Muchos steam and loud pitched squealing noise coming from the top. Sort of exhilarating in a worrying way. I go inside and don some fetching heavy duty blue rubber gloves (just in case) and pour water into the empty reservoir. It drains straight through and onto the street. Oh good. At best a split hose/at worst a new radiator which means scrap squidge for the (vintage moneypit) Saab. I can't drive to the mechanic at the end of the road because it is blocked by an angry looking delivery man who isn't going to move. So I have to drive all around the block. The mechanic isn't there. So I have to drive all the way back again and park the car, write a note, walk down. post the keys etc etc.

09:30 Call my friend who I was going to meet at the airport for a quick coffee before he flies to Australia to say - sorry - not coming. Disappointing. Run for the bus - go to work.

10:30 Delays delays delays. Get stopped by Asthma research chugger - pretend I am on my mobile and show him my inhaler - no thanks.

11:30 Finally get to work. Have to crunch tons of work into a very small time frame.

14:50 Waiting for bus to take me to school to pick up the Son of Romo. It is freezing and there is every bus except mine.

15:10 Twenty mins left - my attention turns to a notice on bus stop about 'closures' and 'diversions'. The diversion goes about two miles out of the way - I realise even if the bus comes now - I won't make it. Decide to walk.

15:11 Am seriously power-walking with heavy bag. My neck hurts. My phone rings. It is a number that looks vaguely familiar. I answer. I shouldn't have.

15:12 Having to listen to an ex-colleague who called up to talk to me about why I hadn't worked with him for 10 years. He apologised for being a rabid freebase addict then but is clean and a Buddhist now. I knew that. He had forgotten that I only saw him 6 years ago and he was really drunk and aggressive and unpleasant so the Romo steel curtains came down. I'm like that. Be as horrible as you like for as long as you like - I'll take it - then boom! Steel shutters engage. I will not speak to you again. I am almost having a coronary from the shock of being put on the spot, actually sort of enjoying talking to him again but kind of not either whilst I am power-walking next to a busy A-road of filthy traffic. I walk over Twickenham Bridge - he is still talking at me really loudly and has been for at least 5 mins - I fantasise about throwing my phone into the river - I see it in slow motion. I couldn't as my arm has the equivalent of lockjaw.

15:35 Now waiting for another bus with Son of Romo showing off to his friends doing karate at the bus stop and blocking most pedestrians that are trying to squeeze by.

15:45 Bus 1 arrives. It's full. Doesn't stop.

15:55 (Could have walked by now but a mother I am talking to can't be bothered and won't).
Bus arrives. Not In Service.

15:58 Bus arrives but he won't let us on as he says in sign language that he needs a break. He sits there reading a paper for ten mins with the doors locked. It is now raining. Wanker.

16:10 Stop by the mechanics at the end of the road. He looks at me sheepishly and says he has had one of those days. We laugh - yes me too. He can't even look at the car until tomorrow and looks very worried - he is worried that the radiator has gone. I decide to not think about it. We walk back out into the rain.

17:04 Terrible rasping screams coming from the front room. Son of Romo writhing in pain because he 'can't live without the telly'. He looks like he is channelling The Omen. I try to re-boot the cable box. Nothing works. It's all freezing and cutting out and highly annoying. Oh well, it's a dvd then. Possessed demon rasps: I haaaate dvd's. I say: Do you want cheese on your pasta pesto? And walk away before the hex is upon me.

20:00 Have made fishcakes. Oven has been on for an hour but still not hot - just warm.

21:00 Fishcakes have been in an hour - but still not hot - just poisoningly warm.

22:00 Eating burnt grilled fishcakes.

Aaaaaghhhhhhhhh!