because the clash always make everything better. i know it wasn't a great single but it's all i could lay my hands on at this time in the morning. and i meant to be all may dayey and rowdy but as usual i didn't know what day it was and forgot.

torment tuesday

joe meek must've been a football supporter. there's no other way there couldve been such anguish pouring out of 304 holloway road. i hate football. i used to like it but preston north end have put me right off. this week is going to be awful. they've just thrown away the season. there's the tiniest hope of the play - offs, but it's so tiny and involves beating birmingham and other teams losing that it's too torturous to think about. and i don't think i could cope with play offs for the third year running anyway. the fact that john leyton was in the great escape is not something i'm taking as any kind of omen. really. bollocks.



'johnny remember me' was made for weeks like this. i'll rattle on about why next week when i've calmed down a bit.


john leyton - johnny remember me


you can watch a gorgeous bit of john leyton singing this here

i'm not getting on that bloody thing

my london has been suffering lately. the last couple of years have seen horrid horrid things. both my 10p italian soho eating spots closed, the staff in the coach stopped being quite so hilariously rubbish, reckless records slowly crumbled to nothing, the should be bloomin listed raymond revue bar sign was covered by some of the direst graphics you'll ever see, and buses went long and bendy. they're the foul transport of the devil, and to prove it we asked the nice people at consumer champions magazine which? to do us a graph and some other stuff...







nothing proves a point better that a mystifying graph. i've got a thing about graphs, i can't do maths, never know what they're on about, but show me a pie chart and i'm sold.




most of all lets think of the children.
what kind of future can we expect when there's a whole generation who will never know the joy of making your shopping laden folks clamber up windy cramped too steep lurching as the bus moves off stairs cos you've got to get that front right hand seat and drive. and what's the point of not buying a ticket if you don't have to hide under your seat giggling madly when the conducter comes round. we're doomed i tell you, doomed.




you can keep you're 69 chevys and your brand new cadillacs, i'll be sneaking a crafty fag and scratching i woz ere on the back seat top deck and daring anyone to try and stop me...

torment tuesday

i'm a big fan of the regular feature, the comfort of opening heat straight to 'where's winehouse?', or the ghost of electricity friday funk bit , so i thought we'd best have one here. it's time then for...

torment tuesday! a journey into the darkest depths of despair on the worst day of the week...

and no one knows tears and heartbreak like a teenage girl, especially one with big hair. forget the sad dull mumblings of your radioheads or your gawd knows who else is supposed to be depressing schoolboys and music writers this week, the songs of the truly defeated are sung by the shangri-las


the myrmidons of melodrama have it all


the shangri-las - dressed in black

so the desperate hopes of the weekend crumble, the phone still doesn't ring, and teenage angst is back again...

abc

and this week kenneth opens his doors to the letter c.
now that you're getting the hang of this polari lark i think it's time we gave you a few more words to learn each bijou lesson, something to really sink your bexleys into. so my dears, here's...



c is for

charper
meaning to seek or look
from which we get...
charpering omee
a policeman!

and we'll have
chavvies
meaning children

and to introduce a bit of filth how's about
cleaning the kitchen
which all you perverse deviants will already know as rimming. shocking i'm sure.

next week we'll try to string a few things together to give you a few choice phrases to throw into your delightful conversations, so get practicing duckies...


the best english c word is definately
cuddle
everyone loves a good cuddle, and it's so much better than a hug. i generally insist on the standard north london pronunciation which turns L into W, the whole thing kind of ends up cahdawl (or something). think a much softer eastenders and you're halfway there.


c is also for deeply missed, ever wonderful
curtis mayfield
i feel like something stirring and majestic this morning so let's have 'right on for the darkness' off of 'back to the world'. soul heaven.

curtis mayfield - right on for the darkness

happy birthday dusty

so today we celebrate

i tried very hard all weekend to write something good for a change but it was all sunny and i had a whole lot of sitting around to do and i convinced myself that all my gushing would be wasted because you've all got everything ever released and know everything there is to know and that all that would make your day of dusty complete would be some funny pictures and a couple of live treasures...



it took me an age to decide which songs to play so being a ditherer for england i've picked three fairly randomly. 'where am i going?' i still find almost impossible to listen to without bursting into tears, the longing of 'the look of love' is pretty much crippling too, so there's 'people get ready' to set you off to face the world again (once your tears have dried).

dusty springfield - where am a going
dusty springfield - the look of love (live)
dusty springfield - people get ready (live)

there's masses of dusty gems on youtube but i'd never seen her delivering bread before ...

i'm so jealous i could ....aaaarrrrggghhh!!!

andy wake must die. i used to like him but he's just sent me these pictures. these are his. not just pictures but actual bits of whatever it is badges are made from.


you can send death threats and pleas to go round for at least a little look to medium cool
and i thought my wah! heat badge was good...