Tuesday 25 September 2007
boop-a-doop-boy writes...
And speaking of Limahl (which, if you’ve been paying attention, I was doing only recently), I can’t help wondering if the pout is natural or if, on the contrary, his lips have been surgically enhanced.
Mind you, I always used to be suspicious of the Duran chaps too. But I am now in a position to state categorically and without any to-ing and fro-ing, that the Le Bon lips (not to mention the Rhodes and Taylor ones) have not benefited from the surgeon’s scalpel. In fact, in spite of what you may think if you’ve only seen Duran Duran in photographs, their lips are not as eerily juicy as they appear. It’s the camera that produces that effect. No, really, not a word of a lie - it’s an amazing sight to see.
There they are one moment - Le Bon, Rhodes and the various Taylors - all lounging around with lips that you’d pass in the street without a second glance and then, out of the corner of their eyes, they catch sight of a camera being raised and,
snap! their lips visibly inflate before your very eyes. The speed with which they can go from mouths at ease to the full cheeks-sucked-in and lips-thrust-out pucker is a sight to be seen. I don’t know if you watch those Jacques Cousteau programmes or, depending on your age, maybe you can remember the undersea adventures of Hans and Lotte Hass? If you do, you will no doubt be acquainted with the sight of the puffer fish swelling up and bristling with spines at the merest prod of a flipper, snorkel or harpoon gun. Well, thus it is with Duran Duran. Only the required stimulus is not a harpoon gun, it is, a camera. And their lips aren’t, of course, covered with spines as is the skin of the puffer fish. But, apart from those trivial differences, the similarity between the lips and the fish is remarkable.
But I digress. It was of the luscious Limahl that I had intended to talk. He of the two-tone hairdo. As I was saying only a while ago, I have been thinking of going a bit on the blonder side myself. Well, now I have. Not the full Duluxe Dog, I have to say. But a good deal more than just a few streaks. It’s a sort of golden ash at the sides with a blonde dangly piece flopping down in the front.
And speaking of blonde pieces... did you see that photo in the paper this morning: Freddie Fischer! Well, it wasn’t the most flattering picture I’ve ever seen. To say he looked rat-arsed would be to do rats an injustice! He had his arm around that mouthy blonde piece from the telly. Shirley something. You know, the one who’s meant to be his glamorous assistant. They do quizzes and stuff. On a Saturday, I think. Well, according to the paper, there was some party over the weekend and she was caught assisting him with more than his quizzes!
I have to say I find that very difficult to believe. I mean, talk about camp! Stick Frankie Fischer in a field and you’d have boy scouts singing songs around him in under five minutes: gingling their goolies or whatever it is that they do. That’s how camp Frankie Fischer is.
‘Ey, I wonder if that was the party that Welsh Willy was trying to get me to go to? That’d have been a laugh! Wish I’d gone now. Not that Frankie Fischer is my favourite TV personality. Not by a long way. Now, if it’d have been Larry Grayson giving a party, I might have gone. Or Bruce Forsyth. If it’d have been Les Dawson, I’d have been in their like a shot. Or Rolf Harris. But Frankie Fischer...? Oh, I don’t know. Somehow I have a feeling one of his parties would be all Mantovani and
vol au vents...
Sunday 23 September 2007
darkneon writes...
My head’s thumping like a drum! I tell you, that was the weirdest night of my life, The way he was screaming, I thought they were going to kill the bastard or something. Which, come to think of it, might not have been a bad idea.
I wish I knew what I’d drunk. Truth of the matter is, I have no bleedin’ idea. There was some orange stuff, I know that - kind of fizzy like weak lemonade - with all bits floating around in - something ‘punch’. It landed one on me, that’s for sure. Then I think we had some beer. And maybe some gin or vodka or something. And then someone - oh, shit! I can’t believe I did it - someone handed out some tabs of neon. I never take that stuff, me. Never. I don’t like stuff that screws around with my head. No bloody wonder I feel like a soddin’ zombie.
I wasn’t the worst, though. Not by a long way. There was that blonde woman, the one on the telly, in some comedy or soap opera or something. I never watch that stuff but I knew her face and someone told me she was a big star and she was especially big at the moment because she’d been dating a pop singer - one of them New Romantics, I think - and it was all over the tabloids, which I didn’t know because I never read them. Anyway, she wasn’t there with a pop star but she was all over some bloke who someone told me was a footballer, which I also didn’t know because I never watch the football.
And there was another woman, who looked like she was forty but said she was twenty-six, who tried to get her hands down my jeans; she said she was a TV producer or something and she could introduce me to all sorts of people and I said, yeah, I bet you could, and then I said I had to go for a pee and when I came back she was chatting up some kid who only looked like he was about sixteen.
The toilet, incidentally, is something to behold. It’s about the size of my entire flat and it’s got marble walls and subdued lighting and mirrors everywhere and gold fittings and carpets that are white and furry like soddin’ polar bears or something. Why anyone would want to have a crap in a room like that beats me, but that’s the way they are, these rich geezers, they got so much dosh they don’t know what to spend it on so they spend it on fur-lined bogs and rococo loggias.
A loggia, by the way, is like an upmarket patio and Frankie Fischer has a rococo one which I wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t told me - which he did, as a matter of fact, about twenty times. “This,” he said, “is my loggia. Rococo. Marble from Italy, awnings from Harrods.”
Not sure what you’re supposed to say when someone says stuff like that. I just said, “Oh,” or something. To be honest, I can’t really remember what I said. Not towards the end, anyway. I was too far out of it. Tell you the truth, I don’t even know when the party did end. I think it was still going on when I left. Yeah, it must have been. If I’d have been the last, I’d have remembered it, but I don’t so I can’t have been. If you see what I mean.
The thing I do remember was all the bloody commotion when that silly bastard turned up. Must have been around midnight. No idea what the silly twat was doing there, really. I mean, the story I heard was that there’d been some kind of bust up between him and Frankie Fischer a couple of weeks ago. Not that I ever figured out how a cheap little tart like Welsh Willy got mixed up with that lot in the first place. Though I can guess. Anyway, the way they were carrying on last night, I don’t think he’ll be invited back. He spewed up all over Frankie Fischer’s bed for one thing. Shit, what a bloody mess! I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets in the papers. Someone said there were some reporters there - gossip columnists, or something. What the fuck did he invite gossip columnists to a party like that for? I mean, Frankie bloody Fischer is supposed to be a family favourite, nice, stay-at-home, clean living kinda guy and all that. My gran loves him. But that was more like a fucking orgy than a party. My gran would have nightmares if she found out. I mean, it stands to reason, if stuff like that gets in the newspapers it’s the end of Frankie Fischer’s career, isn’t it.
Anyway, I don’t know what happened in the end. Frankie and old baldie took the kid off to one side for a good talking to, I know that much. I got a feeling they might have given him a bit of a slapping while they were at it. Which, to be honest, he deserved. I think he gate crashed, as a matter of fact. I definitely got the impression that Frankie was not glad to see him. The air was frosty between them, if you know what I mean - and that was even before he puked all over Frankie’s bed.
Still, that’s not my problem. My problem is my head. Which, at the moment, feels that it doesn’t really belong to me. Which I wish it didn’t. The way it feels right now, if I lost it on the buses I wouldn’t bother reclaiming it. The thing is, I never normally touch neon or any stuff like that. To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember who gave it to me. It might have been that blonde actress from off the telly for all I know. Shit, I hope I don’t end up in the papers...
Saturday 22 September 2007
darkneon writes...
The party tonight. Don’t know if I’ll bother going, really. Probably just a lot of old queens there. Still, it’d be interesting. To see how the other half parties, I guess.
Did the final fitting this afternoon. The suit. I got to admit it looks pretty slick. Well, it will when they repair it, anyway. I’d put it on and was twirling around to take a look in the mirror when bloody Max comes twatting about, pulling the sleeves and messing around with the shoulders and God knows what and, as always, he has a big fat cigar in his mouth and the silly bugger only goes and drops some burning ash onto one of the sleeves of the jacket. Eric sees it right away and brushes it off but it’s too sodding late by then. It leaves a bloody great sodding hole in sodding the sleeve, don’t it. I told Max, “You should give up smoking. Your time of life. It could damage your health.”
“Yeah,” says Eric, “Especially if he was to burn a hole in one of the Chiswick Boys’ suits.”
The Chiswick Boys being one of the gangs that frequents the establishment. Anyway, Eric says he can fix it by tomorrow and I trust Eric more than I trust Max. When Max tells you his word is his bond (one of his favourite expressions) you know he’s pulling a fast one. It’s only after I left that I remembered tomorrow is Sunday. What the hell, it can wait till next week. it’s only a sodding suit.
Anyway, I wasn’t planning to wear the suit to the party. If I go, that is. I reckon it’s going to be hot this evening. Muggy. Indian summer as you might say. So better to dress casual. Tee-shirt and jeans.
If I go. Which, as I said, is by no means certain. I probably won’t bother going, in fact. Not my scene, if you know what I mean...
Friday 21 September 2007
boop-a-doop-boy writes...
Busy week. Interviews with Haircut 100 (nice boys - tell lies like they’re going out of fashion), David Sylvian (we compared skin care tips, picked up a few handy hints using easily available household products), Modern Romance (they’re going through a pink suit phase - either they haven’t yet tried wearing pink suits in the streets of Streatham or else they are a lot tougher than they look) and Sal Sol - a man who looks like Uncle Fester on a diet and sings with a group called Classix Nouveaux whose music, I must say, is really pretty decent which is more, alas, than can be said for their hairdresser.
But enough of work. The big news of the week is my acquisition of a new cassette recorder - a Sony WM-R2. This is so small you wouldn’t believe it! It actually fits in my jacket pocket. No, honest, it does. Only just fits, I would have to admit, and it’s true it does stretch the seams a bit, but even so... I mean, my last cassette recorder was about the size of a box of Kleenex and I had to carry it on a strap around my neck, whereas this little beauty can be held in the palm of my hand and weighs less than a pound (I know that for a fact as I just shoved it on the scales). You got to give it to them Japanese, they may not be hot shakes when it comes to pop music, but when it comes to small, there’s no beating them.
So small it fits in the hand! Whatever will they think of next...?
Anyway, I went down a shop on Tottenham Court Road to buy it. By a stroke of bad luck, who should I meet on the way in but Welsh Willy. Now, I don’t think I’ve mentioned him before so I’d better explain. Welsh Willy is, as his nom de guerre suggests, of Welsh origin.
There are, as I have often had occasion to point out, many fine and noble talents from the Land Of Song, such as Bonnie Tyler, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Shakin’ Stevens and that bloke who sings ‘Nessun Dorma’ while cleaning the gentlemen’s urinals in Camden Town. But Welsh Wiley is not among their number. By which I don’t mean that he’s not every bit as Welsh as they are but that he is, rather, notably lacking in the fine and noble talents with which those aforementioned luminaries are so plentifully graced.
I am, as it happens, myself of Welsh origin, so you may draw from that fact your own conclusions.
Contrary to what you may suppose, not all people of Welsh origin are characterised by the finer qualities of which I speak. You only have to take one look at Welsh Willy to see what I mean. He has one pierced ear from which dangles a golden ring. I think that says it all. He comes from Abergavenny, I believe, or possibly Abernant - anyway, one of those Aber-places, which, in my book, is another thing to hold against him.
He was all jaw as usual. He is one of those chopsy Welsh boys who give the rest of us a bad name. Once he gets jabbering, there’s no stopping him. Some swanky party or something he’s off to and did I want to come, he was sure he could get me an invitation if only he was to have a word in the right ear. I told him I had better things to do than to go to ‘swanky’ parties (his word, not mine) and fortunately who should swan into the shop just at that moment but Bruno Brookes, the Radio One DJ with whom I am the very closest of chums, having once interviewed him in Battersea Dog’s Home for Jackie magazine (a story for which the world is not yet prepared).
Bruno was browsing for a cassette recorder as it happened so, making my excuses and leaving Welsh Willy over in the batteries and accessories department, I shimmered over to Bruno and showed him mine and you could tell by the look in his eyes that he’d never seen anything like it before. “Japanese,” I said, “Rubbish they may be, when it comes to music. But when it comes to small, you can’t beat them.”
I don’t think it was the right thing to say in retrospect. Well, Bruno, you see, is what you might call somewhat dainty in stature and his manner towards me suddenly became quite frosty. “I think I’d prefer a British make,” he said.
“Suit yourself ,” I thought, “See if I care if you end up walking with a limp!”
Funny that, now I come to think about it. How all the Radio One DJs are so small, I mean. There’s Peter Powell, Bruno Brookes, Mike Read. None of them are giants.
I wonder what underwear Bruno favours? I suspect he’s a Y-Fronts man. I have a theory that all the Radio One DJs wear Y-Fronts. Apart from Tony Blackburn, that is. I’d imagine Tony in boxer shorts. For the freedom of movement, if you get my drift...
Monday 17 September 2007
darkneon writes...
Did an afternoon down the shop. Mick was in a good mood, for a change. Seems to have ‘come to an accommodation’ is what he calls it, by which he means he’s done a deal with the plod so they won’t be pestering him again for a bit. I don’t even ask for the details. I don’t want to know, to tell you the truth. The less I know, the safer I am is my view on the matter.
He’s got some real dodgy stuff in the back room these days. I mean, he’s always done a bit of chicken and S&M but usually just the safe stuff - kids on the beach, blokes wearing gas masks, that kind of thing. But some of the stuff he’s got in now, it’s beyond that. Continental stuff - you know, a bit of Greek, a bit of necklace, Oliver up the Khyber, stuff you’d never think anyone would want to see, let alone get turned on by. I told Mick, I said, if you get raided you’ll end up doing time but he reckons there’s nothing to worry about since he’s ‘come to an accommodation’.
Well, that’s his problem. I just serve out front every once in a while. Anyone asks, I don’t know nothing about what he’s got in the back room. I’m just casual labour.
I told Mick about my invite. To Frankie Fischer’s party. He gives me a sort of leer and says, “Oh yeah, one of his little fuckpigs, are you?”
“What d’you mean?” I say, “There’s nothing going on between me and him. I never even met him till the other day.”
“Taken a shine to you, that’s what he’s done,” says Mick.
“Get away,” I tell him, “He’s old enough to be my soddin’ granddad .”
“That’s why he’s taken a shine to you,” says Mick, “Known for it, he is. Likes a bit of chicken, likes a bit of rough.”
“Yeah well,” I say, “I wouldn’t say I’m chicken exactly,” - subtly avoiding, you will have noticed, the question of whether or not I might be described as a bit of rough.
“When you’re his age,” says Mick, “Anything under 30 counts as chicken. So you, my son, are barely out of the bleedin’ egg!” - and the old bugger starts laughing so hard at his own joke that he practically chokes to death on the fag he’s smoking.
“Yeah, well,” I say, “I can understand why he might have been seduced by my radiant loveliness. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to end up in bed with him,” and as I’m saying this I’m thinking of one of the magazines I’d seen in the back room with boys and old men and the things the dirty old bastards are doing and for a moment I can’t help picturing Frankie Fischer’s face on top of one of the old men’s scrawny necks leering down at me and shaking his wrinkly chest menacingly.
“I’ve heard about stuff that goes on at them parties,” Mick says, “Tell you what. You should take a camera. Get a few snapshots. You never know, might turn up trumps. Might be worth a few bob, sell them to one of the papers. They’d pay a bundle for that, I bet.”
He’s a nasty old bugger, Mick. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get on OK with him most of the time. But I got to admit that deep down under that lovable exterior of his, there lurks a dirty old man.
Friday 14 September 2007
boop-a-doop-boy writes...
Funny bloke, that Pete Burns. You know, that chap from Dead Or Alive. I did a phone interview with him yesterday. For
Jackie magazine. They wanted something ‘light and frothy’, they said. But all he talked about was being whistled at by builders, wearing fishnet stockings and high-heeled shoes.
Him, that is - wearing the fishnets and high heels, I mean - not the builders. The builders, as far as I can recall from our conversation, were too busy whistling to bother about the finer details of their evening wear. Well, to be accurate, Pete Burns wasn’t wearing fishnets either as (curiously, I thought) he says he doesn’t care for them. He is, I gather, open to the possibility of high heels, but when it comes to a choice between thermal long johns and fishnet tights, the long johns win hands down.
Or should that be legs up? But I digress...
To say that to say that this past week has been traumatic would be an understatement would be an understatement. (I hope you are following this. If not, pull yourself together, read slowly and concentrate!)
As you know, my life in recent times has been plagued by the increasingly unpredictable behaviour of a certain Kevin who, far from being the simple butcher’s boy from Plaistow for whom once I took him, is,
au contraire, none other than the hand behind the duck - the duck being Flapjack, the lovable glove-puppet of children’s TV fame and Kevin’s being the hand which, stuffed up Flapjack’s rear end (the parson’s nose, as you might say) is responsible for said duck’s hilarious antics.
Kevin has fallen in with a bad lot of late. It all began after her met my friend Emma’s boyfriend (one of many, I must disapprovingly confess), a large man (in all respects) by the name of Jimbo.
Kevin is one of those poor, weak-willed souls for whom the smell of the crowd and the roar of the greasepaint is temptation beyond endurance. I suspect the smell of crisp five pound notes stuffed down his jockstrap by inebriated audience members may further add to that temptation. But more on that subject I am not at liberty to say. I have vowed that not a word on the subject of baby oil, athletic supporters or ostrich feather boas will pass my lips. So the details of Kevin’s recent activities are my closely guarded secret.
The trouble being that not everyone is as tight-lipped as I am. Word, it seems, has got out. Along, worse still, with photographs of a smudgy and unflattering nature with the a ‘censored’ banner emblazoned right across Kevin’s bulging five pound notes. I speak, dear reader, of the tabloid press. For that is the medium wherein this unseemly spectacle has been flaunted for the sordid gratification of the common throng.
As well you may imagine, this has caused ructions! I mean, this, after all, is the man whose hand has been stuffed up the country’s favourite duck, the man whose mouth has uttered that well-known and much-loved catchphrase, ‘Quack-quack! What a quacker!” - and this is now the same man who has been discovered doing things the nature of which the good burghers of East Grinstead, Hove, Neasden and Esher have hitherto little dreamed.
Well, I tell you this - the scandal could hardly have been worse if Harry Corbett had been discovered having an unnatural relationship with Sooty!
What consequences it may all have, I really cannot guess.
My only hope is that the scandal does not rebound upon yours truly. If the readers of Jackie magazine were ever to discover that this cub reporter had been on intimate terms with the man who dragged Flapjack The Duck’s reputation in the mud, my career, I fear, would be at an end.
Which, indeed, it also would be if I were to send in the uncensored version of my Pete Burns interview. On the whole, you see, Jackie prefers nice, family-friendly interviews with as little as conveniently possible on the subject of men in high heels being whistled at by builders. Thank Heaven that, in the closing moments of the interview, I had the presence of mind to guide topic of discussion around to school dinners. With a little creative editing, I think I might be able to turn out a reasonably passable account of Pete’s find memories of lumpy mashed potatoes and pink custard. Dull, I know, but safe...
Wednesday 12 September 2007
darkneon writes...
Special Delivery today. Up to Southfork. Old baldie was his usual cheerful self. I came in, gave him the package and was just about to leave again when this voice called out from somewhere inside the house.
“Who is it?”
“Delivery boy,” says baldie.
Delivery boy for fuck’s sake! After all this time and he still doesn’t even know my bleedin’ name!
“Show him through,” says the voice.
“I said it’s the delivery boy,” says baldie, by which he means ‘who in their right minds would want scum like me dirtying up their piss-elegant little palace?’
But the voice just says back, “Show him through.’
So then baldie leads me down this long corridor, all white walls and oil paintings and stuff, and eventually we turn a corner at the bottom of this big staircase and we veer left and all of a sudden we’re in this big white kitchen - white walls, white table, white every bleedin’ thing, and windows like doors looking out over the garden. And there he is, sitting by the table, wearing a white towelling dressing gown, and he’s got his legs crossed and he’s holding a newspaper in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other and he looks up at me and he says, “Would you like a cup of tea?”
And I say, “Yeah, all right.”
And he says, “So we meet at last.” I am not kidding you, those were his very words. “So, we meet at last,” he says, “I’ve heard so much about you.”
And I smile and say, “Yeah? I bet.”
And he smiles back and he says, “Really, I have,” and he turns to baldie and he says, “Put the kettle on, there’s a love.”
And I’m thinking, ‘Christ! My gran’d be pissing herself if she was here now,’ because she’s a big fan of his. And, thinking of my gran, I almost turn to him and say, “Where’s Shirl?” - Shirl being the glamorous assistant he always has on the show who, for some weird reason, my gran seems to think is his wife or something. But I don’t say nothing. I just drink my tea and I eat a biscuit and he asks me what I do for a living and I tell him I deliver stuff. And he says, “Ah, I see,” and gives me a weird little smile because, of course, he knows the kind of stuff I deliver, and he says, “Anyone I know? That you deliver to, I mean?” And I say, “I couldn’t tell you even if there was. Discretion being the better part of valour and all that,” and he says, “I’m very glad to hear it.” And on the way out he says, “What are you doing a week on Saturday?”
“How’d you mean, I say?”
“I’m throwing a party. A few friends. To celebrate the end of the season.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that until I mentioned it to Max later on and he reckons it’s the end of some show on the telly - The Frankie Fischer Show or Family Funtime or something - I don’t know, I never watch them.
So I say, “I’m not doing anything. Nothing special. But, I mean, you don’t want... “
“Don’t want what?” he says.
And I’m not sure what he’s getting at now, I’m not sure if he’s inviting me to his party or if he’s just having a joke with me or what, so I say, “Nothing. I just meant, I don’t normally do anything special. Not on Saturday. Go down the pub maybe, if you’d call that special.”
“Come to my party,” he says.
I laugh. “Right,” I say, “Me?”
“Seven o’clockish.”
“You serious?” I say.
“Of course I’m serious. “
“OK,” I say, “If you’re serious.”
And anyway, on the way out he takes me into another room - a big room, all white with gold trimmings and a white grand piano off to one side, and he gets this invitation card - white with gold edges - and he writes me an invitation. “Just in case I don’t see you when you arrive,” he says.
And so that’s that. Baldie lets me out and I get the tube back into town.
Don’t think I’ll go. To the party, I mean. Not my scene if you get my meaning.
Maybe I’ll give the invite to my gran. She’d sell her dentures for a chance of going, she would.
Monday 10 September 2007
darkneon writes...
I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the bloody suit. It was all tatty and held together with big stitches with all bits of white stuff sticking out. “Don’t worry,” says Max, “It’s just the first fitting. That’s what they’re always like.”
“Well, I bloody hope it gets better by the last bloody fitting,” I tell him.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “You wait. You’ll turn heads when you wear this suit.”
I think, yes, I wear this suit and people will think I’m Frankenstein’s bloody monster. But anyway, I let them fuss about over me. Max, with his mouth full of pins, keeps tucking a bit in here and loosening a bit there and sticking pins in to hold it all in place and Eric keeps making chalk marks on the material. I say, “Go easy with that bloody chalk, can’t you. I’ll have to get the damn’ thing dry cleaned the way you’re messing it up,” and Max, of course, he just says, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”
Anyway, after I get back into my own clothes, my jeans and denim jacket, Max slips me the package, as per usual, and I stuff it in an inside pocket. It’s for Frankie Fischer mostly. And also some for Big Pete up in Archway.
On the way out I bump into Welsh Willy. They call him Welsh Willy because he’s Welsh. Not sure if his name is really Willy. At any rate, I don’t think that’s why they call him that.
“How’s things?” I say.
“All right,” he says. He’s not a great conversationalist.
Rumour has it he’s got a boyfriend who’s a pop star. I can’t remember who told me that. That’s what I heard, anyway. Can’t remember which pop stars it’s supposed to be though. No one I’ve ever heard of, I don’t think. Not that I keep up with who’s who in the charts these days.
“Seen Frankie lately?” I say.
“Don’t talk to me about that bastard!” he says.
Welsh Willy used to be one of Frankie Fischer’s boys, until recently. Not sure what the full story is. They fell out is what I heard. There is a rumour that Welsh Willy threatened to blackmail him. Not sure if that’s true, though. If it is, Welsh Willy’s even stupider than he looks - which, as a matter of fact, is pretty bloody stupid.
Wednesday 05 September 2007
darkneon writes...
I went in to see Max today. He’s got a tailor’s shop down Berwick Street, I been saying for ages that I’m going to get a suit made one of these days and it’s been a kind of running joke really because I never wear anything that’s not denim - denim shirt, denim jacket, denim jeans. OK, so my socks and Y-fronts are not denim, but just about everything else is. I got paid today and it was a decent whack so I thought, what the hell, let’s get that suit at long last.
Max himself measured me up and then he had this long argument with Eric, his cutter. I told him I wanted a 1930s style, classic cut, the kind of thing you’d see in an old James Cagney movie. So Max picks out a roll of grey worsted with a thin pinstripe and he says that I’ll be wanting is a double-breasted jacket with no vent, four buttons on the cuffs, no flaps on the pockets and the trousers will be fitted for bracers, a button-up fly, three pleats at the front and legs tapering to 18 inches at the turnups. That’s what started the argument.
“1930s,” says Eric, “That’d be 20 inches all the way down, no taper. In the ‘40s you might have had a taper, but the ‘30s, the ‘classic’ ‘30s cut, I mean, 1932, ’33, you’re talking a straight leg, twenty inches.”
“What are you talking about?” says Max, “A twenty inch leg is more of an Oxford Bag. ‘30s he says he wants. You’re going back to the ‘20s, you are.”
“Twenty inch isn’t an Oxford Bag!” says Eric, who seems kind of angry as though he can’t believe that anyone would doubt his superior knowledge when it comes to trousers, “I’m telling you, a tapered leg would look as out of place on a classic ‘30s cut as a 3-button cuff.”
Anyway, in the end, Max gave in and I went for the twenty-inch leg. I have to go back for a first fitting next week. A first fitting, in case you’ve never had one, is when they drape the suit all over you and pick out the stitches and stuff to make sure it goes in and out in the same places your body goes in and out.
As I was leaving Max’s, I saw a couple of the Murphy boys come into the shop. I smiled and nodded to them and they ignored me back. Max does a lot of tailoring for the shadier elements of London life. That and theatricals. He does a lot of work for film people too. Michael Caine came in last week to have six suits made, apparently. All the suits had to be exactly the same, Max says, on account of the fact that five of them have to have daggers stuck through them.
Saturday 01 September 2007
boop-a-doop-boy writes...
I been thinking of going blonde. What d’you reckon? I mean, it’s the in thing now, isn’t it – there’s that David van Day from Dollar, then there’s he chap in Duran Duran and the two blokes from Bucks Fizz. Not to mention Kim Wilde, Debbie Harry and Dolly Parton!
Now, I don’t want you to think I’m name dropping but that was who I interviewed last week, as a matter of fact! Which is what got me to thinking about going blonde in the first place. No, no, I don’t mean Dolly Parton. I’d love to have interviewed her but that opportunity has not yet arisen. It was other one who I interviewed, the chap I mentioned before - you know, that David van Day, the bloke in Dollar. The one who looks a bit like a gerbil in a dinner jacket.
Nice bloke, as a matter of fact. Lives in a mews house in a little cobbled street in one of the more fashionable slum areas of London. I’d tell you where it is but I dare not on account of the ravening hordes of underwear-obsessed fans who would no doubt descend upon the poor chap in a lustful frenzy fuelled by cheap beer and barley wine and whisk off his boxer shorts at some unearthly hour of the morning. Ah no, it is a heavy burden of secrecy which we gentlemen of the pop music press must bear and wild horses would not drag David’s address out of me - though it is quite possible that a few banana daiquiris and packet of pork scratching might loosen my tongue...
But I digress.
The burning question is: ash or platinum?
I have to say that I’m a bit of a traditionalist in these matters. ‘Honey dawn’, ‘Silver shimmer’ and ‘Arctic moon’ hold no attractions for me. As far as I am concerned, if you are going blonde there are only two shades worth the time of day: ash (à la Kim Wilde) or platinum (à la Dolly). David van Day veers more towards the ash end of the spectrum, I’d say. Another possibility is that he just hadn’t washed his hair when I met him. I always think ‘ash’ is just a polite way of saying ‘dirty platinum’, really.
Oh, what the heck! Platinum it is! By Jove! If it’s good enough for Dolly, it’s good enough for me. I don’t mean just streaks, neither. I’ve already got a few streaks in, anyway. It’s a nightmare having them done. They put this rubber cap over your head and stick crocket hooks through little holes to pull clumps of hair through. Usually they also stick a few hooks gratuitously in your scalp while they at it! Then they plaster all the bleach over the whole lot and the theory is that you end up with only the clumps sticking through the holes going blonde. Which, in theory, is supposed to look attractive. Though, in practice... well, suffice to say, my streaked days are now a thing of the past.
Marilyn reckons I should get myself some ‘extensions’ which, in case you don’t know, are bits of other people’s hair that you tie on to your own. Yuck! Why would I want other people’s old hair dangling round my head...?
I suppose I could do the Limahl thing. Black on the sides, blonde on top. The Old English Sheepdog-look, I call it. Makes me think of non-drip paint whenever I set eyes on him.
Oh, and speaking of paint, did you ever clap your eyes on those Spandau chaps in that video –
Paint Me Down? Rolling about starkers they were, on Hampstead Heath. An activity which, if you are not very careful indeed, can easily be misconstrued.
Which reminds me, I was about to tell you all about Kevin’s latest exploits. As if the baby oil and the snake wasn’t bad enough, he’s now started taking an unhealthy interest in ostrich feathers.
Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. My phone’s ringing. I’ll give you the lowdown on all that later...
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