Porridge...

"...Robert Algernon Runciple Dayglo Wetherspoon Wilson Keppel and Betty Swipe....you are an habitual solvent and rodent abuser who treats arrest as an occupational hazard and imprisonment in the same, cazual manner. I therefore sentence you to the maximum term allowed for these crimes...."

And with that, they led me away to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure, a custodial sentence, an open door and 3 slumbering Group 4 security officers now standing bewteen me and my former gay libertine existence. So humiliating - and, ultimately, so avoidable! If the British National Formulary would only start adding entries for home improvement adhesives, I'd have known that possession of Evostick beyond that adjudged to be for reasonable personal usage was subject to suspicion of drug trafficing! Such a waste too - those three haulage trucks full would have seen me through until at least August Bank Holiday....

Still, things are never as black as they're painted. Prison's changed beyond recognition since I was last inside (...transporting a minor across a State line without a license while dressed in a Pierrot costume, sky high on grouting compound, 1976...) There's a PC in every cell, for one thing - which is how I'm able to post this - not to mention the masseuse (....oooh, such cold hands Brenda....can't you do something to warm them up. Oh, sorry *Brendan*, I thought you had big mitts for a lassie...I'll stick with the Ayurvedic throat rub, thanks all the same...) There's even a pro-celebrity greased wrestling tournament arranged for next month - *can't* *wait* to see Anthony Worral Thompson try to wriggle out of one of Brian Blessed's over arm head locks...

They're a good bunch in here too. I'm sharing a cell with a chap called Lennie Godber; a gentle, lively-minded, adenoidal Brummie lad who's in for breaking and entry with aggravated assault - I've no idea how he ended up in prison, though. Probably drugs. That's what most of us are here for. That probably explains why there are so many floating around here. I mean, I've actually been better suppied in here than I was on the outside. A good job too as I was unsuccessful in my attempts to smuggle in my own secret stash, secreted in my shoes. I don't know how these guys manage to get their deals past the stringent security checks. Mind you, most of them probably aren't wearing open-toed slingbacks like me...

And the other good news is that Lord Longford has taken up the case on my behalf - or was it Long Lordford? I always get those two confused. Anyway, he says that he'll fight all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights in the Hague, if need be. Besides, even if my appeal fails, he seems to think that, with good behaviour, I could be out by 2032 - who knows? With bad behaviour, it might be even sooner....

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Eurovision...

Like many of you, I tuned in on Saturday night to cheer on Andy Somthing-or-other singing Britain's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest (or, Le Contest Eurovisionelle de Song, as it's more widely known on the continent). Like you, I was flabberghasted - not to mention dumbfounded - as the results came in and Arnie's toe-tapping ode to the harmless pleasures of stoat doctoring was voted joint last by the hairbrained listeners of Europe - although, in fairness, I have to admit that the singing clothespegs from Lithuania who went on to finish first were quite extraordinary. They looked almost inhuman, didn't they? OK, so Ally Whatsisface isn't Sandie Shaw - although after a dozen or so Pernod amd Lemsips, he did start to bear an un-nerving resemblance to a bald Petula Clark as photographed by Man Ray - but, Europe: *come* on*!!

Mind you, I wasn't in favour of us going in in the first place, if truth be told. "You mark my words", I told Marc Bolan in 1974, "there'll be rivers of brie before this is all over. It's one thing having a nice holiday in Toulouse Lautrec once or twice a year, washed down by a cheeky claret from Bouganvillea and jetting back from the Costa del Bravo with a straw donkey stuffed with duty free mescalin, but you wait til they all start pouring over here and opening Ciabatta stalls and having a family of twenty on the rates. Now, can I borrow some of your glitter, mine fell down the sofa...?"

And so it has proved. But it's one thing having the shape of your avocados decided for you by an unelected (and probably unhygienic) committee of so-called experts in Ghent and quite another to have your nation's minor pop non entities subjected to pan-continental ridicule in a rigged pageant of ill-conceived Eurocock. When the successor to our great European musical tradition (and Brotherhood of Man) finishes joint last behind a 9-armed inflatable tent with a sythesizer whistling old yiddish folk songs backwards (...and Azerbaijan's was one of the *better* entries...) that surely means the start of the slippery slope. I mean, what next? Jackbooted stormtroopers gunning down innocent Brazilian electricians on the streets, in cold blood?? It'll happen, just see if it doesn't...

But then, the whole ruddy country's going to the dogs if you ask me. Time was when a chap could sashay over the post-industrial wasteland as happy as Larry in a stunning, floor length, brocaded 'man's dress' and calf skin knee highs and, whilst they wouldn't be exactly waving flags at you, the worst you could expect by way of abuse was a few 'ooooh - you are awful'-s and a 'give us a twirl, Anthea'. Nowadays, assuming you can summon up the courage to take the short cut through the sink estate to the Asian corner shop with the extensive collection of Iranian porno betamaxes (I can't recommend Imamuelle III highly enough, by the way...) it's a ruddy nightmare.

First you run the gauntlet of the kids - bonced out of their trees on High Strength Lighter Fluid and badly cut talcum - and they immediately lay into you in their curious new-fangled urban patois - "Yo! Bitch 'ho' mother fucker" this and "Lardy batty raas minger muff lady" that. Then the bloody parents start up - "Oi, you! Nonce features - fuck off back to your barrister boyfriend, you paediatric arse burgler and don't you dare lay a hand on my shitting kids, or I'll have your knob whittled down to a pinprick with a cheese grinder, alright??!!"

Honestly, you've never heard such language from a twelve year old...

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Eno...

I'm just finishing a monitor mix of one of the tracks from the next album when there's a knock at the door. It's Eno. My God, it's hard to believe he's sixty, isn't it? I mean, he looked about 50 in 1975, so Christ knows how ancient he'll look if he ever reaches seventy! I offer silent thanks to the Gods of Glam for allowing time to be as kind as it has with me. Why only the other day, a young Emo lass stopped me in the street and asked me how old I was. Amazing what a bit of Revitalise and a face covering, Sigue Sigue Sputnik style face mask can do, isn't it? They take years off a person. She might have tried to cover it up by saying "well, that's far too old to be mincing around in a pair of badly laddered panthyose and a sequined bodysuit you addled old poof bucket", but I know by now when I've made the old lady sex wee start to course around - putty in my hand she was - or would have been if I hadn't run slap bang into a lamppost as I was chasing after her. Bloody face masks...

'Come on in then, you wily old reprobate!' I tell Brian, only there's a bit of a comedy of errors as we negotiate the rather tight hallway, and I get one of my curtain hoop loon pants entangled with one of the cables spewing out the back of his Moog synthesizer and we end up spending half an hour trying to pick out a particularly intractable knot so as to free me so I can put the kettle on and make a cup of tea for my old genius of Progressive Art-Rock buddy. It gets worse as we ascend the little ladder that leads up into my attic-cum-studio-cum-boudoir. One of Brian's Ostrich feathers gets caught in my fishnets and there's a sharp shriek of pain as his elaborate headgear rips out two or three of the remaining follicles he has left. Such language - *far* from ambient, I can tell you!

'So, what can I do for you, oh rigorously scholarly enfant terrible of the challenging sonic soundscape?', I ask as we sip Darjeeling and munch our way through half a plate of custard creams and a p-p-packet of penguins. Do I know anything about economics? he asks. I tell him that I might just be able to cough up a vaguely coherent two sides of A4 along the lines of a 'Classical and Keynsian models: compare and contrast'-type essay, but I wouldn't have high hopes of doing more than muddling through the exam. He looks slightly crestfallen - although, of course, that might just have been the after effects of the incident with the ostrich feathers, which are by now looking decidedly dejected and in need of some readjustment - although the elastoplast has definitely helped staunch the flow a little. My fishnets aren't too clever either for that matter, but that's by the by. I'll have to see if Boots are still doing their three-for-two offer...

Anyway, seems Brian's been asked by David Cameron to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequor. They did ask Carole Vorderman, but she's too busy with the Benecol ads - and John Redwood can only do long division, which is going to slow matters down a bit if there's another run on the pound; so Eno seemed the obvious choice. You'll be fine! I tell him - just *improvise*!! But he seems to be quite care worn by all of this - must be the thought of being weighed down by all that responsibility in Number 11, I guess, having to live with the thought that the slightest error of judgement or sign of indecision could lead to a field day for the stock market traders as, sensing the blood of a weak Chancellor, they engage in a high stakes game of brinksmanship with the custodian of the public purse. The pound takes a hammering on the international exchanges as the embattled Treasury raises interest rates, paniced into a last gasp attempt to save the pound by raising interest rates to terrifying levels and, before you know it, millions of homes being repossessed, consumer confidence is at an all time low and the heart is slowly being ripped out of the British economy by Corporate jackals intent on asset stripping a once proud nation's manufacturing base. Still, if they will vote Tory...

'Come on Brian', I tell him, 'this isn't like you! Just imagine you're in the studio grappling with a particularly difficult U2 vocal track....what would you do then...?' And it's almost as if someone's flicked a switch...."That's it! That's it! Of *course!!*', he screams as he leaps around the studio in triumphant delight "Oblique strategies!!" he bellows, punching the air with a fist. I suppose there are worse ways of running an economy than basing your every action on the esoteric and inpeneterable commands of a randomly selected, i-Ching-like instruction card.

George Osbourne, for one...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Tokyo Joe's...

There's a strange wheezing sound outside the apartment. I pull the curtains aside to find that a rickshaw has pulled up outside and a small, furtive figure wearing a coolie hat is scurrying up the path to my front door. Funny, I think, I don't remember ordering a take away. The door bell chimes and I open up to find an enthusiastic looking oriental looking up at me. "Meestah Felly out in lickshaw", he gestures. "Solly?? Prease lepeat!" I say - I'm ever so quick at picking up new languages... The diminutive from the Far East perseveres. "Is Meestah Felly! *Blyan* Felly - flom Loxy Music - in *LICKSHAW*!!" The penny drops and, sure enough, there he is, Bryan Ferry, emerging from a sumptuous pile of sonic blue satin - which I later discover to be none other than Jerry Hall - in the back of the Rickshaw. Well, I never, I think to myself - that must have set him back a yen or two.

"Why-aye wor Bob - has tha doon? Comin' oop wor toon wi' me and me bird like, fer wor crack, though but? Ah've jess get me life membership at wor Tokyo Joe's. Eee it's reet good, like. Ther've oner them Muriel jobbies, on wor wall like - wi' portraits of all wor top stars - Jimmy Durante, Marjorie Proops, Nina & Frederick, Danny La Rue, Margaret Rutherford, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Una Stubbs, John Noakes, Christopher Timothy, Rod Laver, three quarters of wor Black & White Minstrel Show and that bloke what does Police 5 - aye but that's a canny programme, though but. I love it, me: 'and remember; keep 'em peeled, though but!' Get in wor front seat wi' Ho Chi Min and let's be 'avin yers..."

Well, how could I refuse? Of course, Ferry's already half cut having stopped off at the Fat Ox for a crate or two of Newcastle Brown Ale, so I'm playing catch-up all night until I decide to go for broke and mainline some Jeyes cleaning fluid. Fuck me, that stuff *can't* still be legal, can it? He's a lovely lad Bryan, but he just doesn't know when to give it a rest with the sauce. I have to make my excuses when the introduction to the new song he's written in honour of the club starts up, and he's straight on to the midnight blue casino floor, starting to make his eyes go slitty by pulling them to the side with his index fingers and dancing around with a chopstick dangling from each nostril. I'm just about to pat him on the back and say my cheerios when he assumes his customary position on the dance floor, back arched, legs akimbo, his hand flailing around in the vicinity of his posterior, the thumb poised to spark up a gold Cartier lighter as the Ferry arse lets rip. My God, you know it's time to leave a party when Bryan starts setting light to his own farts. I give a disconsolate, embarrassed looking Jerry Hall a peck on the cheek as I make my way to the cloakroom. "Tell him to watch himself, pet," I tell her. "With those chopsticks and that lighter, he'll have both ends burning if he's not careful..."

ChangesOneBob...

I'm often asked what motivates my frequent changes of style and image. My career has been one long kaleidoscopic slideshow of altered personae and ever-more outrageously styled characters and poses. One minute, I'm the fresh-faced mod with the Gor Blimey trousers and button-down Italian shirt singing 'The Gospel According to the Laughing Bombardier 'til Tuesday', the next, Mongy Spatula and his Peripatetics from Neptune sashays past in a turqouise bin liner and bovver boots asking 'is there life in Balham??' The cocaine-addled hauteur and palour of The Thin Grey Elastoplast is replaced by the pink-suited dandified bouffant swagger of the Serious Moodswings Tour. It's a full time job remembering who I am sometimes!

So why do I do it?

Is this some deep-rooted psychosis, a bizarre manifestation of a displaced and fragmented personality? Or have I somehow been locked into the ever-changing cultural zeitgeist - mere flotsam to every whim and fancy of rock fad and fashion, doomed to roam the pop firmament perpetually; restless, driven and in a perpetual state of flux? Quite possibly - although I'd have to add that it comes in bloody handy for avoiding disgruntled punters and stalkers when they don't have a *clue* what you look like.

But this strategy is not without risks of its own. Obviously, looking the way I do, I attract a *lot* of attention when I'm out in public - not all of it welcome by any means. It's not nice, believe me, when you're minding your own business in Boots, preparing to pilfer a pair of 15 denier hold-ups from their three for two range to replace the ones you snagged on your plant grip paper clip maxi skirt, only to be surrounded by a curious mob of sexually indeterminate emo youths, demanding refunds and tugging on your hair to see whether or not it's real. What is it with some people, eh? They just can't seem to accept that there's a difference between fantasy and reality and that just because a man might choose to wear mercilessly gouged out pantyhose and a gauzy, floor-length, see-through tube dress professionally, off duty, he's just as likely to be a Featherstone Rovers season ticket holder and a dab hand at darts who enjoys a pint of mild and a packet of cheesey wotsits in the public bar of the Cow & Snuffers as much as the next man in laddered lingerie and lacy arm-length gloves.

It's just a good job I wasn't wearing the wig, I suppose...

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Mime and Lindsay Kemp...

One of the happiest times in my career was that spent working with internationally renowned mime artiste and cat throttler Lindsay Kemp. Oh what fun we'd have, whiling away the hours pretending to be trapped behind a plate of glass or attempting to stave off being crushed between two sliding doors with only the palms of our hands and a doorstop. I was only dipping my toe in the water though, in a dilletante Chameleon-changing-to-suit-the-needs-of-his-environment type dilly dallying, flibbertygibbety sort of way - Linds was the real Master (or should that be Mistress?? I was never too sure...) I mean, he could do stuff I couldn't even dream of - like that one where you pretend you've cut your thumb off and wiggle it about between two of your fingers. Such deft sleight of hand for a man of eighty!

It was Lindsay who choreographed all the shows on the Mongy Spondulick and the Milliners from Jupiter tour and, if I'm honest, he's the one who deserves most of the credit for the stunning visuals we achieved on stage, taking rock theatre to new heights - and Arbroath, if memory serves. They still talk about it at the Ruislip Community Centre, I'm told. Such fun I'd have, dressing up as Mongy, getting into character by groping a few of the soundcrew, mincing around in a tutu *completely* wrecked on Brass-o before bounding on stage in my trademark lyotard and stack heeled boots. I'd get so nervous before shows, you see, that I'd even forget to put my ruddy trousers on!

Lindsay may be the least well known of the Kemp brothers - most likely because Gary insisted on shunting him off to the side of the stage to play percussion wearing a daft kilt or miming to a session saxophonist's solo on 'True' - but no one could have been more pleased for the lad than I was when he finally reached the audience he deserved in that film about the Krays. He's brilliant as Phil in Eastenders too, isn't he? Face only a mother could love...

Ah the New Romantics! That takes me back. You see, it wasn't all mass unemployment, Thatcherism and Rick Astley in the 1980s. There *was* actually something even worse. Spendo Ballenedo and Utra-Volox were probably my favourites, but even they couldn't match the epic grandeur and austere majesty of Blancminge singing "I'm up the Cocking Tree". Oh for the day when someone will launch a full scale revival of that fabulous, innocent time. Hurry up lads, while I can still squeeze into me leg warmers!!



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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The New Look...

Thanks to all of you who've mailed in to comment on my new hairdo. The reaction's been mixed, I have to say - ranging from the unconvinced ("Get yer 'air cut, yer great lolloping poofter!") to the downright rude ("Get yer 'air cut and die, die, die, you great big pansy!") A few of you though were kind enough to ask how the overall effect was achieved, so I thought I'd fill you in on the day I spent with top London stylist, Keith, and how we managed to get that 'ruptured Saluki in a force nine gale look' that *everyone* will be asking for this summer...

The first thing to say about Keith is that he's an *absolute* perfectionist. Everything has to be just so - even down to the tongs in the sugar bowl....though why he doesn't just use scissors like everyone else is a bit of a mystery. He's *so* dedicated to the maintenance of his own impossibly high standards that he won't even *consider* cutting your hair unless it's virtually flawless to begin with. So it's often best to turn up at his bo-ho with a soupcon of Regency-style salon having already had a trim or, better still, wearing a wig that looks pretty much as you'd like the end result to be - as I did. But, assuming you've passed his stringent once over and he agrees to soiling his clippers on your mangy, flea ridden locks, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have let loose on my collection of hideously unrealistic made man fibres attached to a mesh backing and masquerading as human hair.

"So, what can we do for madam today?" Asks Keith. It's OK, he can see perfectly well once he takes the comedy eyes-on-a-pair-of-spring-style spectacles off. (Although there's no excuse for pinching a chaps buttocks, it has to be said. Is it just my ever-so-sensitive skin, or do curling tong burns take a bugger of a long time to scab up?) The initial skirmishes complete - "Something for the weekend sir? And would you like me to throw in some contraceptives and a vat of vaginal lubricant? It's on special offer and comes with free hosepipe applicator for an unmatchably sensual, snag-free shafting action....??") I put my fate in the hands of the maestro. He opts for a Byronesque twist on the Dandy style, with a little Urban Masseev, ironed out Afro - a twist of modernity thrown in to spice up the whole arrangement. That's the CD multichanger sorted - now for the *haircut*!

All told, I'm in there for seven and a half hours, but it's worth every penny (.....I do wish he'd get rid of that bloody meter....) as Keith painstakingly glues each strand of hair together. This must be costing me a *fortune* in u-hu, I think, but after a few minutes, I'm so off my bonce from the contact high of the adhesives that I'd willingly give him my house and half its contents in exchange for a short back and sides and a quickie behind the passport booth at Kings Cross St. Pancras. I do wish he'd trim his nostril hairs though...




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Tramp Smash...

I'm delighted with the way my latest video has turned out. As you'll already know, I really think that the new crop of songs I'm working on with Eno, Visconti, Fripp and the Brotherhood of Man are my most potent since Gestapo Gizzard - and *that's* praise indeed! So you can imagine my even greater delight when we managed to secure the services of none other than Ms. Alison Goldfarpp to play the lead role in the little promo piece we've done for it...



(We were hoping to get Helena Bonham Carter, but sadly she was unavaliable as she's currently being used to frighten off crows in a field in Derbyshire. She says the hours are long and the work's a bit dull, but other than that at least she's out in the open air and, besides, what more could a girl want than to have a ruddy great pole up her arse from dusk 'til dawn....least, I *think* he's from Poland....)

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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The Victoria Station Incident...

I'm pleased to report that RCA have unearthed yet another lost gem from the vaults. "Tramp Smash" is an out-take from the Freikorps Clambake sessions that took place at Hansa-by-the-Wall studios sometime in the late 1970s. The song was written with Iggy Pop in Berlin on a banjolele - shame that, it was brand new one too....just couldn't stand the combined weight of his six pack and my stack heels... My, my, it's great to hear Eno's sublime two note synth riff again. 3 weeks he spent working on that. Then, in an inspired Eureka moment, he decided to turn the synthesizer on. The rest, as they say, is history. Can't believe we got away with all that top on the tambourine either. Still, that Visconti's a genius with percussion...and has a rarely acknowledged flair for embroidery too, as it goes...

Sadly, the release of FreiKorps Clambake was somewhat overshadowed by my return to Britain from Bavaria. Of course the press made a meal of it as per, and blew the whole thing *completely* out of proportion. I was just on my way to lend a hand at the Unity Mitford Shelter for Underprivileged Blond(e) Haired, Blue-eyed Orphans, and just happened to be wearing fancy dress for a little party we were throwing for the kids in celebration of the anniversary of the Anschluss with Austria and the re-militarization of the Ruhr. Happy days. Poor old Unity though - *so* misunderstood. Born in a small town in Canada called Swastika, and christened Unity Valkyrie Mitford by her demented, extreme right-wing, Jew-hating parents, she became a member of the British Union of Fascists, holidayed with Adolf Hitler and tried to blow her brains out when war was declared in 1939, her long cherished dream of unifying Hitler's Germany and Britain to form an Aryan super power left entirely in ruins. And from that, people have somehow made her out to be some sort of... I dunno, Nazi Sympathiser or something. That's journalists for you.

And so it was with me - a harmless attempt at recreating John Cleese's Ministry for Silly Walks skit whilst dressed in fullblown Waffen SS uniform, interspersed with the odd Seig Heil and cries of "He had *TWO* actually* was somehow massaged by a spiteful media into an embarrassing display of neo-Nazi fascist posturing.

Last time I buy the Daily Mail.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Drugs...

It saddens me, if I'm honest, when I see yet another young pop artiste falling into the time-honoured pitfalls of the entertainment industry. Not a day passes by without another glaring headline screaming out from one of the red-tops; "Amy's Fresh Shocker - exclusive", or "My Day of Shame, by Cell-Bound Winehouse". Now, personally, I didn't think Back to Black was that bad, but I'm sure she herself would agree that it would have been even an better platter if young Amy had been able to keep her nose out of the Evo-stick tub long enough to do a few final drop-ins on the vocal tracks.

And don't get me started on Pete Doherty. My life, have I've tried! I even tracked him down and had a word with him myself - my God, prison visiting hours drag, don't they? They never seemed that long when I was on the other side of the table. Anyway, after I'd snuck the cake with a file in it past security and spent half an hour trying to offload several grams of barbiturates out of the sole of my stack heeled boots without attracting the attention of the prison guards (you try doing *that* in a gold lame body stocking and matching cape, buster...), I told him all about my own drug hell in the 1970s.

You see, at one point there wasn't a hardware store within a five mile radius of Sigma Sound studio that hadn't seen its shelves completely cleared of its entire stock of adhesives. Sometimes I have to confess, I was so desperate for a hit that I I'd even try a quick fix of polyfilla - yes, I know. It doesn't fill me with any pride, I can tell you. And worse - it just doesn't have the hold of a proper fixative. Oh, I'm completely clean now, of course - apart from the odd grouting flashback and the fact that, on a blustery day, I can still seal an envelope without my tongue from 100 metres away. *That's* an addiction, sonny. But will he listen? Still, youth, as they say, is wasted on the young; which is probably why old letches like me can get away with it, I suppose. "Of course I can help you with your exams Eliza - why, I can still remember the day I took *my* 11-plus. Which reminds me, I must give old Gaz Glitter a buzz - he still has a large assortment of my Bunty Annuals. He's due out in twenty years....

Must dash - Grange Hill's just about to start.




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Live Aid...

I was one of the first to be approached, of course. The phone goes just as Michael Buerk's heart-rending report is coming to an end, so I don't get to find out if Chinese scientists have had any luck artificially inseminating Cha-Chi with Chin-Chu's sperm. Ah, bless! I pick up. "Bob?? Id's me - Bob" "Oh, hi Bob." "Focken shuddit and lisden willya? Midge and me are puddn a show dogedder and yer'd bedder focken well do it - We've got Bowie, Queen, Macca, Ferry, de Who, Dire Straits, U2 - Springsdeen's donadin' his PA and we've god Harvey Goldsmid in charge of de dickeding - sorry I've god a focken derrible cold, I hope yer geddin' all dis. Sdadus Quo have said dey'll open - well, dere'll be no boggers dere, will dere, so whad harb cad id do? - and Phil Collins has already bagged de firsd class on Concorde, play ad bodh shows gig, but dere's sdill a space so some old hasbeen can dwang dheir way troo a few old prodesd songs backed by a couple of very pissed Rolling Stones. So Bob, will yer focken well do id or whad, y'old eejit???" Well, what could I say? Although I have to admit I was a bit confused when he signed off by asking me if I'd mind doing him a special favour and including a couple of numbers from Nashville Skyline...

Still, a gig's a gig.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Berlin, with Fripp & Eno...

"...I think what this section needs is a bathtub half-filled with kedgeree to liven it up a bit...", muses Brian, pulling thoughtfully on a duty-free Camel light. "What do you reckon Bob?" But Fripp's miles away, mumbling away tartly to himself, when he isn't singing The Wurzels then current hit, "Oi am a Zyder Drinker" that is. "Beck? Oi'll shittim! Page? Oi'll shittim! Weedon? Oi'll shittim! Ooo arr-ooo-arr-ay, Ooo-arr-ooooh-arr-ayyyyy!!!" and so he rambles on like an Alzheimered cretin until Eno tugs at his beard with a tuning fork and yells "Eh? Eh? Kedgeree Bob? Kedgeree!!??

The initial sessions have been a bit of a washout - not helped by my having been completely off my face on Harpic since the middle of 1975. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell it to 12 year olds, should they? Eno's been grappling with the white noise introduction to "I Left Some Kippers at the Nuremburg Rally" while Fripp's supposed to be working out a tortuous guitar figure for the, as yet, untitled instrumental ("Greasy Plinth") that will open the sequence of lengthy mood pieces that make up side two of "Heron Pickling in the Weimar Republic". It's not easy being seminal.

I stroll outside with Visconti for a crafty joint and leave the two giants of progressive rock arguing over guitar parts. "For the billionth and the last time Brian, it's called the fecking *bridge*...." I ask after Tony's then-wife, the singer Mary Hopkin. "Oh she's alright, I suppose..." he shrugs. "Still Welsh...." He tails off with a helpless sigh and I give him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Maybe we could get her in to do some Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doos on the the middle eight of "My Teutonic Espadrille"? Or has that incontinence of hers cleared up?"...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Bob's 1001 Glam Icon Fashion Tips...

#1,085...

The Halter-Neck Paper Clip and Hairband Top look....



I'm often asked how I can afford to look so glamorous, living as I do on a retired serviceman's pension and whatever immoral earnings I can weasel out of procuring for the elderly couple in the flat below - a case of rapidly diminishing returns if ever there was one. Well, it's not easy, I can tell you. And it'll get a darn sight harder if that retired serviceman ever finds out I've been skimming his pension for the last 15 years... But, as the time-honoured old adage has it, Necessity is the Mother of Invention. (Or am I thinking of Frank Zappa?) Regardless; here's a great tip for any of you who don't want to allow total impecunity (or astonishing tight-fistedness for that matter) to stop you looking like the belle (or beau) of the ball...




It's really very simple. All you need is 2 clumps of elasticated hairbands (£2.99 for 50 at Superdrug), 2 boxes of multicoloured schoolroom paper clips (99p for a box of approx. 100 from Waitrose) and about 15 hours to spare. The rest is just a question of having impeccable style - note, connoisseurs, the exquisite arc of the neckline and the insouciant hang of the decolletage... - and being foolish (or foolhardy - or *both*) enough to wear a cheap assortment of badly cobbled together tat to a glittering, star-studded event like the British Soap Opera Awards. The Mascara, in case you were wondering, is of course from L'Oreal.

(Well, I'm whurrr-thet....)


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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"Swipe Sparks Baggage Claim Chaos in New T5 Tribute Band Fiasco...

I'm sure you've all see the headlines already, but really, I can explain everything...

I was only at Heathrow in the first place due to a last minute change of plan. I'd been due to board the QE2 as per, off to New York for the first leg of the Serious MoonPig.com Tour (...."brought to you by Britain's favourite design-your-own electronic birthday card franchise...") when I get a call from my agent, Golda. They've cancelled our departure - something about desalinating the plughole.... - and the next one's not until next Thursday which would mean cancelling half the eastern seaboard. So I end up here, at Heathrow, in the dreaded new Terminal 5.

Of course, what Golda's omitted to mention is the fact that tomorrow marks the start of the 15th Annual Novelty Act and Tribute Band Convention in Seattle, so half of Europe's finest professional pop star impersonators have descended on the airport, to compound the already ridiculous level of chaos and confusion. I really need to ditch Golda and get a proper agent - the man's evidently a nincompoop, not to mention a very bad female impersonator. I mean, who wears a ruddy kaftan nowadays?

As we wait for a ticket to queue for the queue for our check-in, I get chatting with Pedro, Paulo y Maria (Andalucia's premier Peter, Paul & Mary soundalikes) when who should roll up, delicately tiptoing over the bodies of the fallen, but Lenny, the drummer from the Faux Fighters. You'd really think they'd try to get some of the dead ones out of the way, wouldn't you? Can we look after his stick bag while he goes off to stock up on duty free Blue Stratos? *Big* *mistake*. Before you can say 'Dread Zeppelin at the controls', the singer from By Jovi has got us minding his leather microphone glove and sunglasses flight case. Next thing you know, Glass of Shampagne (the top Netherlands Sailor facsimiles) have got us looking after their accordian and bogus Moet & Chandon Jeraboam prop. At least, I'm assuming that it isn't actually Sailor themselves who, having figured that there's more interest in a replica of a bunch of hopeless, two-hit wonder Eurodicks than for the real thing, have set up a band in tribute to themselves. Interesting ploy - must look into it...

While I'm pondering this, the one who plays James Honeyman-Scott in the Pretend Pretenders has dumped his extensive collection of Fender Telecasters (27 - Oh yes, I counted them...) on us while he goes of in search of a long life battery for his chorus pedal. Soon, the guitarist from Nott the Hoople's weighed in with half a dozen Les Pauls and I'm half expecting Hank Marvin the Paranoid Android to show up, treat us to a handful of his Shadows-style instrumental reworkings of Radiohead songs before lumbering us with his armoury of red and white stratocasters...

So, you can probably guess the resulting mayhem when they arrived at the festival - Sailor wannabes trying to start 'Girls Girls Girls' with a customised Gibson guitar and the Pretend Chrissie Hynde vamping along to 'Brass in Pocket' on a rather smelly leather glove and a pair of reactolites. But be fair, none of this would have happened if people would just take *two* *minutes* to label their baggage properly!


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Elton John's Fancy Dress Party...

Say what you like about Elton John; he may or may not be a podgy short-arsed baldy poove with a face like a Yorkshire pudding and the voice of a badly pummelled seal cub with whooping cough, but you have to hand it to him - he certainly knows how to throw one hell of a party! Only tonight's Charity fancy dress affair in aid of the Families of Underprivileged Stoat Botherers is turning into a bit of a disaster. I start to regret my choice of costume almost immediately upon entering the majestic baronial splendour of Elton and David's summer house. I'm hot and sweaty, sliding all over the place, it's far too tight and part of it has got lodged up under Kiki Dee's ra-ra skirt. And I daren't go near the fridge because of the magnets. A cyberman might not be nearly so scary, but it's a darned sight easier drinking a martini in a silver glove than with this Dalek plunger attachment, I can tell you. No wonder they're so pissed off all the time - you can hardly move inside at all. *I* feel like exterminating everything in the Unniverse, and I've only had it on for twenty minutes. And Kiki's none too pleased about the egg whisk up her drawers, either. (Although, unless I'm much mistaken, she's been giving the plunger attachment the glad eye on the sly....) I start to wonder if I wouldn't have been better with the whole bloody thing on the other way around when Elton minces over to meet and greet.

"...and you are?", he asks, and it quickly becomes apparent that he is, as I have *long* suspected, being worked like a ventriloquist's dummy by Bernie Taupin. "I A-M R-O-B-E-R-T S-W-I-P-E ... Y-O-U W-I-L-L O-B-E-Y!!" I reply - God, this Dalek costume is fun. It's just a shame the battery went in the vocoder when I was trying it on so I can't do the funny Dalek voice. "And you've come as....blerglecreugle..fleurgle...?" says Bernie, trying to make out that his lips aren't moving and only succeeding in becoming even more indecipherable than one of his own lyrics when he tries to drink a glass of water and keep pretending to be Elton at the same time - not to mention propelling a plume of carbonated water in the direction of George Michael's costume. Fortunately, the former Wham frontman has come as Marie Antoinette so most of it ends up being caught in the natural basin formed by his ample decolletage. He's actually quite well put together in that department is George, funnily enough. He'd make a lovely lady, in fact - if you could see beyond the moustache, the stubble and the chest hair...

My God, I never thought I'd ever feel a whisker of sympathy for David Furnish, but it must be hell for him, the three of them together in that four-poster bed of an evening, Elton in his Donald Duck jim jams and Bernie and his gluddy gottle of gear all gluddy night long. No wonder he's turned out the way he has. American. "Must dash", says Bernie, tearing an even bigger gash down the back of Elton's jacket and trying to look casual whilst, with no small amount of effort, he tries to flap Elton's rather solid little legs as if they're as light as a dummy's; nearly collapsing breathless after attempting a nonchalant verse or two of 'Nikita'. I'm on the verge of scarpering when I get waylaid by Sheena Easton. By cracky, she's a well put togther young lass - even in a kilt and sporran. I think, "Eh up - I'm in here!" as she strokes my eyestalk and wheels me off towrds the kitchen. But unfortunately the only thing she's interested in making is an omelette...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Denise van Outen...

She sashays in, rippling and translucent in black neglige, her nipples sombre ammonites behind their charcoal veil. Throwing back sheafs of platinum, silvikrin smooth and shiny, she shimmies gently in a loose limbed dance before me. Freezing her love jive in a put on pout, she drops suddenly to her knees at my feet and begins slowly to work her way up, dotting her passage with limpet kisses as she goes, until finally arriving at my hard centre, hovering there momentarily; slightly tremulous and first-time vulnerable. She runs a sharp trowel of fingernail along the length of taut blue vein before returning it somewhere deep within her gauzy folds, her body undulating softly to the rhythm of these unseen, inner explorations. Eyes closed, head lolling doll-like, she bites down on her glistening lower lip, front teeth pearly spades plunging into a toffee apple crust. Sensing the moment drawing close, I dive down, my mouth a mollusc at the downy porcelain of her inner thigh. A blindman grappling, I grab at the diaphanous robe, now loosened, a windless sail cast adrift behind where she is sat. With eager hands, I scrunch the floaty mesh to form an opaque cummerbund. As she reclines and opens to receive my hips, I gently tie it at her nape, pulling slowly until the gag hollows her cheeks to dimples and contorts her lips into an elongated 'O'. Of course, it's not enough to shut her up completely, but I find it does at least take the edge of that voice. Thus bridled, I mount and shaft her to the muffled strains of 'All That Jazz'.




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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A Little Bit of Politics...

Now that I'm an internationally recognised* Glam Icon, I have to be a bit careful about what I say. Gone are the days when I could, for instance, fire off an expletive-ridden tirade against a fellow-blogger with more hits but demonstrably less talent than me, or freely direct my ire at Heads of State/Religious figure heads/celebrity charity ballroom dancing competition contestants or Sian Williams with no fear of the impact of my words on prospective consumers of my wares But now I have to think before I speak. The impact an ill-advised outburst aimed at a national treasure or harmless TV weather person could have on my career,is impossible to guage. For instance, sales went through the roof after I lambasted BBC weatherman Daniel Corbett for a poorly selected tie/shirt combo (not to mention an irksome over precision in the diction department) but fell when I had a go at Tanny Grey Thompson.

In short, if I feel the urge to call the Archbishop of Canterbury a poncified God-bothering, mincing, shoddily-mitred old Poove, I have to be very, very careful now to make sure that I do so in a reasoned and balanced way, and not leave myself open to allegations of religious intolerance and/or homophobia. In the case of the Archbish., this is usually achieved quite simply by adding the phrase, 'on the other hand, if his holiness were the head of a different faith, he could have my hands chopped off for dressing like this, so I suppose he's not all that bad...and, yes, at a slightly jauntier angle, I suppose the mitre could be quite fetching..."

But, with politicians, it's not always quite so simple, which is why I've been reluctant until now to pass any commment on the forthcoming Mayoral election in London. Yet, with less than two weeks until polling....no, hang on, that's a gravy stain on the ballot card...cripes, with barely two *days* left until polling day....at least, I *hope* it's a gravy stain...I felt it imperative to air my tuppon'orth ahead of the contest.

Call me an old fuddy duddy, but I prefered the gentler pace of politics in the pre-media age. Time was when politicians like Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain could settle their differences in an amicable and civilised way, perhaps even sharing a glass of bandy and a cigar as they mulled over the important issues of the day. No need for harsh words or petty posturing. If things got heated, a quick round or two of gin rummy or a best of three bout of greased arm wrestling would decide the issue and the loser would take it on the chin and that would be the end of the matter and, likely as not, we'd be at war with Schleswig-Holstein.

Of course nowadays, anyone unfortunate enough to have stumbled across a political debate could be forgiven for believeing that they were watching a particularly grisly episode of the Jeremy Kyle Show. If Ken isn't calling Boris a spatula brained oaf with the breath of a cankered border collie on a diet of St. Agur and pickled herring, then Boris is calling Ken a Jew-hating commie windbag with a face like a bag of spanners and the sex drive of a badly pummelled amoeba that's just run a double marathon....and that's before they've had a chance to say a word about the one who openly admits to being a pansy!

So, how do I think it will go? Well, right now, it's too close to call, but my money's on

* a chap from Interpol accosted me just the other day and said, are you Robert Swipe? If so, I must caution you that anything you say that you later rely on in court will be taken as evidence...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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A Valedictory Post For The Blogger Fraternity...

When I'm not working (which is not often!), building up my reputation as a Europe's premier(e) glam icon/ukulele based Burlegue artiste etc., I like nothing better than to try and put a little something back into the community, doing charitable works and fundraisers and such like. You know, for the kids. For obvious reasons, I don't like to publicise the enormous amount of voluntary work and the huge investment of my extremely precious time I give up in order to help those less fortunate than myself - which is why I'm posting this blog about it all here. Let's face it, if I wanted recognition, I'd bring more attention to myself standing with a sandwich board in an empty field in Outer Mongolia than I'd get in a year stuck up here. Oh, the stats have gone up alright - *16* hits now. Up from 13 last week. That's per *week* mind. Bastards.



So, yes, I try to put something back into the society that's made me what I am by lending my support to a designated charity every year, and this year the organisation benefitting from my unsung (but, literally, quite Herculean) efforts will be Help a London Raspberry. The charity may not be known to some of you, but you'll most likely be familiar with them once you know that they used to be called the Spastics Society. Unfortunately, that name had to be changed - well, would you like people calling you a spastic while trying to trip you up and kick at your callipers while you're trying to mind your own business in the playground, innocently getting a peek at Tamsin Nederhoff's knickers under the pretext of measuring up her dainty foot for the glass slipper you're pretending that you're having made up for her in a workshop. By dwarves. Well, would you, you little Mong?? Exactly. And neither did I, so I'm very pleased they've changed the name. My God, you could tell that Tamsin anything - she fell for the Spastic thing too. Unbelievable...



Yes, the Spastics Society was deemed, quite correctly, to be offensive and so they've gone for a more subtle name that hopefully will reflect the softer, kinder, gentler image of Spasticity that they would like to present; well, it brings in more money, doesn't it? Soft focus adverts, bit of Coldplay, not quite so much dribbling - you don't want to frighten people off by showing a roomfull of spackos grunting and gurning and pulling themselves off instead of playing with the monopoly set that Keith Chegwin brought with him when he opened the new padded recreation room. (They'd booked Maggie Philbin, but due to an adminitrative error, she was up in Warrington opening a new Severe Burns Unit and so Keith stepped in at the 11th hour. What a trouper.)



The new name is a reference to the Cockney rhyming slang; Raspberry Ripple - cripple. Catchy, isn't it? Damien Hirst's designed the logo which features - isn't he a card???!!! - a resplendent red strawberry! (It's *i-r-o-n-i-c*, apparently....) And we're hoping to raise a stackload of money this year to help pay for it - not to mention the huge army of consultants, managers and administrators we've had to bring in to make sure that everything runs smoothly. And then there are all those hordes of annoying little jerks and jerkesses in their flourescent bibs who descend on every high street across the land and accost passersby in the hope of half Nelsoning a lifetime tithe from them. They don't stand outside in all weathers being spat at by people who've had enough of being badgered by such quasi-legitimate beggars for *fun* you know. Graduates, in the main, they've got to be looking at at least 18K just to get out of bed, let alone all the abuse and the long hours. So, you can see how much your help is needed.









L.U.V. on y'all,



Bob



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Robert Swipe: A South Bank Show Retrospective...

I'm posting a transcript of my interview with Melvyn 'Lord' Bragg on the South Bank Show for those of you who missed it and/or don't have a video or hard disc recorder/BBC iPlayer - or maybe you're just plain ignorant and uncultured and would rather spend Sunday evening watching tripe based on an extenuated casting session for some diabolical Andrew Lloyd Webber west end musical; in which case, piss off back to your sink estate and your life of binge drinking and dog baiting....

Melvyn Bragg: Good evedig. I'b Belvyd Bragg. Od todight's Soud Bag Show we'll be exabidig the work of add talkig to wud of Britaid's bost iddovadive add codtroversial ardisds; Roberd Swipe. Swipe bade his dabe with a groud breakig add icodoclasdig blog bud has subsequedly bradched owd indo busic, filb, cobedy add hard core pordography. He's beed variously described as 'the bost idfluendtial busiciad of his gederatiod', 'a datiodal dreasure' add 'a bodstrous prevert with the legs of Jibby Saville add a voice like a badly budiladed wildebeesd. I caughd ub with hib id his Isligdon towd house and this filb is a record of our lively add subtibes colourful discussiod.

Good evedig Roberd.

Robert Swipe: Good evening Mervyn. Please, call me Bob.

MB: Tell be Bob, how did id all sdard?

RS: Before I answer that Mervyn, can I just say what a huge fan I am of you and your work...

MB: Oh - thag you very buch...

MB: I'll never forget the role you played in 'It Ain't Half Hot, Mum'. God, I used to love that - '...meet the gang cause the boys are here.....B.O.B.O.Y.S. boys to entertain *yooooooouuuuuu*!! Why, if I hadn't known it was you acting, I'd have sworn you really were a lisping homosexual in badly applied make up doing a rather lame impersonation of Iggy Pop. And 'Summer Holiday' - you were in that too. Is it true what they say about Sir Cliff?? Does he really have a Waitrose bag for life where his colon should be? And did they ever manage to get Don Estelle out of Windsor Davies? Such a shame; tiny man, but what a huge talent. Still, if he will go nosing around where he shouldn't...

MB: Cad I just brig you bag to your early career Bob; it bust have beed very hard for you, seddig up a global bulti-bedia ebpire as you did, cobpletely frob scratch add all od your owd. Were there dibes whed you thoughd. 'sod dhis for a gabe of rouders?'

RS: Look Marv; I've had many times, I can tell you. Times when innocence I'd trade for company. And children saw me crying - I thought I'd had my share of that. But these miss you nights are the longest.

MB: Roberd Swipe, thag you very buch.

RS: My pleasure Vern. Right - coming down the Emirates? They've got a special offer on; pie and a pint for £36.50...in a plastic beaker too! You can do your Jimmy Durante after!! "Siddin' ad by piado the udder day....."

MB: Tob dotch!!



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Bob's Back History...

A lot of people have been asking if I can tell them a little bit more about myself, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to fill in some biographical detail about my early life and my first forays into the world of show business. So meteoric has my recent ascent been that it's easy to imagine that I've become Britain's foremost glam icon and Burlesque ukulele artiste almost overnight, as if by magic! But my recent success has only been possible because of the years I spent working myself up from the bottom, often going as far as the shoulder blades and - in one incident I'd really much rather forget - the pituitary gland. Yeuu!

My beginnings were nothing if not humble. Born David Robert Jones in Bromley on January 8th, 1947....erm, no - now I'm getting *really* confused... But, seriously folks; I fell from the sky just to the side of Kings Cross station, London, in the early 1970s, an extra-terestrial space pilot from the planet Znapty Gnou III, third star on the left, Andromeda Zone (twinned with Argon-le-Fnootyglimp and Newcastle-Under-Lyme) I had been placed aboard the craft as a very small child, several light years previously in a galaxy far far...you know, all that bollocks, and had spent the long, interplanetary journey in suspended animation, an info-brain splurt continually dripfeeding me the vital knowledge of Earthling history and customs (not to mention the latest from the Nationwide Championship) that would be so vital as I embarked upon my mission to bring back precious water to save my one dying planet. It was also exceedingly good preparation for the M25.

1974: I couldn't really have picked a worse time to land if I'd tried. You humanoids had contrived to make a rotten hash of the economy; the OPEC crisis was in full swing, the three day week was crippling industry and there was nothing decent on the box. Apart from The Persuaders, obviously. Imagine how hard it was in that climate for a confused, sexually ambiguous and vulnerable alienoid, with nothing to barter with but a few scraps of space junk, an enormous pair of stack heeled boots and the patents and plans for the Playstation2 and a blueprint for an entire new nanotechnology undreamed of as yet by even the wildest scientific lunatics... No, with times as hard as they were, there was only one thing for it. So that's how I ended up in Light Entertainment.

It's a cliche repeated far too often, but nonetheless true; there's a dark and sinister underbelly to the world of showbiz very much at odds with the glitter and glamour of its public face. Naive and insecure of my own ability, not to mention far from talented in the first place, I was unfortunate enough to be taken under the wing of an up and coming Armenian impressario of few scruples and even fewer vowel sounds. Ziggy Woodblume was a racially intolerant, self-loathing homosexual paedophile with sociopathic tendencies and a Millwall season ticket. But he was not without his faults either - not least a near-legendary meanness (he liked nothing more than borrowing a meal on a stolen credit card...and then complaining that the food was awful until he was given a *refund*) and an obsession with the late Roy Orbison's intenstinal tract that bordered on the psychotic.

But for all that, he was one fuck of a bullshitter and knew a mug he could screw a few bob out of a mile off. It's a mark of the man and entirely to his credit that, armed with little more than a slowed down tape of Shirley Temple singing 'Nowhere to Run' and several hundred thousand dollars, he was to pull off one of the most incredible coups in the history of popular music when, in 1979, under Ziggy's expert guidance, I became the first white artist to sign for Tamla Motown. You see, by this stage, I was so desperate to find fame and fortune that I was even prepared to paint my face white. But that, you'll be pleased to know, is where any resemblance to Mr. Michael Jackson ends! Apart from the chimp, obviously. And the kiddy fiddling.


Next week: Bob goes head to head with Robert Plant at Knebworth over the last opal fruit in the pack and gets short shrift from the local constabulary when his audacious plan to incinerate Jonathan King and Zandra Rhodes backfires....


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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