He drinks a Lager drink, he drinks a Cider drink

Another snippets post today, dear reader:

• A little less mascara: Parisian drag cabaret club Chez Michou, which inspired La Cage aux Folles (the Jean Poiret play, the classic 1978 French film and its musical adaptation), is set to close its doors for good after 68 years. [Read my tribute to Michou over at the Dolores Delargo Museum of Camp]
• A.I. Zombies news: Audiobooks "read by" the voices of dead stars such as Judy Garland, James Dean and Sir Laurence Olivier have been launched by an AI company in London.
• Marsupial-cuddling controversy: A koala sanctuary in Australia where high-profile guests from Taylor Swift to Vladimir Putin have been photographed with them has banned cuddles with the animals.

• Hidden secrets news: Our new Prime Minister was a bit of a Goth?
• And, finally...: Hippopotamus can fly?

We are also apparently at the end of Alcohol Awareness Week. I'm aware of it, in large quantities! So are this lot:

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down)

You are never gonna keep me down

I somehow doubt the bar staff at 'Spoons will be anything like this.

Our planned picnic having been unceremoniously cancelled thanks to the hurricane-force winds and rain battering the country at the mo ("Storm Evert", apparently), our little gang is gathering instead at the rather lovely former HQ of of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, now The Crosse Keys, a Wetherspoons pub.

We're starting at lunchtime, and I have no doubt it'll be another long session...

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Yes, yes, my dear, perhaps next year, or maybe even never - in which case...

The end is nigh, dear reader - and here are a few numbers I felt appropriate for this, a most welcome New Year's Eve.

Starting with an old favourite that features lyrics which perhaps express many people's feelings about 2020:

It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore

Tin Tin Out feat Shelly Nelson - Here's Where The Story Ends

...however, this one sums up my feelings a bit more succinctly, perhaps:

Millie Jackson - Fuck You Symphony

Regardless, no matter how much we have hated, and want to see the back of, 2020 - NYE is essentially an excuse for a party [and we're having ours via ZOOM later!], so let's get cracking!

Happy Brexit Day!

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Ian Dury and The Blockheads - Reasons to be Cheerful (Part three)

Yazz - The Only Way is Up

...and, of course, such a party would be incomplete without today's late, lamented birthday girl LaDonna Adrian Gaines!

Donna Summer - Last Dance

Let's raise our glasses to a Happy, Happier NEW Year, everyone!

Pissing the night away

Tomorrow's birthday girl Betty White is taking no notice of the stupid man.

"...the only safe way to drink is to take three straws to the pub and share a glass of wine with friends."

Apparently. At least, that is the opinion of a man who was sacked as an adviser on such matters to the government, who has now set up his own "research organisation" - and has a book to promote.

To the busybody infantilising nanny-state-adherent "Professor" David Nutt, I dedicate this:

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down)

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” - C. S. Lewis

"I get knocked down, but I get up again (pissing the night away)" - Chumbawamba

Changed the world

This week in 1997 was a strange one, as the world began to wake up to the loss of Princess Diana. Her death had a particularly (and well-documented) moving effect on the people of Britain, and tributes in music - as well as those floral and political - were just about to flood the scene, with Elton John predominant to the end of the year.

But what was the musical state of play just before Royal funereal hysteria took hold? Were there any significant choons we have forgotten from that long, hot summer of 1997? How about these..?

The Course - Ain't Nobody

Todd Terry featuring Jocelyn Brown and Martha Wash - Something Goin' On

Gala - Freed From Desire

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping