Blossom Dearie, RIP

How many of us are au fait with the great Blossom Dearie? Clive James is. Perhaps he is the only poet to have mentioned her in verse. Clive James, a poet? Yes, amongst his other talents. I remember reading a memorable paean to his wife on their anniversary about five years ago, and being a good (and idle) chap, I've looked it up for you.

Idle is an old romantic at heart, and will, as with all Valentine's days, make the lady idle a morning cup of tea in bed, put the loo seat down after use, order and collect the Chinese takeaway on Saturday evening, to be eaten, incongruously, with a bottle of Pol Roger.

Here is Clive James, pouring his heart out in most un-antipodean fashion.

Anniversary Serenade

You are my alcohol and nicotine,
My silver flask and cigarette machine.
You watch and scratch my back, you scrub me clean.
I mumble but you still know what I mean.
Know what I mean?
You read my thoughts, you see what I have seen.

You are my egg-flip and my ego trip,
My passion-fruit soufflé and strawberry whip.
When the dawn comes to catch you on the hip
I taste the sweet light on my fingertip.
My fingertip?
I lift it to my quivering lips and sip.

Homecoming Queen and mother of our two
Smart daughters who, thank God, take after you,
This house depends on what you say and do —
And all you do is wise and say is true.
And say is true?
True as a plumb-line or a billiard cue.

On from Byzantium to Cooch Behar
Our Messerschmitt two-seater bubble car,
Laden with foie gras and with caviare,
Follows the shining road to Shangri-la.
To Shangri-la?
With Blossom Dearie singing in the bar.

When the sun fades, the Earth will fly away.
Tell me it isn't happening today.
I have a debt of happiness to pay.
I die if you should leave, live if you stay.
Live if you stay?
Live like a king, proud as a bird of prey.

My share of Heaven and my sheer delight,
My soda fountain and my water-sprite,
My curving ribbon of a climbing kite,
You are my Starlight Roof, my summer night.
My summer night?
The flying foxes glide, the possums fight.

You are my honeydew and panther sweat,
The music library on my private jet.
Top of the bill, we fly without a net.
You are the stroke of luck I can't forget.
I can't forget?
I'm still not ready for you even yet.

You are my nicotine and alcohol,
My Stéphane Audran in a Claude Chabrol,
My sunlight through a paper parasol,
My live-in living doll and gangster's moll —
And gangster's moll?
Mine the fedora, yours the folderol.

The ring is closed. The rolling dice we cast
So long ago still roll but not so fast.
The colours fade that we nailed to the mast.
We lose the future but we own the past.
We own the past?
From our first kiss, a lifetime to the last.

(Spectator, April 9, 2005)

Just How Long is This Dead Snake?

Send Three and Fourpence, We're Going to a Dance

I'm driving into the snowdrifts of the Berkshire Downs to watch the idle girls' acting brilliance over the next couple of days at the school's Drama Weekend. So I'll leave you with a compo. It's not strictly Chinese Whispers, even though I have used the classic CW as the title of this post. (For overseas readers: A WW1 message from the front started out as "Send reinforcements, we're going to advance". By the time it had been passed on to HQ by three or four field radio operators, it read: "Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance").

No, it's more to do with cynical lefty manipulation. The post a week or so back about BBC doublespeak resulted in a comment thread which gave imaginary examples of lazy oafish overpaid Beeboids coming up with headlines giving a completely different story than the full text. Susan Watts of Newsnight was, of course, doing this deliberately, to suit her Man-Made-Mumbo-Jumbo-Global-Warming agenda.

For some reason idle became the subject of these bogus headlines. I found myself, inter alia, scratching my nuts, worshipping Satan, pleasuring Alsatian bitches. Here is a full example:

Idle is said to have a passion for gardening, which does wonders for his crippling asthma. "Nothing better than to see a flower bed without a weed, " he breathlessly pants.

BBC reports: Idle says "I've weed my pants"

So there you have it. Show your creative side, and at the same time put yourselves into the running for a cushy BBC journo's post, with loads of dosh, unlimited expenses, and a gold-plated pension.

Namecheck

Every year I get an email from a mate in the City. Some junior trader he knows fills the boring days between Christmas and New Year in the office by trawling through the list of Bloomberg users/subscribers and putting out the annual Best Names list. Here they are, in no particular order. My favourites are the ace French trader at #11, Fabienne Cretin; #23 John Kokkinias, poor bastard, and finally, surely a throwback to Carry On Sailor, at #13 Ginger Seaman.

1. KIKUKO TAKENOSHITA 13. GINGER SEAMAN
2. MATTHEW WANK 14. KAREN ARSOLA
3. CHRISTOPHER FISTER 15. LUDGER POOS
4. GUSTAVO CUNTO 16. ANDREW SHAFTER
5. ROSEMARY NOBBE 17. FUKKY TANTANG
6. CHETAN DIKSHIT 18. WAN KIM
7. DARIO DIKLIC 19. ALEXANDRA SUKMAWATI
8. EDWARD TITTMAN 20. WING MAN
9. DIANE BEAVER 21. DOROTHY CHUNDA
10. DAVID MORON 22. DIK BLEWITT
11. FABIENNE CRETIN 23. JOHN KOKKINIAS
12. DONNA BUMGARDNER 24. ROSS SMELLIE

Old Bond, New Bond

Rory Sutherland is an ad man who writes a column in the Speccie. I liked the way he put his view on the 007 question in his last column:

I try hard to like the new, darker James Bond, but I miss the camp insouciance of the earlier films. If you’ve grown up with the type of 007 who briefly interrupts a bout of exotic love-making to sabotage a Russian spyplane with a champagne cork, it’s hard to warm to a character who spends most of the film engaged in the kind of fighting you’d expect to see in a pub car-park in Maidstone.

The Tuscan, when he is not spivving insurance scams to unwary Florentines, or knitting baby boots, takes this sort of thing seriously. Perhaps this will flush him out.

What do you think? Connery or Craig? M as an ex-admiral or as a career-woman civil servant? Bags of smoking and misogyny, or perfect pectorals and a banana-hammock? I think I know the answer to the debate: who can name me ONE memorable quote from the new, 'ard-as-nails, testosterone-frenzied version of the franchise?

Build-Your-Own Bus Ad Slogans. Idle's Efforts:

Make your own here. H/T Devil's Kitchen, OH, Lil

For overseas visitors to this blog: the original was a strange ad paid for by an atheist group, which went: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life'

Crazy Music, Crazy Guy

Ted Nugent, rock star and avid longbow hunter from Michigan, was being interviewed by a French journalist who was an animal rights activist. The discussion came around to deer.

The journalist asked: 'What do you think is the last thought in the head of a deer before you shoot him? Is it, 'Are you my friend?' or is it 'Are you the one who killed my brother?'

Nugent replied: 'Deer aren't capable of that kind of thought. All they care about is: what am I going to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away. They are very much like the French.'

End of interview.