Culture! and attractive women. But mostly CULTURE

[gominokouhai]

Sunday: Eric's Tales of the Sea in the Caves. Not bad. Then: the food stalls! German sossinges and many burgers. I love the Festival.

Monday: Frisky and Mannish: The College Years. Utterly brilliant. We were convinced afterwards to buy the last tickets for their one-night-only revival of last year's show. That's tonight, after work, and is going to rock.

I've been acquiring new music lately. Somewhat belatedly I've been getting into Regina Spektor in a big way, and Frisky & Mannish reminded me to get hold of Florence + The Machine. Florence + The Machine >>> Goldfrapp. I like my music overwrought: Russian composers and German conductors. I like my musicians angsty, the better to facilitate this. (Regina Spektor is the exception. She's just so damn happy.) Thus, Florence + The Machine are fantastic: it's Eighties power ballads but without the hair or, y'know, the Eighties. Marvellous.

On reflection it appears that a substantial proportion of my current music is sung by females of a certain age, all of whom have outstandingly good legs. Regina, Florence, Alison Goldfrapp, Shirley Manson, Amanda Palmer, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga (I presume she has good legs, but it's difficult to tell under whatever it is she's wearing today.) I don't know why legs correlate so strongly with vocal talent, but they do.

Tonight: the School of Pop, then I'm going to see if I can catch some of the Perseids meteor shower (admission free). Tomorrow, Toby Hadoke's new show and whiskies in the Bow Bar.

After that, I'm out of plans, but these are things I'd still like to see:

• Any of the cabaret/burlesque stuff, to give stormsearch a chance to dress up, you know
• Stripped might be interesting, and got four stars in the Scotsman
• Five Clever Courtesans
• Really want to see Caledonia, but it's expensive. It would appear that the extra £5m in government money that the Proper Festival gets over the Fringe doesn't trickle down well.

Next month: Chess. Told you I like my music overwrought.

Comments

[burkesworks]

Unless you are in fact a 16-year-old hiding underneath that cape, I'd hardly call Gaga, Florence, or Rihanna ladies of "a certain age", but then again from my POV that description wouldn't really apply to Alison or Shirley either. When I see Alison Goldfrapp described as a MILF elsewhere on my f-list I feel very old.

[gominokouhai]

> Unless you are in fact a 16-year-old hiding underneath that cape

Inside my head, in my darker moments, sometimes, I am.

The certain age to which I referred was late-20s to 30s. It wasn't intended to be a euphemism. Perhaps I should rephrase.

They're all about my age, and that feels old. It seems too old to start being a pop star. Maybe I should work on my legs.