Eurovision 2015

The grand final of the Eurovision travelling circus hits town tonight. This time, the old imperial seat of the Hapsburgs, Vienna, is the venue for the annual glitterfest of frightful frocks and terrible tunes. The BBC has chosen posh celebrity cook and reformed coke head, Nigella Lawson to announce the verdict of the UK jury. I hope she doesn’t get too sniffy about it.

This year’s no-hope entry for Royaume Uni is Still in Love with You by Electro Velvet. God alone knows why Auntie Beeb thinks a daft Charleston pastiche with no discernible chorus stands the slightest chance of making it to the left hand side of the leader board. Still, I hear torch song dirges are big this year (along with the hair) so who knows? Electro Velvet might just rise above the slash-your-wrist ditties.

PS. The man who coined the phrase ‘Eurovision’ died in 2010 at the grand old age of 94. His name was George Campey. I’m saying nothing.

PPS. The UK entry flopped yet again. Has the BBC given up trying?

Sing, Little Birdie

Liam hyperventilated at the prospect of watching Eurovision’s Greatest Hits, an extravaganza beamed across Europe by the BBC to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the travelling camp fest. I slipped a little something in his Rioja to calm him down. Compered by Graham Norton in his newly acquired hipster whiskers and the posh-frocked Swede, Petra Mede, the show featured some of the contest’s most iconic/dire/fabulous/dreadful (delete according to taste) songs from times past – Brotherhood of Man, Johnny Logan, Lordi, Nicole, Bobby Socks (who?) to name but a few. Sadly, ABBA didn’t reform for the celebration but the BBC did chuck in Riverdance to get the feet tapping (an interval act that was one of the best things to ever emerge from the competition).

Eurovision has come a long way since Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson represented Le Royaume-Uni in 1959 with Sing, Little Birdie. Now we have the transgender Dana International (winner for Israel in 1998) and Conchita Wurst, the bearded lady (winner for Austria 2014) singing a duet holding hands. Way to go, sisters – changing the world one sequin at a time and really pissing off the bigots.

Give Us a Quiche

Beverages are big business these days and popping out for a cuppa has become something of a ritual in the Brennan-Scott household. We like to support local traders over the big chains and we’ve sampled most of the venues dotted about the city. Our favourite indie café is Stranger’s Coffee House on Pottergate but it’s a small shop and getting a table is almost impossible during the weekend rush. So we decided to give the shabby chic ambience of Biddy’s Tea Room on Lower Goat Lane a go. Cluttered vintage is Biddy’s thing. The place is packed wall-to-wall with curios and bric-a-brac from times past. A nightmare to dust, I should imagine. Even though the place was also packed wall-to-wall with punters, we found ourselves in pole position for a vacant Chesterfield. Liam hovered while I enquired after the dishes of the day. The young biddy with the long face behind the counter was not exactly forthcoming. ‘They’re all labelled,’ she barked. They weren’t.

Give Us a Quiche

While I ordered the veggie quiche and Liam paid, a couple sneaked in behind us and nabbed the sofa. Out-flanked, we ended up balancing our lunch precariously on our knees as we sat upright on a lumpy old chaise longue that looked like it had been dragged out of a skip. No easy task for a couple of old biddies like us. The quiche was nice enough but rather spoiled by the side salad swimming in Balsamic vinegar. Liam doesn’t like Balsamic vinegar.

And who were the couple who beat us to the Chesterfield? None other than Chloe Smith, Conservative Member of Parliament for Norwich North, and her beau. Ms Smith is one of the new breed of socially liberal Tories. She supported the same-sex marriage bill. Thank you, Chloe, but what about the bedroom tax and food banks? So far, Ms Smith’s greatest claim to fame is being mauled by veteran broadcaster, Jeremy Paxman, on Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme. The moral of this story? Grab your seat before you order at Biddy’s Tea Room and make sure you do your homework to avoid a right royal stuffing by Paxo (now there’s a disturbing thought).

Exodus

Nothing slaps you about the face better than God’s wrath in 3-D. I’m a sucker for a Hollywood style Biblical epic, particularly as the fairy tales of the Old Testament lend themselves to stunning special effects. So when Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ was released, I was front of the queue. For the most part, the movie delivers on spectacle, making up in drama what it lacks in depth. The plagues sequence is particularly delicious as the God of Moses teaches Rameses a thing or two about divine power. The film has dumped the preachy gravitas of the Cecil B Mille’s 1956 ‘The Ten Commandments’. Christian Bale’s doubting Moses is much grittier than Charlton Heston’s pulpit-style rendition and is better suited to today’s more secular age. Depicting God as a ten year old boy is either inspired or daft (I’m still not sure which). Having the child resemble Damien from ‘The Omen’ is masterly.

According to the BBC, the film has been banned in Eqypt because of ‘historical inaccuracies’ (sorry?) – partly because the movie depicts the Hebrews slaving over a pair of pyramids (the construction of which ceased centuries before the alleged great escape). I’m glad to see that the religious censors are on the ball and standing up for the truth.

The Madness of Boy George

I’ve always had a soft spot for Boy George, despite (or perhaps because of) his well-documented dependencies on booze and drugs, and his well-deserved real imprisonment for the false imprisonment of a rent boy in 2008. George is clean now and has been for years. From androgynous painted pop star to hard-boiled drug addict, DJ of considerable note to grubby punter, the rise, fall and rise again of George O’Dowd has been remarkable. He’s a survivor with insight, a rare commodity among the brattish celebrity class. I was never much of a Culture Club devotee but I do like a lot of George’s post-Culture Club solo work, particularly the haunting, lyrically waspish ballads that show off his voice to greatest effect. Recently, I tuned in to watch George sing with the BBC Philharmonic and I was surprised (shocked even) to hear that his voice has hit the floor (along with his balls, George recently said with typical candour). His deeper sound is growing on me. George’s latest challenge is a vocal polyp that may require surgery and it has forced him to cancel a Culture Club reunion tour. Get well soon, George.

That was then…

This is now…

My Old Lady

A foul afternoon of driving rain pushed us through the doors of Cinema City to catch ‘My Old Lady’, starring Kevin Kline, Kristen Scott Thomas and the incomparable Maggie Smith. We sat in the back row and watched the film above the nodding heads in fifty shades of grey. Kevin Kline plays a penniless, ex-alcoholic, never-to-be-published New York author who inherits a rambling run down Parisian apartment from his philandering father. He thinks he’s in the money but finds out that he’s also inherited a sitting tenant in an equity release arrangement, French-style; she can’t be evicted and he must pay rent to her. Step forward Dame Maggie as the feisty old madame with her foot in the door and Kirsten Scott Thomas as her brittle spinster daughter. It’s a salutary tale of how your parents fuck you up (along the lines of the Philip Larkin poem) and how not to let the truth get in the way of a fine romance. Set in the trendy Marais district of Paris, the BBC production oozes cool Gallic va va voom laced with arty pretensions. The film has had mixed reviews but we found it well worth stepping out of the rain for.

Pits and Perverts

Thirty years ago, the National Union of Miners (NUM) was in a desperate battle with the Thatcher Government to save their livelihoods and their communities. It was a war of attrition that went on for twelve long months. It was also during the dark days of the gay ‘plague’ with John Hurt scaring the life out of OAPs with crashing tombstones every night on national TV and a certain fire and brimstone chief constable saying that gay people were ‘swirling in a human cesspit of their own making.’ Believe me, it was no fun on the picket line or the dance floor. The Police had a habit of raiding both. At the time, I was living with a quantity surveyor who was neither ‘out’ at work or to his family. What sexuality has to do with counting bricks I shall never know but that was the way back then – most closets were firmly locked from the inside. Society had a habit of making hypocrites of us all. I was his guilty secret (needless to say, he wasn’t mine).

So what do striking miners have in common with dancing queens? Not very much you might think. I didn’t think so either until I saw Pride, a new BBC Film by Marcus Warchus, the new Creative Director at the Old Vic. On general release today, this funny and illuminating movie is based on the true story of a small group of London activists who raised money to help the families of the strikers. They called themselves ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ and they did exactly what it said on the collecting tin. Officially, the über-straight, blue collar, backs-to-the-wall-lads NUM weren’t too keen on accepting the support of a gaggle of dirty pervs, even during the worst of times. So the brave pervs took their cause direct to the coal face by sprinkling a little fairy dust (and quite a lot of cash) on a small Welsh mining village. Cue the considerable talents of some seasoned pros (Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy) who know how to deliver a line or two and some gifted fresh faces to inject a dash of youthful angst and exuberance. The clash of cultures is pure magic. Moving without being sugary, political without being preachy, candid without being gratuitous and clever without being patronising, the film is a joy to watch and one of the best British films I’ve ever seen. Really, it’s that good.

Only on Auntie

As my innards recover from their recent rude intrusion, gainful employment (such as it is in my rarified world) has been restricted to mornings with BBC Radio 4 in the background. Woman’s Hour at 10am is always a special treat as gravelly-voiced presenter Jenni Murray (who sounds like she’s on forty a day) weaves through an eclectic mix of social, political and cultural ishoos from a female perspective. Today’s civilised and civilising menu included classical ballet, black female judges in post-apartheid South Africa, the rehabilitation of Black Forest gâteau from Abigail’s Party to Soho chic and literary porn for the fairer sex. With all the shit that’s going down in too many corners of our fragile world, praise the Lord for Auntie Beeb.

Holding Out for a Super-Hero

Just like good old Auntie Beeb, I aim to inform, educate and entertain. It’s for others to judge whether I succeed or not. I find myself rather indisposed at the moment (more of this later) so my ambitions will have to be curtailed for a while. I am, therefore, delivering on the daft instead.

Apparently, I’m Kick-Ass Destroyer. Who knew? And you?

Wild Things

The old Co-operative Society depository that now ware-houses our micro-loft sits along one side of St Stephen’s Square, just outside the old city walls. Sadly, a modern road layout has rather robbed the square of its former character. Aside from the old warehouse, all that remains is a local pub for local people on the corner (those who are familiar with the BBC2 series ‘The League of Gentlemen’ will know exactly what I mean). Still, all is not lost. Some bright spark had the brilliant idea to plant the scrub and verges with wild flowers and long grasses. It makes my heart sing even on the dullest of days.