Betty's Utility Room

Another in my Bank Holiday telly posts. Long, challenging, grim, tedious: just think of this as the equivalent of that Zizek programme about cinema. Even though I don't have the interesting speech impediment.

The Story Of Light Entertainment - why do I actually look forward to watching this on a Saturday night? It just tells me stuff I tend to know anyway and features a lot of people I don't even like. Within the first five minutes narrator Steven Fry always says "...its roots go back to the days of music hall". There is always some footage of "Big Hearted Arthur" Askey, who was the AntiChrist.

Once more, it's to do with being a certain age, and being able to have a laugh about the Billy Cotton Band Show, Pete Murray and Mike Yarwood's wig.

It also underlines that even though I'm old, I'm not as old as Cilla "R" Cilla Black or Ed "Stewpot" "I Remember When You Used To Play Sparky's Electric Bloodybastard Piano On Junior Choice And Ruin My Saturday Mornings" Stewart, who both recall with great clarity how appalling post war Sundays were. Look, at least we can go to Ikea or have a lie in! In the 1940's, according to them, your day would consist of the following:

(i) Get up at 5 in the morning. Grate the leading. Or is it lead the grating?
(ii) Travel to holy communion down some muddy country lanes on your bike.
(iii) Help yer mam peel some spuds.
(iv) Have a Sunday roast with congealed gravy, a Yorkshire, leathery rationed lamb roast and tinned peas.
(v) OH JOY!!! Listen to the radio! The Larkins followed by the Navy Lark followed by Wot Larks Pip followed by .....

WAYKAAAAAY WAYKAAAAAY!

Yes ....

THE BILLY COTTON BAND SHOW!!!! The highlight of the weekend - in fact, the entire week!

Actually, I cheated as that wasn't the Bank Holiday Weekend show, which featured some boring impressionists.

Anyway, the other thing about the Story Of Light Entertainment is that the opening sequence features some graphics which seem to owe a lot to the template for Lubin Odana's blog. Hey, will the person who designed it be able to sue the BBC?

Bank Holiday telly, volume one of several hundred. Hopefully I will be able to spin this out for a bit.

... actually I have got masses of ideas for posts at the moment, while at the same time being fucking sick and tired of blogging. I think I have some sort of blogging anaemia. Every time I surf the net it sucks the life out of me, whereas it used to be *fun* ...

Oh, where was I? The Reading Festival highlights were on tv over the weekend. There was to be no Glastonbury 2006, hence the BBC's Reading coverage. Fortunately, there were less opportunities here to show continuity bits with people dressed as rubber tractors, or naked pregnant women dancing as some pillock plays the bongoes.

Instead there was a report in which *heavy metal fans* complained about the number of nice, posh, trendy young girls walking about "texxing" people on their phones. "It's not about standing around trying to look cool and fashionable, it's about getting sweaty and jumping about to the music!" one *metal fan* complained. In turn, if these *metal fans* had been observed by some old school, Castle Donington style metallers - the sort of blokes who would throw bottles of piss at the stage - they would have been criticised themselves. "Worra load of fookin' posers" yer old school metaller would say, "any man uz uses hair gel and deodorant isn't a man in moy opinion. Look at that one with the pink spoiky hair and the oye make up on - 'e's gorra be tekkin' the piss, roit?"

Anyway, some of the bands ...

THE FALL. Most fortysomethings who hang around with people who like music will know at least one unassuming, anonymous looking bloke (married, two kids-ahh) who has given up buying CD's or listening to new music but still makes a pilgrimage to see the Fall every now and then. Yep, they're all here. The bobbing heads and girlfriends sitting on their boyfriends' shoulders are all absent from the Fall's audience. Everyone is completely stationary, and more often than not completely bald.

Geoff sez "Fifty year old man in jeans-ahh, looks like Grandpa Walton-ahh" in honour of MES. Look, Mark's mail order bride who is half his age is still playing keyboards! Hasn't she had quite a good innings by his usual standards?

The sound is pretty beefy and rocky. In other words, disappointing, but still a lot better than most other stuff shown over the weekend.

GOGOL BORDELLO. Awful. A depressing reminder of the mid-1980's. Probably would've been sixth on the bill behind Billy Bragg, The Communards, The Frank Chickens, Porky The Poet and Annie Whitehead at a Save The Lewisham Guatemalan Poetry Workshop benefit concert. No wonder Phil Bloodybastard Jupitus likes them.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE. One of those Canadian collectives featuring about thirty dishevelled people on stage playing the violin or the bassoon or shrieking. I just don't get this, or Arcade Fire. What is it with me? What is it with them?

THE STREETS. Like I say, you have to stick up for your own sort. Mike Skinner is a former Brummie Cockney and so, apparently, am I, so he's alright in my opinion. Besides, he has got wonky teeth and is quite cute on the dirty old woman Betty-ometer. The husband can't stand him. That Dry Your Eyes Mate thing is pretty mawkish though, eh? Except for the dog in the video. Fucking excellent actor. Go over to YouTube and find the video for Dry Your Eyes Mate! The dog should get a BAFTA award.

... oh, an the young people of today at the festival all seem so nice and polite. At one point some of them had a pillow fight. Isn't that all a bit Malory Towers?

"I say!! Alicia has managed to persuade Joanna the cook to make us some delicious potted meat sandwiches and one of her marvellous cakes!!! We'll be able to have a midnight feast, Mary Lou! It's going to be absolutely spiffing! Gosh, I can't wait!!!"

Help! The following podcasts are forming an orderly queue ...

The latest Mikecast (er, he is on the far left. I think ...)

About thirty Swipecasts.

A Rockmooooothahcast.

A RockabillyOyeBillycast.


That bloke Istvanski, or Bukowski, or Lebowsky or whatever he is called. Actually, I don't know much about him but he sounds a bit Polish. Us Slavs have got to stick together, innit?

Anyway, the husband has now banned podcasts during the hours that he is at home because it eats into valuable time. Therefore I tend to listen to them when I do the ironing or dusting or other housewifely duties. I don't fancy having to forego several hours of sleep just to listen to them at three in the morning, so there are only two choices as far as I can see:

1. Murder the husband and free up some extra valuable time.

2. Listen to them about six months after they were published, or posted or whatever it is called.

I'll let you know which course of action I intend to take in due course.

Rest assured, there won't be a Bettycast available until technology means you can get a microphone for a quid from Argos and I have managed to master the Bontempi organ. Which means by about 2037 then.

Oy, look, people, Caroline is back! Go over there now before she disappears again.

* * * * * * *

I also feel obliged to provide a link to this ridiculous woman, because she keeps leaving me dozens of threatening e-mails and I am SCARED.

Ithankyooo.

The British August Bank Holiday is something like the fourth most depressing time of year in Britain, because it signifies the end of summer and the inevitable slump towards Christmas, darkness and wanting to kill yourself.

Still, chin up! There's nothing I like better to do on a Bank Holiday than get out and about, or "oot and aboot" as my millions of Canadian readers would say.

Yes, I'm likely to bung on a pair of tweed plus fours, a hacking jacket, some long woolly socks, a pair of muddy hobnail boots and deerstalker hat and march out of the house slapping my thigh, pipe in hand and tobacco pouch in top left breast pocket. Then in my deep, gruff voice I will bellow "I SAY! WHAT A SPIFFING DAY! WHAT A TOPHOLE WHEEZE!"

Where better than Kent, the garden of England, for a super day out? There are untold treasures on my doorstep. Here are some of them:

BURSTED WOODS near Barnehurst Station. The last time I went for a ramble around here, I saw a rat the size of a pig being chased by a swooping kestrel. It epitomised the terrifying brutality of nature. Marvel also at the detrius strewn about - syringes, old petrol canisters, condoms, porn mags, the occasional corpse left there after an altercation between gangsters. What is more healthy than a walk in the countryside?

There is an organisation called The Friends Of Bursted Woods.

GREENWICH FOOT TUNNEL. Imagine the smell of a chemical toilet in a coach that has been used by a victorious but drunken rugby team returning from a tournament. That's the smell emanating from Greenwich Foot Tunnel, that is. Not only that, but you emerge on the Isle Of Dogs. Walk around all those weird brightly coloured flats that no-one seems to live in! Enjoy the sort of "beach" and how you can see Greenwich from across the water!

CRAYFORD. Crayford has a river, and a sculpture which owes a lot to Edvard Munch's The Scream.

Why not relax and have a stale piece of cake and mug of tea at Sainsbury's cafe?

KENT'S BEAUTIFUL COASTLINE. There are windswept resorts throughout Kent with names like Sandgitt, Westgitt, Northgitt, Eastgitt and Margitt. You can walk along the prom or the miles of unspoilt shingle beach freezing your bollocks off and not see another soul, apart perhaps from a pensioner who will reminisce about the days you could see Max Miller, Max Wall, Dickie Henderson and a young Bruce Forsyth on the same bill at the Hippodrome for a thruppeny bit. The lying old nutbar.

Happy holidays. Just don't stay in and let life pass you by.

Well, thank the f*ck that's all over. Fifty posts about having difficult and unmanageable hair was a bit too difficult and unmanageable for anyone to read. Unless you were Nicky Clarke.

Any road, by way of a change, can I just get on the bandwagon and say what everyone else has been saying for ages.

ISN'T YOUTUBE BRILLYUNT?

I mean ...

A Certain Ratio doing Forced Laugh. Possibly A Certain's greatest track. The poor sound quality only emphasises its SPOOKINESS.

David Bowie doing the '60's version of Space Oddity, as mentioned in a post I did a year ago. Mmm, gooorgeous, and those lovely wonky teeth ... Besides which, this one doesn't feature much *work* from the Lindsay Kemp School Of Mime School, which is something to be grateful for.

Television doing Foxhole. Wonderful: included here because Tom Verlaine looks haggard, strung out and cute. Mmm, nice wonky teeth!

Lou Christie doing I'm Gonna Make You Mine. What better way to capture the slightly disturbing world of Lou Christie than a promo film set in a scrap metal yard? From the same director who brought you Scott Walker singing Plastic Palace People while strolling around Barnsley Corporation Tip and Tyrannosaurus Rex on the Dymchurch Light Railway! I made the last bit up! I'd also like to recommend Lou's retrospective album, Original Sinner, with its over excitable sleeve notes, and his over excitable website, particularly the scrap book.

The Runaways doing Cherry Bomb. Included here for Tom 909, who claims there should be more hot babes on the site. Well, here are some sweet, innocent and blushing young maidens for you Tom. One of the best singles of all time, actually.

Happy linkage, readers ...

Oh, sorry, you only read the first line, as usual.

The young women in the picture above were part of a singing group that appeared on light entertainment programmes throughout the 1980's. One of their number was "disappeared", possibly due to a David A. Stewart-related coup in the Wag Club circa 1984.

The fact that it was now acceptable for women to walk around with hair that looked as if it been dried in a cake blender (including dried up cake mix) made my 1980's slightly easier from a tonsorial point of view. The introduction of rudimentary hairstyling products like Boots' Country Born hair gel (which left huge clumps of bits of dried green plastic stuff on your scalp and smelt rank) at least meant that you could wash and go with something resembling The Rubbish Styles That People Have In Magazines.

As the 1980's dragged on, hair grew BIGGER and BIGGER. Even my unbelievably normal sister-in-law used to have a big curly perm. I have seen the photographic evidence. Carole "Oh! Eyes Wide! Like A Child In The Form Of ... MAN!" Decker and Julia Roberts embodied the look of the day. If I used enough mousse, hair gel and spray and backcombed enough, I could achieve massive hairness without the aid of a perm, and it looked even better after a windswept walk in the driving rain. At last I felt free to be meee, even though I had created a twenty mile hole in the ozone layer.

Then, inevitably, the dark days returned. Long faced, beige all over Jennifer Aniston cast a scrawny shadow over the 1990's and we were back to neat, tidy, flat, glossy hair as a fashion statement. Hair straighteners were supposed to be compulsorily used by every woman, regardless of age, hair type, race. Presumably now you are supposed to travel from door to door by taxi so that you don't have to encounter any sort of adverse weather condition which will encourage those awful kinks in your hair that will make you a laughing stock to the pinch faced, undernourished fashionistas.

Except I've had enough of it. I'm too old to care about fashion anymore. I will never own a set of hair straighteners. If you want to accuse me of looking as if I have put my finger in an electric socket ... well, so be it.

I probably have. Just for a larff. Hahahaha.

The next two posts are the ones I have found most difficult to write in this blog's history.

They are about the bane of my life. They are about my hair.

Above is a picture of some young women who were part of a sibling vocal act that regularly appeared as guests on light entertainment-style tv programmes in the mid to late 1970's. Actually, I seem to remember that there were about a dozen of them, but perhaps the others were "disappeared" due to a light entertainment coup on Blackpool Tower Ballroom during a recording of Seaside Special.

Thing is, all of the women in the photo are representatives of THE ONLY HAIRSTYLES YOU WERE ALLOWED TO HAVE INFLICTED ON YOU IF YOU WENT TO A PROVINCIAL HAIRDRESSER BETWEEN THE YEARS 1973 AND 1982. ESPECIALLY THE BLONDE ONE ON THE RIGHT.

It should be noted that between the ages of twelve and sixteen, we are not, in general, creative, independent and rebellious, as tends to be suggested by older people who like to romanticise their past. In fact, within our peer group, we are as conformist as can be.

Look at a group of teens walking down the street and their identikit clothes/hair/jewellery/mannerisms, and note the desire to belong.

Luckily, growing up in the drab 1970's, at least we had yet to be subjected to the need to wear expensive designer crappy sportswear. Vile, drab, floppy highwaister trousers, wing collars and disgusting v-neck jumpers were standard wear for boys, along with those wide fronted noisy shoes with metal segs (known as blakeys by southern jess readers). Vile, drab, floppy highwaister skirts, wing collars and skyscraper orthopaedic shoes were standard wear for girls. We looked a complete mess.

The main thing about hair, regardless of your gender, was that it had to be collar length, shiny, layered, have flicky bits at the side and had to TURN UNDER at the back and sides. NO FLYAWAY BITS ALLOWED. It was blow dried by the hairdresser and that was it.

For someone with naturally curly hair this meant that every hairdresser appointment was a nightmare. You managed to emerge from the salon looking neat and glossy after half an hour with one of those circular hairbrushes being dragged around your head under a scaldingly hot hairdryer, but, in a decade devoid of hair products like mousse, serum or wax, within a few hours you were back to the usual I Have Spent The Evening Helping The Police With Their Enquiries look (minus the suspicious looking bruises).

The full extent of my outsider/failure status emerged when L***** B**** shouted at me "NO ONE WOULD WANT TO WALK AROUND WITH A TATTY HEAD OF HAIR LIKE YOURS" during registration circa 1976.

What can I say? Thankfully, punk emerged in the same year and gave some of us an excuse to walk around looking as though we had emerged from a cement mixer.

Well, I didn't look anything more threatening that Quietly New Wave as it happens, being too much of a wuss. It would've solved a lot of problems if I'd been hard though.

* * * * * **

Part two of this tragic epic voyage of self discovery to follow soon.

Well, the previous post certainly provoked some long and heartfelt comments: if I finally decide to pointlessly embark on a degree after losing my marbles, the comments may well stand me in good stead when I'm writing up my two thousand page dissertation.

I have to apologise for my ill-thought-out responses to them. I'm not used to actually thinking about things because I don't know about Stuff. I will stick to the usual shallow, vindictive subject matter that you know and love ... that you know and are indifferent to me for.

... except that I've got a two part cathartic post up and coming. Hopefully I'll emerge from it all as a more rounded person with a better grasp on reality.

Anyway, it'll soon be over and done with, so bear with me (... no, not "bare with me". I don't want this to become the world's first communal naturist blog. Ugh.)

The picture isn't relevant to the post. It's just something nice for me to look at whenever I come back here.

The arrival on our screens of Big Brother signifies the start of summer. The arrival of A-level exam results signifies the end of summer.

So today let's just savour the A-level results on the news, as, for the twenty third year running, we see loads of lovelynice middle class girls with lovely straight white teeth, lovely straight glossy long swingy hair and lovely, supernaturally clear English rose complexions opening those envelopes and saying "Ohmigaaahd I can't beleeeeeeve it! Seven straight A's!!! I'm definitely in my first choice university ... I think!" with all the hugging and squealing. Yet again, those of us who can be classified as Academic Failures will wince and wonder if these girls will end up having dynamic exciting lives, or if everything thereafter will be a disappointment to them.

(lone, entirely mad reader who has actually read the archives says ... HOLD YOUR HOSSES! Oy, Betty, you old bag, didn't you publish a post about this exactly two years ago?

Betty says: yes, but I'm not above recycling my crappy old posts in this environmentally conscious age and nobody else read the fucking thing in the first place ...

I still stand by everything I put in that long, rambling, badly written post. Should we really set such stock by someone's A-level results? Is that the be all and end all in life - you are defined by your exam results, which university you went to and how much you earn?

In which case, I should obviously have topped myself years ago. With a paltry smattering of average graded O-levels and A-levels, a succession of low grade clerical jobs and no degree, I obviously have no quality of life worth living.

The weird thing about blogging is that most bloggers are ex-graduates and solidly middle class, which certainly makes me an outsider.

If you do fit into the ex-graduate category - any opinions as to whether education has made you a more enlightened person or not, and helped you in certain aspects of your life? Or were you disillusioned by the whole process?

Perhaps my lack of educational achievement has contributed to my bitter, cynical attitude. Perhaps a spell in university would have hardened my bitter, cynical attitude.

A word of warning though: please don't say "oooh, there's still time for you to become a mature student" or I won't be responsible for my actions.

Sorry to be recycling Unwell Geoffrey's old posts, but I once more make reference to lantern jawed Bill Nelson-a-like Terry Christian and his outburst against Chris Evans:

"If you've got anybody hailing fucking Chris Evans as a genius, you've got something very wrong with the world, right? He's a working class kid from Warrington. No passion, no conviction, not interested in music, not interested in culture, not interested in the world of people...hates people. He's like Morrissey, he's a complete fucking misanthrope."

Apart from the fact that he is pretty spot on about Chris Evans, I'm sure that Terry has had a bone to pick about something that happened between the two of them in the dim and distant past. Perhaps they had a row over who landed the plum job on BBC Radio Warrington's breakfast show in 1985? Did Terry ended up losing out at the job interview and, as compensation, was given the the graveyard "Radio Quiet FM" slot between three and five in the morning. Who knows?

What I object to most is that Mr Christian does a real disservice to misanthropes.

I'm proud to stand up and admit that I'm a grumpy, people hating old git (although you will have worked this out by now). Although I wouldn't say I was quite as extreme as toddler tantrum throwing, child bride divorcing radio and television genius (as they used to say in the mid 1990's) Evans or Morrissey, the ex-pat former popstar. After all, Chris Evans is a bully and Morrissey seems to think that it's okay to continue letting millions of people die of cancer and Parkinson's disease rather than harm one ickle bunny wunny in medical research, and I don't really have time for that. Regarding the latter, it's possibly because I've witnessed both my parents and an eighteen year old cousin have long and gruesome terminal illnesses courtesy of the big C., and not because I'm full of goodwill to mankind.

Anyway, the upshot is, in my whole life I've probably met about twenty people at most that I actually like much. Consider all the other people you have to wade through to get to the good ones though:

1. Amoral, self promoting bastards.
2. The sort of person who says "I'm not a racist, but the thing is, there isn't enuff inbred white English people left in Britain and it makes me sick. I'm thinking of moving abroad to get away from it ackcherly".
2. People who think that someone is only a success if they have two massive cars in the drive and a salary over £80K.
3. People who will only associate with other people who have at least two massive cars in the drive and a salary of at least £80K.
4. People who drive 4WD's and say "it's an affront to my freedom of choice, having to pay all this extra tax".
5. People who talk about nothing but their Darling Ever So Gifted Children.
6. People with halitosis.
7. Wife beaters.
8. Nick Ferrari.
9. The sort of windows, doors and conservatories salesmen who virtually bully you into getting a consultation which you agree to out of politeness, then, when you decide not to get all your windows fitted for some extravagant price, harangue you on the phone for half an hour, telling you "it would be a TRAGEDY if you didn't have this job done".
10.Those really two faced (multi faced?) women in offices who slag someone off to your face, then slag YOU off the minute you leave the room.
11. People who Intend To Vote For David Cameron (ooh).
12. Fourteen year old boys.

Look, I've given you a dozen reasons to hate people. Think of all the other thousands, nay, millions of awful types of people out there! I'm entirely loathsome myself! Say it loud: "I'M A MISANTHROPE AND I'M PROUD!"

A quick dose of old-school, diary-style blogging, from the days before we just did posts about blogging versus the old media and how we bloggers have started a revolution that *They* just can't stop.

* * * * * * *

First up, the brother in law, John Terry lookalike Stooooowurrt has brought some fencing round so that Ron can replace the rotting bit of fence that sways about and creaks ominously in a light breeze. So one of the days next week I will have to hang around the house all day feeling self conscious while proffering cups of tea to Ron as he does a botch job which we will have to pay more for a proper fencer to fix.

Secondly, the mother in law today was trying to encourage us to invest with her in a holiday home in Ilfracombe. She has decreed that "in a few years time people will be afraid to travel on planes and will just holiday in this country".

The homes in Ilfracombe cost a very reasonable £89,000. They were advertised in the Daily Mail. There was a classic Mail headline, which I noticed as she leafed through the paper: DRINKING, GAMBLING, BRAWLING, WOMANISING - SO THAT'S WHY THEY MADE JOHN TERRY ENGLAND CAPTAIN! I could just imagine the frosty-knickers, Neighbourhood Watch, Tory voting late middle aged women clutching their starched petticoats and tutting as they climbed up onto the moral highground in a fit of indignance reading that.

Anyway, the home in Ilfracombe would, according to the M-I-L, be an ideal place to "escape to after a hard week working up in London". The M-I-L is retired. She is obviously referring to Geoff. "You could travel down on a Friday night and come back on Sunday."

To drive to the west country from ours takes forever. We would arrive at Ilfracombe at five in the morning, spend the weekend sleeping, set off for home early on Sunday and get back at three o'clock on Monday morning.

Things are looking up if we are too mean to contribute to the Ilfracombe bolthole though! There are also some homes available in the New Forest, which is nearer, and which start from £25,000.

The words "piss in a bucket", "miles from a shop" , "local yokel murderer still on loose after five year killing spree" and "bring your own bunsen burner for cooking purposes" don't even figure in the advertising!

One of those coincidences that are strangely commonplace when they are connected to dreams ...

Last night I dreamt that our flight to Lisbon next month had been changed at the last minute to three o'clock in the morning "for security reasons". I was really pissed off with this in the dream, but when I woke up and watched the news at breakfast time I found out about this.

Cue spooky John Carpenter music ...

If I dream that the plane explodes just before the actual flight to Lisbon, I'm staying at home.

UPDATE: Some bloke on BBC News 24 was saying that we're now looking at a situation where all passengers from Britain to America will have to face "having all bodily cavities searched" at customs.

I don't fancy walking with a bandy legged gait and wearing a pained expression for a fortnight after that. Besides, how are you supposed to sit down for a two hour flight in that condition?

No, it looks as if I will never visit New York or fly over the Grand Canyon. Unless I swim to the U.S.

About last night ...

Oh, the horror, the horror. It was like a cross between Fawlty Towers, The Beatles' Revolution 9, that Two Ronnies' Mastermind send up where the bloke answers the question before last, the dream sequence with the dwarf in Twin Peaks, the game of Russian Roulette in the Deerhunter and Abigail's Party. As we were the only contestants who weren't becoming increasingly drunk the experience was even more harrowing and strangely at a distance, as if seen through an anaesthetic.

We gave up halfway through, before the witching hour.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

One of my numerous plate-spinning side projects. When you are creative you just have to get it out of your system or summat.

"Geoffrey Is Unwell" (seen here before framing) will be exhibited at Barnehurst Library until the end of August.

Ye Gods, I'm spinning so many internet plates at the moment that I don't have time to think, let alone have half an hour for a good sitdown on the lavvy reading Roy Hudd's Cavalcade Of Variety Acts.

All those plates might come crashing down with a big old clattering racket, but that's the fun of living on the edge of madness, isn't it?

First up, I've got my secret blog, where I pour my heart out about all my insecurities and try to sort myself out, so I become a happy, balanced person who is helpful to others and has a demanding but successful career! There is obviously Stuff In My Past that needs assessing before I can go on to the Next Stage, and I have to Reach Closure and Grasp The Nettle and other Californian self-help bollocks which ordinary people are now dropping into conversation because they've seen the Trisha show and that. I have been crying a lot but it's cathartic, innit? As someone who was doing a psychology A-level said to me a long time ago, "****, (my real name), you're a lovely person, but all that cynicism is just a defence mechanism". If only I'd heeded those words!

Then there's my band's MySpace. Low Breasts are a middle aged All Wimmin art terrorist feminist collective influenced by Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, the first three Slits' gigs, The Society For Cutting Up Men (SCUM), The Baader-Meinhof gang, Mrs Mills and Mrs Miller. We consider ourselves a walking art installation, and for the past month of Sundays (hah!) have been stationed on Whitstable seafront handing out cans of worms with a can opener to people, encouraging them them to open the tin. They we stand in front of them and scream "HAR HAR! YOU'VE OPENED A RIGHT CAN OF WORMS THERE!" As far as the MySpace goes, so far we've only got two "friends" - the evil, grinning Tom and a highly strung fourteen year old girl from Connecticut who likes multiple piercings and collecting animal skulls. Still ...

Finally ... (roll of drums) there's Geoff And Betty's First Podcast! They're all doin' it! Yes, blogging's answer to John and Fanny Craddock take you on a three and a half hour journey, with recollections of our childhoods "when it was all trees and fields around 'ere", a couple of delicious low fat recipes that are just the thing for a high summer tea, a description of a lovely countryside walk around Appledore, Kent, and some treasures from our vast music collection, including tracks by Winifred Attwell, Mrs Mills, Mrs Miller, Manuel And His Music Of The Mountains and Percy Faith. No, make that the Cliff Michelmore and Jean Metcalf of blogging! Subscribe to our next 15 podcasts now!

Phew! Back to the grindstone now! If I stop, I might realise how empty my life is and have a breakdown of some sort!

Further music related rubbish. I'll get back to covering "more important things" such as gynaecology, knitting, and how fascinating my ten grandchildren are soon, honest.

* * * * * * *

R.I.P. Arthur Lee of Love, aged 61, of acute myeloid leukaemia. The blurb on the back of the re-issued Forever Changes says "1967. Nothing caught the strangeness of those days, or captured the beauty and dread they contained, quite like Love's masterpiece Forever Changes" which probably covers it.

* * * * * * *

R.I.P. Tony Ogden of World Of Twist, aged 44, cause as yet unknown. The band released two great singles, The Storm and Sons Of The Stage, and an iffy album, never quite fulfilling their potential. Great fun live though - they were trying to be a prog rock band on a fifty pence budget and were probably a bit of an anachronism in the days of such giants of talent as Ned's Atomic Dustbin and The Senseless Things. I have a feeling one Jarvis Cocker may have been taking notes, though ...

With thanks to Delrico and Simon Reynolds, where I found out the news first. Not that Simon Reynolds is likely to drop by here, mind.

The world of blogging was quite liderally numb with shock today because it appears that a whole several hours has gone by since one of the Independent's fragrant laaydeee columnists dismissed bloggers as a load of sad anoraks who should get a life and do something interesting with their time because they could never hope to get a job as a fragrant laaaydeee columnist with the Independent (non-British readers note: the Independent is a national newspaper with very poor sales figures).

According to several fragrant laaaaaaaydi columnists with the Independent, real life laaaydees should be hugging their children, spending at least five hours a day preparing something tasty and healthy for dinner at the Aga, juggling motherhood and a high pressured job as a laidey columnist with the Independent, bullying and berating other women who are not as *successful* as them, ordering their personal shopper to look out some Chanel suits for them to try on, deciding what colour scheme would work in the guest bedroom, planning a long-haul trip to Tibet for the weekend, deciding whether to attend a party to launch a new Salman Rushdie novel, applying for a job as a fragrant laaaaydeee columnist with the Times because the money is better, making wild, passionate love with their "partners" (except, being bloggers, they won't have "partners", tee hee), spending ages deciding whether they can wear the new "balloon" shape which is going to be in this autumn, getting into shape with their personal trainer and telling the cleaner off for not dusting behind the radiators.

* * * * * * *

In other news, the fragrant laaaaeedy columnists working for the Independent newspaper were quite liderally numb with shock today to find out that most bloggers couldn't give a flying fuck about getting a job with the Independent. Several wouldn't even consider working as a teaboy/girl on their local freebie paper, and indeed wouldn't want ANY CAREER IN THE FUCKING MEDIA. Some bloggers even went so far as to state that THEY ONLY BLOG BECAUSE THEY ENJOY DOING IT AND THERE IS NO HIDDEN AGENDA AND THEY DON'T WANT TO GET A PUBLISHING DEAL OR BECOME AN EGOTISTICAL ARSEHOLE JOURNALIST.

* * * * * * *

Ah, glad I've got that out of my system ...

(with thanks to the writer of this article)