#just knowing both London and Derek can sing

[perpetualproductions]

Just thinking how if Jordan ever wanted to record music, they could duet with themselves...

Like straight up, they have access to two separate vocal ranges. They don't have to worry about finding another person with a voice that compliments theirs and fits the song. And they don't have to deal with scheduling recording sessions (which is always the hardest part, trust me). Am I assuming they can sing because they (most likely) play the guitar? Yes, Yes I am.

I just need Jordan to pull out their phone, sit with their guitar and record an acoustic cover of, idfk- Señorita or something, switching between forms for different parts.

(For Marie, obviously.)

[9w1ft]

Hi 9, can I ask you something DNPy?

I am a baby kaylor so I am still gathering and processing info and lore; my question is, during 2017, do we know for sure kaylor were still together? I mean, is there any lore or coincidences that support this?

🤍 thanks

nothing dnp-y about this ☺️ there’s plenty of lore and coincidences. here are some things for you to consider:

karlie put out a celebratory valentine’s day vlog in 2/2017 where she does obvious visual copying of the vogue best best friend video, and taylor recorded the reputation at&t now promo sometime before rep release in 11/2017 which also copies parts of the vogue best best friends video.

reputation promo photography shows taylor wearing both the evil eye ring and the vsfs angel wing ring, which are both kaylor rings. here is one example but you can look up more, like the ups promo video or other at&t promo photos. because promo would have been done months before release date, this implies she was more than fine wearing kaylor symbols in the middle of 2017.

yes. vsfs angel wing ring is a kaylor ring through and through. go actually read the masterpost if you haven’t. i’ve put a lot of work into it!

taylor wears the vsfs angel wing ring and the evil eye ring when recording several rep songs, which can be seen in the behind the scenes making of a song clips (check youtube) and footage from miss americana

the J necklace made its first public appearance dec 26, 2016, and can be assumed that we’re supposed to assume it was a birthday or christmas present. and she’s wearing it during the filming of the recording of call it what you want, which also references the necklace. so assuming you don’t believe toe is real, her happily recording call it what you want after dec 13 2016, and then performing it with a huge smile on her face on SNL in nov 2017 are both hints

call it what you want is a song that is obviously meant to sound like she says karlie in several different ways. karlie what you want / call it what you want karlie / karlie would you want to?

there’s the whole business of the clip of taylor singing call it what you want acoustic while playing guitar, the idea that she’s debuting the song to karlie in this clip. it makes sense because as i mention above, the song is sung in a way that sneaks in ways for her to sing “karlie” and taylor is wearing the vsfs ring in the clip.

there’s also the point about how a lot of us who really know what karlie’s voice sounds like (since we have watched so much of her content) can hear karlie singing along to the song, when taylor points to the filmer for the line “i did one thing right” as well as the “yes” part

karlie posted from london in december 2016 and december 2017. and in between we also know she was in london throughout 2017 because she went to london fashion week, british fashion awards, several other events. just search the internet for “karlie kloss 2017 london” etc. this pokes holes in any argument that puts taylor running away to london as some sort of kaylor disqualifier. karlie was seen in london too. she was also posting from nice france over the summer in 2017, which is just a chunnel away from london if you think about it. she was plenty close more than several times to where people like to say taylor was.

derek tweeted what is basically an easter egg to call it what you want being about karlie, just about a week before it was released

also another big group of things is just how there’s an obvious reason for taylor and karlie not being seen together throughout 2017:

taylor and karlie disappeared only as the election results came in. they were literally seen together on the eve of the general election in 11/2016. its at this point, literally from this day, that taylor begins wearing the vsfs angel wing ring (read the masterpost linked above). by process of deduction you can prove she’s wearing it in the pic of her and karlie kissing lorde’s cheeks, because she was papped wearing it to the party. i just mean this to say that it makes sense that they stopped being seen for 2017, because they had a reason. the election results.

the glitch 2190 days of our love blackout line represents the amount of time between when they went dark in 2016 til midnights release

in the lavender haze explainer video taylor describe how she and her lover had to combat weird rumors for the past six years. this also neatly fits the time between when they went dark after the election and the release of midnights

miss americana and the heartbreak prince, which is about the 2016 election, includes the line “it’s you and me that’s my whole world”

call it what you want, again, is a song about running away with someone and nobody hearing about you for months, which fits the rep social media hiatus where taylor was not seen

this is more of an opinion i guess but i happen to think that taylor’s “darkest night” was sometime between 2016 and 2017 and i think that call it what you want’s “starry eyes sparking up my darkest night” connects to renegade’s “i tapped on your window on your darkest night” and the lover album prologue and this continued theming of karlie having been there for taylor when taylor was at her lowest.

i could go on and on with the lyric parallels that show the narrative post-election but it’s kind of never ending so anyways.. i’ll keep my list of things to everything right here. hope this all helps!

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH IN BACK ISSUE FANZINE 1980

Interview by D. Fischar, A. Brannan, C. Nightingale

DF: What made you decide to star a group after acting on stage and films? TOYAH: It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the guts to actually get up and do it. I lived in Birmingham until I was eighteen and one night at a New Year's party I met some musicians and I said “look, I can write music, would you help me out? We started rehearsing for a year and the chance came to become professional so I did DF: Did the punk explosion play an important part in deciding to start a group? TOYAH: It was important to me because it was a form of recognition of my strange taste of clothes. I used to like wearing weird things. I started off about two years pre-Sex Pistols. I had pink hair and used to wear great big Andy Pandy outfits Punk came along and it sort of justified my taste because everyone thought I should be put away in a mental home. It sort of saved my life. It did help, it gave me a lot of encouragement. I used to doubt my own sanity. I came along and helped me DF: Did you attract a following straight away? TOYAH: More thanks to "Jubilee" (film) than our actual music. The band has always had a following and it’s always been a strong punk following but we don’t consider ourselves a punk band. When we started off I used to be really outrageous. I used to be permanently drunk and I wouldn’t be able to stand up or say anything I just used to stand up and fall over throughout the set and I slowly got myself together because I was just so nervous of singing. The following became a much stronger one. It was much more musically influenced rather than people just coming to see us out of interest

AB: You said you don’t call yourselves a punk band. Why not?

TOYAH: Because what is punk? I’ve never really known what is punk. A lot of bands, which call themselves punk, seem to be into just making a noise or a kind of music to move to, whereas we don't class ourselves as anything because we don’t really know what we’re aiming for yet. We don’t know the sort of music we categorise ourselves under so we like to remain free of categoratisation

We are thought of as heavy punk because I look like it. I’ve got the hair for it but it’s just out of personal taste. I hate black hair, which is my natural colour. If you’re going to dye it why not go the whole way

DF: How did you get the part in "Jubilee"?

TOYAH: I was at the National Theatre and at that time I was causing quite a stir because no one could understand what the fuck I was about. (The director) Derek Jarman happened to appear at the company and he wanted to make a punk movie to kill all other punk movies. I went to tea with him and he offered me the part. It was as simple as that

DF: In your interview with "Sounds" in ‘79 the band said they didn’t like that. Why not?

TOYAH: We signed to Safari in February last year and we had to get an album out and the band as yet wasn’t ready. We weren’t happy with the drummer and we weren’t happy with the bassist so we sacked them both. Due to contractual problems we had to borrow a bass player and a drummer and we weren’t really a band. We were not happy and to us the music sounded terrible

And me personally - I couldn’t sing, not as well as I can now. It was lack of experience. It was also overproduced. Too many ideas were coming from outside of the band. It wasn’t a band creation at all, really. This album we’ve just done, which will be out in May, is going to be called "Blue Meanings" and it's just fucking super against the quality of the A.P (Alternative Play, the EP "Sheep Farming In Barnet") because of the energy there

We’ve managed to put onto vinyl what we are like live rather than trying to be visual on vinyl. I mean there’s no one to look at

DF: Did Safari contact you or did you go to Safari?

TOYAH: Safari came to us after a review of a gig we did at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts, London), which appeared in "Record Mirror". Safari flew over from Germany to see us at rehearsals and we signed that day

We didn’t want to go to a bigger company. We had offers from bigger companies like Virgin and we just didn’t want to go because we were such naive little bunch of kids at that time

DF: What do you think about having your voice compared with Siouxsie Sioux and Kate Bush?

TOYAH: I think it’s a load of shit. I mean my voice is nothing like theirs

DF: You said you hated hearing your own voice. Why?

TOYAH: Because when I sing I sound different. When I listened to it, it destroyed the illusion I had of myself. To me my voice sounds so much like a little girl and I always think of myself as being big and strong. It just breaks down what I think of myself

DF: I think your voice plays an important part in the music, like at the beginning of "Danced"

TOYAH: Oh, right. I mean I’m not just a vocalist stuck in a booth. Another thing about the A.P. is that my vocals are too overindulgent and they block certain aspects of the music. On this present album my voice is more restraint with the band rather than just a vocal stuck on top AB: You said you didn’t want to sign to Virgin. Do you believe in all this stuff about selling out?

TOYAH: Oh, no - I didn’t want to sign to Virgin then. We are going to be moving hopefully within a few years to a bigger record company because you can outgrow a small record company so easily and therefore you are blocking out your own career in other countries

AB: So you think it’s more a stage of growing?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah. If we went to Virgin I think they would have killed us completely. They would have been too heavy for us because we didn’t understand how dirty the record business could be. Virgin would have wiped us out completely. I don’t think Virgin would have been patient with us like Safari have been DF: Don’t you think they’ll make you change your music or style?

TOYAH: No, they can’t. Record companies aren’t allowed to do that now

DF: Will some … (?) big labels because they might be pressurised

TOYAH: Only if that band is not able to get a deal together. It’s a general myth. Record companies do like choosing your producer and the artist to do the cover but if you really objected to do it then you can say “no, I refuse to do that” and you can make the choice. It’s only bands who really don’t know what they want to do that get fiddled about with

DF: I know you admire David Bowie. Does his music influence yours?

TOYAH: He influences my imagination but I don’t go "Bowie did this so I’ll have a got at it". He is the one person that can trigger my imagination when I’m feeling really down and uninspired. David Bowie’s the main influence but I’m really into beat music. Not the reincarnation of Mod but the real beat, musically

DF: I heard somewhere that the album tells a story. Is this true? TOYAH: No, it doesn’t but the forthcoming album will do. The album from Germany was an even bigger embarrassment than the A.P because it is the A.P plus something like three other tracks. A lot of kids were buying the album thinking it’s going to be totally new material, which is a bit of an embarrassment to us

I mean OK, the album sold really well considering. It’s better quality than the A.P but it wasn’t advertised enough that it was the A.P and some tracks

DF: How come it was pressed in Germany?

TOYAH: Because Safari is a German based company and the album was purely for Germany but it was requested to come over as an import so to make it cheaper we had it moved over here so that it wouldn’t go up to £7 or something DF: What’s all this about Nostradamus on the back of the German LP?

TOYAH: It’s all related to WW3. Everything on the back of the album is just things that could possibly happen. It’s just things that make you think. It’s nothing that I'm preaching and saying will come true

DF: Has it got anything to do with the music?

TOYAH: No, it’s just an avid vision

DF: Where do you get your ideas for songs from? TOYAH: Very bad nightmares, usually. I have a fabulous time in my sleep, it’s really bizarre. It’s only a matter of remembering them. Usually a good argument starts off the best in me. It’s usually my life in general. If I have a bad day then I’ll write something really horrible

There’s a number on this new album called “She”, which I wrote when I had a really big fight with this old slag who I really hated. It’s the nastiest piece of music I could have done. I ? on because it was so perverse DF: In the "Sounds" interviews you contradict yourself. In the first interview you said that you help write the songs and in the second you said that you’re there just to sing and the band can do without you at rehearsals

TOYAH: I didn’t say that. The band said that and they’ve been severely talked to for saying that. The trouble with the band is that they are very paranoid that I get all the publicity and when they are included in interviews they just keep blowing it

I wrote “Victims Of The Riddle” and since then the band hasn’t forgiven me for how popular it has been and it’s just a band problem. The band said that, I didn’t. We have two rehearsals. A rehearsal where the band can jam for hours on end and a rehearsal where I come in and we get down to some self-controlled work

DF: How did you get the band together? Were you all friends? TOYAH: No, Joel Bogen (lead guitar) and me are the original members. We formed it about three and a half years ago and then we advertised for a keyboard player. That’s when Pete Bush came along. We completed the rhythm section when Steve Bray (drums) came along DF: Do you prefer singing in front of a live audience or acting in front of a camera? TOYAH: I like both. The reason why I do both is because I like them. I only do what I like doing and I’m not doing it for any other reason really. But I prefer singing to a live audience than in a studio

DF: In the "Sounds" interviews from ‘79 you said acting was your first love and the band was something you did just for fun

TOYAH: Yeah, that’s when we didn’t really have a band together. Now I can equally appreciate the band because it is a band now and not a bunch of arguing musicians - which we were then

DF: Do you still think that (about acting) after considering the band’s recent success? TOYAH: Acting is my first love because it’s so much easier for me. It’s more natural for me whereas in the band I really have to work my fucking guts out because I’m having to keep up with four other men who are so much stronger than me in a way

They’re physically stronger and they can really take more than me but I enjoy the challenge. It’s the challenges that keep me going. I love challenges

DF: When you’re on stage you’ve been described as provocative and blatantly sexist. Do you think this is necessary to sell records?

TOYAH: No. It’s because I’m not a paranoid feminist that has to go “ooh, you’re a man, I hate men so fuck off!” I hate feminists because a real feminist, when she sees a man, freaks out on the spot. That isn’t what it’s about. Women are too intelligent, women are the superior race and women do not have to be so paranoid at the presence of a man

On stage I just take the piss out of men's sexuality by showing them I have no inhibitions. If they want to grab my tit they can but they’ll get a good kick in the bollocks for it. So I just provoke them and teach them that sexuality is nothing. It’s all up there (points to her head) DF: You said you want to change that now because of people who come to see you just because of that TOYAH: Oh, it’s great. They shout “get your knickers off!” and just ignore them and let them get frustrated. I like to think I’ve ripped those people off because they’ve come to see me take my clothes off and they won’t (see that)

DF: Given the chance would you play in big places like Hammersmith Odeon, because most of the gigs are in small places?

TOYAH: We’re not that big. We’re not such a big band really. We haven’t had a top twenty hit, which is what really puts you in Hammersmith Odeon. I’ve never really thought about it. The thought of being that popular really does appeal to me. If we did play the Hammersmith Odeon I’d like to have a big budget. I’d want to put films on as well and really make it a big show

I’ve only ever seen one band at the Hammersmith Odeon, the Pat Travers Band and I just happened to be there at the right time. They were playing and I thought they were fucking awful. I just didn’t like the set-up because I was right at the back and you couldn’t see a thing. I prefer playing colleges to clubs

DF: Because of the atmosphere?

TOYAH: The audiences are so much better. The audience are all on one level and they can all see you because colleges have better facilities whereas in clubs you can jump and knock yourself out on the ceiling. Especially here in London DF: You said you like your stage show to be full of lights and effects. How come you didn’t do this on your recent tour? I saw you at the Harrow Tech (8.2.1980)

TOYAH: Do you know what happened at the Harrow Tech. They had two plug sockets and I spent £200 getting a generator for the night and it could only just power the PA. The lights at the front weren’t allowed because there weren't any bouncers to make sure the audience didn't steal them

We had lot of problems at Harrow and apart from all that I had gastroenteritis. I was running to be sick everywhere. It was a bad gig DF: How come your show at Harrow was so short because people were complaining at the end? TOYAH: It was cut short. I collapsed after that gig. I was in hospital so that I could do the Music Machine (in Camden the next day). I was very ill. We cut out about four numbers because I just couldn’t go on. I was in fucking agony AB: At the gigs you get some Mods because of "Quadrophenia" and you get a lot of skinheads who go round beating people up

TOYAH: I don't know why we get skinheads but we do. In London there’s a thing where you get a certain gang of skinheads who latch on to you (the band) to try to recruit people to the British Movement. It’s quite a big thing. They’ll go round using bands to recruit people. There’s nothing you can do about it because they’re so fucking good at it. It’s a real drag

DF: At the end of the Harrow gig all the black people were getting beaten up. How do you feel about violence at your gigs?

TOYAH: I can’t stand it but you can’t do anything about it. Especially us because we're not a big band. If I had had heavies (bodyguards) - we normally do - then they would have been stopping it. I do fucking hate it

I’d preach about it on stage if we saw it happening. We’re not a political band and we’re not going to get up there before any trouble has started and start preaching that it shouldn’t happen. That’s putting it into people's minds

CN: Did you enjoy making "Quadrophenia"?

TOYAH: No. I hated it but I got this feeling of having to do it. It was another challenge for me. It was the first time I worked with people of my own age. I was physically fucking exhausted throughout the whole thing because we’d been up at five and for doing a lot of riot scenes in Brighton. We’d have to run on average ten miles a day to shoot those particular scenes

We were ordered to run across the street and there was no one blocking the cars. A few people got run over and trampled by horses. I did enjoy it but at the same time it was fucking agony. It was at a time when the Mod movement hadn’t started off, which made it so much nicer and so much better because it wasn’t cashing in on a fashion. It was creating something that happened, like creating history rather than saying “oh look, Mods. Let’s cash in on it” sort of thing, which is what it turned out to be

CN: How did you get the part in it?

TOYAH: Thanks to "Jubilee". The director Franc Roddam saw "Jubilee" the night before he had a casting session and he asked me to to do it CN: Did you find after "Shoestring" (TV series, Toyah played a singer called "Toola" in an episode called "Find The Lady" that aired 2.12.1979) that your success was boosted?

TOYAH: Oh yeah, it was really incredible because I didn’t think anybody would watch it because of the Gala performance (Royal Variety Performance) on the other side. Instant success came for the band more than anything else

The audience capacity just tripled. The audience liked us before we went on and we had to prove ourselves not realising how interested the audience was in us because of "Shoestring"

CN: Did you enjoy doing it because it was a mixture of singing and acting?

TOYAH: Oh yeah, it was fab being able to combine the two because it’s so rare being able to do it. I really enjoyed doing it. Our bass player had pneumonia so we had to have a stand-in bass player

DF: You do remember the songs you played in "Shoestring"? TOYAH: We started of with “Neon Womb”, then “Waiting” and it ended up with “Danced” DF: Do you play a big part in the BBC production of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"?(1980)(Toyah played a servant girl called "Janet", above with David Hemmings as "Dr Jekyll") TOYAH: It’s not a massive part at all. It’s about the same as "Quadrophenia" but more important

AB: Would you like to make a film with the band? TOYAH: Yes, we are going to (do that) in September. It was a film that was scheduled to be made in America and has now been brought over here. I’ve been offered the lead part in it I’ll actually be doing all the music to it with a producer called Steve James, who has done the A.P. and the album which is about to come out and the band will be appearing in it. They might even get acting parts DF: What’s the film going to be about? TOYAH: The film is not supposed to be a musical, it’s a psychopathic murder thriller in which there’s a sort of rapist going round and it turns out to be me. It’s a really fucking good horror story and that’s why we’re doing it. The music just happens to be in it. But I haven’t signed anything yet! It might all fall through! DF: Will you be putting new songs into it? TOYAH: Totally new. We won’t use any of the old stuff. When we re-release singles I hate to release singles from the album and the B-side will be something totally new. So for the film we’ll be doing totally new stuff, which you’ll be able to get separately as a single track DF: How did you get on to the Old Grey Whistle Test? (Aired 4.3.1980) TOYAH: That was thanks to the album “Sheep Farming In Barnet”. You have to have an album to be on that and then you’re invited to it DF: What did you think of your performance on it? TOYAH: Awful. I think it was bad. My voice was terrible on it and also we had the greatest bad luck to do it in Glasgow. It was the second ever Whistle Test done in Glasgow and you got all the Glaswegians going “what do we have here? What knob do we twiddle?” They just didn’t know what to do. And the lighting - we were saying "no, take it down. Let’s have moving lighting and coloured lighting" so it was an incredible battle against these Glaswegians but it was good fun

DF: Do you think being a woman had hindered your success in any way? TOYAH: Well, put it this way if I could start all over again I would come back as man. I’d really prefer it because I hate people saying “oh, you’re a woman” and sitting back and waiting for you to fail

DF: You are obviously succeeding so aren’t you triumphing over them?

TOYAH: I’m triumphing over them but I’d still like to be a man. I always think of myself as a man and when people grab me around the tit I think "oh, God! I’m a woman". That’s how I am on stage - ignoring my sexuality DF: What’s all this about a death wish?

TOYAH: I’ve got this death wish. I like teasing Dr Death and getting away with it. Put me in a car and I’ll crash it and if I survive I survive but if I die it doesn't matter because I have to go sometime anyway. It’s that sort of attitude. I like daring myself and if I fail I’m determined to do it again the next day to succeed

CN: You you dare yourself in the record business?

TOYAH: Oh, totally. They way I keep progressing is by dare that I don’t think I’ll achieve and it’s because of the fact that I’m so frightened of falling I manage to do it and I like that. It’s the permanent adrenaline that keeps you going. You don’t need drugs 

[rocknrollarticles]

The Artwoods Story

The Artwoods’ 100 Oxford Street is a UK compilation album released in 1983 that features a four-page booklet (pictured above) that tells the band’s story, written by guitarist Derek Griffiths.

Since there's a limit on the number of photos that can be added to one post, I'll be reblogging this a couple times until I have all the info up. To see this post with all the info added in reblogs, click here.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy Derek’s words as much as I do!

Transcript under the cut (main text + Record Mirror article from page three's rightmost side)

“  It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when the Artwoods came into being because everything just seemed to evolve naturally. The one date however that does stick in my mind is the 1st October 1964 which is the date I turned professional, thus depriving the accountancy profession of a valuable addition to its ranks! But seriously, one must go back to previous events in order to trace the history of the group.

I first met Jon Lord at a party in West Hampstead when he was a drama student at The Central School of Speech & Drama. He was introduced to me by Don Wilson whose claim to fame was his membership of the famous skiffle group Dickie Bishop & His Sidekicks. They had had a hit years previously with "No Other Baby But You", and Don now ran a band on a semi-pro basis called Red Bludd's Bluesicians in which I played guitar. Well, I say we were called this, but only when we were fortunate enough to cop an R&B gig. We used to play The Flamingo Allnighter and lots of U.S. air bases. The rest of the time we played weddings and tennis club dances as The Don Wilson Quartet! Jon Lord was brought in on piano and was a very valuable addition especially as he could get his hands around a little jazz and all the old standards. Jon used to ring me at work and interrupt my vouching of sales ledger invoices in order to discuss the coming weekends gigs. We would bubble with excitement at the approach of an R&B gig as we really hated all the weddings and barmitzvahs.

Around this time Don made a very important policy decision and we suddenly became the proud owners of a Lowrey Holiday organ for Jon to play. Shortly after this Don contrived to drive the band-wagon into the back of a lorry on the North Circular, doing himself considerable mischief in the process. This brought about the unfortunate end of Don's career with us, but not before he had masterminded an important merger of two local bands.

For some time we had been aware, and not a little envious, of The Art Wood Combo led by none other than Art Wood himself. His band underwent a split at that time and Red Bludd's Bluesicians, alias The Don Wilson Quartet, were neatly grafted on. We really felt we were moving into the big league by doing this as Art not only had more work than us but, wait for it, used to sing with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated with Charlie Watts on drums and Cyril Davies on harmonica! The next problem was a replacement for Don, and this was solved by stealing the bass player from another local group The Roadrunners, a good looking cove who went by the name of Malcolm Pool. The offer and acceptance of the gig were transacted in a pub car park somewhere in West Drayton staring into the murky waters of the Grand Union Canal clutching pints of local bitter (Fullers?). (Authors note: drugs had not been invented at this stage, as far as most groups were concerned, apart from the odd pill to keep one awake on an all nighter!)

~

The next personnel change took place some time in 1964 and this involved the retirement of drummer Reg Dunnage, who did not want to turn pro. Auditions were held in London and lots of drummers attended. However it was more or less a foregone conclusion that Keef Hartley would get the job. You see we'd already decided that what The Artwoods needed above all else was a Liverpool drummer! Unfortunately none came to the audition, but Keef hailed from Preston which was near enough for us. Keef had previously played with Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, replacing Ringo Starr in the process (heady stuff this), and Freddy Starr & The Midnighters. Both were such influential bands of their time that these credentials combined with Keef's quasi Liverpool accent (at least to our ears) provided him with a faultless pedigree.

~

So that was it, the line-up that would take us through to 1967 when Colin Martin eventually replaced Keef Hartley on drums.

For a while we worked as The Art Wood Combo but then decided it was hipper to drop the Combo and become The Artwoods.

The period when The Artwoods were operating was one of musical change when groups went from recording and performing other writers' material to writing their own. In fact the last year of the group's existence was 1967 which heralded the arrival of "Hendrix", "Flower-Power". "Festivals" and experimental use of mind expanding drugs! 1966/67 were particularly exciting years to be based in London and every night would be spent in one of the many clubs which had recently sprung up. The Ad Lib, The Scotch of St. James, The Cromwellian, Blaises and of course The Speakeasy to mention a few. Many of these we played in and the trick was to be well known enough not to have to pay the entrance fee on nights off. Any night you could be sure to meet your mates "down The Speak" and it became the unofficial market place for rock musicians.

It was also the days before huge amounts of equipment took over. Equipment meant road-crew and trucks and in turn financial hardship. This simple equation has been the downfall of many bands over the years. We used to travel in a 15 cwt van together with all the gear-no roadies, just us. It's amusing to recall but after recording the TV show "Ready, Steady, Go" (in Kingsway in those days?) one would be besieged by autograph hunters on the way to the van with the gear. Even really 'big groups of the day like The Zombies would hump their own equipment and apologetically place an amp on the ground in order to sign an autograph! Because it was financially viable to travel to small clubs in this way, we would often average 6 or 7 nights a week, every week, on the road. A bad month would probably mean less than twenty gigs. This meant we were living, sleeping and eating in close, and I mean close, proximity. You really found out who your friends were.

The subject of equipment is an interesting one as it really distinguishes the bands then from those of today. The average pub band of today would carry more equipment than we did. As I've already mentioned we were quick to realise that we could elevate ourselves musically by investing in a proper electric organ as opposed to a Vox Continental or Farfisa that many groups used. Consequently the group purchased a Lowrey Holiday and we thought this alone would provide us with the Booker T and Jimmy Smith sound.

What we failed to realize was that we also needed a Leslie cabinet with a special built-in rotor to get that "wobbly" sound. Our friend and mentor Graham Bond, the legendary organist/saxophonist, was quick to point out the error of our ways one night when we were gigging at Klooks Kleek in West Hampstead. We groaned inwardly when we discovered the extra cost and humping involved, but it had to be bought. We were fortunate very early on to score a deal with Selmers, who provided us with free amps and P.A., but we had to make the trek to Theobalds Road once a week to get it all serviced as they were not as reliable in those days. I used a Selmer Zodiac 50 watt amp and Malcolm had Goliath bass cabinets with a stereo amp.

The P.A. comprised two 4 x 12 cabinets and a 100 watt amp! When we toured Poland we played in vast auditoria and linked our system with the Vox system being used on tour by Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas. This meant we were pumping out no more than 300 watts which is laughable by today's standards. Although it would never have compared in quality, I can remember standing at the back of extremely large halls and being able to hear clearly all the words Billy J sang. One day in 1963 Alexis Korner sent me off foraging in and around Charing Cross Road for a new guitar, with instructions to mention his name whereupon I would receive a discount of 10%. Previously I played a Burns Trisonic (collectors will appreciate this model did not have "Wild Dog" treble) but fancied owning a Gibson ES335 as favoured by many blues players. Sure enough one was hanging invitingly in the window of Lew Davis's shop.

I ended up paying £135 and still use it regularly today although its value has multiplied five fold. Malcolm came with me that day and bought an Epiphone bass, the same colour and shape as my guitar. For years we looked like matching book-ends on either end of the group! Keef started off using a Rodgers drum kit, but somewhere along the line changed to, I think, Ludwig. There was no out-front mixing as is common today, just the P.A. amp on stage with the vocalist. Primitive I know, but everything revolved around bands being able to travel economically with their gear and perform at small clubs anywhere in Britain. The college circuit was much sought after and provided the icing on the cake while package tours were not necessarily well paid. We did our first with P. J. Proby and got £25 per night (for the lot of us) and we had to pay for our own accommodation!

~

I have already mentioned "Ready, Steady, Go" a show on which we appeared on more than one occasion. The original format called for groups to mime to their records but after a time it was decided that it would become "live" and that the show would be re-titled "Ready Steady Goes Live". We were proud to be picked for the first "live" show and learnt the news via a telephone call to our agent in London from a phone box high in the Pennines. We managed a drunken war-dance of celebration round the phone box believing that this meant we'd really cracked it. As I remember the first show we did featured Tom Jones (complete with lucky rabbits foot) miming to "It's Not Unusual", The Kinks, Donovan and Adam Faith's Roulettes playing live (without Adam). We were promoting our first single "Sweet Mary" and I would put the date at around late 1964.

~

Our first recording deal was with a subsidiary of Southern Music Publishing called Iver Productions and I reckon that would have been mid 1964. Southern had a four track studio in the basement of their offices in Denmark Street ("The Street") and getting the gear downstairs, especially the organ, was "murder". Our first producer was Terry Kennedy and we recorded several tracks with him. Without going too deeply into all the details of recording techniques of the period, one tended to compensate for the lack of tracking facilities available, by attempting to duplicate the live excitement. In many ways it was a frustrating experience particularly for ambitious guitar-players. I was a Steve Cropper freak and I knew as a musician that a lot of his sound on record resulted from him working his amplifier hard in the studio— thus the speaker would emit the sound he was used to on stage. In Britain however, engineers would say "You don't need to play loud man, we can turn you up on the desk". The result was a weedy, thin guitar sound. From way back I'd been experimenting with "feed back" on stage and I really had to dig my heels in about the guitar sound in the studio. Once when I turned my amp up to give it a bit of "wellie" on a solo the engineer bounded out of the control room screaming that the level would bust his microphones!

~

Sometime during the career of The Artwoods it was decided that we should graduate to a better studio. This was arranged by Mike Vernon who also became our producer. Our records had all been released through the Decca Record Co. and Mike was a staff producer with them. Mike w also an authority on "The Blues" and the relationship led to our only single chart record "I Take What I Want" a cover of a Sam & Dave U.S. R&B hit. Mike was also producing John Mayall at the time and it seemed only natural that Mike and The Artwoods should team up. From this point on we recorded at the Decca studio in Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead, but I can't honestly say it did any more for us than our previous efforts in the Southern Music basement, although we could now indulge ourselves in the comparative luxury of the eight track studio. Later on, towards the end of the groups life we were signed by Jack Baverstock at Philips Records who was looking for a group to cash in on the thirties-style gangster craze which had been triggered off by the film "Bonnie & Clyde". As a result we changed our name to "St. Valentines Day Massacre" and released a single of the old Bing Crosby hit "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?" It was an ill- fated venture, which I would prefer not to dwell on, virtually signalling the end of the band apart from a few heavy-hearted gigs with a changed line-up.

~

Before that though, there were many great times to remember, and a fair number of gigs that were memorable in one way or another.

One of our favourite gigs was Eel Pie Island which we regularly played once a month; in fact we held the attendance record there for a while until the ageing blues artist Jesse Fuller took it from us. Eel Pie Island is literally an island in the middle of the River Thames at Twickenham and there's never been a gig like it since. It was an Edwardian ballroom originally I believe, that achieved notoriety in the 50's with the Trad Jazz boom. At that time, an overloaded chain ferry was used to convey the crowd across the river, but during the 60's a small bridge was in existence although it was only wide enough to take the promoter Art Chisnall's mini van. He had to make three separate trips across with the gear strapped to the roof and hanging out the back doors.

The audiences were exceptional for those times and I don't know where they all came from... very much like art students and very much more like the 70's than 60's. Long hair predominated and this was before 'hippies' had officially been invented! If you can imagine a ramshackle wooden ballroom, bursting at the seams, condensation pouring from the walls, the audience on each others shoulders leaping up and down, the sprung dance floor bending alarmingly in the middle, in the summer couples strolling outside and lounging on the river bank ... all this and not a disc jockey in sight! One other bonus was that it was a “free” house and therefore sold many different types of beer— we always favoured Newcastle Brown. Back on the 'mainland' afterwards it was always riotous packing the gear into the truck. I don't know how he managed it but one night Malcolm drove our truck over the support band's guitar which happened to be lying about, thus breaking the neck. I'll never forget the shocked look on that poor guitarist's face as Malcolm smoothly slipped the van into gear, apologised and drove off in that order!

~

No trip up north was complete without stopping at the famed Blue Boar on the M1 for a "grease-up" on the way home. I do not refer to truck lubrication but to a particular rock'n'roll delicacy known as “full-house”. This comprised double egg, sausage, chips, beans, tomatoes, fried slice, tea, and (if you were man enough) toast. It was considered a Herculean task to break successfully the 10 bob' (50p) barrier-all served on wobbly cardboard plates that doubled as items to sign autographs on for the self service waitresses.

Waitress: What band are you?

Me: You won't have heard of us.

Waitress: Oh go on, tell us.

Me: OK. The Artwoods.

Waitress: Never 'eard of you!

It was everybody’s dream to walk into the Blue Boar just as their hit of the moment was playing on the Juke Box.

~

One time we were chosen to represent the twentieth century at the centenary celebrations of the State of Monte Carlo— a most lavish affair which the aristocracy and dignatories of Europe attended. Princess Grace and Prince Ranier were the hosts and people like Gina Lollobrigida and the like were there. The ball was held in the famous Casino at Monte Carlo and we stayed in an opulent hotel called The Hermitage, I think. All I can remember is that we all had single rooms (a rare luxury) which were massive, and you could have pitched a tent under one of the bath towels, they were so big. After this we jetted off up to Paris where we played next door to the Moulin Rouge at a club called The Locomotive.

Whilst we were there we were taken out by our friend Mae Mercer, the American lady blues singer who we backed in England. She lived in Paris and took us out to Memphis Slim's club where we all set about drinking like it was going out of style. At the end there was an embarrassing scene concerning the bill with the result that Mae ended up in tears. Whilst we were bumbling about in an alcoholic stupor, an upright looking gentleman put his arm round Mae to comfort her and a wallet appeared magically from his inside pocket. Without further ado the bill was despatched and we later learned that our anonymous benefactor was none other than Peter O'Toole who was busy in the street outside filming 'Night Of The Generals' and was an old buddy of Mae's.

~

One Boxing Day we loaded up with turkey sandwiches and Xmas pudding and headed off for a gig down in Devon or Cornwall somewhere. We arrived to find the club closed and boarded up, and as usual we were broke. Naturally we were livid, checked into an hotel and located the promoter who lived with his mum. Next morning we drove round to where he lived and burst our way past his confused mum. We found him in his bedroom nervously cowering against some fruit machines which he collected. He had no money so we forced him to empty his damned machines with the result that we drove back to London with 50 quids' worth of 'tanners' (approx 22p for the younger reader!)

Whilst on the subject of disasters I suppose I am duty bound to mention Denmark. The first time we went there we caught the ferry to the continent, drove up through Germany, then caught another ferry to Denmark. There was no promoter to meet us when we arrived so all we could do was drive to Copenhagen and check in at the Grand Hotel. It cost us an arm and a leg but at least we got a good nights sleep after being awake for nearly two days travelling. The next day we made a few phone calls and finally tracked down the promoter. He said: "Didn't you get my telegram cancelling the tour?" We politely said no we hadn't and what did he intend doing with us? He checked us into another hotel (cheaper of course) and set about booking us at places that were similar to English coffee bars and youth clubs. We made enough to survive on and paved the way to more successful tours of that country. In fact by now we had Colin Martin on drums and were pursuing a much more adventurous musical policy and writing our own material. It was just right for Denmark who had taken Hendrix to their hearts to name but one, and we subsequently became quite big there in 1967.

The Artwoods achieved modest success-a minor hit single in "I Take What I Want", but we worked constantly, travelled abroad, had fantastic fun and made a living doing so. We had seven single releases, one album, and one EP, and we broadcast both on radio and TV many times. We did stage tours such as the P. J. Proby tour and covered most aspects of "show-biz" apart from actually making a movie. It was the era when bands still had to prove themselves as a live act before being offered a recording contract. now frequently happens of course that an act can become huge record sellers without so much as venturing to do a live gig.

~

So what happened to everyone? Well Art returned to his former occupation as a commercial artist and finds some time to fit in free-lance work between accompanying brother Ron Wood on raving excursions between Rolling Stones gigs. Malcolm moved into the same field as Art and they now work in the same building. Both of them gig occasionally on a semi-pro basis although Malcolm spent some time playing with Jon Hiseman's Colosseum and Don Partridge in the early 70's. Jon Lord became famous with Deep Purple and Whitesnake as did Keef Hartley with John Mayall and various bands of his own. Colin Martin is now a BBC Radio producer of repute. I played in various bands such as Lucas and The Mike Cotton Sound, Colin Blunstone's band, Dog Soldier (with Keef again), before I somehow drifted into studio and theatre work. Recently I formed an R'n'B band called the G.B. Blues Company, and it's great to be back on the road again.   ”

Derek Griffiths.

Clipping from Record Mirror on June 5, 1965, by Norman Jopling.

“We aim to excite!” … say the Art Woods

Just for the record, the Art Woods aren't a part of Epping Forest. In fact they're a group of five interesting young men, named after the group's leader Art Wood. They also happen to be one of the most realistic groups on the scene.

For a start, they are the awkward position of having a large following, a club residency but no hit record. Secondly. they don't mind pandering to commercial tastes, even though they have been hailed as one of the most authentic R & B groups in the land.

NO PULL

“But authentic R&B just isn't pulling the crowds any more,” says Art. “The audiences want to be excited, not to be lectured on what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. Although there was a time when you could spend half an hour on one number with long solos by everybody, it didn't last long. And although there are some clubs like that still, most of them want something fresh and new.

“And we try to cater for them. We like authentic R&B, but we also like playing everything and anything else. So far, our two discs haven't meant a light. Of course we'd love a hit. But we're lucky enough to make a good living without one.”

DISCS

The Art Woods latest disc is "Oh My Love" and the one before that “Sweet Mary”. Of them Little Walter has said that he couldn't believe any white group could sing and play the blues like they do.

Line-up of the group is Art Wood, leader. vocalist and harmonica. Derek Griffiths, lead guitar, Jon Lord, organ and piano. Malcolm Pool— base guitar, and Keef Hartley on drums. The boys use a specially adapted Lowrie organ, and get a sound that's really different.

But even if the boys sometimes become depressed about no hits records, they should remember groups like Cliff Bennett, the Barron-Knights, the Rockin' Berries and the Yardbirds, and how long THEY waited before they had a hit!

N.J.

[ageofevermore]

an update on how my oc's are getting along during this pandemic :)

Harry and Goldie: this man is absolutely loving the time he gets to spend with you and your little love! sure, now he's going out and about between the states and your flat back in london, but he absolutely adored the few uninterrupted months he got to spend with the both of you. goldie is just over two and a half years old when quarantine begins, so you and harry decide it's a good time to start potty training. she hates it at first, mostly because the sound of the toilet flushing is intimidating, but soon she learns that harry will sing over the loud sound. you almost rolled your eyes allowed the first time you watched your husband sing beside the toilet, clapping his hands and blowing into a blue harmonica between words.

the three of you also become a family of four, well five if were counting the goldfish named finn. you get pregnant just after march, and your finding out in a few days the gender...it's a little girl. even before you know though, harry has deemed your little one bowie. the baby inside of you loves grilled cheese and tomatoes, which you were never fond of, and is guaranteed to start moving around when music is played. the first time harry realized this, his head was in your lap and david bowie was playing on vinyl.

"did ya feel that, lovie?" he looked up with wide eyes and a glowing grin, "bunny likes himself some bowie."

"who said it's a boy harry?" you bit back, a smile on your lips.

"we already got a girl, it's only fair, love." he mumbled back before pressing his lips to the skin of your bare belly, not just popping but definitely not as tight as it was, "hi, bowie. ya gonna be my music partner? i think yeh big sister might have a fit."

but quarantine also came with struggles. goldie didn't understand why she couldn't bounce back and forth between your flat and anne's house, and she definitely didn't understand why you were no longer going to the pack every afternoon with a packed lunch and a plan to stop at the ice cream shop and collect a blue popsicle. she had thrown a fit at harry's feet for six days before moving along to the next obsession -- which happened to be styling harry's growing hair into a messy ponytail, or unicorn horn as she deemed through giggles.

Ellie McCall: ellie and liam are doing great! they've taken this time to just sit back and actually enjoy each others company. ellie's fresh out of college and beside stiles at the FBI, working as a medically trained field agent. her brothers best friend was less then happy when he realized that the younger girl was moving up in the program quicker then he could. ellie and liam are ready to start a family, though they don't look to be having any luck. when they do get pregnant though, ellie immediately worries that she's going to have to push a werewolf sized baby out of her. it takes seven calls to deaton and three voice mails to derek to assure her that the baby will be normal sized, and lacking in supernatural abilities until he's at least a toddler. oh yeah, it's a baby boy that is immediately named called brett dunbar.

though ellie and liam are enjoying the time home, it does bring ellie into a darker headspace. she dwells over allison and what her best friend might have been doing, and she can't help but think about boyd and erica. even matt crosses her mind a few times before she wiggles into bed besides liam and falls asleep with his heartbeat in her ear. liam isn't oblivious to her suffering, but it's apparent he doesn't know how to help. he sits were her sometimes when she's just staring out of the living room window, and makes her a cup of tea, because recently she's grown to hate the taste of coffee. he just lets her know that he's with her, and even though they're along in DC, she isn't actually alone.

Dylan O'Brien, Chloe O'Brien, and Maisie O'Brien: the trio is so good! dylan is so glad to finally be home with his girls for longer then a couple of broken up weeks. he can't remember the last time he was truly free to just be a dad and a husband. yes, chloe and dylan got married. it was a few weeks before the new year that they celebrated two months married. dylan's glad they waited so long, because the image of his daughter walking down the isle never fails to bring tears to his eyes. mae's just over four and a half, so she was in pre-school when everything started shutting down. she cried for weeks about missing her friends, clinging to dylan's torso for hours until she could be persuaded into walking on her own.

mae was a busybody, which meant keeping her home all day every day was hard. dylan was a personal jungle gym at this point, having bruises and cuts littering his arms and legs from how frequently he was used as a latter or slide. he wouldn't have it any other way though, loving that himself alone could entertain maisie for hours. what was hard about being home was finding alone time. the little one chloe and dylan shared loved to sneak into bed with them at two am, meaning that any passionate love making was rushed and done half dressed. it really wasn't passionate, but it quenched the thirst that would build after days of thick sexual tension.

every morning dylan would wake up after chloe and mae, coming down to plates of fresh fruit and pancakes. chloe didn't mind the big breakfast, giving her something to do other then stare at the wall or sing along to frozen for the umpteenth time that week. she had tried to get mae into something else after watching it seven times in a day, but the littler girl had crawled into her fathers laps with pleading eyes and a frown, sweetly asking if he could turn on anna and elsa when you were in the bathroom. it was no surprise that he cracked under the pressure, wanting nothing more then to be mae's best friend even when he knew a movie couldn't hurt her.

chloe's favorite thing about it all though had to be waking up in the middle of the night to cold sheets. she would leave the bedroom confused, having remembered falling alseep in dylan's arms, but in no time she would find her husband and daughter either in the kitchen eating ice cream, or cuddled up together in a toddler sized bed happily asleep. she would selfishly take a few more months of this isolation if it meant making more magical memories.

Emma James and Dylan Sprayberry: emma and dylan are great! they've started wedding planning, and have been using this time to finally finish moving into their house! emma was sad to let go of her first home with everly, but she comes to love their newly purchased home in SoCal even more. emma and ellery have been besties this entire time! it's not often that the two of them are apart, finding it a comfort to have some sort of daily routine that helps them stay mentally okay. emma is more then glad to have dylan by her side at home, but she needs more then her fiancé to keep a level head.

emma doesn't have any upcoming projects, instead taking the time to work on herself and her mom life. everly james is everything to her! the little beauty who looks just like her mother is just under two years old when this pandemic really cracks down on california, and it takes a toll on emma when they're forced to spend her second birthday with just dylan's sister and mother.

emma tries her hardest to keep in contact with holland and crystal, often having facetime calls scheduled. she misses seeing her friends faces every day, but knows that their reunion will be so much sweater once everything is safe and reopened.

Scotland Reilly and Dylan O'Brien: i haven't introduced scotland to this blog yet, but she's my little bean, and the irl oc for leila martin! anyways, scotland and dylan have been so good and really enjoyed being home together for longer then a few weeks or broken apart months! they're coming up on their seventh dating anniversary, and beginning to talk about what the next step might look like. they're been living together since season two of teen wolf, which was a year before they started dating, but neither one is completely sold on whether they want to go through with marriage. they have no doubt that the rest of their lives will be spent happily together and as one, but the idea of getting married never really stuck out to them!

scotland has an eating disorder that goes hand in hand with OCD that manifested after a childhood of travel between modeling jobs and bicoastal co-parenting. she's been strictly a vegan for almost nine years as a way to ensure that she's always healthy and so she doesn't feel to guilt about the foods she's eating, but recently she's started to introduce chicken (which dylan is absolutely thrilled about) fish, and a few dairy products. being home has given her the chance to actually feel comfortable with how far she's willing to push past her comfort zones and find new things out about herself. she's also overly plagued by baby fever!

she had her head on dylan's chest one afternoon, scrolling through moodboard on her pintrest account when the cutest pastel themed nursery caught her attention. they're in no way ready for a baby, but scotland can just imagine a tiny baby the two of them sharing her eyes and strawberry hair but every other quality being strictly dylan's. they both think a baby is the perfect next step, but in a few years time when hopefully the pandemic has calmed down and it's not so high risk.

the conversation goes like that:

"baby." scotland coos, looking up at dylan whose entire focus is on the old baseball game. he hummed in her general direction, his fingers brushing through her hair absentmindedly. "can we have a baby?"

he has to pause the game after that question, his whiskey eyes wide and caught off guard. scotland giggles at his reaction, pressing a kiss to the dip between his collarbone, "not right now, silly! but one day, can we?"

they'd never really talked about kids. dylan knew she wanted a few, having grown up with a large family, but they were both at the high of their career and never had time to imagine little hands and feet.

"one day." he promises gently, "i'd like that."

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 15X24

I love this episode! It felt like the old Grey’s! I got to see so many things that I love about my favourite characters and I found that the characters that I dislike were not nearly as annoying this episode. It really sets the finale up well! The big exception to this is Teddy. Prior to this season I really liked her. But her actions in this episode really made me lose respect for her.

Meredith’s in the OR. It’s nice to have her back. She’s wearing her purple scrub cap today. This further supports my theory that DeLuca is not the one and when she finds the person that will be the next great love of her life, she will switch to wearing one scrub cap all the time like she did before. Gives me hope. We find out that it’s a dream sequence! And a really dark one at that. There’s a really dark call back to the shooting episode and CeCe is there! This got dark really fast. Meredith wakes up in bed next to Jo. She’s crashing there and refusing to leave until Jo talks to her about what’s going on. This is what I love about Meredith. She’s a good friend and won’t give up on the people in her life no matter what.

We cut to Amelia and Link in bed. She’s awoken by the sounds of Mer’s kids and freaks out that Link is still there because they fell asleep accidentally. Now he has to stay there until the kids leave for school. Meanwhile Maggie and Jackson are camping. Maggie hates it. This storyline is dumb. Jackson’s being an idiot. Alex is at Mer’s place while she’s at his. He’s making Zola breakfast when Amelia walks in. He’s found a blood donor for Gus! She’s flying in from London, England.

Zola wants to know how long her Mom is going to be staying with Aunt Jo. Alex tells her she’ll be there until she helps Aunt Jo feel better. Zola asks what’s wrong with Aunt Jo. Alex’s face is heartbreaking. Amelia tells him to go take a shower and that she’s got this. “Alex if anyone can help it’s Meredith.” This is heartbreaking! Back at the hospital Gabby is throwing stuffed animals at a sleeping DeLuca. It’s very cute. Catherine arrives in the lobby in a stunning black and white dress. I love her outfits! The wardrobe department always does a stunning job with her. She’s there on Foundation business. Richard didn’t know she was coming. They briefly talk before going into a meeting in one of the conference rooms.

Tom and Teddy talk items for the baby’s nursery. I love them!  Amelia and Link talk and he tells her he left the house, and no one saw him because no one was home. He makes a joke and Amelia is not amused. They all visit their quadriplegic stem cell patient. No progress so far. Tom makes a joke that cheers them up slightly. Alex visits Gus and his parents. They get an update on the blood donor from Schmitt. Her agoraphobia is so bad she’s barely functioning. Luckily her therapist is with her. Until some a*holes from customs take him away because of a visa problem. Now they’re screwed. She gets back on the plane. Alex has to tell the family.

Gus’ Mom is pissed. I would be too. She’s done waiting. Gus keeps getting sicker and this woman won’t get off the stupid plane. She’s had enough. She pushes Gus’ latest LEGO building over in frustration. Gus’ Dad is super loving and understanding. He says he feels the same way. He goes to help and slips and falls on the LEGO’s and breaks his ass! This is the Grey’s Anatomy I love! Alex takes him for treatment. Nico for some reason is a jerk to Alex. He’s really getting on my nerves. Owen and Teddy ask what happened. Alex tells him and Owen says he’ll go and get the blood and runs out at lightning speed.

Schmitt and the blood donor Francis are on the plane. She’s refusing to get off and she’s singing Wham! songs. Schmitt’s at his limit. Back at the hospital Tom and Amelia walk up to Richard and ask what’s going on in the conference room. Richard says he doesn’t know but they’ve been in there for over an hour and that can’t be good. Richard wonders out loud if Catherine is selling the hospital. To which Amelia replies, “Don’t you think you’d know if your wife was selling the hospital?” in a joking way. Richard just stares at her. Considering he didn’t know she had cancer I wouldn’t put it past her.

Nico is now being a jerk to Teddy. I really hate this guy. He killed a man, refused to take responsibility for it and is now being a jerk to his superiors for not trusting him for obvious reasons. Richard and Teddy share some hilarious banter! Meanwhile Mer is still in bed with Jo. They talk about Mer’s crap instead. She admits that a small part of her may be hiding out here because DeLuca SAID he loved her not because she believes he actually does. She tells Jo it’s terrifying but that she’s mostly here for her. She refuses to leave because she promised Alex she wouldn’t go until she got Jo to talk to her. I love their friendship.

Jo tells her that listening to her complain about love is not helping. Mer counters and says her husband died and that the ‘I love you’ scares her because the last person she said it to was Derek. She tells Jo that her and Alex are not delicate flowers, that they understand pain and there’s nothing Jo could tell them that they can’t handle. In response Jo finally tells her what happened and it’s heartbreaking.

Meanwhile Maggie and Jackson are hiking. She gets stun by something and twists her ankle and they have to head back to camp. Back at the hospital DeLuca is showing Gabby how the MRI machine works by doing a scan of her toy cat. Alex walks in and DeLuca asks how Jo is. He says he doesn’t know and that Mer’s still over there and that he’s probably heard more than him. DeLuca says he actually hasn’t heard from Mer in a while. Yes! Let this be the final break up! Come on! Let it end!

Back at the loft Jo shares a story from her childhood. She says she feels all the abuse she’s suffered is her birth right and her inheritance and she can’t move past it. Mer sits there and compassionately listens. Owen arrives at the hanger. He talks to Francis who explains her therapy and how she came to be where she is. It turns out she also has a fear of needles. Good lord this woman. She’s also a hypochondriac. Schmitt is losing it. She starts singing again.

Alex is with Gus’ Mom. He tells her they’re taking her husband up to the OR. It looks like she’s crying only she’s not. She laughing! Alex and her have a good laugh! And then Gus goes into distress! Nico and Richard operate on Gus’ Dad. Helm comes in to update Nico on his other patients. She asks if she can scrub in and is chatting about the humorous injury when Nico cuts her off and is a complete ungrateful jerk to her! I get that Nico is hurting but he’s taking it out on both superiors and insubordinates like a complete asshole. In real life that would get you fired. He’s also not teaching her anything and this is a teaching hospital! Richard gives Nico a talking to about the BS he just pulled. He makes reference to the Judy Doll episode. There’s a lot of great throwbacks for long-time fans in this episode.

Meanwhile Owen is still trying to get Francis off the plane. He suggests she put the blanket over her head between there and the car, but she says she can’t. Schmitt is livid. After talking some more Owen has an idea. He video chats Alex and says Francis wants to meet Gus. Gus’ Mom speaks to Francis because Gus can’t because he had a heart attack. He talks Francis into trying. She puts the blanket over her head. They’re on their way. Owen’s speech visibly moves Teddy. Owen lifts a covered Francis and carries her to the car.

Back at the loft Meredith is reminding Jo of all of the wonderful things she’s done and made happen. All of the people she’s saved. She tells her that violence isn’t her inheritance. It’s something she survived. She tells her she’s taken the darkness life gave her and used it to help others and turned it into light. If her birth mother can’t see that well that’s her problem not Jo’s. Jo’s still not buying it, so Mer shares her story about the time she almost drowned years ago. Another great throwback for long time viewers.

Hearing that Meredith stopped fighting and almost died because of it is what gets through to Jo. Mer asks her if she needs a few more days or if this is her telling her she wants to stop and quit. Jo considers it and says doesn’t wanna stop and she does need a few more days. Yeah Jo! Mer says they need to talk to Alex and Bailey in order to get her the right kind of help and a proper leave of absence so that her career is waiting for her when she comes back. She convinces her to take a shower and makes her laugh for the first time in ages!

Meanwhile Owen, Francis and Schmitt are stuck in major bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway as fog rolls into Seattle. Dun dun duh!!! Francis is singing again, and Schmitt finally cracks and joins in! If you can’t beat em join em! Owen is not amused! Back at the hospital Gus is oxygen deficient. Alex decides to move him to the hyperbaric chamber until the blood arrives. Teddy gets called to another patient. Meanwhile Maggie and Jackson have arrived back at camp. Jackson is treating her injuries when he looks at his phone and realizes Alex needs her for Gus’ care. They have to go now. Just then thunder rolls in!

Carey the quadriplegic patient’s labs are back. They’re not good. She needs surgery. Her adult child Toby starts freaking out. Her Mom gives a speech about eschewing a safe life for one of adventure and bravery.  Teddy is moved and starts to tear up. Carey decides to do the surgery with Toby’s blessing. Link tells Amelia who’s with Leo whose now sick. Since Owen’s on a rescue mission she’s taking him home. Link asks if this her past or her future since she called Owen’s Place home. Hesays this is starting to be real for him, but he’s upset that Amelia hides him from her family and is playing house with Owen.

He asks her what she wants. If what they have is real for her too ‘cause if not he needs to know. I really hope they end up together. He says she doesn’t need to tell him right this minute, but soon. Which I think is fair. Meredith brings Jo to the hospital. They run into DeLuca and Mer says they need to talk to Bailey. He says that’s not a good idea because she’s been in the conference room all day. Jo says she can wait until Bailey’s done if Mer can talk to Alex for her. Mer asks DeLuca to stay with Jo and not to leave her side and that it’s important.

Once she leaves Jo asks him if he loves her. He says who wouldn’t? Which is not the proper response to that question! What an idiot. I hate this guy. Bailey needs to speak DeLuca. Jo says she’ll stay there and to go. He enters the conference room. They have questions about Gabby’s treatment. We find out the people at the meeting are inspectors from the insurance company and they’ve found out about what Meredith did. They want him to rat everybody out. To be honest I really thought he was going to. He always has in the past.

Tom runs into Teddy. He tells he’s going to put together an Ikea baby changing table for her.  She says she has to do something at work. He says no problem he’ll meet her home and order some food for them. I feel so bad for Tom! He’s such a sweetheart and so good to Teddy. He doesn’t deserve this crap. Owen and Teddy just need to go and stop hurting people like assholes. Alex is putting Gus into the hyperbaric chamber. Mer comes to talk to him. She decides to come into the chamber with him.

Teddy goes to Owen’s house. Amelia is there with a sick Leo. Amelia makes it clear she’s just there for Leo and that her and Owen are finished. She welcomes Teddy in. There’s some real growth from Amelia here which I love. Teddy tells her that she loves Owen and it’s scary and they hurt each other, and it is not easy. In this moment I lost all respect for Teddy. Sigh. Amelia says these are all things she already knows. Teddy says she doesn’t want safe and she wants her daughter to see love and that Tom makes her feel, but Owen is the only one who makes her feel passion and a bunch of others things.

She says she has to tell him now before her daughter is born. Her water has broken, but she wanted to say all that before she went into labour. They leave to go to the hospital. Meanwhile Maggie gets a text. Teddy’s water just broke so she can’t cover her service anymore. Her and Jackson decide to leave some equipment behind and go immediately. As they are about to leave a heavy down pour starts and they see heavy fog has rolled in. Yikes! Back at the hospital Meredith is about tell Alex what happened with Jo when someone calls her name outside the chamber.

It’s DeLuca and Catherine’s behind him. Mer tells him it’s not a good time, but he says it can’t wait. He tells her it was him who put Ellis’ name on Gabby’s paperwork and takes the fall for it. Mer tells him no but there’s only so much she can say with Catherine standing behind him. He says he’s going to the police but that he wanted to speak to her first. He says it’s not fair to her or her kids. That they need her. She tells him not to. He says he committed felony and that he’ll likely go to jail. He mouths ‘I love you’ before Catherine escorts him out. She yells at him not to go to the police. He doesn’t listen.

I’ve never liked DeLuca but that was a bold move. I’m surprised he took the fall. I think it’s the only time he’s done that and one of the only times he’s done the right thing for that matter. I’m not sure how they’re going to end this one. Will he go to jail? Will he work out some kind of deal? Will he leave the country? I’m guessing this is going to involve him being written off the series. Meanwhile Owen, Francis and Schmitt are still stuck in traffic and now it’s raining. The fog is now thick it’s a wall. It’s pea soup at this point! Francis asks if they can keep the window open as it reminds her of home. She’s just started to relax when there’s a crashing sound behind them and they all lurch forward! There’s a massive multi car pile up on the freeway they’re on because of the fog! Things are about to get so much worse!

Until next time.

Au revoir!

[bbclesmis]

Daily Mail: The original superhero: An ex-con with the strength of an ox and a passion for justice – Dominic West on playing Valjean in the BBC’s epic new version of Les Mis

Dominic West, 49, is set to star in Andrew Davies' adaptation of Les Misérables

The story written originally by Victor Hugo in 1862 became a hit film in 2012

The French novel is also the longest-running musical in the West End

Dominic says the story's Jean Valjean is the best superhero that’s ever written

He shared his thoughts on the challenge of bringing new complexity to the role

Dominic West walks into the room sporting a huge grin, sideburns, rust-coloured breeches, a scarf that makes him look instantly French... and a sore throat.

‘I’ve almost lost my voice,’ he croaks.

He’s midway through filming the BBC’s epic new adaptation of Les Misérables when we meet, so this is far from ideal. But he’s undeterred.

‘I’ve been shouting for justice for too long,’ he laughs.

Many drama fans will know Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel from the popular musical adaptation that has been playing in London since 1985, making it the longest-running musical ever in the West End.

It was turned into an Oscar-winning film in 2012 with Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe, but this six-part TV series – with no singing at all – goes much deeper into a story encompassing the nature of justice, the misery of humankind and the redemptive quality of love.

Dominic West, 49, revealed the complexity behind his role as ex-criminal Jean Valjean in the TV adaptation of Les Misérables. Pictured left to right: Madame Thénardier (Olivia Coleman) and her husband (Adeel Akhtar), Fantine (Lily Collins) holding a young Cosette, Valjean and Javert (David Oyelowo)

The epic tale focuses on ex-criminal Jean Valjean, his policeman nemesis Javert, and a host of characters they meet on their respective journeys through France between 1815 and 1832.

After being released from prison, where he was incarcerated for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving sister but kept in jail for 19 years for continually trying to escape, Valjean is an embittered man until an act of incredible kindness from a village priest, played by Derek Jacobi, makes him vow to turn over a new leaf.

But he soon discovers that having to show his ex-criminal papers wherever he roams means he’s unable to find work, and finds he’s being pursued by Javert because he’s failed to check in with the authorities after his release.

Six years on, he has become a wealthy factory owner in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

He has a new name, is well regarded as a philanthropist and no one knows his past.

It’s there that he meets single mother Fantine, who has turned to prostitution after being sacked from his factory.

Her daughter Cosette is being brought up by the Thénardiers, a couple of thieves who run an inn, and she can’t afford to pay them.

Valjean promises to look after Cosette for the dying Fantine, but first he must flee from Javert, who’s on his heels.

The action then turns to Paris in 1832, where cholera is rife and the streets are ablaze with anti-monarchy protests.

Valjean and a now teenage Cosette are living there, but both the Thénardiers and Javert are in the capital too.

It’s a dangerous time for everyone, but as well as tragedy in the closing scenes, there is love, redemption and forgiveness.

As the series has been adapted by the king of costume drama Andrew Davies, the man who sexed up Pride And Prejudice and War And Peace, we can expect a lighter touch – as well as more nakedness – than is to be found in the average retelling of the French classic.

Andrew Davies says the musical version of Les Misérables failed to get to the heart of the story, in his version he includes various elements of love. Pictured: Marius (Josh O'Connor) and Cosette (Ellie Bamber) fall deeply in love with each other

The musical, he says, was ‘a shoddy farrago’ that failed to get to the heart of the story, whereas his version will.

‘The story has all those elements of love: romantic love, maternal love, filial and sibling love.

'It looks at those universal themes of how we live a good life.

'But it’s about much more than that.

'We live in a society that’s as divided into rich and poor as the society Hugo was talking about.

'Now, as then, there are people who end up on the streets if something goes wrong.’

Dominic, 49, is cast as the lead character Valjean, a beast of a role that he’s clearly relishing, despite his croaky voice.

‘Jean Valjean is the best superhero that’s ever been written,’ he says.

It’s a very emotional story. I’m in tears all day - Dominic West                        

‘He’s amazing. If he’s not saving kids or fighting villains, then he’s climbing up ships’ masts to save some sailor.

'It’s a very emotional story. I’m in tears all day.

'Really, I can’t stop crying. I just love this man. He’s such a good guy.

'Usually it’s hard to make good guys interesting so that people really care about them.

'But he’s fighting all the time – not only with Javert who’s on his tail, but also with his own demons.

'The odds are stacked against him, the world is stacked against him, and yet he manages to be a good guy when all the pressures around him are urging him to be bad.

'Our lives are nothing like his, but we are having slightly tougher political times right now.

Ooh la la love triangle!                                                            

While the heart of the story is about Jean Valjean and Javert, there’s another intriguing relationship in Les Misérables – between Eponine who loves Marius, and Marius who loves Cosette.

‘Marius is passionately in love with Cosette, but in my version he keeps having dreams about Eponine,’ says writer Andrew Davies.

‘That leaves him terribly upset and feeling like he’s betrayed Cosette.

'It’s not in the original text, but Eponine does keep coming into his room and I thought about how unsettling that must be to a lusty young man.’

Eponine, played by Erin Kellyman, is the daughter of Thénardier, who goes to Paris after losing his inn, but she’s nothing like her thieving father.

She meets Marius when they share the same boarding house and falls in love with him.

Eponine (Erin Kellyman, pictured) suffers unrequited love in Les Misérables as she loves Marius but his heart belongs to Cosette

But he’s in love with Fantine’s daughter Cosette, who as a girl was brought up with Eponine by the Thénardier family but is now, after her mother’s death, the charge of the rich philanthropist Jean Valjean.

‘Eponine’s story is so sad because she tries so hard to impress Marius and he’s not interested at all,’ says Erin, best known for her role as rebel Enfys Nest in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

‘So she resorts to doing what she can to make him happy rather than making herself happy.

'Everyone knows what unrequited love feels like – but not quite to this extent.’

Josh O’Connor, who’s cast as Marius, admits he enjoyed having two beautiful girls in love with him.

‘He’s madly in love with Cosette, but his feelings about Eponine creep up on him.’

Nocturnal Animals star Ellie Bamber, who appears as Cosette, says audiences will see a new side to her character.

‘You see her past a lot more – she’s been through abuse and had to grow up fast,’ says Ellie, who first played Cosette in a school musical.

‘But she goes on a journey, falls in love, confronts her abusers and is a symbol of hope.’

'We’re looking for a hero and he could be that guy.

'I’ve got kids, and I’m at that age now where I don’t want to be a villain.

'It’s much more interesting when people are trying to be good when the world is against them.’

Dominic, whose naked bottom is seen within the first half hour of the show (‘It’s all mine!’ he laughs), says it took a lot of preparation to play Valjean, who is notable for his strength.

‘It took me about ten years to read the book,’ he jokes.

‘I also did a bit of boxing training, which almost killed me.’

The pressure Valjean comes under is mainly created by Javert, played by David Oyelowo, who’s best known for appearing as Martin Luther King in the film Selma.

He first meets Valjean in prison, where he’s astounded by the prisoner’s strength.

Fantine sells her hair, her teeth – and then herself - Lily Collins

When Valjean fails to report to the authorities after his release, Javert is on his tail and some years later mysteriously turns up in the village where Valjean – without revealing his past – has become mayor.

‘Javert is the villain, but while in the musical you see him only in primary colours, in this mini-series we see his many layers,’ says David, 42.

‘When I was offered the job I realised there was an opportunity to bring complexity and dimension to a character who’s largely been marginalised as a villain.’

Andrew Davies says he believes Javert’s obsession with Valjean may have a sexual element to it.

‘He may possibly be in love with him, in a strange way,’ he says.

‘If you think about it, their relationship with each other is the closest either of them has to romantic love in the story.’

Derek Jacobi (pictured) plays a priest who reforms Valjean with an incredible act of kindness

But David admits he chose to see other motivations for Javert’s preoccupation with catching Valjean.

‘Javert sees Valjean as a mirror to himself,’ he says.

‘Javert was born in a prison to gypsy parents.

'He was born in and around criminality, and that’s the thing he’s been pushing away from, obsessively, all his life. He’s trying to kill off that side of himself.’

Dominic says the rivalry between the two characters became easier to understand as soon as they gave Valjean a northern accent and Javert a southern one, playing on regional rivalries that will be familiar to British audiences even if it isn’t authentically French.

‘We had a bit of trouble at first, thinking why is Javert so obsessed with this dude,’ he says.

‘But it all became easier when David started doing Javert in a southern accent and I started doing Valjean in a Yorkshire one, because I’m originally from Sheffield.’

More than anything it’s a study of goodness - Dominic West  

The casting was deliberately colourblind, with Adeel Akhtar, who has Pakistani and Kenyan heritage and is best known for his role in Unforgotten last year, as the thieving innkeeper Thénardier and David, whose parents were both Nigerian, playing the key villain.

It may cause raised eyebrows, but David insists it’s time.

‘The thing that’s often overlooked is that we’re taking a 150-year-old French novel and transposing it onto English life,’ he says.

‘We have long striven to make these older texts relevant to a contemporary audience, and this is just an extension of that.’

David and Dominic have been filming in a picturesque cobbled street in Brussels, where much of the Paris action in the series takes place – Paris is now too modern to play itself.

Dominic revealed he prepared for his role as Valjean (pictured as a prisoner) with boxing training

Shopfronts have been aged, satellite dishes and street signs covered up, cars replaced by horses and there’s a market in full swing outside a church with dozens of extras dressed in smocks.

There are even dog carts, which were used to transport goods at the time, being led by Great Swiss Mountain Dogs.

This is where we will first meet another of the key characters, Fantine, played by Lily Collins, the 29-year-old daughter of singer and drummer Phil.

In the musical we see only the end of her life, but here we will see the light that preceded the darkness.

The scene being filmed today shows her walking with friends to a dance, where she meets Felix, played by Johnny Flynn, who will seduce her and leave her with a baby, Cosette.

‘I love the musical, and playing Fantine is a dream come true,’ says Lily.

‘We get to flesh out the storyline we’ve never seen performed before.

'What is just a lyric in a song in the musical takes up an entire episode. We get to see Fantine fall in love and have her heart broken.’

Because of the vagaries of filming – and having to accommodate a stellar cast’s busy schedules – Lily filmed Fantine’s downfall first, before portraying the happier early part of her life.

As a single mother, her daughter is being brought up by the increasingly avaricious Madame Thénardier, played by Olivia Colman, and when Fantine loses her job in Jean Valjean’s factory in Montreuil she’s forced to sell her hair, then her teeth, then herself to make money.

Olivia Colman stars as Madame Thénardier (pictured) who brings up Fantine's daughter

But even that isn’t enough.

‘I did her death scene on my second day of filming,’ says Lily.

‘It was snowing and minus 13 degrees.

'The snow and the cold, the rags and the cobbles all helped me do the scene but it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

'By the end she has no hair and her front teeth are missing; the make-up and costume departments did the most extraordinary job.

'I sent my mum a photo of what I looked like and she said, “Oh God, no mother should ever see her child like that.”

'But being unable to recognise myself physically helped me transform myself, I’m really grateful for it.’

Lily says she had a brief chat with Anne Hathaway, who won an Oscar for playing Fantine in the film, about this tragic story.

‘I met her at a fashion event and she said hello to me. I got all nervous and said, “I’m playing you... well, not you, Fantine.”

She said, “Don’t lose yourself in the role because it can get really tough.” And she was right.

'As an actor I’ve never gone that low and it was hard to cling onto reality.’

The series, like the book, is set in the 17 years after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The devastation of the battle opens the series in a powerful scene where we see innkeeper Thénardier robbing the bodies of dead soldiers. When he pulls a horse off one corpse to steal from him, the soldier is still alive.

The real Valjean     

The character of Jean Valjean was partly inspired by a real-life reformed villain, Eugène François Vidocq, who spent much of his life on the run.

A teenage tearaway who stole from his own family, his early years were spent in and out of jail and he also deserted from the army.

But that all changed when he witnessed the execution of an old friend and former thief.

Les Misérables's Jean Valjean was inspired by real-life reformed villain, Eugène François Vidocq (pictured)

He turned police informer and philanthropist, set up a factory for ex-convicts and even, in 1828, lifted up a heavy cart that had fallen onto one of his workers.

Revered as the ‘father’ of modern criminology, he set up his own detective agency and is credited with the introduction of undercover work, ballistics and he even made the first plaster cast impressions of shoe prints.

His first memoir was printed in 1829 and as well as inspiring Victor Hugo, who is said to have created both Jean Valjean and Javert from Vidocq’s story, he was also written about by Balzac, Alexander Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Charles Dickens.

Thinking Thénardier was there to help him, he demands the name of his saviour.

That man is Colonel George Pontmercy, the father of another of the key characters, Marius.

And in another strand to the story that will be new for fans of the musical who haven’t read the book, we learn about Marius’s upbringing.

Born into an aristocratic family, he is raised largely by his royalist grandfather Monsieur Gillenormand, played by the Harry Potter and Game Of Thrones star David Bradley, because his father is off fighting and his mother is dead.

When his father returns from battle, Gillenormand refuses to allow him to see his son because he’s so disgusted he fought for the rebel Napoleon.

But when Marius – a role taken by The Durrells actor Josh O’Connor – grows up he discovers more about his father and becomes a rebel himself.

‘He comes from a well-to-do background and then he turns into a socialist to fight for the people,’ says Josh.

‘The book is partly about social injustice, but you have these beautiful themes of redemption.’

As the story moves on, we see the characters interlink against the backdrop of a volatile Paris, as Marius falls for Cosette and Thénardier’s daughter Eponine falls for Marius, while Javert pursues Valjean.

‘All of human nature is here,’ says Dominic.

‘Guilt, revenge, injustice, triumph and love – but more than anything else this is a study of goodness.

'It makes goodness interesting and that is quite rare.’  

Les Misérables starts tomorrow at 9pm on BBC1.

(x)

[tkmedia]

Have ‘morally reprehensible’ Italy peaked too early?

Get your views on Italy and much more in to theeditor@football365.com… Italy v Belgium I enjoyed both games of football last night but in particularly the Italy v Belgium game with so much attacking intent on both sides. What I do not understand is how Italy get away with so much, I guess I would call it cheating. It gets called gamesmanship or the dark arts but it amounts to the same thing. It was highlighted perfectly by the BBC commentators at half time and full time in relation to Immobile where, as ex-pros, they were all laughing and joking about his antics. Would this be the reaction if the game was against England? I suspect not. Many years ago, John Nicholson wrote an excellent article about a mate of his (probably a bass player or a drummer) who got away with things because of who he was and John likened this to Italian Football and the then Italian president Berlusconi. By John’s reasoning, Italy and their president got away with things that other countries/presidents couldn’t because it was expected of them. This still seems to be the case and they have almost become a parody of themselves. I have no affiliation with Spain but I do hope that they get past this highly skilful but morally reprehensible Italian team. Gwarrior (LCFC) Italy peaking Anything can happen in the semi against Spain, and I’m sure the best team will win, but is there anybody out there who still thinks Italy peaked too early? Dario (gutted for Spinazzola, he’s been immense) Club team Italy play like a really well drilled club team despite playing a very different game to the Italy I’ve always known (apart from excellent game management/dark arts). How does an international team do that? Aidan, Lfc (Based on my 1 game experience of watching Doku, and limited football knowledge, I confidently suggest Liverpool should sign him) Quick Euro thoughts… – Spain’s Pedri is an absolute talent, could easily see him becoming the talisman of Barcelona once Lionel Messi does leave – Switzerland did themselves proud and a few of their team put themselves forward for a potential summer move, Yan Sommer anyone? – Italy could just win this whole thing, really impressive blend of old style Italy and new style – Ciro Immobile with the finest acting since Luis Suarez against Norwich – Is Roberto Martinez actually a good manager because I just can’t tell – Jeremy Doku is going to be yet another player Rennes make an insane profit on in a short space of time Mikey, CFC Chip on England’s shoulder… I used to wonder why so many people dislike England during International tournaments. I now understand because I’ve joined the queue. It’s so frustrating and annoying to hear the English media seemingly proclaim England the best team in the world because of one victory…ONE VICTORY…against a team you all claimed were no longer the force they use to be. Suddenly, every other team has a deficit and only England is going from strength to strength… Really?…REALLY!!! The worst thing is you have been playing the worst football this tournament has seen(Yes it’s the worst. If you have the best attack in the tournament like you claim, you shouldn’t be parking your team’s aeroplane on the pitch). Nelson (I can’t wait for Ukraine to give you guys a thorough trashing so things can go back to normal.) Lagos. KDB When the pressure is on in the biggest games, the great players stand up and make a difference. Not for the first time, Kevin De Bruyne was nowhere to be seen when playing on the big stage. Jamie, Eire

Dropping Sterling… First off, let me begin by saying I am not a fan of Raheem Sterling. He wouldn’t be on my fantasy team and I can’t understand why Southgate likes him so much. However, he is the leading goal scorer for England in the tournament and seems to be on a hot patch. How does dropping him make any sense? What other team would drop their leading goal scorer going into an important game? I would drop Kane, who let’s be honest has been woeful. Was not his goal also a tap-in? Yet the bias media celebrated the goal like it was some magical work of art. For Spurs yes he is magic, for England he has been below par. This same media is debating whether to start Grealish, he is England’s best player. He changed the last game as soon as he came on. I do think England will have enough for Ukraine, but Denmark will be a tough battle and could be the end of the road for England. Christian Gooner – Toronto Sterling right of reply… Enjoyed the replies to my Sterling email, less so the comments baselessly calling me part of the ‘Brexit/boo the knee crew’ and suggesting my analysis of some relative weaknesses of a footballer is based on ‘hatred’ – inaccurate, weird and offensive, ‘Luxongo’ et al. Sterling is a very impressive man on and off the pitch and has suffered deplorable abuse of all kinds – but it doesn’t make him (or anyone else) above fair criticism of his standard of play, nor does it mean anyone criticising his play should be associated with that abuse. Still, it’s useful to know how people must feel when they are ‘no-platformed’. Anyway – some perfectly reasonable opposing opinions (and it’s ok to disagree – I think?), but I have to take issue with Rob saying ‘ You simply cannot choose “whatabouts” over “reality”’. It seems he’s essentially saying that if you win, no one should ask: ‘what if we changed this, would we be better?’. A main point of my email was that if you rest on your laurels and don’t go through that exercise, eventually you are likely to come unstuck, just as we did in 2018. If you go through it and the answer is ‘no, we’d be no better’ then fine, but don’t stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la at the process. I like John G’s comparison to Linker and Greaves because Sterling has obviously done well to be in a position to score his goals. There’s plenty of merit in that view if the idea is that Sterling and Kane are an old fashioned front two with Sterling as the poacher, but is that really the way people think we’re playing and the main role people expect Sterling to play? The other problem is that in 1990 Lineker played in an XI with Beardsley, Waddle, Platt and Gascoigne. Not quite the seven defensive players we deployed in the last 16. If it wasn’t already a long email, I would have said yesterday that I’m more (but not completely) in favour of playing Sterling if we revert to an attacking four for the rest of the tournament, but in a 5-2-3 there is pressure on Sterling to create and, as Derek points out, we create a ‘paucity’ of chances with him as one of our attackers, with a number of promising scenarios breaking down as a result of his decision making and/or poor touch (something that’s pretty hard to prove or disprove with stats). Anyway, assuming Southgate persists with Sterling, obviously I hope I am proved wrong – it’s just that there’s a difference between what I hope and what I think. Shappo The real ambition in the tournament With the hands of time ticking inevitably towards another great sadly leaving the game, it’s clear that one man at the Euros is seizing the world stage to show that he’s ready to take over. In a match filled with stars, only one has stepped up to make it about them. No hesitation, confidence in spades – he’s stolen the show. Michael Oliver is clearly the next Mike Dean. Ryan, Bermuda (a normal human being would err on the side of a yellow and go to VAR, but never Oliver or the great Deano. Own those game-ruining mistakes I say!) Time for a Sin Bin? Football is an evolving sport. VAR is becoming less intrusive as we get used to it. But for me it is the acceptance of constant fouls that now needs addressed. Trips, pushes, niggles that stop the game and often stop real attacking opportunities, but are not bookable until about ten have been let go. So time for a 10 minute sin bin. A punishment that will impact on the game, give the perps a real disadvantage, and stop them doing it. The evidence is there from rugby. The ref warns then bins. It would make football a better game. Tim Haaland dreams… Imagine this: Haaland stays put in Dortmund this season.  His goals output next season drops with Sancho’s departure. (Haaland’s father reportedly went “F**k…” upon hearing confirmation of Sancho’s transfer to Man U”.) Man U goes on a deeper run in CL say semi-finals… What are chances Haaland joins Man U next summer -to re-unite with the man that assisted the most for his goals, and with the man who coached him in the youth ranks?  Many ifs, but one can dream… Lionel, Singapore Salzburg is in Germany? Hi there, I’m not taking issue with Lee’s general point about the BuLi being a less physical league , but Takumi Minamino signed for Liverpool from Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg. Austria hasn’t been a part of Germany since, well, some unpleasantness that is rarely discussed in the British tabloids, and certainly hasn’t been mentioned at all recently… Dara O’Reilly, London Souey Anyone who doesn’t have a man crush on Graeme Souness is made of stone. BB Read the full article

[toyahinterviews]

BBC RADIO TEES, SOUNDS WITH BOB FISHER 17.1.2019

BOB FISHER: Toyah is on the line with me. How are you? TOYAH: Hi Bob! I'm really well. I can't wait to be at the Arc (1.2.2019, Stockton-on-Tees) BOB: Excellent! This is the first date of tour as well, isn't it? TOYAH: Yes. What happens in my year is about mid-November I stop singing and have vocal rest. It's just a really wise thing to do. Not very many singers get a change to have that break. It's not that I haven't been working – I've been flat out! But I've just not been singing BOB: I noticed that you've been in the studio this week because I follow you on Twitter. What are you working on? TOYAH: On the 5th of April I have a new album out. The fans will be familiar with about 50% of it because we play them in the set. The album is called "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen"

So we've been in the studio writing new singles because there is a single due out. I'm  putting new tracks on this particular new album. I can't tell you too much because some of it is press embargoed but there's lots of exiting things happening for the fans. New images, new songs and we're very proud of it BOB: I have to say congratulations on Celebrity Mastermind as well TOYAH: It was a miracle that night, wasn't it? (laughs) BOB: (laughs) And you stormed it! Questions on Boudica. Is she something of a specialist subject of yours? TOYAH: A huge subject for me. There's a movie in the pipeline that I'm really hoping will go into production very soon. I've been studying Boudica for a long time. As a child I was fascinated by her and she is mainly myth. The only writings about her that can be taken as historical fact were 50 years after she actually lived The reason the papers were written in Rome was because Nero, who was the Emperor at that particular time, he was cross-dressing and historians wanted to write about a woman and in Rome a powerful woman was an insult

They created Boudica as this warrior queen as an insult to Nero. And for me that is just fascinating because she did exist. She was a warrior queen in a society were it didn't matter if you were a man or a woman. If you were willing to fight then you could be a leader Whereas in Rome women couldn't be leaders at the time. So there is a lot of myth and legend built up around her. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne the comparisons started again and you started to get Boudica in plays and in essays and in critiques

BOB: I'm intrigued by the forthcoming film. Are you involved with it at all? TOYAH: I am but I can't tell you any more! She is a big love of mine!      

BOB: Intriguing! I will pick up on Queen Elizabeth because I know you did the stage version of Derek Jarman's "Jubilee" (above) last year -

TOYAH: I loved it!

BOB: I bet! I did see your performance compared to Judi Dench's Queen Elizabeth, which I thought was intriguing. Was that a deliberate homage?

TOYAH: I hope positively compared! (they both laugh) I played Queen Elizabeth in "Jubilee" and it opened in Manchester about 14 months ago and then in London Hammersmith exactly a year ago. I loved the opportunity to play this woman, because, again, Elizabeth was beyond anything we could call femininity. She was highly educated, which people don't tend to realise about queens of that era

She was phenomenally intelligent. She spoke many languages, politically astute, she was terribly barbaric! And very clever in passing the blame to the men. She would have people killed and then put the onus on someone around her or nearby. She was quite phenomenal

BOB: And Derek Jarman himself must've been a huge influence on you because obviously you were in the original film production of "Jubilee"?

TOYAH: Yeah. Derek cast me as "Mad", a pyromaniac in the film version and it's a very kind of ramshackle film but it's utterly brilliant. It proves that you don't need polished edges for something to be watchable. It's not for everyone. It's a punk movie and it's a very violent movie and the stage play was very violent. But it did ask questions that I think theatre can ask. It can push out boundaries that sometimes only theatre can do. So it translated brilliantly on to the stage

BOB: I saw you as a teenager and it was life changing. Derek Jarman's films proved to me that you can make a film that just stands there as a piece of art. It's almost impressionistic

TOYAH: Derek was a collage maker. As an artist, on canvas, he was an collage artist and with film he was collage. But also I think Derek was very anti the beginning – middle – and end development within film and terribly anti commercialism. So his work is stand alone work

BOB: Can I ask about another film from that era? I know that the tour you're doing this year is marking the 40th anniversary of your first record deal and your first releases on a major record label. And I think you were making "Quadrophenia" at the time you signed the deal. Is that right?

TOYAH: That's true. And "Quadrophenia" is 40 years old this year as well. Yes, my very first album "Sheep Farming In Barnet"  is 40 years young. Even if I say so myself it's an utterly extraordinary album. I love performing the songs of it. They are high energy original soundscapes. They're very vital and they're full of lust for life    

On stage today, I'm sixty now, I absolutely adore performing them. "Waiting", "Neon Womb", "Danced", "Race Through Space". They are incredible songs! And again they don't tend to have an beginning, middle and an end! They're Impressionistic

My show with the band is going to be high energy and it has been forever and it will continue that way. We don't really seem to be settling down as far as energy goes. I think that particular album is very special

BOB: I've seen you wax lyrical about your song "Pop Star" as well, as one that you particularly enjoy performing?      

TOYAH: We've replaced "Pop Star" in the set this year with a song called  "Martian Cowboy", which is beautiful! We've only started performing it live for the first time in about 30 years last autumn (both laugh) Everyone's hair just stands on end. It's absolutely gorgeous BOB: Do you perform anything from "Prostitute" in the live set? TOYAH: No, we don't. It's just me and Steve Sidelnyc, who then went on to programme all of Madonna's albums. There's not the context yet to do that but it's a very good question. I will look into it because I think that would take the fans by surprise BOB: It's such an extraordinary album, honestly. I was listening to it again for the first time in a little while - TOYAH: How was it? BOB: It sounded great! It really did! It's an incredibly experimental album and it's a fascinating album. What prompted it? Did just feel you had to do something very bold and very different? TOYAH: I always have to walk away from the job I've just done. That's creatively, idea wise. I just have to walk away. I feel trapped. Which is why my career is so varied. And I think "Prostitute" came after doing "Minx". That was a signing to Portrait CBS, where I was being told to be everyone but me. I was being told to be like Pat Benatar ... I've got nothing against that but I am me. I'm not trying to be another person. I'm not an imitator       So I remember I'd just got married and the only question I was being asked was when was I going to start a family? Which was never the reason I got married and certainly never the reason I'm here on this planet. So it was an album that really came out of anger. It's a very expressive piece. It's the most critically acclaimed album I've ever done. Billboard gave it five stars and then claimed it was an antidote to Madonna - BOB: I saw that, yes! (laughs) TOYAH: I didn't make it to make enemies, I just made it because I felt powerless. So it's widely considered even today as a piece of genius. I'm not being modest here because your listeners will know I'm not the most successful female artist in the world but I am a persistent tenacious person. It's really nice to have people referring back to past album as pieces of genius BOB: Do you still feel that anger sometimes? TOYAH: I feel angry all the time - BOB: Do you? TOYAH: Well, I just think we look at gender rather than the person and we always compare artists to someone else. I don't think any artist out there is trying to be an impersonator of an other person. So I always feel anger but I always feel driven and I try to use it

For me I'd rather use it creatively writing a song than on forty digits in a tweet. I think you have to explore these feelings and develop them and then share them. And sometimes the results change people's lives and that's very important to me BOB: Is it instantly cathartic for you as well then? Can you write a song and think “that's it, it's down on paper now so I feel better about it” TOYAH: No – success is cathartic! (they both laugh) I'm always having to prove myself. With the new album there's a new song going on ... We finished it yesterday, it's being mixed and mastered tomorrow. That was a wonderful feeling of writing something that you like and a lot of people in my world have heard this song and they're just going “wow!” So that is a nice feeling BOB: So the album will be out in April?     

TOYAH:  The 5th of April

BOB: Fantastic. And the title "In The Court Of The Crimson Queen" is a little tip to one of your husband Robert Fripp's past incarnations. Did he offer a dry smile when the title was offered to him? TOYAH: There is a big surprise on the album - BOB: Is there? You're not going to tell me though, are you? TOYAH: He opens the album BOB: Oh, fantastic! TOYAH: And he's not wearing a guitar - BOB: (laughs) Rather like a prostitute! TOYAH: That's it. It's exactly that kind of part BOB: Excellent! It's been a pleasure to speak to you, Toyah. Thank you for doing this TOYAH: Thank you! And I can't wait to be at the Arc!

[sleemo]

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

What is cooler than one multibillion-dollar box-office hit? Two multibillion-dollar box-office hits. 

British actor Daisy Ridley is about to have both to her name as she returns as Rey in the next instalment of Star Wars. Emma Brockes meets her as she prepares for superstardom. — ELLE UK, December 2017

A few weeks after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey – Jakku scavenger, desert-planet survivor and feminist hero – went on holiday to an island off Croatia with friends from the crew. The actor, who was 23 at the time, had been warned that after the release of the movie – number seven in a franchise that has made more than $42bn (£33bn) – her life would dramatically change, and she was terrified. This was, after all, her first big-screen role. 

In restaurants, she scrutinised waiters to see if they were being too nice to her; she wondered if she’d ever be able to use the tube again. On holiday, her friends started calling her Linda, ‘as a jokey alias’, she says, ‘and then they started calling me Paranoid Linda’ when she became convinced a man was following them around and wondered if he was a private detective employed by the studio.

Two years later, 25-year-old Daisy is sitting opposite me at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, dressed in a shirt and capri pants in clashing blue-and-white prints, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s brimming with the kind of enthusiasm that reads on screen as charisma, and that helps to explain her meteoric rise from stage-school graduate with a few TV credits to her name to one of the most recognisable young stars on the planet. Paranoid Linda still makes an occasional appearance, she says, but mostly she has managed to adjust to life after two Star Wars movies.

Daisy clings to the fact that fame doesn’t need to have a warping effect. It also fits in with her belief that the best way to survive the pressures of high-voltage exposure is to try enjoying it. Everything is ‘amazing’ in her world and everyone is ‘remarkable’, ranging from her mum (‘a great person’) to Barbra Streisand, with whom she recorded a song in 2016 (‘a fantastic woman’), Harrison Ford (‘awesome’) and ‘Colly’ – Olivia Colman to you and me – who she starred with in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and who she found ‘incredible’, naturally. There is no hint of sycophancy here; it appears that Daisy is simply joyfully happy.

This cheerfulness has acted as a useful screen to hide behind during the years since she made Star Wars. Now her character, Rey, is back for The Last Jedi, the new Star Wars movie, directed by Rian Johnson. But Daisy found this one to be much more pressure than the first movie. ‘I suddenly felt a much bigger sense of re- sponsibility,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that.’

This is no humble brag. Daisy’s candour when it comes to her own performance is kind of startling. As a child, her general inability to disguise her feelings occasionally sent her into scatter-brained overdrive, an impulse that her loving London-based family: Mum, who works in internal communications; Dad, who’s a retired photographer; and two sisters – a model and a musician.

Daisy sometimes reads as posh – there is a certain ringing tone to her accent. In fact, she says, her family is more bohemian than posh. The accent, meanwhile, probably comes from boarding school. Aged eight, Daisy went to board at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire – not, she says, from any desire to be an actor, but because a friend of hers had gone to boarding school and it sounded like fun. ‘I was such a grumpy child,’ says Daisy, smiling at the implication that she can still, now and then, throw a big wobbler. ‘I used to get super-distracted – once I’d done my work, I would be annoying to everyone else – and my mum thought if I was busy, I’d be less distracting. I always sort of felt like I didn’t fit in.’ This anxiety wasn’t just a result of being a bookish teenager, but a feeling of unreadiness to go out and meet the world as an adult. ‘At 12 or 13, I didn’t know how to do make-up,’ she says, ‘and I still don’t know how to do my hair. And people wore high heels at that age!’

Even now, Daisy retains some small sense of herself as an outsider looking in. How could she not? Her CV at this point is extraordinary: as well as Star Wars, the actress has starred in Ophelia opposite Naomi Watts, and shot Murder on the Orient Express alongside Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Sir Derek Jacobi and Olivia Colman. It was on that last set that Daisy finally cracked. ‘I turned to Ken, wiped away a tear, and said, “I can’t believe I’m here, thank you so much.”’ Daisy adds, only half-jokingly: ‘“Did someone make you cast me?”’ (No, he said.) The self-deprecation is real. It’s not just the burden of fame or lame faux humility. There have been times in Daisy’s life, most notably after the first Star Wars movie was released, when she was literally uncomfortable in her skin.

At 15, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition of the uterus lining that, along with other symptoms, can result in severe acne that is exacerbated by stress. You know, the kind of stress that comes when you find yourself the star of the biggest-grossing film of all time. ‘I was in my flat going nuts, and then my skin got really bad with the stress of it all, and I hadn’t been well – I had holes in my gut wall and stuff – and we were trying to figure out what to do with that because I’d felt poorly.’ She did what she always does in times of stress and turned to her family, moving first to her sister’s house, a few streets from their parents, then to a flat she rented on her own in the same west London neighbourhood.

Still, says Daisy, it was scary. It is difficult to think of a more in- tense introduction to Hollywood than winning a big role in a new Star Wars movie, nor a bigger professional leap than Daisy’s jump from small parts in the usual roster of UK dramas and long-running soaps – Casualty, Silent Witness, Mr Selfridge – to the first day of filming The Force Awakens in Abu Dhabi. She had only turned up to the audition when a friend mentioned she was going, too, and now here she was, on day one of the shoot, with a production assistant holding an umbrella over her to keep the sun off while she looked around and ‘freaked out’. And then JJ Abrams, the director, yelled ‘action’.

Daisy will never forget that first scene, in which she had to dismount from her Speeder bike and walk a short distance with BB-8 while saying something like, ‘We’re going to get you home.’ Is it true that, after delivering her line, JJ called her acting ‘wooden’? Daisy laughs. ‘It is true! After the first take, he goes, “Just a bit... wooden”, and then we carried on. But JJ is the kind of person who before a scene says, “Don’t fuck it up.” So he said, “Just a bit wooden”, and I was like, “Oh my God.” But it got better.’ She is still laughing at the discrepancy between how bad it sounds (quite bad), and how bad it was. ‘It’s only because that word “wooden” is so loaded. But it was just tense. And I thought, “OK, loosen that shit right up and it’ll get better.”’

In fact, Daisy found JJ Abrams and the rest of the production crew to be incredibly nurturing, to the extent that she was rarely aware of the Star Wars ‘ma- chine’. It was a friendly set, she says, where she mostly hung out with John Boyega, the 23-year-old Brit who plays Finn, and with whom she had the greatest number of scenes, although her best friends were among the crew. JJ Abrams had deliberately hired hair and make-up for Daisy from the team who had worked on the Harry Potter franchise because, she says, ‘aside from the fact that they’re amazing, he knew that they had looked after Emma [Watson], Daniel [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint] for however many years. I felt very well taken care of.’

Harrison Ford, meanwhile, reminds her of her dad – ‘They both have an earring and are fucking awesome,’ – and the first time she shot a scene with him, he gave her a hug and said, ‘She’s so adorable’, and she felt right at home after that. (Mean- while, when her real dad visited the set, he went up to Mark Hamill and, in classic dad fashion asked, ‘So, who do you play, then?’) 

In fact, the most difficult thing about the whole Star Wars experience has been reconciling the terrible warnings she received about how life would change with the reality of what actually happened – that, and the anxiety of shooting the second film. In the first instance, ‘Everyone asked me, “Are you ready for your life to change?” And that gets into your mind.’ Throughout this period, she tried to hang on to a piece of advice given to her by the late Carrie Fisher – not to shrink away from the success, but to enjoy it – ‘And that was wonderful.’ Beyond that, she threw herself back into work. ‘At work, you’re normal, you’re not the anomaly, unlike in other situations.’ 

Surely she has occasionally been starstruck herself? ‘Absolutely not,’ she says. ‘I’ve never idolised anyone, really. I never had a crush thing. So when I met Barbra Streisand, for example, I was blown away, not because of her work, but because she’s a fantastic woman.’ It was JJ Abrams who recommended Daisy to Barbra, who was looking for a young star with a good voice to feature in Encore, her album of 2016. Daisy ended up singing with her on the song At The Ballet from A Chorus Line, and finding a new role model for herself. ‘I went to her house and we talked about [psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl] Jung because my dad loves Jung, and we were talking about dreams, and I left and got super emotional, not because she’s famous, but because she’s amazing. Part of her reputation comes from being a woman. If it was a man being “controlling” about his career, people would just say he knows what he wants.’

One of the things Daisy has struggled with in the wake of grow- ing fame is the responsibility of being told Rey is a role model for young girls. She has been asked about feminism and has had to scramble, on occasion, to form an opinion, not because she is bland or apolitical, but because everything she now says has the potential to come back and haunt her. For someone struggling with self-doubt, this can have a paralysing effect, and it is testament to Daisy’s seriousness that she has the sense to acknowledge it.

Of course, whatever kind of attitude you have, being a beautiful young woman in Hollywood means you are exposed to constant scrutiny. Daisy, like Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence before her, will have to weather the salacious interest that undercuts anything she has to say and, if she seems less confident than her peers, it’s not only part of her charm but also, paradoxically, speaks to some deep-seated security that one assumes comes from Daisy’s family; it can take greater courage to admit to one’s weaknesses than to cover them up with bravado or a fake kind of self-confidence.

She has also learned to sit back and relax a little, although shooting the second Star Wars movie, in which she had fewer scenes with her pal, John Boyega, made her briefly very stressed. ‘It’s not this big adventure that I’m on with John [unlike in the first movie]. I was thinking I did the first one because I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into and I was having loads of fun, and suddenly I’m realising what this actually is, and I can’t fucking do this.’

She says all this with a smile to acknowledge how neurotic this was. ‘I’m highly dramatic – so it’s all “oh my God”. And [director] Rian [Johnson] just said, “We’re going to do this, and these are the scenes, and this is how it’s going to work,” and finally I was like, “Oh yeah, this is working.” The fact is sometimes you’re not good at your job, and sometimes you’re better at your job.’

Having that kind of experience helps, but Daisy still has moments when she has to check herself to make sure it’s all real. There was one night on the set of Murder on the Orient Express when she found herself sitting around playing cards alongside Sir Derek Jacobi, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz and her husband Javier Bardem, who had come to support his wife. (Judi Dench had retired early to bed.) The next day, she and Sir Derek sat around doing the crossword. Even Paranoid Linda couldn’t worry the fun out of that one.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on 14 December.

— ELLE UK, December 2017

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2018

Scrapbook for 2018! A reminder, for myself and others-

Italicized titles = enjoyed muchly, bold titles = love, titles with an asterisk* = OBSESSION and titles in (brackets) are re-watches/re-reads. And lastly, strikethough = DISLIKE.

Goals are: read forty-five new books this year, finish six video games, write either 30 fics or 70k total, finish the damn Sabriel AU, and write something original. 

MOVIES

January

(Guardians of the Galaxy 2)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

February

(LOTR: Fellowship)

(Wonder Woman)

Black Panther

Annihilation

March

The Ritual

Cloverfield Paradox

Pacific Rim Uprising

A Wrinkle In Time

(Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

(IT)

(Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

April

Wolf Children

Moonlight

The Red Turtle

Europa Report

Avengers: Infinity War

May

A Quiet Place

Alien

Deadpool 2

The Conjuring

BOOKS

January

A Tale For The Time Being | Ruth Ozeki

La Belle Sauvage | Phillip Pullman [Fin]

London Falling | Paul Cornell

A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeline L’Tengle [Fin]

In Other Lands | Sarah Rees Brennan [Fin]

They Both Die In The End | Adam Silvera [Fin]

Thunderhead | Neal Shusterman [Fin]

The Sun and Her Flowers | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Paper Magician | Charlie Holmberg 

February

A Tale For The Time Being | Ruth Ozeki [Fin]

The Diviners | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Paper Magician | Charlie Holmberg [Fin]

We Were Liars | E Lockhart [Fin]

Lair of Dreams | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

The Goblin Emperor | Katherine Addison

I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death | Maggie O’Farrell [Fin]

Norse Mythology | Neil Gaiman [Fin]

Phasma | Delilah Dawson

Caraval | Stephanie Garber

March

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

The Goblin Emperor | Katherine Addison [Fin]

Phasma | Delilah Dawson [Fin]

Caraval | Stephanie Garber [Fin]

Tess of the Road | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

Clariel | Garth Nix [Fin]

Seraphina | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

Before The Devil Breaks You | Libba Bray

April

Before The Devil Breaks You | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

Salt to the Sea | Ruta Sepetys  [Fin]

The Wicked Deep | Shea Ernshaw  [Fin]

Hamlet | William Shakespeare  [Fin]

Fangirl | Rainbow Rowell [Fin]

The Scorpion Rules | Erin Bow [Fin]

The Thief | Megan Whalen Turner [Fin]

Hear The Wind Sing | Haruki Murakami [Fin]

May

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan [Fin]

Only Human | Sylvain Neuvel [Fin]

World War Z | Max Brooks [Fin]

The Queen of Attolia | Megan Whalen Turner [Fin]

The Stand | Stephen King

Shadow Scale | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

London Falling | Paul Cornell [Fin]

Goldenhand | Garth Nix [Fin]

PODCASTS

January:

N/A

February

N/A

March

The Bright Sessions (Eps 30-41)

Wolf 359 (Eps 5-8)

King Falls AM (Eps 5-6)

April

The Bright Sessions (Eps 41-52)

Wolf 359 (Eps 8-13)

King Falls AM (Eps 6-7)

Penumbra Podcast (Episode 1)

May

Wolf 359 (Eps 14-49)

The Bright Sessions (53-55)

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January:

Planet Earth II

Devilman Crybaby

Steven Universe s4

Brooklyn Nine-Nine s1

RWBY s5

(Stranger Things 2)

The Orville

(The X-Files)

The Flash s3

February

The Flash s3

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

The Gifted

The Good Place

The Runaways

AP Bio

March

Voltron s5

(Soul Eater)

Battlestar Galactica

(Sailor Moon)

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Cards

Bride of the Ancient Magus

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

April

Battlestar Galactica

Legion

The Flash

AP Bio

(Yu Yu Hakusho)

Persona 5 Animation

Westworld s2

May

Westworld s2

Legion

The Flash

Lost In Space s1

Persona 5 Animation

Siren s1

Steven Universe s5

VIDEO GAMES

January:

Prey (18 hrs)

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds (20 hrs, FIN)

Monster Hunter World (8 hrs)

February

Monster Hunter World (25 hrs)

Kingdom Hearts BBS (1 hr)

March

Monster Hunter World (25 hrs) 

Witcher 3 [FIN JFC]

Stellaris

Life Is Strange

April

Life Is Strange

Final Fantasy 12: Zodiac Age

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dany - 98 hrs; Brienne - 5 hrs)

May

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dany - 138 hrs - FIN; Brienne - 5 hrs)

SOMA

Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone DLC

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January:

Just the One, Two by Panny | Jessica Jones | Jessica/Trish | 10k They say you should never meet your heroes, but what about when you've been sort of in love with them since they broke your mother's marble sink? 

Daylight by @notbecauseofvictories | Star Wars | Rey/Luke | 3k “Can I ask what you think it is you’re doing?” Luke says. His voice is only a little strangled. The silence that falls in its place is awkward, thick as sand. “Oh,” Rey stutters out. “Is that not—?” “No,” Luke grits out. “Please put your clothes back on.”

run all the lights by @fahye | Captive Prince | Damen/Laurent | 8.5k He’s a slim, too-pretty boy of twenty, and the men of this particular underworld talk about him as though he’s an open flame, a sparking engine near a pool of gasoline: volatile, and not to be handled. Kid’s got balls of sheer fucking steel, Damen’s contact said. Which must be true, because having just lost a race against Damen for pink slips, Laurent looks him straight in the eye and says, “Double or nothing?” in a voice like vodka poured straight from the freezer.

They Say It's Mighty Fine by apocryphal | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 23k "Hello. This is Alpha Vernon Boyd, calling from Camp Remus about—""Derek?" Talia asks, confused. "You're calling about Derek? Is he okay? What happened?""Oh, boy." Melissa blows out a breath. "All right. Is he hurt?""He's been there for two hours, what could he possibly have—" John pauses. "Hang on, Camp Remus? Like the werewolf camp?"

León de mi Corazón by clockheartedcrocodile | The Exorcist | Tomas/Marcus | 16k | Not for the first time, Marcus wishes he were a poet. Tomas drinks up beautiful words like wine, practically thrives on them. He thinks of his own clumsy attempt at a letter, begun and re-begun until the whole thing had been consigned to the rubbish bin. It was laughable.Besides, he thinks, Tomas and Jessica wrote letters because they could not have each other.“You have me,” he says, quiet enough that Tomas won’t wake.

Things Worth Knowing by Femme (femmequixotic) | HP | Drarry | 163k After the Battle, Harry thinks he's left Hogwarts for good, but Minerva insists that all students return for an Eighth Year if they wish to sit for NEWTs in the spring, and Harry needs those NEWTs to go into the Aurors. Draco's just grateful not to be in Azkaban. Or the Manor. He's hoping he can steer clear of Potter this year and grapple with his own problems.

Under the Covers by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 72k Steve is (maybe) a little bit still in love with Nancy Wheeler and (maybe) trying to figure himself out-- between the night terrors and the babysitting and the general weirdness that is Hawkins, Indiana-- before he graduates.Billy Hargrove fits in there somewhere (probably).

the party never ends by brawlite | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 7k Billy wants a fight from Steve Harrington. He'll do just about anything to get it, too.

February

what a wicked game you played (to make me feel this way) by brawlite, ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | WIP | Billy knew Steve Harrington would ruin him. Steve knew Billy Hargrove was nothing but trouble.They never expected it to end up like this.

don't just stand there by brawlite | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 3.5k Steve kisses a stranger in a club in a desperate attempt to spurn an advance from an unwanted admirer. Turns out, it's not really a stranger at all.

there's nothing wrong with me (loving you, baby) by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 4.6k | “Mr. Hargrove,It has come to HR’s attention that you have, once again, used company property incorrectly. Please refrain from using the break room as a work out facility during your lunch hour. If you are in need a gym recommendation, I'm happy to provide you some. Remove your weights from the lower cabinets at your earliest convenience.Regards, S. Harrington”This isn’t the first ridiculous email Steve has had to send to Hargrove, and Steve sincerely doubts it will be his last.

in waves by lymricks | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 45k Plant your feet, Billy wants to scream at him. I’m going to bowl you over.

can't you see them? (can't you feel them?) by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 8k | They're breathing down your neck.

Little Pockets of Upturned Loneliness by SeptemberEndings | Stranger Things | Gen | 5k | Months pass, and nothing bad happens to Will.

isizathu by black_nata | Black Panther | T’Challa/Erik | 8k |  "What do you want?" T'Challa whispers. Almost like he's pleading. All Erik wants to do is wrap his fist around that smooth throat and make him beg some more.

falling for you in hawkins, indi-fucking-ana by LazyBaker | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 31k | Billy gets his shit together. Steve figures some stuff out. They fall in love.

thank god you see me the way you do by LazyBaker | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 6k |  Five times Billy has had sex and one time he made love.

Secrets Make This Town by Oop | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy/Hopper | 5k | Hopper knows that Billy Hargrove sucks cock like he was born for it and he knows Steve Harrington is hung like a pornstar. He knows these by accident.

March

another city (better than this one) by notbecauseofvictories | Star Wars | Gen, Ben Solo & Lando | 6k | “You really should be more creative with your aliases,” Lando says mildly. “I’ve had every anagram of ‘Skywalker’ flagged since the first time you tried to run away from home.”

his hands so cold they shake by plinys | FBAWTFT | Percival/Credence | 4k |  A soul mate is meant to be a blessing, but Percival feels anything but blessed.

We Keep Meeting by scioscribe | Hamilton | Hamilton & Burr | 4.5k |  In which Hamilton finds himself a little more non-stop than even he expected, and Burr doesn't know why he's surprised that even death can't make Alexander Hamilton lie down and be quiet.

There Aren't Any Stars in the Sky by Ambrosia | Star Wars | Reylo | 4k | “Why are you here?” Rey asks. She appears to be meditating. Even his muscles remember the basics. Her eyes are peacefully closed.“Your mind is most open when you Jedi meditate, ‘letting everything go’,” he tells her, striding around in a vicious, predatory circle. “Which you would know if you had an at least halfway-competent teacher.”

Found Wanting by sellertape | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 2k | It didn’t take superpowers to know what Mark wanted him to say. He wanted him to lie. It didn’t take superpowers to get Damien to do what you wanted.

pull out the insides by SpineAndSpite | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k | “Stop,” Damien says again, more insistent this time.“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Mark's heart pounds in his ears and he sees Damien’s hands shaking. God. They shouldn’t have started talking about sex. Shouldn’t have filled in the colors and shadows to this pencil outline of a sketch forming between them. They shouldn’t have given it a name.

Life Is Not A Love Song by DetectiveJoan | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k |  “Oh, you know the old saying — once bitten, twice mildly paranoid that everyone you’ve ever met is secretly working for the shady government agency that kidnapped you.” Mark's voice is sing-song through the dressing room door.

I Want You To Want Me by Ryuutchi | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k | Food, scotch, sex-- I don’t know, Damien; there's a lot of good things in life.

(coming for the king, that's) a far cry by lipgallagher | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 17k |  billy and steve 'pretend' to be gay boyfriends in love for what is essentially just extremely small-time personal gain.

all these to me by lymricks | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 9k |  Three times Steve and Billy share (a bed, a meal, the truth) and one time they share (a virus).

Until My Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches by Reiya | Yuri On Ice | Yuuri/Viktor | 197k | ‘…Of all the rivalries in the world of sports over the years, perhaps none has become so legendary as that of Russian figure skater Viktor Nikiforov and his rival, Japanese Yuuri Katsuki…’

no need to say goodbye by smolsarcasticraspberry | Voltron | Allura/Shiro | 13k | The juniberry tree blossoms every seven years, and when it does, a gateway opens up to another world - a world that Shiro first explores as a child. There, he meets Allura.

(shoot the lights out, hide) till its bright out by lipgallagher | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 50k | The most dangerous thing walking around Hawkins goes by the name Billy Hargrove. And he fucking knows it.

April

so this guy walks into a bar by MasterOfAllImagination | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann | 2.5k | “Bourbon,” Hermann says, hooking his cane on the edge of the bar and sliding by degrees onto a stool.“Straight up?” the bartender asks.“Please.” Does he look like the kind of man who enjoys having his nostrils fumigated by undiluted whiskey? “On the rocks.”

Seeing in Color by what_alchemy | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann |  The Dr. Geiszler Hermann had found in the publications — printed pages worn with constant handling and tucked into his briefcase for easy access — was an eloquent scientist whose work functioned at a level far above almost anyone else Hermann had ever encountered in the field, and yet he neither patronized his readers nor expressed himself in the inexplicable jargon which so infected much academic work.

Strong Enough by therealraewest | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann | 4k |  "I would like to speak to Newt."

Laying Siege by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 8k | “Marry me instead,” Jaime said.

Fool by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 15k | Jaime didn’t really expect things to go well when he rode north, but after all, they hadn’t been going well otherwise, so it wasn’t that much of a change.

heartstrings by taylortot | Miraculous Ladybug | Marinette/Adrien | 60k |  one of marinette’s rare unlucky days turns into something treacherous. thanks to a certain cat, the real danger passes, but there are other things to be more afraid of. her heart, for example, might be one of them.

Words by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 10k |  “So we’ll look for you in the North," Robb Stark said, "coming to pay your debt."

ashes to ashes, dust to dust by romanoff | Marvel | Tony/Steve | 2k | Series | Steve and Tony seek closure with a conversation.

nanna by biggrstaffbunch | Thor | Thor/Loki | 1k |  Thor, after.

just in it for the game by grim_lupine | Thor | Thor/Loki | 6k |  “It's excellent rehabilitation for my image,” Loki says, widening his eyes. “They love you, and because of that they'll trust me. You wouldn't ruin this for me, would you?” 

May

these fragments by Wildehack (Tyleet) | Avengers | Loki/Valkyrie | 4k | “Someone has to survive this day,” Thor grinds out, pressed briefly close to her by the fight.“Someone will,” she tells him.

Make Me by Ajaxthegreat | Star Wars | Hux/Ben Solo | 52k | A genocidal megalomaniac Emperor and a very slutty smuggler/occasional Resistance spy walk into a bar.

cherry pie by brawlite, ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 61k | illy Hargrove lives for summer. Endless sunshine, heavily chlorinated pools, roaming ice cream trucks, and unencumbered freedom? There’s nothing better.Even being stuck in Hawkins can’t ruin the summer for him. He eats it up, devouring every day whole.***

the ghost and good queen val by Wildehack (Tyleet) | Thor | Loki/Valkyrie/Thor | 8k |  “Oh my god,” Korg says. “You did! You saw a ghost!”

Suspicious Minds by astolat | DA | Iron Bull/Dorian, Inquisitor/Solas | 4k | “Hm,” Bull said, thoughtfully. “Something I’ve been curious about. Solas.”“You want to talk about another man now?” Dorian said.

  By The Still Waters by emilyenrose | DA | Fenhawke; Inquisitory/Solas | 83k | Hawke was left in the Fade. Fenris goes looking for him. He doesn't go alone.

Some Things Are Certain by cupiscent | Star Wars | Anakin/Obi-Wan | 7k | Detained far from where he should be by random chance, Obi-Wan meets an unusual slave.

For Better or Worse by DragonBandit | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Mark | 22k |  Wherein Damien and Mark are soulmates, and this changes enough.**

killing me to love you by mostlikelydefinentlymad | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Mark | 2k |  Mark waits by the phone.

give my reflection a break by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne) | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Joan | 5k | When the bell rings, she almost doesn’t answer. She hasn’t ordered anything and it’s too early for carolers. She does not speak to her neighbors, and she’s not about to start today.Joan gets up and answers the door anyway. Because she wants to.

Try, Try, Try Again by anticyclone | The Bright Sessions | 8k | Joan gets mugged. Damien interrupts. Interrupting is kind of his thing.

sharp shock to your soft side by agivise | The Bright Sessions | Mark & Damien | 22k | The universe is a cruel, unforgiving bitch, and honestly, he's a little sick and tired of it. Sure, he deserves it or whatever, but still, totally uncool, universe. Real poor timing.

Scarier Things by starkraving | The Bright Sessions | Mark & Damien | 5k |  Mark drags Damien back across the country in what amounts to the most karmic reverse kidnapping in history, but stopping to take hipster pics of scenic overlooks will not protect you from the scary stuff lurking in the liminal space behind highway truck-stops.

Patient Intake by starkraving | The Bright Sessions | Joan & Damien | 9k |  ssume Joan takes a less passive approach to Damien’s influence in her life. Assume she’s sitting in her car with the engine running and he’s on the sidewalk in front of her. Assume there’s six months between this moment and the moment she first met him.  

Artifice by buttpatrol | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 23k | A story told in parts about colour palettes, identity, robot uprisings, sensational trials, space, and messy love.

blow your mongrel mind by endquestionmark | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Jacobi | 13k | The first time Eiffel sees Colonel Warren Kepler — shockingly real, after so many days spent somewhere between delusion and despair — what strikes him most is how still Kepler is.

Calling Out My Name by vlasdygoth | Wolf 359 | Jacobi/Kepler | 2.5k | Five times Kepler called Jacobi a pet name, and one time Jacobi managed to pull it off on him.

and twice as bright by endquestionmark | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 6k |  “Eiffel.” Very quiet, hardly audible through the echoes. “What is it like?” 

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January:

2017 [Multifandom Mashup]

MCU Films // ♫Can't You Hear Me Knocking (12 Strong trailer version)♫

Arya & Brienne // The Rules Were Wrong

play with fire [Black Butler]

kylo ren & rey【 In a Dream, in a Nightmare 】TLJ spoilers

Stranger Things || Above and Below

Jim Hopper || Do you ever feel cursed?

Stranger Things || Sweet Dreams

February

Stranger Things || Time After Time 

Darth Vader // The Force is strong with you

Game of Thrones || We Live In A Beautiful World

Allison Argent | Look What You Made Me Do

Kylo Ren and Rey l Hearts A Mess

►Stranger Things | Stay Alive

not alone | stranger things

Will Byers || You're home now

March

Voltron | Cosmic Love 

Voltron | Broken Crown

River, MARVEL. [2k]

Voltron | Radioactive

S O L D I E R ll Voltron AMV

Loki // Hustler

a morphine toast

Bucky x Steve || Brooklyn (Go Hard)

Fullmetal Alchemist || Brother

Anime Mix - Legends Never Die [AMV]

Death Parade AMV - Feeling Good

AMV - Crucible of Souls - Bestamvsofalltime Anime MV ♫

[AMV] Transmutayshun - FullMetall Alchemist: Brotherhood

AMV Dazzling Inferno

April

kylo ren || animal

FLESH || Yuri on Ice

Roman&Peter || Piece by piece

◼️ quentin&eliot; give me love

Hannibal/Will - Take Me Back

Kylo Ren // In The End

(Marvel) Avengers | The End

Thomas & Newt ✘ Could I have saved him?

Multifandom || Wake Up

The Avengers | The Final Curtain

(SW) Darth Vader | A Light In Darkness

loki laufeyson | saturn (+ragnarok)

Loki - Birthright

May

Infinity War | I Was Here 

Avengers: Infinity War

MARVEL || Bohemian Rhapsody

River, MARVEL. [2k]

The Expanse || A War Built On Lies

Avengers || Together

MARVEL || Lions Inside (collab w/ djcprod)

COMIC FILMS - Bohemian Rhapsody

Pixar: The Complete Supercut (2018)

Let Us Be Brave

👑black panther👑 

X-Men || Revolution (ft. Ruelle)

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January:

Choir & Crickets | Jeff Russo

Black Lung Heartache | Joe Bonamassa

Undiscovered First | Feist

Tribe Society - Kings

MIX - MAURICE RAVEL Bolero

Never Give Up | Sia

Silvertongue | Young the Giant

Vikings Soundtrack

February

Sweet Dreams | Mark Hadley

A Hazy Shade of Winter | The Bangles

White Rabbit | Jefferson Starship

Stranger Things Theme | Kyle Dixon

Go To War | Nothing More

Does Your Heart Break | The Brilliance

Please Speak Well of Me | The Weepies

Smallest Light | Ingrid Michaelson

Flying | Cody Fry

My Friends | Oh Wonder

New Rules | Dua Lipa

Young As The Morning Old As the Sea | Passengers

Never Be The Same | Camila Cabello

Slow Down Love | Louis the Child

Come Together | Gary Clark Jr.

Don’t Think Twice | Utada Hikaru

Your Tongue Like The Sun In My Mouth | Sophie B. Hawkins

&Run | Sir Sly

Giver | K.Flay

Black Panther Soundtrack

March

Daddy Issues | The Neighbourhood

Whatever It Takes | Imagine Dragons

Carry Me Back To Her Arms | Jessica Curry

The Healing | Gary Clark Jr.

These Days | The Black Keys

No Roots | Alice Merton

Susanne Sundfør | The Golden Age

The Blue Whale | Steven Price

Everywhere' by J2

Sinners | Barns Courtney

Sam Tinnesz - Play With Fire (feat. Yacht Money)

Here | Junna

Robert DeLong - Favorite Color Is Blue (Lyric Video) ft. K.Flay

Steve James | Warrior

Hold My Liquor | Kanye West

Sweatpants | Childish Gambino

April

The Sailor Song | Autoheart

Steve James - Warrior (feat. LIGHTS)

Mother Mother - Reaper Man

Hello | Via Audio

Beyoncé | Back to Black

James Brown - It's A Man's Man's Man's World

Emeli Sande - Daddy

Nathan Angelo - Leigh

"In The End" Linkin Park Cinematic Cover (feat. Jung Youth & Fleurie)

May

Black Space/Stand By Me | Imagine Dragons

Dear God | Lawless

Sinners and Saints | Andrea Wasse

Ghost | Natasha Blume

Peter Gundry - Tales of the Night

Metal Gear Solid V Medley: Quiet's Theme / Sins of the Father | Freya Catherine

SOWULO - Yule

WOLVEN STORM ORCHESTRAL COVER (Witcher 3 - Priscilla's Song)

Amulet | Copal

Holding Out for a Hero | Nothing But Thieves

WRITTEN FIC

January:

N/A

February

Everybody's Looking For Something | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 4,790 words | On the third weekend of May during their last year at Hawkins High, Steve Harrington throws a party.Billy crashes it.

taste you on my tongue | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 2,290 words | “You’ve never felt pleasure like it, Steve,” an old girlfriend had told him once, her eyes bright with memory. Steve shrugged. “No vampires here, though.” 

March

Home | Star Wars | Reylo | 1,670 words | “Rey,” he says into the quiet. “Just drive.”

April

hits like a drum | Stargate Atlantis | Mcshep | 3,507 words | “Believe it or not, having something with sharp teeth breathing down your neck is not actually conducive to one’s thought process.” John barks out a loud, abrupt noise that might be laughter, his breath tickling the hairs at the base of Rodney’s neck. “I’d have thought it would be good motivation.”

feed the hunger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 1,792 words | “Thought you wanted to fuck me, Hargrove,” Steve whispers, and presses a sweet kiss to the hinge of Billy's jaw. “Now's your chance.”

Apotheosis | Marvel - INFINITY WAR | Thor/Loki, Steve/Pepper/Tony | 4,450 words | Grief, a story told in three parts.

May

N/A

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

2018

February

We Could Be Heroes

Daddy Issues

March

N/A

April

Newmann 

May

danien: back in black

[fantasyfootballfiction-blog]

Are you or a loved one living with a Fantasy Football Disorder?

If so, you may be entitled to my consolation.

Last Sunday, while switching back and forth between Fantasy Apps on my phone, scanning a sports bar’s wall of TVs for Red Zone action, and simultaneously receiving merciless trash talk from my opponents, I felt all the signs and symptoms of a condition that affects millions of fantasy football owners.

You, too, may have experienced these before:

Increased heart rate. Rapid breathing. Sweating. Irritability. Racing Thoughts. Loss of appetite. Confusion.

If you have felt any of all of the above symptoms, then you may be living with Fanxiety.

First off, do not be ashamed; Fanxiety is a condition found in 1 out of 3 owners who play fantasy football. If you suspect that you or an opponent are affected, there are certain telltale signs; have you or a loved one displayed these common behaviors recently?

- Slamming, throwing, or submerging a smartphone following a bad play - Yelling utter nonsense at the TV like “F**k you, Chris Collinsworth!!” - Making desperate trade offers and resorting to begging with your league to accept them - Realizing you forgot to set your lineup before the London game and smashing your alarm clock - Picking up O.J. Simpson off waivers because you can’t sustain another injury - Grabbing your friend, looking him in the eye, and shrieking “Why do we put ourselves through this????”

If these sound all too familiar, chances are that you could use some help, and I’m here to give it. I may not be a doctor, but having lived with Fanxiety for the past five years, I can offer my own advice for self-therapy.

The first thing to remember is that you’re not alone. Look at your league. I can guarantee that almost every team has dealt with season-long injuries. This past weekend fantasy owners everywhere sighed in frustration as Dalvin Cook and Chris Carson both went down to the IR. Our beloved Packers receiving back Ty Montgomery left in the first quarter of Thursday night’s game with broken ribs. These lineup setbacks can only add to fanxiety, but before you throw eggs at your opponent’s house for trading you Ty Montgomery last week, realize that first of all, it’s not his fault, it’s not your fault, and that most of us are part of the struggle. Plus, on the bright side, this makes it more likely that your competitors will be facing you with equally handicapped lineups.

The competition now becomes who is making better strategic moves to replace the injured. The next thing to consider when battling this disorder is that you can always turn things around. Have a look at the depth charts for the teams losing their 1st and 2nd tier RB and WRs. Chances are you’ve probably never heard of half the players that are being started at this point. Who the hell is J.D. McKissic? How should I know. What I do know is that he came out of nowhere and put on a show on Sunday night, so he’s worth stashing until the next Seattle RB starter joins the injury report. Latavius Murray is another waiver wire stud that many owners submitted claims for this past week. I’m still not sold on him replacing Dalvin Cook in a production sense. I’m looking to Jerrick McKinnon to share a good load of these carries. The free agent I’m most enthused about is Will Fuller V. He returned to the Texans receiving squad this past week and scored two touchdowns in his season debut. I fully expect him (no pun intended) to heat up along with the rest of the offense in Houston as we approach week 5.

Speaking of heating up, another positive thought to note is that the progression of the season is working very well in some of our favors. What I mean is that the some of the teams and subsequent players you may have sworn off are beginning to warm up, and your team may do the same. If you started the season on a bad note, then here’s my next affirmation, it’s always darkest before the dawn. Just ask the 2-2 Houston Texans, or the inspiring 3-1 Buffalo Bills, who no one expected to be leading the AFC East at this stage in the current season. While we’re talking long shots, how about them Eagles? As a former Philadelphian and an owner of Carson Wentz in multiple leagues, I have to say I love seeing the Birds soar to the top of the NFC East.

Here’s one more consolation for someone who suffers from unrelenting fantasy stress; it’s only week 5. I would say ‘it’s only fantasy football’, but if you’re actually reading this blog, chances are that you care about it way too much like I do. Being unreasonably obsessed with winning your leagues is nothing to be ashamed of, nor is coming in last place — well, as long as your league’s punishment for finishing last isn’t getting a Nickleback tattoo.

Ah, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling more at ease already. More hopeful. Less Fanxious. As we enter the first week of BYEs (well, if we’re not including the whole Hurricane-forced-BYE situation in week 1), stay optimistic, make good starts and never let fanxiety negatively impact your fantasy decisions.

Week 4 Awards

Despite my lack of wins in week 4, I’m still singing the praises of a few key players. Check out my hot-fire mixtape for fantasy performances in Week 4

1. Everybody Hurts (Cause Everybody’s Hurt) by The NFL

2. Ready or Not, Here I Come by Mitchell Trubisky

3. It Was a Good Day by Andy Dalton

4. Can I Kick It? (Yes You Can) by Greg Zuerlin

5. U Remind Me of a Cam That I Once Knew by Cam Newton

6. Born To Run by Le’Veon Bell

7. Another One Bites the Dust by Chris Carson and Dalvin Cook

BONUS TRACK

We Are Never Ever Ever, Getting Back Together by Me featuring Amari Cooper

Five Terrible Recommendations for Week 5

1. Kick yourself for not picking up Jared Goff when I told you to. And if you’re not in a two-QB league like mine where the owners fight like the Hunger Games over a solid waiver QB, try to pick him up. He’s thrown for 547 and 5 touchdowns over the past two weeks, and I like those numbers. The Rams are one of those teams that keeps getting warmer.

2. Make a (fair) trade for Will Fuller V. If he stays healthy and DeShaun Watson continues to shine, look for him to take on a decent size workload and project consistent points week to week.

3. Stash J.D. McKissic and hope that the Seahawks will see the level of potential that radiated from his breakout performance on Sunday night. Even with Chris Carson sidelined, I’m hesitant to start him, and that’s for two reasons. One, C.J. Prosise is set to return, and he’s at the bottom of a depth chart that includes Thomas Rawls and veteran Eddie Lacy. Two, even if he is the best choice for a lead back or even an RB2, we’re talking about the same team that blew a Super Bowl lead by throwing the ball when it could have easily been rushed into the endzone. Wise running back decisions are not really a strongpoint in Seattle.

4. Bench Amari Cooper. The obvious reason is that Derek Carr is hurt, but even if that were not so, I’ve moved on from expecting anything more than a low-end flex performance from this disappointing receiver.

5. Don’t get your hopes up about Cam Newton. It was nice to see a flash of the old Cam, but my gut is telling me to expect less of it in the future. I’ve talked a lot about players and teams warming up; though he lit a few flames last week, I believe this one is going to cool down.

[buzzedbabe]

Before I Dive... Chapter 7

@ritacavaliere @dulcedemani @calonlan15 @teaenthusiast65 @robbstarkmademedoit @olivermellors @mrsharington

Lily squealed when she opened the door to her hotel room to see Amy waiting for her.

“Hello!” she said, embracing the shorter woman.

“Hi!” Amy said.

“It's so good to see you. Your hair is adorable,” Lily said as she pulled Amy into the room and closed the door. “Richard told me you'd cut it recently. I wish I had the bollocks to just have a go at it.”

“It honestly wasn't planned. It just kind of happened, but I'm sure he told you that,” Amy giggled as she set down her bag. She looked around the suite, a bit wide-eyed. “Shit,” she whispered.

“I know, right?” Lily giggled. “So posh. And enough room for about 20 people to stay with us. It's so good of you to come. I would've been lonely in this big room by myself. Would you like something to drink?”

“Some water would be great. I'm a bit dry from the airplane.” Amy looked around slowly. “I feel like I shouldn't touch anything.”

“Nonsense,” Lily said. “Make yourself at home.”

Amy glanced over at Lily, seeing her outfit of a baggy navy jumper and rolled up jeans. She relaxed a little more seeing Lily’s bare feet. Amy slid off her shoes by the side of the couch before slowly sitting down.

“Oh, that's comfy,” she said, bouncing up and down slightly. “A girl could get used to this.”

Lily laughed as she sat down next to her, tucking her feet up under her. “So how are things?” she asked, handing her the bottle of water. “Lots of phone sex with a certain Scot?”

Amy blushed and hung her head. “No, nothing like that.”

“You guys are still...”

“We're...well, I don't know what we are,” Amy said, hand automatically moving to play with her necklace. “We've never really discussed it. We're not a couple, but I don't feel like we're just friends either.”

“Oh honey,” Lily sighed.

“No it's okay. We still flirt all the time. My sisters have already made the phone sex jokes. I just…” Amy's head dropped. “I don't exactly know where I stand with him.”

“Understood. How are you dealing with this?”

Amy looked up as Lily took her hand. “Do you promise not to tell Richard?”

Lily nodded, zipping her lips.

“I'm trying to figure out how to come back to London,” she whispered.

“That's great. How long were you thinking of staying?”

“Forever,” Amy said blushing.

Lily’s eyes widened before a grin broke out on her face. “Oh my gosh! Yes! That's great! Do you need any help?”

Amy breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, please. All the paperwork is making me cross-eyed with confusion. Lots of bureaucratic bullshit.”

“Let's get to it then!” Lily said, clapping her hands, then rubbing them together. “Oh I love it. Can we surprise Richard? We are totally going to surprise this boy!”

“That was the thought,” Amy laughed as she got up to get her laptop out of her bag. “I'm really hoping to have everything finalized before his birthday.”

“Oh I love that idea!”

They both screamed, startled when Amy's phone started ringing, then burst out laughing. Amy answered it, Richard's face popping up on the screen.

“Speak of the devil,” she laughed.

“Who? Me?” he asked.

Amy sat back down next to Lily on the couch.

“Yes, you,” Lily giggled.

“Were you talking about me?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yup,” Amy said. “How's the sand removal coming along?”

“I think I've got it all. Might have to fly you out to inspect things though,” he said winking.

“In your dreams, Madden,” Amy giggled.

“Every night! How are you girls doing?”

“Good. Just got here a while ago. Just relaxing.”

“Trying to get her to realize this suite isn't a museum, that she is allowed to touch things and sit on the furniture,” Lily teased.

“Well excuse me, Miss Superstar, if I've never stayed at the Four Seasons. I don't think I've even stayed at a One Season,” Amy laughed.

“It's a hotel.”

“Is the bathtub the size of a swimming pool?”

“Maybe a small one…”

“Then it's fancier than...

“I'll let you girls get back to your relaxing,” Richard interrupted, smiling. “Just wanted to say hello.”

“We'll try to keep talk about you to a minimum,” Lily said. “Although I'm curious about what this sand removal business talk is.”

“Amy, if you love me, you will keep that discussion private. Please say you love me,” he muttered.

“Bye, Richy!” Lily said, grabbing Amy's phone and hanging up. She turned to see Amy had a shocked look on her face, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

“Do I love him?” she whispered, letting a soft sob escape. “Oh, God, I think I'm in love with him. But how do I make him see that?”

Lily gathered Amy into her arms, letting her cry, all the while Lily’s resolve strengthening to help her friends realize their feelings for each other.

“It just figures you would choose to call right at this exact moment,” Amy whispered answering her phone.

Richard's brow furrowed as she wiped her eyes. “Why are you crying?”

“Because Lily let me borrow her laptop so I could watch ‘Cinderella’ because I’d never seen it and...the king...and you...crying...” she explained.

He smiled knowingly. “Just so you know, those weren't all fake tears,” he told her. “Derek really became a father figure to me during filming.”

“Oh God!” she said, more tears starting to fall. She waved her hand in front of her face, trying to control her emotions. “Not helping! So not helping!”

“Sorry,” he said. “Would it help if I told you there is a happy ending?”

“Most fairy tales do,” she said, a half-smile on her face.

“What if I told you they made me wear a jockstrap to hide my…umm...” he trailed off trying to find the word he was looking for.

“Little Richard?” Amy giggled as Richard nodded sheepishly. “You mean Disney didn't want to traumatize little girls everywhere?”

“You want a good laugh, search for video of when I was on Jimmy Kimmel. I explain how we did screen tests for those damn tight white pants,” he laughed. “And before you say anything, I refuse to call them leggings.”

“I might just do that while I'm waiting for Lils to get back.”

“And where is Miss Superstar?” Richard asked.

“Some photo shoot or something. Then I think she said we’re going out tonight,” Amy said, absently playing with her necklace.

“Since you have some time, there's something I think we maybe need to talk about.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Well, it's just...what I mean is…” he said, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. “We haven't…”

Amy looked horribly confused as he struggled to find the exact words to express himself.

“Is everything okay?” she whispered.

“Yes. I mean, maybe. I mean…”

“Richard, you're not making any sense.”

He looked up to see her brow furrowed. He sighed, realizing he didn't want to try and have this conversation over the phone.

“I guess I just wanted to say that you're a really good friend. I hope you know that.”

Amy smiled but he could see it didn't reach her eyes.

“Thank you?” She stared at him a moment. “Is that really what you were struggling to say?”

She could tell he had chickened out on what he was really struggling to say.

“For now,” he said so she decided to let it drop.

“I think you're a great friend too. Be a good catch for some lucky girl out there.”

His heart skipped a bit. “You could be that lucky girl.”

“I could,” she whispered, biting her lip, “if there wasn't a literal ocean between us.”

He nodded. “A small problem to be sure.”

“Look, Richard…”

“Are you ready to party?” Lily shouted as she entered the room. “I just heard about this awesome bar that has karaoke tonight!”

She plopped down onto the couch next to Amy and saw Richard on her phone.

“Hi, Richy! Bye, Richy!” she giggled.

“Karaoke, huh? You girls have fun tonight,” he said smiling. “Just watch out for this one, Amy. She'll try and sneak your name onto the list without your knowing.”

“It was one time, and it was because you were the only one sitting out,” Lily said, pouting.

“Because you know I can't sing,” Richard laughed.

“Entirely not the point of karaoke,” Amy said quietly.

“Thank you!” Lily said.

“Remind me to never go out to karaoke with either of you,” he said.

“Hey, Richard?” Amy asked.

“Yes?”

“Don't go out to karaoke with Lily and me,” she giggled.

He shook his head with a smile on his face.

“Talk soon,” Lily said, waving before Amy hung up the phone. “And what were you two discussing so intently?”

“I'm not exactly sure. And I don't think he knows either,” Amy sighed. “He looked like he was struggling to tell me something, but maybe changed his mind last second.”

“Well, tonight, we are going to go out and have fun,” Lily said, pulling Amy up off the couch. “Drink away all of our problems!”

“Why am I frightened all of a sudden?” Amy asked, making Lily laugh.

Richard groaned as his phone went off. He laid in bed, trying to ignore it, but the messages kept coming. He rolled over, cursing when he saw it was only 5:30. Lily had sent him multiple pictures, some videos, and a single final text requesting they have dinner the day she got back to London, they needed to talk.

Realizing he was now fully awake, he rolled out of bed to make himself a cup of tea before looking at Lily’s messages. As the water boiled, he leaned against the counter, wondering what Lily wanted to discuss. He looked over at his phone when it went off again. He smiled when he saw a single message from Amy.

Amy: If Lily sent you anything, don’t believe her. None of it's true. She's DRUNK. ;)

He chuckled, intrigued. He opened Lily’s text and scrolled up to the first message. It was a picture with 4 upside down shot glasses on a table as Amy and Lily laughed in the background, taking another shot. He shook his head, realizing he had forgotten to warn Lily that Amy was a lightweight.

The second picture, Amy and Lily stood back to back, eyes closed and singing karaoke, and the back of Lily’s head rested on top of Amy's. He had never realized how short Amy was compared to Lily.

He burst out laughing when the third picture loaded, revealing Amy, pouting at the camera holding an empty martini glass upside down. It wasn't her face however making him laugh. The grey t-shirt she had paired with a short denim skirt had his face on it. He noticed writing under the Game of Thrones picture, so he zoomed in on the picture to see “WWRD What Would Robb Stark Do?”. He made a mental note to ask Amy where she had gotten this gem.

After that picture, Lily had sent a few videos. Just as he went to start the first one, the kettle whistled. He turned off the flame under the kettle, pouring the hot water into the mug he had gotten ready, the tea bag floating to the top. He watched as the water slowly turned a dark brown, fishing the tea bag out with a spoon before taking the mug and settling himself onto the couch.

He pressed the play button on his phone, the first video loading. It showed Lily glaring at Amy as she walked up to the karaoke setup. He quickly turned up his volume as he saw Lily starting to sing. He laughed again when he figured out Lily was singing “California Gurls” by Katy Perry. He could hear Amy laughing in the background of the video. The video cut out before the end of the song, but Richard was glad because he was working to control his laughter. He took a few sips of tea before starting the next video.

“Lily Chloe Ninette Francesca Maria Suzanne Holly Theresa,” he heard Amy mutter.

“I do not have that many names! You knew the deal, Amy. We pick each other’s songs this round,” Lily said pushing Amy from the table towards the karaoke setup. “I sang my song. So get your cute butt up there.”

The camera zoomed in as Amy stepped up and took the microphone from the DJ. He heard soft piano music playing and Amy took a deep breath before starting to sing.

I miss those blue eyes

How you kiss me at night

I miss the way we sleep

Like there's no sunrise

Like the taste of your smile

I miss the way we breathe

But I never told you

What I should have said

No, I never told you

I just held it in

He knew he recognized the song but couldn’t name it. All he knew is his stomach had been set alight with butterflies as Amy sang. Her voice struck a chord somewhere deep in his heart. He watched intently as Amy closed her eyes and could swear he saw a tear roll down her cheek.

And now,

I miss everything about you

Can't believe that I still want you

And after all the things we've been through

I miss everything about you

Without you, oh

He recognized the song finally as Amy sang the chorus and was both cursing and thanking Lily at the same time for picking that particular song. 

I see your blue eyes

Every time I close mine

You make it hard to see

Where I belong to

When I'm not around you

It's like I'm not with me

He tried to take a drink of his tea, swallowing the lump in his throat. He could see it written on Amy’s face that she was struggling to make it through the song.

But I never told you

What I should have said

No, I never told you

I just held it in

And now,

I miss everything about you

Can't believe that I still want you

And after all the things we've been through

I miss everything about you

Without you, oh

The video cut off, Richard silently cursing. He set his phone on the couch next to him as he cradled his mug. He stared out the balcony door, mind reeling. He knew exactly why Lily wanted to have dinner. What was he going to tell her?

But how would you make things work?

It’s not like it’s never been done. You’ve done the distance thing before.

You haven’t seen her in person since she went home. How is that fair to either of you?

It’s not fair. But maybe if you made it official, you would make more of an effort.

Why aren't you making more of an effort now?

You're just friends. It's not the same. If she was your girlfriend, you'd be different.

You would have to make most of the effort. You’re the one with all the money.

She’s not about the money. She would make an effort regardless.

She shouldn’t have to. You should already be making an effort.

Maybe I’m not making more of an effort because you’re not sure about your feelings for her.

Maybe you should tell her and go from there.

Maybe you should wait and see what Lily has to say.

He sighed, taking another drink from his mug. His phone alerted him to another message. He glanced down and saw it was from Kit.

Kit: Amy and Lily just drunk dialed me

Richard: Yeah, I got messages from both of them about 20 minutes ago

Richard: Couldn't go back to sleep

Kit: Me either

Kit: Want to meet for breakfast?

Richard: Sure

He realized he had one more video and decided to preview it just in case he shouldn’t show it to Kit. The camera focused on Amy’s face as she took a long drink from a martini glass swirled with chocolate.

“Who do you wish were here tonight?” he heard Lily ask.

“Richard fucking Madden,” Amy giggled in a bad British accent. “And Kit ‘I’m Jon fucking Snow’ Harington.”

“What would you tell Kit if he were here?”

“To smile more, dammit! He’s got such a beautiful fucking smile! He always looks so fucking brooding in pictures and I want to see him fucking smile! I’d also tell him to take his fucking hair down from that fucking bun. I think he looks fucking silly, and his hair is fucking gorgeous.”

He watched as Amy sloshed some of her drink as she pointed at Lily with the martini glass. 

“And what would you tell Richy if he were here?” Lily giggled, taking the glass from Amy.

“I would tell Richard...hey! Give that back! I’m not done with that!”

Amy reached out for her glass. Lily laughed handing it back to her after taking a drink.

“Richard?” she asked again.

“Richard?” Amy looked around before realizing Lily was trying to get her to focus. “Right! Richard! I would tell Richard that he is one sexy motherfucker!” she said before taking another drink. “And that I miss his sexy fucking smile. Those beautiful fucking lips.” She played with a napkin on the table a moment before grinning up at Lily. “And his sexy fucking body,” she giggled, rubbing her hands over his face on her t-shirt, attempting to look seductive.

“And what would you do to him if he were here?” Lily asked, grabbing Amy’s drink and taking another sip.

Amy thought a minute, going back to shredding the napkin before giggling to herself.

“You’re meant to share it out loud,” Lily prodded.

“Oh,” Amy laughed. “I would jump into his arms, wrap my legs around his beautiful fucking body, lay my cheek against his, and thread my fingers into his beautiful fucking curls. And I would tell him that I wasn’t ever letting go.”

Richard’s eyebrow went up at this comment.

“That’s it?” Lily asked.

“What more do I need to say?” Amy bristled. “Ok, I’d tell him that he had a beautiful fucking ass too.”

The video cut off as the two girls burst out laughing.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair as he pushed up off the couch to get ready for breakfast with Kit.

Amy woke up, her forehead pressed against the ice bucket locked in her arms. Her head pounded, but she was relieved the nausea seemed to have passed. She heard Lily moan from the other side of the bed.

“Next time we do that,” Amy said, trying to get some saliva flowing in her mouth, “I'm setting the drinking pace.”

“Deal,” Lily croaked, turning to lay on her back.

“What did we do last night?”

“Learned that we are not to be trusted drinking just the two of us.”

Amy giggled softly, letting go of the ice bucket and slowly sitting up. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand, frowning.

“Why did Kit send me a picture of himself saying he hopes it helps with the hangover?” she muttered.

Lily cleared her throat, rolling away from Amy. Amy looked over and saw Lily examining her fingernails.

“Lily, what did you do?” Amy asked nervously.

“I might have sent Richy the videos and pictures from last night,” Lily whispered.

“Oh God,’” Amy said, turning beet red.

Lily glanced over, seeing Amy grab the ice bucket again.

“Are you going to be sick?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Amy said. “But I can tell you it won't be from the alcohol. What videos?”

“My song, your song, and the bit about what you would say to Kit and Richard had they been there last night,” Lily said, burying her face in her pillow.

“Lily! How...how...why?” Amy moaned. “Oh, God.”

Lily looked over at Amy, seeing she was upset, but not mad. Lily sat up and put her arm around Amy’s shoulders. Amy hung her head, pushing her hair out of her face.

“So I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she whispered, leaning her head on Lily’s shoulder.

“Maybe not,” Lily said. “Maybe he’ll just think you were drunk and rambling.”

“But the song you picked… He’d be blind not to see…”

“I’ll talk to him when I get back to London. I’ll try and see where he stands. If anything, we planted a seed that will hopefully blossom on his birthday,” she said, rocking Amy gently.

Amy nodded, taking a deep breath. She pulled her hair back before turning to look at Lily.

“So what exactly did I say in the last video?” she asked.

“I believe you said that you wanted Kit to smile more and wear his hair down,” Lily giggled, reaching for her phone.

“Well that makes his picture make more sense,” Amy said smiling. She replied to Kit’s text telling him thank you and to keep up the good work. “And what exactly did I say…”

“Basically that Richard is a sexy beast and you wanted to jump him.”

“I said what?” Amy screeched.

“Or maybe it was jump on him. I can’t remember.”

Amy collapsed back on the pillow, knocking the ice bucket to the floor. “Can you just kill me now and spare me the embarrassment of having to talk to Richard ever again?”

“Maybe he’ll be a gentleman and never bring it up?”

Amy’s phone rang and she groaned, handing it to Lily. Lily laughed as she saw that it was Richard. She answered it, waiting for the video to connect.

“Hi Richy,” she said, leaning back on her pillow.

“Damn, I was hoping to wake you two up this morning like you did me,” he chuckled. “Wait. I called Amy’s phone.”

“Amy is currently unavailable,” Lily said, keeping her arm out of view as she shoved Amy back.

“Did you kill her last night? I forgot to tell you she’s a lightweight,” Richard sighed.

“No, she’s still alive. Maybe wishing she wasn't. I just put her in the shower a few minutes ago.”

Amy stayed back as Lily chatted with Richard. She wasn't sure what to say to Richard and was hoping Lily might gain her some insight.

“Those were some interesting texts I received at 5:30 this morning,” Richard said.

“We weren’t focused on time zones. We were having too much fun,” Lily giggled. “I think we may have called Kit after we texted you.”

“Aye, the two of us had breakfast this morning after not being able to go back to sleep. Had quite a good laugh at the two of you, Cali Girl,” he laughed.

“Did you have a laugh at everything?” Lily questioned, trying not to look up at Amy who was biting her lip nervously.

“No, just at the bits where a laugh was necessary. But you also know how to get a man’s brain working overtime. Not very nice that early in the morning,” he sighed.

“Working overtime?”

“Quit playing coy, Lily. You knew damn well what you were doing when you sent me those videos. You might have been drunk, but you sent me those on purpose.”

“Maybe I did,” she smirked.

“And that’s why you want to have dinner when you get home. When do you get home?”

“My flight is this afternoon. So we’ll have dinner tomorrow?”

Richard didn’t say anything but Lily smiled so Amy assumed he was nodding.

“Just out of curiosity, how exactly is your brain working overtime?” Lily asked.

“It’s...complicated,” he sighed. “How complicated everything has to be. How complicated it already is.”

Amy nodded to herself. She stood up from the bed, heading into the bathroom, leaving Lily to talk to Richard alone.

“We’ll talk about it more tomorrow,” Lily said, glancing up as Amy left the room. “I just heard the shower turn off.”

“Tell Amy I’ll chat with her later if she wants,” Richard said, a half smile on his face. “I’d like to ask her about her t-shirt.”

Lily nodded, giggling a bit. “Tomorrow then.”

She hung up the phone and then followed Amy into the bathroom. Amy sat on the edge of the bathtub, wringing her hands.

“It is complicated,” she whispered looking up at Lily.

“But you are working to make it less complicated,” Lily said, sitting down next to her. “You're working to remove a barrier keeping the two of you from being together.”

Amy nodded, trying to hold back her tears. “God, I hate being hungover. I turn into an emotional mess. And to top it off, you’re leaving this afternoon. Which is not helping.”

“But we still have a few hours together. And I’ll be calling often to make sure everything is on track. And I’m going to be your inside woman with Richard, so to speak. I'm going to make sure this works out,” Lily said, hugging her. “Or my name isn’t Lily Chloe Ninette Francesca Theresa Chiquita Banana.”

Song: “I Never Told You” by Colbie Caillat

[emma-what-son]

Cover Story: Emma Watson, Rebel Belle

From Vanity Fair Feb.2017: Since her years as Hermione ended, Emma Watson has fought to assert her own identity. Now that she has found her voice—most notably as a U.N. ambassador—she’s revamping a classic stereotype, the Disney princess, in Beauty and the Beast, the live-action musical coming out in March. Watson talks to Vanity Fair about her metamorphosis from child star to leading woman.

by Derek Blasberg

Photographs by Tim Walker

Styled by Jessica Diehl

Omg this is so LONG! I’m gonna take a Sam approach with this one and pepper comments all through the interview.

Emma Watson and I are standing on the 23rd Street platform of an uptown-bound E train in New York City and we’re littering. Literally. And literature-ly. The 26-year-old actress is scattering hardcover copies of Maya Angelou’s book Mom & Me & Mom throughout the station—tucking them between pipes, placing them on benches, atop the emergency call box—in hopes that New York commuters will pick them up and put down their smartphones. This display of civil disobedience was conceived by Books on the Underground, a London-based organization that plants books on public transportation for travelers to discover. “We’re being ninjas,” she says with a conspiratorial grin as she digs in a big black rucksack of books. “If there were anyone to be a ninja for, it’d be Maya Angelou.”

Watson is one of the most famous women in the world, the child star who skyrocketed to global fame at the age of 11 playing brainy Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. Next month, she’s back on the big screen as Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the big-budget live-action musical—she sings too!—which broke the record for most viewed new movie trailer. (That’s 127 million views in its first 24 hours, beating Fifty Shades Darker’s record.) But today she’s makeup-free, her hair shoved into a bun, and she’s wearing a nondescript dark wool coat over a baggy black sweater, completely blending in with New York’s distracted mass-transit masses.

“It’s good that we’re spreading a little bit of love,” she says. As she removes the last book, a train pulls into the station. She hops in, places it on a seat, hops out, and watches from the platform as the doors close and a young man inquisitively picks it up.

Yes and get some good publicity along the way. Don’t forget to mention this in my Vanity Fair interview Derek.

Aboveground, over coffee at a nearby café, Watson explains why she thinks reading is “sacred.” There’s the obvious, professional reason: Harry Potter was a literary sensation before becoming the blockbuster franchise that made her famous and a millionaire many times over. But books are also rooted in her deepest personal experiences. “Books gave me a way to connect with my father,” she says. “Some of my most precious and treasured moments . . .” She trails off and, unexpectedly for someone who is known for her composure, tears up. Her parents divorced when she was young. “I just remember him reading to me before bed and how he used to do all the different voices. I grew up on film sets, and books were my connection to the outside world. They were my connection to my friends back at school because if I was reading what they were reading we’d have something in common. Later in life, they became an escape, a means of empowerment, a friend I could rely on.”

All this would be nice if it didn’t reek of pretentiousness.

I first met Watson, Hollywood’s latest exception to the rule that all child stars inevitably flame out, during Paris Fashion Week more than a decade ago, when she was still a teenager and filming the fourth of the eight Harry Potter films. It was both a homecoming for the actress—she was born in Paris to British parents, both lawyers, and lived there until she was five—and a symbol of her maturity on-screen. She was there to attend her first-ever fashion show, at Chanel, which was a big deal considering that up until then she had shopped in the bridesmaid section at Harrods or borrowed dresses from her stepmother for movie premieres.

She was a shy teenager, but friendly, intelligent, and down to earth. Watson is described as much the same today: “She’s way more like a real person than a movie star,” according to Gloria Steinem, who became a friend when Watson reached out to discuss the changing face of feminist activism. (More on that later.) Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who met Watson backstage at a performance of the musical, sums it up: “She played this very smart, conscious, noble wizard—and then somehow we had the good fortune that she became a smart, conscious, noble woman.” (They did a video together—Miranda freestyling, Watson beatboxing—to raise awareness for International Women’s Day. It got more than six million views.)

Of course they asked Lin Manuel Miranda questions for this interview. He can’t really say anything about her personality, but you know... Hamilton.

Emma and I got to know each other, and I visited her on the sets of the last two Harry Potter films. But as the Potter train pulled into its last station, I noticed the clouds of melancholy forming over her fairy-tale life. “I’d walk down the red carpet and go into the bathroom,” she remembers of the last few premieres. “I had on so much makeup and these big, fluffy, full-on dresses. I’d put my hands on the sink and look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Who is this?’ I didn’t connect with the person who was looking back at me, and that was a very unsettling feeling.”

I’m sure I remember her a few years after HP saying that she was still figuring out who she was and that in Oct 2011 she said in her Elle UK interview: "I'm going to go travelling – a sort of gap year, condensed into a few months. Don't think I'm going off to find myself, though. I already know who I am," she told Elle. And that was a few months after the last HP movie released.

What few people knew when she enrolled at Brown University in 2009 was that she had a desire to give up acting and walk away from Hollywood altogether. “I was finding this fame thing was getting to a point of no return,” she remembers. “I sensed if this was something I was ever going to step away from it was now or never.” She loved performance and telling stories, but she had to reckon with the consequences of “winning the lottery,” as she calls getting the part of Hermione, when she was nine years old and literally still losing baby teeth. As an adult, “it dawned on me that this is what you’re really signing up for.”

-------

So she’s saying that she wanted to stop acting, right? That was the decision she made when enrolling? And yet in 2009 (a few months before she eent to Brown):                        

Paste: And studying will mean that a film career is put on the back burner for a while?                 

Watson: Not entirely, no, there are end of term breaks where I could do something if someone asks me, and I liked the idea. It all depends, doesn’t it? Acting and studying are in no way mutually exclusive, are they? Going there will mean a bit of “normality” for a while. It certainly doesn’t mean that I will never act again, that’s not true. There’s been a lot of confusion in the media about that, and most of it is ill informed—I seem to have managed pretty well up to this point! And also don’t forget that I’m also very interested in fashion, and in modeling, which I enjoy. I enjoy photo shoots, because there it seems that the cameramen (or camerawomen) look at me very differently. X

-------

The question most people ask when a celebrity moans about being famous: If you hate the fanfare so much, why keep making movies? Watson asked herself that all the time. “I’ve been doing this since I was 10 or 11, and I’ve often thought, I’m so wrong for this job because I’m too serious; I’m a pain in the ass; I’m difficult; I don’t fit,” she says. “But as I’ve got older, I’ve realized, No! Taking on those battles, the smaller ones and the bigger ones, is who I am.”

Well at least she openly admitted that she’s difficult. Whether her fans take it that way or not.

She recently found the courage to say no to selfie-seekers. “For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. If someone takes a photograph of me and posts it, within two seconds they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within 10 meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data.” Sometimes, she’ll decline a photo but offer up an autograph or even a chat—“I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture’ ”—and much of the time people don’t bother. “I have to carefully pick and choose my moment to interact,” she says. “When am I a celebrity sighting versus when am I going to make someone’s freakin’ week? Children I don’t say no to, for example.”

I’m sure she’ll regret saying that when fans will actually start asking HP questions.

I tell Watson I’ve watched other actors, like Reese Witherspoon, walk down the street and happily pose with fans—and suddenly it becomes clear that the fans of Sweet Home Alabama are different from Harry Potter fans. For mostly better and occasionally worse, the Potter books and films not only captured the imagination of millions of people but, for many of them, changed their lives. It’s something Watson is deeply aware of. “I have met fans that have my face tattooed on their body. I’ve met people who used the Harry Potter books to get through cancer. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Harry Potter phenomenon steps into a different zone. It crosses into obsession. A big part of me coming to terms with it was accepting that this is not your average circumstances.” (Since the first movie premiered, in 2001, when Watson was 11, there have been numerous incidents with stalkers.) “People will say to me, ‘Have you spoken to Jodie Foster or Natalie Portman? They would have great advice for you on how to grow up in the limelight.’ I’m not saying it was in any way easy on them, but with social media it’s a whole new world. They’ve both said technology has changed the game.” When she was at Brown, Watson went to a Harvard football game and The Harvard Voice, a student magazine, live-tweeted as its staff stalked her at the stadium. I remember at Watson’s 18th-birthday party in London, the photographers outside had a bounty on who could get a picture taken up her skirt. She’s not exaggerating her security concerns, either. She purchased her house sight unseen over a Skype call with a real-estate agent because it had a paparazzi-proof entrance. “Privacy for me is not an abstract idea,” she says.

The stalking thing is a serious subject and I sympathize, but do we really need a play by play about HP, Brown and her quitting acting in interviews every few years?

Watson has a boyfriend, though she adamantly, vehemently refuses to expound on him. (The Internet says he’s called Mack, he’s handsome, and he works in tech in Silicon Valley.) “I want to be consistent: I can’t talk about my boyfriend in an interview and then expect people not to take paparazzi pictures of me walking around outside my home. You can’t have it both ways.” She sits back and wonders if she should finish this thought, and eventually she does: “I’ve noticed, in Hollywood, who you’re dating gets tied up into your film promotion and becomes part of the performance and the circus. I would hate anyone that I were with to feel like they were in any way part of a show or an act.”

Don’t get me started on the PR pics when she first started dating Matt.

Back in college, Watson was like most 20-year-olds, struggling to carve out her own identity, only she did it in front of a rabid fan base and a never-ending celebrity-news cycle. She made international headlines when she chopped Hermione’s long locks into a closely shorn pixie. We don’t need Sigmund Freud to read into the symbolism of that haircut, and to this day Watson declares, “It’s the sexiest I’ve ever felt.”

Ah the haircut talk makes a comeback. I didn’t think it was possible, but they managed it.

She got into yoga and meditation; being the Type A person she is, though, she wasn’t content just doing it. “Typical Emma,” says Harry Potter producer David Heyman, who has remained a close friend. “She had to become a certified meditation teacher.”

Watson shied away from doing additional big-budget studio films and instead focused on smaller movies, like Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and sought out auteur directors, like Sofia Coppola with The Bling Ring (2013) and Darren Aronofsky with Noah (2014). She turned down big offers: from lucrative cosmetics deals to critically acclaimed scripts. (Emma Stone’s role in La La Land was reportedly developed for Watson.) “There have been hard moments in my career when I’ve had an agent or a movie producer say, ‘You are making a big mistake,’ ” Watson says. “But what’s the point of achieving great success if you feel like you’re losing your freakin’ mind? I’ve had to say, ‘Guys, I need to go back to school,’ or ‘I just need to go home and hang out with my cats.’ People have looked at me and been like, ‘Is she insane?’ But, actually, it’s the opposite of insane.”

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Really? REALLY? The role was made for Watson? REALLY?

Damien Chazelle: When I was first writing it back in 2011, I guess Ryan and Emma (Stone) were these pie in the sky ideas that I actually had for the casting, but it just didn’t seem like it would ever happen. And years passed where we were trying to get the movie off the ground with no success. And during those years there were actually many casting permutations, it was Miles and Emma Watson for a moment. It was other people in other moments, and what wound up happening was the movie kept falling apart. X

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What ultimately helped clarify her purpose was—you guessed it—reading. Last January, Watson started Our Shared Shelf, her bi-monthly online book club. She used Twitter (more than 23 million followers) to crowd-source the name, and chose Gloria Steinem’s book My Life on the Road as her first selection. All About Love: New Visions, by Bell Hooks, was Watson’s March 2016 book-club selection. Watson traveled to Berea, Kentucky, near the Appalachian Mountains, to meet Hooks, and the two quickly struck up a friendship based on, in the words of the writer, “the belief in the primacy of a spiritual foundation for life.”

“In so many ways she’s not like we think of movie stars,” Hooks told me. “She’s [part of] a very different, new breed who are interested in being whole and having a holistic life, as opposed to being identified with just wealth and fame.” In early 2014, U.N. Women, the United Nations’ department of gender equality, contacted Watson about becoming an ambassador. Everything clicked: she could focus the prying eyes of the world onto causes that she was passionate about, namely a new initiative called HeForShe, which aims to get men to co-sign on feminist issues. I was in the audience at the General Assembly on September 20, 2014, when Watson, elegantly and discreetly wrapped in a simple silver-gray Dior coatdress, stepped onto the podium and spoke passionately about women’s rights for a little more than 10 minutes. Her battle cry ended with: “I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen, and to ask yourself, If not me, who? If not now, when?”

Which was first said by Rabbi Hillel the Elder. Aren’t we giving credit anymore?

“I used to be scared of words like ‘feminism,’ ‘patriarchy,’ ‘imperialist.’ But I’m not anymore,” Watson says. “It was not typical for U.N. Women to have a celebrity give a keynote address,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women. “We needed a new messenger to break new ground for us. We didn’t want to just speak to the converted.” Watson blushed at the standing ovation and beamed as then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon became the first person to officially sign on to HeForShe. The U.N. Women Web site crashed in the aftermath of the media blitz that followed—“A good problem to have!,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says—and her speech made headline news around the world, from CNN to fashion blogs. Men like Hugh Jackman, Jared Leto, Harry Styles, Russell Crowe, and Eddie Redmayne aligned themselves with HeForShe. Feminists worldwide heralded their newest spokesperson: “For a time, there was a conversation about whether ‘feminism’ was a good thing or a bad thing,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says. Watson’s speech “gave us the word back.”

The first time Watson saw the final cut of Beauty and the Beast she took along her mother, Jacqueline, and Gloria Steinem to a screening in London. She wanted her mother’s approval, but she needed Steinem’s. “I couldn’t care less if I won an Oscar or not if the movie didn’t say something that I felt was important for people to hear,” Watson says.

Who is she fooling?

Specifically, she must have wanted assurance that her portrayal of a Disney princess, in the Bill Condon-directed film, didn’t conflict with the ideals of a feminist, and who better than Steinem to give that stamp of approval? She got it.

“It was fascinating that her activism could be so well mirrored by the film,” Steinem says, noting that Belle uses—you guessed it, again—reading as a way to expand her world. “It’s this love of literature that first bonds the Beauty to the Beast, and also what develops the entire story.”

This is a new Belle, much of it by Watson’s design. “I was like, ‘The first shot of the movie cannot be Belle walking out of this quiet little town carrying a basket with a white napkin in it,’ ” she says. “ ‘We need to rev things up!’

Why not? Why can’t she carry a basket? I don’t get it!

” In the original Disney movie, Belle is an assistant to her inventor father, but here she’s a creator in her own right, developing a “modern washing machine that allows her to sit and read.” Watson worked with costume designer Jacqueline Durran to incorporate pockets in her costume that are “kind of like a tool belt.” Another thing: in the animated version, Belle is on and off horses yet wearing a long dress and silk slippers, which didn’t sit well with Watson. Bloomers were created and Belle’s first pair of riding boots. “The original sketches had her in her ballet shoes,” Watson says, “which are lovely—don’t get me wrong—but she’s not going to be able to do anything terribly useful in ballet shoes in the middle of a French provincial village.”

The original Belle may have been an assistant inventor, but Emma was an assistant costume designer for this movie it seems.

Maturing from Hermione to Belle is a true coming-of-age story for her. “When I finished the film, it kind of felt like I had made that transition into being a woman on-screen,” she says. Belle is “absolutely a Disney princess, but she’s not a passive character—she’s in charge of her own destiny.” What’s more intriguing, however, is how Watson observed a similarly strict code in her real life, too, from what parts she plays to what she reads in bed at night and what clothes she puts on in the morning.

“Emma has an incredible sense of integrity,” says Livia Firth, the founder of Eco-Age, a sustainable-fashion consulting firm. “You can’t marry activism and then do something in your life that is not in agreement.” Firth praises Watson’s choice of dress for last year’s Met Gala: it was designed by Calvin Klein and made almost entirely from recycled plastic bottles. For her Beauty and the Beast press tour, Watson created a PowerPoint presentation that her stylist sent fashion designers. It included a questionnaire about how their garments are produced, what their impact is on the environment, and the moral reason why she should wear one on the red carpet.

Wow.

As Steinem honors Watson’s high moral standards and relentless activism, I ask her if there’s a risk of becoming, well, annoying to the general public. Is she too much of an ethical Goody Two-Shoes? After all, what other starlet assigns fashion designers homework before she wears their clothes? Steinem is not amused. “Let me ask you something: If you did a story on a young male actor who was very private and involved in activism, would you think he was too severe or serious? Why do women always have to be listeners? Emma is interested in the world, she is caring, and though she is active she is also joyous and informed.” At this point I’m backpedaling—“I think she’s wonderful!”—but Steinem still digs in. “It’s possible to be both serious and fun, you know. That response is why men will ask a woman, ‘Why don’t you just smile, honey?’ ”

The actor Kevin Kline, who plays Belle’s father in Beauty and the Beast, agrees with Steinem. “When someone has a feminist point of view, we tend to think she’s no fun at all,” he says. “But a feminist can be feminine, delicate, vulnerable, sweet—and still demand to be taken seriously. Emma fits the bill perfectly.” A big grin forms on his face as he asks, “Has anyone told you about the dancing scene yet?” In the film, there’s an over-the-top ball, which required the entire cast and scores of extras to waltz in period costumes for hours and hours. “Ater a long, long day, suddenly Pharrell Williams’s song ‘Happy’ comes on, blasting, and everyone just starts jumping around,” Kline recalls. “It became kind of a wrap party, really celebratory. And I asked, ‘Who did that?’ It was Emma.”

[ebonynightclubblog]

Paul McCartney’s Many Surprise Appearances: A Brief History

[Ebony Nightclub] Rolling Stone Music News: Imagine you’re out having a beer with some friends when Sir Paul McCartney suddenly starts playing a mere coaster’s throw away. Just recently, McCartney shocked punters at Liverpool’s Philharmonic pub by performing a free surprise concert with a full band, part of a special homecoming edition of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. But the ex-Beatle doesn’t need a reason to rock out at random. Over the years, McCartney has displayed a knack for popping up in the most unexpected places, usually with a song at the ready. Whether it’s in a rural country inn, a Bavarian hotel lobby, the middle of Times Square or even on a London rooftop, you never know where Macca will appear. Here are just a few of the most surprising – and endearing – examples of the trend. 1. Jamming with a hotel bar band in Bavaria while filming Help! (March 18th, 1965) The Austrian resort town of Obertauern played host to the Beatles when they shot the skiing scenes for their second feature film. While there, they crossed paths with Jacky Spelter, an acquaintance (or so he claimed) from their stint playing nightclubs in Hamburg several years earlier. After a long day of risking life and limb on the Alpine slopes, the band attended a birthday party for Help!’s assistant director held at the Marietta Hotel, where Spelter’s group, Jacky and the Strangers, had a residency. After an untold number of bottles were popped, McCartney and John Lennon climbed onstage for a rowdy and sweaty performance that reportedly drew noise complaints from some guests. It would be the Beatles’ only “show” in Austria. According to legend, the hotel’s owner later requested compensation for some musical equipment damaged during the raucous set. Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, countered by demanding a full concert fee for the Fabs. The owner quickly backed down. 2. Leading a pub sing-along during a break while shooting Magical Mystery Tour (September 1967) In the midst of the troubled production’s weeklong jaunt through Southern England, McCartney led a small group – including Ringo Starr, Beatles confidant Neil Aspinall and BBC journalist Miranda Ward – to the Tywarnhayle pub in the coastal town of Perranporth to meet up with rocker Spencer Davis, who happened to be vacationing in the area. “The punters in the pub couldn’t believe it,” Davis recalled. “Paul, being the sort of character he is, just grins at everybody and shouts out, ‘Evening, all.’ He stuck a pint of beer atop the piano and said, ‘I’m the pub pianist and I’m taking requests.’ Then he sat belting out pub songs all night with everybody singing along until two in the morning.” In Ward’s memory, McCartney performed “every pub standard bar ‘Yellow Submarine,’ which he refused to play.” For years he was reluctant to stray from the old chestnuts in sing-along settings, later telling author Barry Miles, “It didn’t seem kosher.”  3. Unveiling “Hey Jude” for villagers in the English countryside (June 1968) In his recently reprinted memoir As Time Goes By, the Beatles’ friend and press officer Derek Taylor recounts a spur-of-the-moment drive he took with McCartney to the small English village of Harrold. It was a trip in more ways the one – Taylor had begun the day with ‘a dollop’ of LSD – but sojourn ended at a local inn, where McCartney and his entourage were treated like visiting dignitaries. Before long, a little girl presented the world-famous musician with an instrument and persuaded him to play. “She had brought a right-handed guitar and landed it in Paul’s (left-handed) hands,” Taylor described in his breathless prose, “but the wizards were producing this play by now and floating with the splendour of this, the strangest Happening since Harrold was born … and the neighbours as they crowded the windows and the parlour, and the children, all caught their breath as Paul McCartney began to play the song he had written that week: ‘Hey, Jude’ it began.” The inn was kept open past closing time, and McCartney continued serenading patrons with tunes, including “The Fool on the Hill,” until the wee hours of the morning. 4. Capping off the Beatles’ performing career with a now-legendary rooftop concert (January 30th, 1969) McCartney’s most famous surprise set took occurred alongside his fellow Beatles on the roof of their Apple Records headquarters at 3 Savile Row in central London. The unorthodox performance was conceived as a finale to their documentary film project then known as Get Back (later dubbed Let It Be), winning out over splashier venues like the pyramids at Giza and the QE2 ocean liner. For 42 minutes, the band braved the January chill (Lennon and Harrison wore their significant others’ coats) as they plowed through their first truly live concert in more than two years. Though few could see them, the sound certainly carried, throwing the staid neighborhood into chaos. Police quickly intervened, putting a premature end to what would ultimately be the band’s final public performance. 5. Taking over a Liverpool pub with the McCartney clan for a TV special (1973) No, James Corden wasn’t the first to stage this particular stunt. In 1973 McCartney crashed the Chelsea Reach public house while filming the television special James Paul McCartney. He was joined by many of his family members, including his brother Michael, Auntie Gin (both immortalized in his song “Let ‘Em In”), Auntie Dilys and father Jim – who can be seen adorably shoving money into his son’s hand to help foot the drink bill. Together they have a good ol’ fashioned Scouse knees-up (read: good time), with lively reminiscences and warbled versions of traditional pub songs like “April Showers,” “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag,” and “You Are My Sunshine.” 6. Busking in London for Give My Regards to Broad Street – and getting totally ignored (circa 1982) McCartney has taken a lot of flack over the years for his 1984 musical, but it does include remarkable footage of the former Beatle busking outside London’s Leicester Square tube station. Unlike nearly every other incident mentioned on this list, this time around, no one seemed to care. Granted, he had been given a pretty thorough make-under. “They just made me up and dropped me off,” McCartney told the New York Daily News shortly after the film’s release in 1984. “I told ‘em we’d never get away with it, but they kept putting dirt on and rufflin’ up me hair – I was looking better and better – and I figured, why not.” The disguise worked, and not even a rendition of his most famous tune gave him away. “I was standin’ there plunkin’ chords, doing this silly version of the song, and no one noticed it was me. No one wants to look a busker in the eye of course, ‘cus then they’d get his life story. So they’d toss coins and I’d be going, ‘Yesterday, all my troubles – thank you, sir – seemed so far away.’” Any coins that found their way into his upturned hat were donated to the local Seamen’s Mission. 7. Commandeering David Letterman’s Broadway marquee (July 15th, 2009) McCartney brought new meaning to the phrase “topping the bill” when he strode onto David Letterman’s electric marquee outside the Ed Sullivan Theater to tape a brief concert for his very first Late Show appearance. News of the planned performance spread via social media earlier that day, and soon thousands swarmed the closed-off intersection at 53rd Street and Broadway to watch McCartney and his band play seven songs spanning the catalogs of the Beatles, Wings and the Fireman, his recent collaborative project with producer Martin “Youth” Glover. The occasion had dual significance, marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ rooftop concert (he opened with “Get Back” in tribute), and also his return to the stage where he made his famous American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. 8. Surprising students at an NYC high school (October 9th, 2013) McCartney spent John Lennon’s 73rd birthday disrupting classroom lessons with a little rock & roll – a move that surely would have made his late bandmate proud. Macca surprised 400 students at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, that afternoon with a 13-song set, opening with “Eight Days a Week.” The songs were broken up by Q&A sessions with the aspiring young artists, moderated by veteran New York DJ Jim Kerr. “This beats going to class,” McCartney cracked at the end of his performance. No argument from the audience.  9. Having a ball in Times Square (October 10th, 2013) Just a day after dropping in on high school students, McCartney staged a more elaborate affair in the middle of Times Square. He gave fans just an hour’s notice, tweeting, “Wow! Really excited to be playing New York Times Square at 1pm this afternoon!” By the time his yellow cab rolled up to a makeshift stage on West 46th Street and Broadway, the famous crossroads were overrun with thousands of fans. “I’ll be putting a little hat out here later,” he joked with the crowd. “We’re basically busking.” The 15-minute set featured four songs from his upcoming album, New, including the title track, “Save Us,” “Everybody Out There,” and the live debut of “Queenie Eye.” A week later he would perform a similar “pop up” show in London’s Covent Garden. 10. Teaming up with the cover band at his stepson’s graduation party (May 9th, 2015) In May 2015, McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell celebrated her son Arlen’s graduation from Rollins College with a soiree held at the Interlachen Country Club in Winter Park, Florida. Local band Josh Walther & The Phase5 had been booked to play, but after an hour on the dance floor, McCartney couldn’t resist asking if he could sit in. Needless to say, the band agreed. He requested “I Saw Her Standing There,” which the group didn’t know (!), so they set about learning it on the fly. “Our piano player pulled up a chart off the Internet and we just totally winged it,” Walther told The Examiner.  “It turned out great.” Following the 1963 barnstormer, they launched into a blues jam appropriately called “Graduation Day,” featuring original lyrics by McCartney. Walther found the rock legend to be a “super nice guy and very unassuming. He seemed to want to hang out more with us, but his wife wouldn’t have it.” He joined the hired entertainment again at Russian businessman Roman Abramovich’s New Year’s Eve gathering in 2016, where the Killers had been booked to play. McCartney and Brandon Flowers performed a larynx-shredding version of “Helter Skelter” – and proved that Macca’s urge to jump onstage with a party band remains undiminished even after half a century. http://dlvr.it/QZFhBR #RollingStone #MusicNews

[hottytoddynews]

By Ellis Nassour, Ole Miss alum and noted arts journalist and author

Last season was dominated by the landmark Pulitzer-and Tony-winning Hamilton. People were saying, “How could the 2016-2017 season top that?” There’s not another Hamilton to be sure, but there’s plenty of excitement and diversity in this season of distinguished musicals.

It’s also been a season of superstars: Glenn Close, Bette Midler, Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole. On these new original cast CDs, you won’t hear the thunderous applause at Sunset Boulevard, and Hello, Dolly!, Where mid-show standing ovations and numerous curtain calls for Close and Midler are the norm. But listen, and you’ll know why.

The Broadway League, the national trade association for Broadway, has released end-of-2016 – 2017 season statistics. It was the highest grossing one ever. Attendance reached 13,270,343 with a gross just short of $1.5-billion. This tally is only legit box office prices, which include premium sales. 

The Tony Awards are June 11 in a three-hour telecast on CBS from Radio City Music Hall, with Kevin Spacey hosting. There were 20 musicals, which includes six revivals; 20 plays (10 original, nine revivals) – both among the highest ever in a season.

Until you can grab tickets these bargain-priced original cast albums are a perfect way to at least enjoy aspects of the in-person experience:

 Amelie (Rhino Warner Classics; 26 tracks) by Daniel Messé and Nathan Tysen; closed; available June 9:

Tony nominee, the luminous Phillipa Soo (Hamilton) returned to Broadway in this charming, bittersweet musical with book by Pulitzer Prize and Tony nominee Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza), based on the beloved Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated French film.

Highlights: “Writing on the Wall,” “Stay,” “Where Do We Go from Here?” 

Anastasia (Broadway Records; 25 tracks) by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens; available June 9:

Christy Altomare (a Sophie in Mamma Mia) is amnesiac orphan Anya, hoping to find family, who’s spotted by bungling conmen (Derek Klena, John Bolton (A Christmas Story; Dames at Sea) who wish to take advantage of her likeness to Russia’s Grand Duchess Anastasia, thought to be the only survivor of the execution of Czar Nicholas and family. She’s so authentic that she wins over the skeptics, including the Dowager Empress, Tony-nominated Mary Beth Piel.  Based on Disney’s 1997 animated film [includes Oscar-nominated “Journey to the Past” and five other film tunes].

Highlights: Original songs “In My Dreams,” “Everything to Win,” “Journey to the Past.”

Bandstand (Broadway/Yellow Sound Records; 18 tracks) by Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor; available June 23: Returning WWII vet, a singer/songwriter, Corey Cott (Gigi; Newsies), forms a band with vets to seek the golden prize: Hollywood fame. But haunted by memories of his downed pal, he meets his young widow, Tony nominee Laura Osnes, who reluctantly joins the band. There’s instant attraction until a shattering secret is revealed. Pulsating Big Band-orchestrations by Tony-nominated Bill Elliott and Greg Anthony Rassen. Tony winner Beth Leavel (Drowsy Chaperone) co-stars.

Highlights: “Just Like It Was Before,” “Love Will Come and Find Me Again,”  “Everything Happens,” “Welcome Home.”

 A Bronx Tale (Ghostlight Records; 19 tracks) by Alan Menken and Glen Slater:

Move over Manhattan Heights, make way for the stoops of rough and tumble 60s Bronx, where crime does pay, in this adaptation of Chazz Palminteri’s 2007 streetwise one-man play (also a 1993 film) about a boys influences. It’s Dad v. Crime Boss, Richard H. Blake and DD nominee Nick Cordero (Waitress, Bullets over Broadway scene-stealer) with traces of Newsies, Wise Guys, and Jersey Boys doo-wop.

Highlights: “Belmont Avenue,” “I Like It,” “Out of Your Head.”

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Masterworks Broadway; 19 tracks) by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman:

Chocolate-covered whimsy, sadly readapted from the hit West End musical, based on  Roald Dahl’s novel and featuring songs by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley from the 2005 film. Christian Borle, with John Rubenstein, and Emily Padgett (Side Show revival). The spectacular aspects have been decimated, and all that’s left is a bore. But it’s a family show.

Highlights: “What Could Possibly Go Wrong,” “If Your Father Were Here,” “The View from Here.”

Come from Away (Musical Company; 25 tracks, including bonus) by David Hein and Irene Sankoff: 

Tony-nominated for Best Musical. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, 38 planes en route to the U.S. with 6,579 passengers were forced to land at Gander, Newfoundland’s former military base for a week due to airspace closure. In a variety of motifs [folk reels to lush ballads], we meet unprepared locals who must rise to the occasion. Winning cast of townspeople and passengers includes Tony nominee Jenn Colella, like American Airlines’ first female pilot, Chad Kimball (Memphis), Joel Hatch, Rodney Hicks, and Q Smith.

Highlights: “Lead Us Out of the Night,” “Me and the Sky,” “Stop the World.”

Dear Evan Hansen (Atlantic; 14 tracks) by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson:

Tony-nominated for Best Musical. Broadway’s always attempting to attract younger audiences, and those with good jobs or rich parents are flocking – along with adult theatergoers — to experience the devastating emotions explored in this musical about an emotionally repressed student.Tony nominee Ben Platt (Pitch Perfect films) gives a breathtakingly wrenching performance as the all but friendless teen, already hiding a dark secret, who uses a tragedy to become closer to a suicide victim’s sister and her family – and pays an anguishing price. Tony-nominated Rachel Bay Jones has big moments as his mother. Unfortunately, you won’t hear Will Roland and Kristolyn Lloyd’s scene-stealing bits. The deep empathy of the ballads will captivate and haunt.

Highlights: “For Forever,” “If I Could Tell Her,” “You Will Be Found,” “So Big/So Small,” “Words Fail.” 

Falsettos (Ghostlight; two discs, 36 tracks; with a 60-page color booklet with lyrics and photos) by William Finn and James Levine; closed: Tony-nominated for Best Revival. A neurotic gay man, his wife, lover, son, their psychiatrist, and lesbian friends explore changing relationships in the make-up of modern families. Tony-nominated Christian Borle (Tony winner, Something Rotten), Stephanie J. Block Andrew Rannells (Tony nominated, Book of Mormon), and Brandon Uranowitz (Tony nominee, An American in Paris) captivate. 

Highlights: “Love is Blind,” “This Had Better Come to a Stop,” “Making a Home,” “What More Can I Say,” “Unlikely Lovers.” Groundhog Day (Masterworks Broadway; 19 tracks) by Tim Minchin:

Tony-nominated, Best Musical. Tony nominee and Olivier-winning Andy Karl (Rocky, Mystery of Edwin Drood revival) in a Groundhog Day |Catch-22, based on the 1993 film, as arrogant TV weather caster who finds himself in a time warp – repeating the same day over and over. Clever staging adds a lot to the thin plot.   Highlights: “There Will Be Sun,” “Hope,” “Everything About You,” “Night Will Come.”

Hello, Dolly! (Masterworks Broadway; 16 tracks; 42-page booklet with lyrics and color shot of Midler) by Jerry Herman:

Tony-nominated, Best Musical, Revival. Colorful revival starring the divine Bette Midler gives razzle dazzle new definition. In the showstopping moment after another – singing, doing fancy footwork or eating. She’s well-accompanied to Yonkers, the 14th Street Parade, and Harmonia Gardens by Tony nominees David Hyde Pierce, Gavin Creel, and Kate Baldwin. At 53 minutes, the cd doesn’t give the scope of being there. The disc has an 80-minute capacity, but cuts have been made. “The Waiter’s Gallop,” at 2:51, and the Finale, at 1:43, are shorter than onstage. You won’t feel shortchanged on the Overture, “Dancing” or title song.

Highlights: “Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” “Ribbons Down My Back,” “Before the Parade Passes By,” “It Only Takes a Moment.”

Beginning June 13, Tony winner Donna Murphy (Passion) will play the lead on Tuesday evenings; and, at the end of June through year end, additional performances. In Transit (Hollywood Records; 18 tracks) by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth; closed: Broadway’s first a cappella score, by vets of Frozen and Pitch Perfect, told of New Yorkers facing the challenges of city life as MTA trains pass them by.

Highlights: “Deep Beneath the City,” “Choosing Not to Know,” “Not There Yet.”

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Reprise; two discs; 27 tracks) by Dave Malloy:

Tony-nominated, Best Musical. The complicated story, adapted from 70-pages of War and Peace, has been turned into a mesmerizing spectacle. Tony-nominated Denée Benton (Natasha, betrothed to Andrei) and Lucas Steele (arrogant, wicked Anatole) are ravenous lovers; Josh Groban (Pierre), the brooding misfit son of a royal who returns to Russia and an inheritance and attempts to untangle the romantic triangle. Brittain Ashford is stunning as the lovelorn Sonya. Highlights: “No One Else,” “Dust and Ashes,” “Sonya & Natasha,” “Sonya Alone.”

War Paint (Ghostlight; 21 tracks) by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie:

Tony, DD nominated Best Musical. Pioneering cosmetic entrepreneurs Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, portrayed by stage favs Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, engage in fierce rivalry for dominance from the 30s to 60s as they change the face of American women.

Highlights: “If I’d Been a Man,” “Pink,” “Forever Beautiful,” “Beauty in the World.”

There’s more: one from Off Broadway and one from London’s West End:

Spamilton (DRG; 25 tracks) by Gerard Alessandrini:  This musical parody of guess what landmark musical is in love with what it mocks. It spins the difficulty of getting tickets, speculation about the film version, and most of all, the revolution — not the 18th-century political one, but the showbiz one. Alessandrini is the creator of 25 riotously hilarious Forbidden Broadway editions. He has a way with words, but this spoof is more affectionate tribute than one dripping with scathing humor.

Dreamgirls (Sony Music; 28 tracks, two discs) by Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger:

U.K. premiere of iconic 1982 Tony-nominated musical of Chicago R&B female trio vying for the big time during the 60s and learning hard lessons about show business and romance. Olivier-winning Amber Riley (Glee) is The Dreams’, Effie White.

Box office prices at around $189 and more for musicals can be daunting. Since you have to pay rent or monthly fees and also eat, you might consider the numerous promotions for shows in previews, Broadway League promotions for Kid’s Night, NYC & Company’s bi-annual Broadway Week [usually two weeks] 2-for 1 ticket offers (www.nycgo.com), and take advantage of the fact that 85% of shows are available for 40-50% off [plus $4.50 service fee] at the TDF booths.

Keep in mind newer shows such School of Rock and the return of Cats, Miss Saigon, and Sunset Boulevard [closing June 25]; and  hot shows from previous seasons – Aladdin, Beautiful, Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots, On Your Feet, and Waitress — all still going strong but with available seats. Then, they’re the long-running champs: Chicago, Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked. Hamilton is still hot, hot, and hot. 

You can also still get original cast recordings of the original Miss Saigon; Cats; and Sunset Boulevard [Los Angeles, pre-Broadway cast].

Avoid purchasing price-gouging “resale tickets” from those sites engaging in this sort of consumer rip-off.

Ellis Nassour is an Ole Miss alum and noted arts journalist and author who recently donated an ever-growing exhibition of performing arts history to the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the best-selling Patsy Cline biography, Honky Tonk Angel, as well as the hit musical revue, Always, Patsy Cline. He can be reached at ENassour@aol.com. 

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