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Thursday 12 November 2009

Gary Glitter...

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Being 59...



Of course, so much has changed since I made my first tentative steps into the world of show business in the early 1970s. A musician's lot was very different then - there was no interweb, no mobile wristwatches, no nano-nino hard-drives the size of a tie pin. No, records were the only viable currency back then, unless you wanted to run the risk of forking out for a cassette that would probably get mangled by the player within a week or two. Nowadays, of course, artists can pipe themselves straight into other people's ears through the wonders of microchip technology and there's a fortune to be made if you can come up with a ring-tone irritating enough to make half the population want to commit hari-kiri. Obviously, I prefer to keep my artistic integrity by steering clear of such crass commercialism. You won't hear any of *my* songs advertising Hovis or the nation's favourite building society. The bastards promised me they'd have a listen, but...

So nowadays, I tend to live a pretty reclusive life; it's a fairly mundane routine really. Up at 5.30 am, pop down to the gym, do a couple of rounds of Thai boxing (excellent for the cardio-vascular, I'm told..) Then it's back home to flop out in front of BBC Breakfast - it's never been the same since they booted Natasha Kaplinsky out, has it...although I'd give that Wendy Hurrell one, in a trice... 9.15 on the dot I put in a couple of hours silver surfing. Obviously, as someone who's benefitted greatly from the material rewards society has to offer a talented female impersonator with an ear for a crafty tune and an uncanny sense of the twists and turns of the popular music zeitgeist, I try to pay something back by helping those whose lot in life hasn't been so fortunate. I do a lot of work with young offenders - keeping in touch with them online, trying to keep their spirits up as they rot away in their air-conditioned cells, off their heads on pot having bizarre sexual misadventures with bogus asylum seekers. Well, just read the Daily Mail if you don't believe me; apparently, in terms of crime, being in prison is almost as bad as living on a council estate these days. They want to lock some of these people up...

Lunch time comes and goes; I might wander down to the local pub for a brisk tissue restorative before heading back home for an afternoon nap. All a far cry from my hedonistic Glam Rock days, I'm sure you'll agree! I was off my bonce on Bostik half the time; I'm surprised I can remember anything about it at all, to be honest! Although I do have a vague recollection that I spent most of 1977 living Romy Haag in a bedsit in Berlin. Wonder how she is? Lovely lass - if a bit on the *hirsute* side, first thing in the morning if I recall...Nowadays, I like to relax in the evening, watch the box, maybe read a bit of detective fiction and then 'early to bed early to rise' as we used to say; I'll like as not be tucked up in bed by 10.30pm.

Of course, all of this will change next year when I go back on the road to promote the re-issue of my back catalogue; the "That's Your Flamin' Lot Tour' we're calling it; 50 shows in 50 cities all crammed into a period of little more than three months. Blimey! I'll be well and truly shagged out by the time I get home from that! Good job my doctor is busy stocking up mon prescription drugs as we speak; otherwise I'd *never* get through a schedule as tough as that at my age! So, I'll be anything but reclusive in 2010, what with all the shows and the reissue and all the attendant media work. Oh, and on top of all that, I get my Freedom Pass!!

xxx
Bob

First things first...




Right, the first thing you've noticed is probably the fact that I'm wearing stockings. Which is a shame, because I spent about 120 quid on getting my hair and make-up done and all you lot can do is gawp at me legs - honestly, I don't know... The stockings were six pounds - well, I say stockings - they're actually cut down 70 deniers from Boots (three pairs for six ... never let it be said I don't have an eye for a bargain in the hosiery department. I just wish my stylist Keith could learn a little from the nation's favourite pharmacist when it comes to value for money... and, while I think of it, his personal hygiene leaves rather a lot to be desired. But that's another story...)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, my clobber. Well, as you can imagine, the question I get asked most often is, "Bob - are you a cross dresser?" To which I invariably reply, "Cross? I'm ruddy livid - have you seen the price of pancake in Superdrug? I'll be reduced to using flour and talcum powder again at this rate - like we used to have to in the 70s..." So I hope that's cleared that one up.

And let's get another thing straight right from the off. I might be dressed like a woman down below in the lingerie department and be wearing enough diamante eye shadow to make Shirley Bassey look like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a particularly manly day, but the rest of me is *all* gentleman, believe me. None of that limp wristed, Julian Clary shenanigans from yours truly - I'm built like a pit prop and hung like a Stevedore if you must know, so none of those Boy George comments when my back is turned, or I'll have you in a half Nelson before you can say "Giant Haystacks is a great big nancy boy with his own personal collection of Barbie Doll memorabilia..."

So, that's the gender confusion cleared up, hopefully. Of course, there's no shame in mincing around like a great tart, reeking of white musk and wearing little more than a camisole and a pair of hold ups (although I'd recommend that you put a couple of extra layers on if you're going to be doing any grouting....that stuff gets everywhere...and takes some shifting...) Besides, there's a great tradition of cross-dressing and female impersonation in this country that stretches right back to the days of music hall. Remember such legendary figures as Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, Ann Widdicombe, Cheryl Cole and George Michael? Well, they have all made laudable attempts to pass themselves off as women at one time or another - indeed, George had me fooled right up until I ran a beautifully manicured nail up the length of his five of clock shadow. Went up like a Swan Vesta it did! But that's another story...

Anyway, I must be off - these eyelashes won't crimp themselves, will they? I'll be updating this site as much as I can over the next few weeks, so hopefully you'll come back often and enjoy your visits as much as I enjoy posting stuff up here.

Have a great week everybody!

L.U.V. on ya,

xxx
Bob

Thursday 29 October 2009

Okay...



...so you didn't go for the movie idea. A shame, really, as you'd have been ahead of the game if you had. Or did I not mention my special gift? I can see into the future, you see. Yes, really. It's one of a few, shall we say, special features I have. Like being able to breathe through my skin. Hence the tights. *Much* better ventilated than your average pair of trews and, as an added bonus, they make for a rather nifty air filter too. Very handy in Los Angeles or Beijing, I'd imagine. And of course, they do show off my incredibly sexy long legs too, which is nice. The two hearts come in handy too. And did I mention the multiple sets of genitalia? No, I don't suppose I did - you probably would have been a bit keener on the movie pitch if I'd led with that now I think of it. Oh well, you live and learn. Mind you, when you're 1.2 light years old (that's several thousand millenia in old money - I lost count after you bastards nailed that beardy bloke up for telling you to get your acts together) you are prone to the odd lapse in concentration.

So, where was I? Oh yes, the old wedding tackle. Well, it's not actually quite as impressive as I maybe suggested earlier. I have just the three sets actually - one of each and a wierd sort of feathery thing that's quite handy for pollination in some of the less developed solar systems - I'd imagine it would probably go down quite well in marine circles here on planet Humanoid too...not that I've ever tried it, you understand. Although I did have a close encounter with a couple of porpoises once that could have got quite interesting if I hadn't had to come up for air. It's the legs - great on land; bloody dangerous underwater, I can tell you. It's quite popular with the Earthlettes too, of course - for obvious reasons - although I did have one bizarre request from a lady of, shall we say, a certain age who wanted me to give her bannisters a quick once over after I'd performed the painful duty on her. Honestly, some people, eh?

So there you have it; that's me. Just your average, common all garden extraterrestrial, really. Brain the size of a minor galaxy, astonishing powers of extra-sensory perception, the ability to see into the future and extraordinarily well hung. Just your standard model really. Oh and I sing too; strange uneartly songs they are; uncanny glimpses of the future that awaits you all, if you would just open up your eyes and see it. A bit like that Carpenters one only with a bit more guitar, obviously. You know the kind of thing...

L.U.V. on ya

xxx
Bob

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Anon: the autobiography...

This is the working title for a novel. The idea is simple. It's set in the London of the not-too-distant future. Barring a handful of rebels and an increasingly dwindling pool of veil-wearing Somalian immigrants, *everybody* is a celebrity. Even the servants and hangers on of the fairly-well known have acquired a renown that would put today's reality TV stalwarts to shame. Anyone who is not a celebrity is such a novelty that they are treated with the same jaw-dropping, flash-bulb popping adoration as would previously only have been merited by huge stars of the silent era; Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, perhaps. Invariably, with the help of modern technology, they don't remain unknown for long; there is, for instance, a separate youtube chart for 'Big Issue' sellers who can command huge performance fees for personal performances, some of the biggest stars of street corner begging having been replaced by 'virtual' spots outside Marks & Spencer and so on where people can watch looped performances of them shouting "'Gisshew" and then make online credit card payments to have the magazine downloaded onto their mobile phones. In such a world, anonymity becomes the most powerful condition it is possible to aspire to; hence the naming of the novel's eponymous heroine: Anon.

Anon. goes to great lengths to disguise her true obscurity - wearing expensive cast-offs; Jimmy Choos and designer snakeskin trousers purchased from the new breed of charity shops - Help the Wanted; War on Ageing; Sexfam etc. She flees the city where she joins a small band of rebels who make night raids on the city, smashing the ubiquitous flat screen TVs that show the sex-lives of the fairly well-known in all major public places, spraying out the names and slogans on advertising hoardings and so on. Anon. and her fellow rebels are eventually captured and after being tortured and villified by the Head of the State (a thinly veiled Simon Cowell - no, I didn't know he was a Muslim either...) they are publicly crucified. Ironically, in death the rebels achieve only the worst kind of martyrdom and become the most celebrated of all celebrities as their lives are revered and worshipped down through the centuries in a wicked travesty of the obscurantism for which they gave their lives.

I'm thinking Blanchett or Paltrow in the lead role. Bill Nighy as the O'Brien character, perhaps? Maybe Mel Gibson as Barabas. Kind of thing.

So, whaddaya reckon?

L.U.V. on ya,

Bob

Friday 23 January 2009

Interior Monologue...

Do you ever get tired of it?

You know, that persistent Film Noir voice-over that runs through your head from daybreak to lights out? Another kind of drone, the sort that turns every event, no matter how prosaic or dull, into a portentously bleak existential scene straight out of Simenon or Chandler, if only in one's imagination. So sitting, for instance, on the john - it would be a john, obviously, not a bog because to be properly noirish you need to be in Chandlerville, LA; there's not quite the same ring to sitting on a lavatory or loo in suburban England, is there? - you'll hear it starting up.

Cue RKO transmitter on the north pole morse coding away to the Universe. Cue dramatic chords. Roll opening credits:

Farewell my not-so-lovely...

Maigret Takes a Dump...

Or better still...

The Long Goodbye

Maybe that's where that Arnott chap got the inspiration for The Long Firm?

Some days, you'd just like to turn it off. But you can't. (Well, you could - but only if you think you're ready for the real Big Sleep...)

Still, as they always say - 'better out than in'. Another movement in the symphony of life; another day, another post...

Thursday 22 January 2009

Droning...

The bus slows into electric blue light, gently strobing. Two police cars are parked up behind an ambulance, their whirling lamps scattering neon lighthouse sweeps into the pre-dawn gloom. We slowly process past the scene of the accident, as remote and numb as mourners behind smoked glass in a funeral limousine. There's a body splayed out across the curb, one bearded cheek sucked tight to the tarmac like a squared-off cartoon face pulled inexorably toward some U-shaped, subterranean magnet made by Acme. Police and paramedics kneel close by in calm attendance as the bus edges slowly past the open rear doors of the ambulance. 'There but for the grace... ' you think, instinctively acknowledging your own good fortune in not being outside, not being cruciformed out there in the road - not being him. Then suddenly in this blinking blue fridge door light, the daily rattle into work and all its chilly rigours has been transformed into a breeze, your bus into a sanctuary; warm and secure as a comfort blanket to a spooked child. Nothing like proximity to another's misfortune, pain or suffering to focus the mind, you think. 'It's an ill wind...' this unbidden, callous train persists. After all, look on the bright side. You might get a post out of this...

We pick up speed, the accident recedes as we hurtle through the January dark, almost back on track after this unwelcome, unscheduled interuption. Our journey starts to regain some of the digitised announcer's serenity. She intones the stages of our journey in the soothing, measured syllables of her pre-programmed m-peg mantra. Cyber woman. Computer world. You thought you'd left all that behind. "Relax..." she almost purrs with astonishing warmth and conviction given that it's only whatever clever voice simulation algorithim they've used that brings life to the perfuntorily keyed-in strings of binary code, "...everything's OK." And maybe she's right. Perhaps it's not quite so bad being here, not lying there; being safe and warm, not damaged and cold. Maybe this drone thing isn't going to be so bad. There are, surely, worse things in life to be than a drone, after all? A late drone, for one thing. Or a voice without a body announcing the stops on the bus. Or a cyberman.

But you've killed him off, that cyber you; the shimmering pixelated avatar is dead. Or if not dead, at least not you. Not any more. You're here, a fortunate, cosseted drone on his way to work. He's lying splayed out somewhere in his cyberworld, as cold and rigid as the bearded meatspace stiff you left behind a bus ride ago. Soon you'll be scuttling off the bus and into an ecologically lit office, with a water cooler and personalised workspaces cleaned by elegant women with covered heads, just like all the other drones. The morning will pass and the day will lighten. Your heart will be heavy for a while, as it always is after a bereavement - that's what's happened to you, after all; you have been bereaved, in a way, haven't you? Or been the cause of the bereavement which must surely bring some traumas of its own? But you'll survive. You'll live to drone another day. So relax, you're back in the land of the living, even though it might feel for a while like some kind of living death. You're back where you belong, where you should always have been; droning with the drones in the land of the drone. And it isn't so bad, is it? If you're honest. It's not been such a bad start to the week, really; just the two fatalities.

Feed

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Flanders & Swann song...

It's been real and it's been fun...

L.U.V. on y'all

Bob

Books I've Read in 2009...

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

Synopsis: Jap girls in synthesis; Greggy* young, scatty, aspiring novelist (Sumire) falls for older, went-white-haired-overnight-from-youthful-Ferris-wheel-in-Switzerland-shock-incident, greggy older woman with own wine importing business (Miu) whilst being simultaneously lusted after (Sumire, that is...although...) by the male (non-greggy) school teacher narrator until Sumire's sudden flip-flops/silk pyjama-clad, Greek island disappearance sparks a frenzied bout of bleak existentialism and youthful supermarket stapler theft by the son of the narrator's (non-greggy) soon-to-be-former squeeze.

Best bits: "If I were some good-for-nothing lesbian, would you still be my friend?"

"Whether you're a good-for-nothing lebian or not doesn't matter. Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin without 'Mack the Knife'. That's what my life would be without you."

"I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet, lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep"

Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill.



*note to aspiring authors: chances of publication are inestimably enhanced by introduction of at least one (preferably more) lesbian character(s).

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Thursday 15 January 2009

She's Falling in Love With Me...

49.3% of all British workers have had sex with a fellow employee. Of those, 97.8% have done so with someone more senior than them within the organisation. 87.5% of that 97.8% were female. Contrast those figures with these: in a recent anonymous survey of 2,000 office workers, 12.7% said they had never taken home with them office stationery belonging to the company they work for. Of that 12.7%, a further 9.3% had made private telephone calls, but had *never* made private photocopies whilst at work, whilst a staggering 81.3% said they *had* taken photocopies of their privates, but *never* tried to telephone their privates to someone. Of all those surveyed, 73.7% said they were lying...

Confused? You won't be...

She's Falling in Love With Me MP3


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Books I've Read in 2009...

Hotel World by Ali Smith.

Synopsis: Talented, young, 'greggy' swimmer and (how ironic is this?) diving champion Sara Wilby climbs into a dumb waiter for a five pound bet with a fellow employee in the hotel in which she works as a chambermaid only to plummet to her death. The narratives of a soon-to-be-ill hotel receptionist, a homeless, a cynical hack, Sara's sister Claire and a host of ghosts and ghoulies converge on the shaft down which she fell in this compassionate and wise mediatation on love, loss and the transience of existence.

What the blurb would say if it had been written by Bob: "Transcendant stuff! Smith hurdles the limitations of linear temporality with glee and gusto! Bonny lass!!"

Best bits: "She is walking on carpet that sinks like gracious mud..."

...and:

A surprise appearance by the ghost of Dusty Springfield who "soars, sure and broken, definite and tentative.." as an ASBO-bound household blare out her rendition of 'The look of love' at full volume first thing in the morning.

That Distance Apart poems by Jackie Kay.

Oh-so-slender volume of (presumably) autobiographical verse by 'greggy', black Scot. The emotional agonies of adoption rendered from all sides of the process.

Best bit:

The Visit

I thought I'd hid everything
that there wasnae wan giveaway sign
Left

I put the Marx Engels Lenin (no Trotsky)
in the airing cupboard - she'll no be
checking out the towels surely!

All the copies of the Daily Worker
I shoved under the sofa
the dove of peace I took down from the loo

A poster of Paul Robeson
saying give him his passport
I took down from the kitchen

I left a bust of Burns
my detective stories
and the complete works of Shelley

She comes at 11.30 exactly
I pour her coffee
from my new Hungarian set

And foolishly pray she willnae
ask its origins - honestly!
This baby is going to my head

She crosses her legs on the sofa
I fancy I hear the Daily Workers
rustle underneath her

Well she says, you have an interesting home
she sees my eyebrows rise
It's different she qualifies.

Hell and I've spent all morning
trying to look ordinary
- a lovely home for the baby

She buttons her coat all smiles
I'm thinking
I'm on the home run

But just as we get to the last post
her eye catches at the same time as mine
a red ribbon with twenty world peace badges

Clear as a hammer and sickle
on the wall
Oh she says are you against nuclear weapons?

To Hell with this. Baby or no baby.
Yes I says. Yes yes yes.
I'd like this baby to live in a nuclear free environment

Oh her eyes light up
I'm all for peace myself she says
and sits down for another cup of coffee

Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Wednesday 14 January 2009

Tramp Smash...

Through the spirit haze, the fug of dry ice, a straw haired siren emerges, blinking in the rhythm of the dancefloor strobe. On a platform of shiny patent red she totters, a ripped up Union flag casually wrapped about her preserving the scantest dignity, a jaunty leapardskin pillbox perilously poised above her temple. The bruise-black mouth the other end of an ebony cigarette holder smoulders: "Clivedon, wasn't it? Or St. Tropez? Long drinks on the verandah after easeful, sex-disturbed canasta. Noel boring anyone who'd listen with his latest dreary outrage. Or is one so easily forgotten?"

People are always mistaking me for Ferry. Or James May. Must be the Newcy brown...

Tramp Smash


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Monday 12 January 2009

Granny Vision Vamp...

A few years ago, I saw a rather striking woman in her seventies striding out of Barclays Bank in Richmond. Clumpy knee-high boots, opaques, little black mini skirt, one of those red sixties-style cardies worn over a black polo neck, and a long full ponytail of black and silver-greying hair tumbling out from a jaunty leather puff cap. (I can't remember what *she* was wearing...)

Granny Vision Vamp



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Saturday 10 January 2009

New Song on SwipeCore...

As I mentioned previously, I've decided to post up all my music for free on our sister (brother?) site, SwipeCore. The first LP is already up there as two gapless MP3s so you can here it as I originally intended as two uninterupted 'sides' of music. The follow up, Bedroom Burlesque was always conceived as being a collection of themed but distinct songs, so I've decided to post them up individually and provide a bit of background material as to their conception and making on these pages. I'll be putting a song up every few days so, if nothing else, it wlll give me something post...





Joining the Cyber Circus

This was always intended to be the first song of a collection that I knew from the get go would be aimed at the 'MySpace Generation' of online community users. The words 'community' and 'generation' imply a sense of togetherness and camaraderie and, while there's no denying that such things exist in abundance in cyberworld, it's been my personal experience that whatever nebulous aggregations there are out there, they do little more than mask or temporarily divert us from an abiding sense of loneliness and isolation. Many of the songs, in more or less obtuse ways, deal with that strange contradiction, but this is probably the most direct and I felt it was the only place to start the album.

I wanted to update the theme of generational divide so beautifully conveyed in 'She's Leaving Home'. The conceit expressed in this song, I suppose, is that one no longer needs to physically leave home in order to 'leave home'. The idea of 'running away to join the circus' always carried with it the implication of a rejection of certain restrictive and oppressive values - usually either small town or family ones. In this song, there's another world, no more than a door slam and a finger click away into which one can escape from them and - to use a Bowie phrase that's always stuck with me - discover one's own morality. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Really, they just want to see your ass. But as long as you're aware of that, I suppose it doesn't do any harm - keeps us off the streets and all that... And in these times of economic downturn and credit crunch etc... cash in hand, no questions asked darlin'...

As a further tribute to the song's Beatley origins, I was trying to ape George's Beatles for Sale era Gretsch shimmers on the old Epiphone Emperor - with, as you'll hear, very little success...

Hope you enjoy it...





L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Friday 9 January 2009

Books I've Read in 2009...

Stone Me: the Wit & Wisdom of Keith Richards.

Synopsis: Compendium of humourous/sagacious quotes from the Walking Laboratory himself. Likes his HP sauce, does Keef. Oh, and heroin...

Best bit: the bit where he drives off with a guitar given to him by a fan to autograph. "Buy another one!" He tells the grizzling afficianado when they finally catch up with his limo to ask for it back.

Disobedience by Jane Hamilton*.

Synopsis: Henry, a young chap in his late twenties looks back on his teenage email surveilance of his piano playing mother's love affair with a Ukrainian violinist.

Best bit: Elvira/Elvirnon - Henry's 'greggy'** American Civil War re-enactor sister.

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith.

Synopsis: Inverness-set re-telling of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Imogen and Robin are "Greggy" modern day equivalents of Ianthe and Iphis (it says here). Lots of gender confusion and a fine anti-globalisation polemic centring on the obscenities of water profiteering and female disempowerment (or your own randomly selected choice of right on buzzwords)

Best bit:

Hi. This is Anthea. Don't leave a message on this phone because I'm actually trying not to use my mobile any longer since the production of mobiles involves slave labour on a huge scale and also since mobiles get in the way of us living fully and properly, on a real level, with people and are just another
way to sell us short. Come and see me instead and we'll talk properly. Thanks.


Oh and a nice Cilla Black gag.


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

*Begun in 2008.

**See Girl Meets Boy.

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