OMG. Here we go again.

Here's the diary room door for the freak show that is (from May 30th - gawd, that's come around quick!) Big Brother 8. Apparently a whole corridor lights up whenever the door is unlocked. Er. Wow.

Digital Spy has been given unique access to the new house (some jpgs were emailed) where the spanking new design is themed "modernistic sur-reality". In other words, some nice things cobbled together from a trip down Tottenham Court Rd taking in Habitat, Heal's and Purves & Purves. Cargo and The Pier don't even get a look in!

Echo-ey track of past contestants "Spunk! Wank! Jizz!"... "Who IS she!"...

"How very dare you!"

There's been a nasty stench of homophobia in Poland for a while now due to this man, Lech Kaczynski (pictured below). As the President of Poland he still continues to back homophobic groups and legislation and all of this in spite of contravening rulings made by European Court of Human Rights. It really is shocking to have an EC member country continually attacking gay men and women and worse still, from the country's LEADER. Can you ever imagine Tony Blair saying about talks with Gay Pride organisers, "I am not willing to meet with peverts" or, on a state visit to Ireland pronounce that, "The human race would disappear if homosexuality was freely promoted".

Let's look at this little tit of a man shall we? Although he is married, his identical twin, the Prime Minister, Jaroslav isn't and still lives at home with his mum. After German newspaper picked up on this fact in a satirical article, Jaroslav declared "an insult to a head of state is a crime and there must be consequences." The gruesome twosome are so full of bile and anger on the gay rights issue that it begs the question, do the ladies prostest too much? A bit like Bobby Brown.

"Hmm, I fancy a bit of cock tonight"

It's all sounding too familiar. The words Catherine, Tate, Derek and Faye spring to mind.

"Who dear? Me dear? Gay dear? No dear! How impertinent! Just because a man lives with his mother and can recite the lines in All About Eve doesn't mean he likes to take delivery of his shopping round the back! How very dare you."

Despite Lech's obvious hatred of gays (and himself, probably) the current Mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz Walz, has for the second time, allowed the Pride march to go ahead in the city. So, to all those foot soldiers in Warsaw today:

H A P P Y G A Y P R I D E!

The Human Furtado

D'you know what, I couldn't stand Nelly Furtado up until this time last year. Every time I heard I'm Like a Bird I'd change the words to "I'm like a turd, that will not flush away" and then she released a REAL turd called Folklore that did indeed flush right away along with, so everyone thought, her career.

But then she changed tack completely and Loose came out to the sound of jaws hitting floors. Maneater was the first single here in the UK. A couple of weeks ago, I found this little doozey. There are very few mashups that work, but this is one of the few. And because it's The Sound of the Crowd, it's an instant classic.

Maneater of the Crowd - Nelly Furtado Vs The Human League (mp3 Download)

Hear Rufus speak!

To take the name of the showbiz column in The Sun quite literally, how 'Bizarre' that Rufus Wainwright was on the front cover of this once homophobic rag. It was a banner ad for a huge Rufus interview inside where he said nothing new but did talk in depth about being in love WITH ANOTHER MAN. This wouldn't have happened even five years ago.

Anyhoo, checking that the interview might be on The Sun website, there, better still, was a podcast. Get to it HERE. I've heard Rufus speak before, but as it was on TV in the excellent South Bank Show doc, there were visuals to distract. Hearing Rufus talk in your headphones is very different; it attunes you to just how camp he is! I love it!

Kiki: the original cabaret terrorist

In fact, at times, I thought he sounded a lot like Kiki from Kiki & Herb. His friend, Justin Bond's Martini-soaked lounge singer character comes to mind at about 3:39 with a slurry piece about taking long walks in the park with his boyfriend. At 4:57, check out how he says 'Weetabix' with a Wainwright flourish.

As if that wasn't enough, Mark Lawson spoke to the boy de jour on Radio 4's Tuesday evening edition of Front Row. Get to it HERE and go to the column on the right. Either download the podcast of highlights from the week or Listen Again to the whole show from Tuesday (if you do listen again, you'll catch the camp theme tune to the Radio 4 soap The Archers at the beginning).

So it's been a mad old week...

...which explains the Paris post below. I'm probably a little over-sensitive at the mo', so to see La Hilton crying all over the shop for being sent to jail like a NORMAL person would, really gets my goat. Let me tells ya!

The only good thing to come out of Paris Hilton is Perez...

What with everything that's wrong with the world: raging California fires; missing 4 year olds; suicide bombers; let's just...

and be done with it.
x

For my gorgeous Owen

I had some terrible, terrible news about a beautiful friend of mine, Owen. He loved Madonna, so when this shuffled onto my iPod this morning I knew he was there. I had intended to post the video, but seeing the lyrics written out seems more apt.

MADONNA - LUCKY STAR

You must be my Lucky Star
'Cause you shine on me wherever you are
I just think of you and I start to glow
And I need your light
And baby you know

Chorus:
Starlight, starbright first star I see tonight
Starlight, starbright make everything all right
Starlight, starbright first star I see tonight
Starlight, starbright yeah

You must be my Lucky Star
'Cause you make the darkness seem so far
And when I'm lost you'll be my guide
I just turn around and you're by my side

(chorus)

Come on shine your heavenly body tonight
'Cause I know you're gonna make everything all right

You may be my lucky star
But I'm the luckiest by far


I'm just popping off for a few days because I honestly don't have the wherewithall. Anyhoo. Laters.

Worralorra music!

The sun's out and I'm in a 'giving' kind of mood so I've collated some gorgeous summer tracks. So, kick off yer heels, take yer wig off, grab yer Mojitos and enjoy...

Hotel room? Baseball bat? I'm intrigued...

First Class Riot - The Tough Alliance (mp3 download)
A Swedish duo who I can't get enough of at the mo. This is a brand new track (new album, New Chance out on May 16th in Europe). I love the broken English diction: "Don't you diet, first class riot". At least, that's what I think he sings.


Marsheaux in lad mag repose

Regret - Marsheaux (mp3 download)
In memory of New Order (R.I.P.), here's a sweet version of one of their best songs by the even sweeter Marsheaux, my synth duo de jour.


Mike Monday overjoyed that everyone recognises his Harry Hill impression...

Zum Zum - Mike Monday (mp3 download)
This was a funkmeister summer track for me last year as we drove around gorgeous Majorca, windows wound down, getting a driver/passenger arm tan. The album, Smorgasbord came out in September last year and I still play it within an inch of its life.


I've got CDs older than this lot

The Hill - Bombay Bicycle Club (mp3 download)
They haven't even turned 18 this lot, which makes the mature sound in this song even more remarkable. This is from their ep The Boy I Used to Be available on their MySpace. I love the vocals; unique, sincere and with a lovely wobbly bit at the end of each sentence. And the London Indian restuarant chain they obviously got their name from is divine too.


Just another night down at the bears' club XXL

Yours to Keep (ft. Neneh Cherry) - Teddybears (mp3 download)
I don't know much about this Brooklyn (?) based band who seem vare popular in the blogoshpere. All I do know is that it's got Neneh Cherry on it (yay!!) and the chorus is summery and lovely "We can drive around with the top down, stereo turned up loud with the phat sounds, 'cos I'm yours to keep if you want to".


Trust me. You don't want to see the two Dave Stewart looky-likeys in this band

Making Music - Chungking
Quite simply a monumental song. Sounding like the backing track for an expensive European car ad, Making Music was another played to death track from last year. The whole album The Hungry Years is the perfect accompaniment to that after-a-club-just-want-to-chill feeling!

Phew! And that's shallot!

Chart geek alert!

I know I'm one. And I know he's one.

I'm proud to admit it. I'm obsessed with the singles charts. Growing up, me and my siblings would huddle in front of the telly on a Thursday evening and during the Top 20 chart run down would cheer or boo depending on who came up. Later in the week, I would sit there with in front of the family 'music centre', hitting the clunky record button, whenever my favourite song appeared on the Radio 1 Top 40 show. Years later, if I'm home, I'll still put the radio on for the Top 40 show (trying to ignore JK & bloody Joel). The cheers and boos have gone, but I'll still wait with baited breath for the announcement of who is NUMBER 1!

Also, these days it's now a regular Sunday night habit to go read Chartrigger for his (vare funny) persective on the UK Top 10. Bengobaz/Chelsea Kelsey in his blog, Shang-a-Lang often uses the charts to, well, chart his life. In this post, his comparison between the 1988 Top 40 and todays as a signifier of his 18 year stint at Virgin Records is, as ever, inspired, funny and as detailed as only a chart geek can be.

I dreamt I was back in uniform...

Every now and then I check this Wikipedia info for my old school. Not because I have any real affection for it, but because there are some funny minxes out there who vandalise the entry every two months and get told off by the internet authorities for doing so (scroll down to 'Important Staff' and 'Other Facts' hahahaha). It's interesting to note that the school recently celebrated their 125th birthday... when I was there, it was all about the Centenary shenanigans. *holds hearing trumpet to ear - what?*

Anyhoo, the education establishment in question is St Cuthbert's High School, in Newcastle upon Tyne. The same (public) Catholic Boys' school that the very reverend Neil Tennant went to - can you imagine how excited I was to hear that the year AFTER I left. I always knew Sting went to my old school too, which was never as big a thrill, but still quite an interesting pop fact. Actually, it might also be interesting that Dec (of Ant&Dec) went there, as did loads of Paddy McAloon's cousins (connection with all of them = catholic). Imagine. All of us wearing this MAROON blazer going: "What the fuck?"...

La Tennant penned two songs about his time at my school (BTW, we really did have Benediction every Wednesday afternoon). He didn't have a good time there, obviously, which I can empathise with. At school, all you want is girls around you because they're funny and great to hang out with, but instead all I had was boys, boys, boys. That's fine years later when you're shaking a tail feather in some club looking for action, but aged teen-whatevah most of 'em just stank of BO, stale jizz and were covered in burst zits. Nice.

It's a Sin was famous for being a dig at his Catholic education and This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave, says it all. Funnily enough, the lyrics ring very true for me, for instance, I have the recurrent nightmares of being 'a candidate for examination'. And I remember a teacher saying, at least a year before West End Girls, "Sting is the exception to the rule. He was my friend at this school and has made a career in music like no one else from here ever has, or ever will." That tit is now the Deputy Head (heaven forbid), of a place I waited years to leave.

It's a Sin (Disco Mix) - Pet Shop Boys (mp3 download)
This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave - Pet Shop Boys (mp3 download)