The standards have fallen, my value has dropped

It's bizarre. As the headlines are full of the supposed "wonders" technology is bringing - deadly-sounding self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) software being used to fake interviews with tragically brain-injured sportsmen and to allow lazy-and-thick-as-shit students to have their theses written for them, "deepfake" videos and photography, and so on - the gnomes at Google can't even make Blogger run properly without breaking something-or-other!

Over the past few days, I have suddenly stopped receiving notifications via email that anyone has posted a new comment on either of my blogs. So apologies, dear reader, if there is an apparent time-lag in my replies; I have to manually go to the dashboard to find out of there's anything new to respond to... Sigh.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

In the optimistic hope that another icon doesn't pop their clogs today, it's time for a celebration of the living.

Yesterday [alongside fellow celebrants including Ella Fitzgerald, Björn Ulvaeus, Johan Cruyff, Oliver Cromwell, Renée Zellweger, Al Pacino, Walter de la Mare, Jerry Leiber and Andy Bell of Erasure], it was the 80th birthday of the simply faboo Tony Christie!

Despite having huge success with such classics as Avenues & Alleyways, I Did What I Did for Maria and (of course) Is This The Way to Amarillo, there is one song that to me surpasses them all! It remains an eternal favourite of mine, and the celebration of this milestone gives me another excuse to play it:

Tony Christie feat. All Seeing I - Walk Like a Panther

[Oh, how I sang that song at the top of my voice when I was being made redundant from my last job - "A halfwit in a leotard stands on my stage!", indeed.]

Today [together with the likes of the legendary Giorgio Moroder, Carol Burnett (who is 90), Ma Rainey, Duane Eddy, Roger Taylor of Duran Duran, Channing Tatum, Douglas Sirk, Susannah Harker, Jack Douglas and - erm - Melania Trump], it's the birthday of another house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers - Miss Caro Emerald, who happens to have sung another of my personal anthems:

Caro Emerald - Liquid Lunch

Felicitations!

La de da de de, la de da de da

It's another timeslip moment, and another trip back twenty-five years to 1998 - the year Madam Arcati and I first got together...

In the news headlines in March that year: The Galileo probe found a frozen ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa, Titanic swept the Oscars, the "Free Deirdre" campaign became a media obsession after Coronation Street's leading lady was wrongfully jailed in the soap, the last working tin mine in Cornwall (South Crofty) closed down, there was a massacre in Algeria during its ongoing civil war, and that most British of cars the Rolls-Royce was bought-out by Germany's BMW; Daniel Massey, Lloyd Bridges, Judge Dread and Dr Benjamin Spock all died; and Viagra was born.

In UK cinemas: Jackie Brown; Gattaca; Good Will Hunting. On telly: the debut of South Park; Airline; The Pepsi Chart Show.

And in our charts this week a quarter of a century ago? Holding off all-comers for the top slot was the behemoth that was Run DMC vs Jason Nevins It's Like That, and still hanging around like a bad smell at #2 was that Titanic dirge from Slime Dion. Also present and correct in the Top Ten were Robbie Williams, Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Queen Madge, M People, Savage Garden, (ahem) LL Cool J, and (one of my favourite records) Here's Where The Story Ends by Tin Tin Out Ft Shelley Nelson.

But lurking just outside at #11 [surprisingly its highest chart position] was this (re-)work of genius!

The All Seeing I - Beat Goes On

I. Love. It.

A halfwit in a leotard stands on my stage

As redundancy looms, I find it even more important to post something to cheer us up on a Monday.

Tony Christie's latest album Made in Sheffield, a collaboration with Jarvis Cocker, was released a couple of weeks ago. I have yet to hear it (but hopefully I'll get it at Xmas) but here's a brilliant earlier collaboration between the two - one of my favourite records of all time...

Tony Christie feat. All Seeing I - Walk Like a Panther

Marie has set up home
With a man who's half my age
A halfwit in a leotard stands on my stage
The standards have fallen
My value has dropped
But don't shed a tear
Some walk like they own the place
Whilst others creep in fear
Try if you can to walk like a man
But you don't come near

You've got to fly like an eagle
Prowl like a lion in Africa
Leap like a salmon home form the sea
To keep up with me
You've got to walk like a panther tonight
Walk like a panther tonight

The old home town just looks the same
Like a derelict man who had died out of shame
Like a jumble sale left out in the rain
It's not good, Its not right
The standards have fallen
My value has dropped
But don't shed a tear
Some walk like they own the place
Whilst others creep in fear
Try if you can to walk like a man
But you don't come near

You've got to fly like an eagle
Prowl like a lion in Africa
Leap like a salmon home form the sea
To keep up with me
You've got to walk like a panther tonight
Walk like a panther tonight

Where did you leave all self respect
You look like a reptile your house is a wreck
You're existence an insult
Stains that are suspect cover your clothes
The standards have fallen
My value has dropped
But don't shed a tear
Some walk like they own the place
Whilst others creep in fear
Try if you can to walk like a man
But you don't come near

You've got to fly like an eagle
Prowl like a lion in Africa
Leap like a salmon home form the sea
To keep up with me
You've got to walk like a panther tonight
Walk like a panther tonight
Walk like a panther tonight

Made in Sheffield - Tony Christie