Out On Blue Six: Sophie Ellis-Bextor

2003. Where were you? Where were you at that pivotal moment when Sophie Ellis-Bextor went blonde?!

In all seriousness, Mixed Up World kind of means a lot to me. It was an 'our song' of sorts, played repeatedly during dates in a local bar at the start of what went on to become the longest romantic relationship I have had in my life.

Whilst that relationship ended, my crush on Sophie continues to last to this day. And I still say her walk to camera in this video as she delivers the song's opening lines is one of the sexiest things ever.

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Wordless Wednesday: In The Ginnel

RIP Tony Haygarth

Following the sad news of the death of character actor John Forgeham, comes news of another loss to the character actor world with the death of the great Tony Haygarth at 72 from Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.

Born in Liverpool, Tony started out his career - in between 'proper' jobs as a life guard in Torquay and a psychiatric nurse at Sefton General - as a performance poet in the burgeoning tradition that was then developing on Merseyside. Bitten by the performance bug he headed to London with friend Geoffrey Hughes (Coronation Street, Keeping up Appearances and The Royle Family) to make his name.  It wasn't long before Haygarth had developed a very healthy career on the stage and the screen, both TV and film.

Film roles included Percy, Unman, Wittering and Zigo, 1979's Dracula, McVicar, Britannia Hospital, A Private Function, The Bride, Clockwise, The Dressmaker and Chicken Run, whilst on television his recurring and significant roles included performances in Scully (as 'Dracula', the caretaker nemesis to the teenage hero) Emmerdale, The Rotters Club, Our Friends in the North, Boys from the Blackstuff, Rosie, Making Out and The Borrowers, as well as the lead role in Nigel Kneale's 1981 sci fi sitcom Kinvig. Significant guest roles in TV shows such as Casualty, The Bill, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Last of the Summer Wine, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, Shoestring, Bergerac, Lovejoy, Between The Lines, Sharpe, Hornblower, Inspector Morse Preston Front and I, Claudius.

He was a key figure in Bill Bryden's hard drinking Cottesloe company at the National in the '80s, he won a prestigious Equity Clarence Derwent award for his performance in Sam Shepard's Simpatico in the 90s and appeared in revivals of Twelve Angry Men (by Harold Pinter), Pygmalion and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice in the 00s. 

RIP

Fighting Back: Mental Health and PIP Petition

Theresa May's government is changing the rules to ensure that people with mental health problems will no longer be eligible for essential financial support such as PIP (Personal Independence Payment)

You may remember that cunt George Freeman who outlined this plan by stating that PIP should only be available for the 'really disabled' and not people 'taking pills at home, who suffer from anxiety' 

It's worth noting that PIP assessors routinely ask claimants 'why haven't you killed yourself yet?'  - The Tories clearly would prefer it if anyone with depression and anxiety did just that; saving them money in the process. But for now, they're happy to just put a halt to claims based on mental health and they are hoping to pass this cut through without a vote next week, but plans are afoot to secure a vote in the Commons by special parliamentary process and it's relying on a public outcry to be done. So please sign this petition and let's get our voices heard!

Rapid Reviews: List of the Lost by Morrissey

'Beware the novelist' the blurb on the back of this book intones...

After reading it, all I can say is beware the novelist indeed! Because this is such a disappointing mess. I love The Smiths, I like Morrissey. I read the autobiography and I felt that his prose suggested he had a natural voice for the novel. I looked forward to him one day tackling the genre.

But no way did I expect this utter bumwash to be the result! 

There are some good lines here. But they are few and far between. Characters speak like no real persons ever do. Witness one scene in which Ezra and Eliza, the All American high school sweethearts, discuss - with remarkable insight, like all American teenagers in 1975 didn't do - the then Tory leader of the opposition, Margaret Thatcher.

"I hate womb-men like that...they just can't wait to be one of the boys...and just watch, if she becomes Prime Minister, she won't hire any women in her government"

When one of them goes on to mistakenly call her Margaret Hatchet instead of Thatcher, it is immediately picked up on in the most immature, clunkily pretentious of ways

"Her name's Thatcher. Although you could be right when you say Hatchet. Just look at that boneless face...if ever an engine of grief..."

By the way the ellipses are the author's own. See what I mean? It's like the adolescent Adrian Mole thinking he's being daring and politically cutting. I'm a socialist, so I'm always up for someone giving the Iron Lady a good kicking, but please, this was embarrassing. And there's a lot more of this style in the non-event narrative of murder and four promising Bostonian track athletes.

Mercifully, the novella is just 118 pages long and I read it in one sitting. But if you ask me, it's 117 pages too many.

Gig Review: Josie Long - Something Better @Liverpool Epstein Theatre, 13/3/17

Right up front I have to say that Josie Long is an inspiration to me. 

Let me explain; this is a woman of my age group with the same left-leaning politics and alternative outlook as I possess. Yet, unlike me, Long exudes a cheery, bright, good-natured optimism at every turn. She seemingly has this incredibly capacity to take every bitter disappointment in our political landscape in her stride and maintain her inimitable positive spirit in the face of extreme adversity and disappointment.

In Something Better, the show she has been touring up and down the country since February this year (following residencies at London's Soho Theatre and New York's Barrow Street Theatre at the tail end of last year) Josie admits that it's not always easy to remain optimistic in the wake of Brexit, UKIP, Theresa May, Donald Trump and a Labour Party that seems hellbent on toppling its democratically elected leader. But after tonight's experience, I know that there's something about being in a room full of like-minded people attuned to an exceptional performer on the stage that certainly helps life our collective spirits!

Unusually, Josie was on stage as the audience arrived. This wasn't the show she took pains to point out several times - hilariously - but rather, the pre-show karaoke thanks to the music on her iPhone. Basically, Josie wanted to greet everyone with a little sing-a-long and deconstruction of her new favourite song. I must confess to never truly 'hearing' the lyrics of this, but after Josie broke it down, I know I will never hear it any other way now

She then did a mini-set to kick off the show and explain her outlook and politics, as well as the banners that graced her set, which were full of uplifting messages like 'Minimum Expectation, Maximum Ambition' and a portrait of 1970s Scottish trade unionist Jimmy Reid.

This led to an amusing story about how Josie has so much respect for Reid that she has this banner on her wall at home, and how her flatmate asked a visitor if they knew who it was. ''Um, Fred West?'' came the answer! Who would put Fred West on their wall?!

Josie then vacated the stage for her support act, Tez Ilyas, a very funny young British Asian comic who had some good lines about what it is to be a Muslim these days ("we've become recurring characters on that long running series...what's it called? The news") as well as the perils of Tinder. Following an interval, Josie was back to do the show proper and a very fun 90 minute set it was too. All the expected topics were covered; The Tories, Brexit, UKIP, Trump, Corbyn, Baby Boomers and the bleak looking future they've handed to their children, and finally an explanation as to the uncharacteristic appearance Josie made on reality TV show Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls (basically they falsely hooked her in with the notion of it putting her politics into action and building a micro-society based on equality from the ground up) As with some of the best, most enjoyable stand up sets, I laughed so much yet can scarcely now recall half of the things I found so hilarious (though a very funny tease around a quotation from To Kill a Mockingbird remains in my head and I'm chuckling just thinking about it now) but what I have most emphatically come away with - despite her admission that it isn't always easy - is the notion that we have to be hopeful and we have to keep fighting and get active, however small. Josie's recommendation at the close of the set, to read Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark, is one I will definitely be looking into....just as soon as I can get Take That's Never Forget (the post-show karaoke song Josie serenaded us with as we left the theatre) out of my head!

The Something Better tour comes to a close this week with performances in Lancaster, Kendal, Nottingham and Tywyn. I heartily recommend anyone to check Josie out if ever you can, especially if you're on the left and feel a little disheartened with the world. You'll come away smiling and reminded that you are not alone. You are never alone.  

Out On Blue Six: Sister Sledge, RIP Joni Sledge

Sad to hear the news of the death of Sister Sledge star Joni Sledge, aged just 60. 

RIP

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