After a few weeks walking around in glasses, I go back on the contact lenses. I have to choose between spending what little money I have on upgrading my Internet service to tackle the domain spam, or I can subscribe to the lenses. I choose the latter. I like playing with the ‘Ipcress File’ black frames look, but my default image when photographed is without specs, so I do have a certain duty. This morning, despite months of being out of practice, the lenses go in without any fuss. It’s if my eyes are telling me, “About time too.”
A note from my mother:
If any of your friends take Country Living magazine (probably not, unless they are closet Green Wellies types), then tell them to take a look at the January issue just out, as it’s got the profile on me in it. You can’t take a peek on the newsstands, sadly, as it’s packaged up with a free copy of She magazine.
A message from a student:
I’m studying you in my A level art on 19th century Decadence. Perfect contemporary flaneur methinks… I’m painting you with a mountain of lilies at the moment, very stylistic and impressionistic.
Am getting around to writing up events uncovered by the diary, so a few thoughts on the last two Beautiful and Damned outings.
The November event attracts the largest gathering of dressed-up people than ever, and at the end of the evening I am surprised and delighted to be thrown roses. I’m aware the club is used as a birthday party for some, which suits me fine. In fact, I’ve been booked for a wedding in the Lake District in May. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing when I take to the decks, but perhaps that’s part of the appeal. And I’m a shameless crowd pleaser, to a fault.
The only times I displease members of the crowd is during the Christmas event. In my early evening set of painless Christmassy songs, two women demand I play ‘Fairytale Of New York’ and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. They are not dressed up in the B&D way, and it’s clear they are from that solipsistic breed of Christmas pub goers, installing themselves in a pub they wouldn’t normally go to, already drunk by 8pm, and often giving the bar staff a hard time. I politely decline their requests, though adding that I actually like hearing those records myself. Just not right here, and not right now.
They get quite insistent, and I end up almost screaming at them to leave me alone.
“This night is all about hearing records you don’t normally hear in pubs,” I shout. “This is London in the week before Christmas! ‘Fairytale Of New York’ and that Mariah Carey song are very probably being played elsewhere tonight! Other pubs are available in London! I’M ONLY IN THIS ONE! Between you and me, I’m the only one contractually obliged to be here. I’d happily refund your money if it wasn’t a free event.”
They’re having none of it.
“We’re asking you to play that Pogues song. Go on. You have to play it, I’m Irish”. And this is added as if makes it any difference. Her accent is, of course, entirely English.
“Well, I’ve been on holiday with Shane MacGowan!” I retort, an equally meaningless counter-argument. Name-dropping only serves to make you look an absolute fool, even though it feels impressive on the tongue. I wince as I write this admission, even weeks later.
The Christmas edition is a Masked Ball, and there’s plenty of people making an effort with wearing masks, not all of whom are personally known to the DJs. We screen Mr Chaney’s 1925 Phantom Of The Opera, complete with its stunning “Bal Masque” sequences in an early, two-colour form of Technicolor.
Miss Red appears in the Christmas 2006 issue of Time Out to talk about the club. Her set covers the awkward section of the evening when people start to finally get up and dance. Then I take over on the decks, and as the clientele are in the mood for dancing, I more or less ride on her coat-tails. Partly literally, as Miss R often dresses in genuine top hat and tails.
For the Christmas outing, my eye mask is a half-black, half-white affair, which I like to think makes me look a little like the villain from the classic 80s Doctor Who story The Caves Of Androzani. A journalist from the Evening Standard interviews me in the Boogaloo kitchen, but can’t speak to me until I unmask. “I suppose this is how Jack Straw feels about talking to women in veils”. She is accompanied by a photographer who’s a bit pushy in getting shots of my friends. Whether a piece appears in the newspaper or not I have no idea. My policy is to let others tell you.
I air ‘Jesus Christ’ by Big Star along with selections from Christmas albums by Phil Spector (naturally), Peggy Lee, Doris Day, The Carpenters and the Rat Pack, plus a Judy Garland compilation taken from the soundtrack to her early 60s TV series. She duets with Mel Torme on “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”, and reminds us that he actually co-wrote the thing.
I haven’t seen the programme, but from the CD’s spoken word segments, Ms Garland’s TV set must be a mock-up of a Christmas living room. As she informs us in the introduction, “Liza’s outside, skating”.
