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...
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...
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...
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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