Mrs. Simpson

Wallis Simpson, American socialite and one time wife of Prince Edward - formerly King Edward VIII - was famous (sort of) for her:

a. Chinese Burns?

b. Shanghai Squeeze?

c. Peking Duck?


Answers on a postcard

This Charming Penguin

You'll know by now that I love podcasts: discovering new ones is a joy, especially when they're as good as the Penguin Podcast.
I've just listened to my first one - a charming conversation between David Baddeil and Johnny Marr. Marr's autobiography, Set the Boy Free, was published by Penguin a couple of weeks ago and he was bringing Baddeil up to speed about it.
Although I was never a big fan of the Smiths, I've always had a soft spot for Johnny's guitar sound. Here he is explaining how he wrote the riff for their first single. When he was nineteen. Nineteen!

God's waiting room

Losing our first buyer was unfortunate. But, yesterday, losing our second, far from being careless is just bloody soul destroying. But, hey, we're still kicking a ball.

I'm sure when we do finally cut the cord we'll look back and laugh about it all. Even the time-wasters and tyre kickers. And don't get me started on the fuckwits and bumpkins. So, maybe not all then.

See Emily's play

A day spent up town yesterday. Top ranking indeed: an hour atop the sky deck of the Shard where visibility - at 1,000+ ft. - couldn't possibly have been any better, followed by lunch in the Nell Gwynne in the heart of Theatreland. If we hadn't had tickets for the matinee performance of Dead Funny I think I could, quite easily, have taken up residence in the little hideaway pub just off the Strand and stayed in there all afternoon. I do have form.

But, with five minutes to go before curtain up, we strolled the twenty or so yards to the Vaudeville next door and took our seats for the revival of Terry Johnson's wonderful play, which first opened at the Hampstead Theatre in 1992. I won't spoil the story for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, suffice it to say that it's essentially a black comedy using, as it does, the deaths of Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd as a springboard for the slightly dark farce that follows. I absolutely adored it. And as much as I loved the stellar performances of Steve Pemberton, Ralf Little, Katherine Parkinson and Rufus Jones, it was the beautiful Emily Berrngton that, for me, stole the show. It's running till next February. Try and get along if you can.

Emily Berrington liked your Tweet

4h:

@BerringtonEmily I've never laughed as much as I did at Sat. matinee. Great play, great perf. And as for your Benny Hill tribute costume...

1. 

Then and Now

If yesterday's selection was a (strong, I think) contender to kick-off a soul infused, late night, bluesy, jazzy mixtape, then today's choice would, almost certainly, bookend it.

Grover Washington is a big noise in this house; although anything from 1980's Winelight, surely the benchmark for all smooth jazz, would have been the bookies favourite, Stolen Moments, from his 1988 Then and Now album, shows Grover really was a contender. And this stylish Oliver Nelson cover is a perfect way to end proceedings.

So there you go - the lazy arse way to putting together a compilation album - the beginning and the end. What happens in between would only get messy. A bit like life, really.

Stolen Moments