SEVEN YEARS GOOD EATING
Spain 2000nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnItaly 2007
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 31, 2007
From Qboy, Londn, UK
Okay - so you're an old skool head. Raps were much more simplistic way back in the early 80's, nowadays it's about having your own style, your own sound, being unique and trying to improve by having more complex flows and use of language, otherwise there would be no progression I suppose. I am happy with getting 10 out of 10 for appearance, image and personality though, heh heh! I guess as the first week of August has been and gone so have you - let me know when you in town next. Hope you are keeping well.
Hi Marcos. So sorry. Our holiday turned out to be such a paeon to hedonism (good food and friends every lunch and dinner) that all thoughts of work went out of the window. Consequently I never called to meet you. Soooooooooo sorry. Especially as I said I would. Simply no excuses other than gluttony and social excess.
As for me and current hip-hop, you’re right, I'm out of date. I find a need for the rap to co-incide with the beat often enough to make me sure I'm listening to one song, not two coming from separate sources (as often happens in a shopping mall, though sometimes, of course, they fit together quite magically). Never mind, like I said, you get ten out of ten on all other counts, and when you finally decide on a top ten record all you'll have to do is chuck away a modicum of credibility by rapping a line or two in strict tempo.
THURSDAY AUGUST 30, 2007
From Tracy, DirtE Records, London, UK
just done yor blog for the first time in ages. you really rock simon - who else would give the editor of observer music magazine such a blasting (deservedly so i assume) but i love it. also first time i've seen a great photo of yo (tell him i think the pink flowers worked just fine!). what can i say except what a handsome couple. are you really doing an asian x factor?
No way! Although just about every country in Asia has an equivalent of American Idol (and I believe someone is doing an X-factor out of Hong Kong.)
I'm currently working with some people who are searching out talent right across Asia. What we’re specifically NOT interested in is capitalising on people who are no good by laughing at them in public (like American Idol and X-factor). When 10 artists from each of the main Asian regions have been selected (East Asia, South Asia and South East Asia), there will be a major competitive event at which the best two will be chosen. These will then be produced and released in the USA and throughout the world, about two years from now. The project is called Sutasi - Search for Unsigned Talent in Asia (the last ‘a’ got lost in the wash!)
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29, 2007
From Dmitri Alexis, Athens, Greece
simon… i found your wesbite... i wasted so much of my life and so many years being on the scene in london…. i gave so much to so many people who returned so little to me… i am writing to everyone i can make contact with from those days to ask them to help... to maybe be a friend to me again… i can still give if someone will give back... i am in athens and find a living where i can... i want some status for myself... maybe open a small business... i hope it’s not too late... maybe i will talk to the media about all the people i knew in those days... i won't do that to anyone who helps me... sometimes i feel unwell... sometimes i worry there is nothing more for me than just to wait and die…
Gosh! Having a website certainly digs up the the past, it must be 30 years. I remember you as an acid-mouthed trollop about town - noisy, mouthy and pricey - but with a cute behind. Sounds like your sharp tongue has turned to self-pity. Are you really still on the hustle? I bet your bum isn't the selling point it once was. Never mind, your last sentence proves you’re on the right track. Dying should do the trick.
TUESDAY AUGUST 28, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordhire, UK
hi big feller... i'm lying in bed watching rufus wainwright live at the palladium on channel four doing the songs of judy garland. he's a great singer and a wonderful stylist. what a serene way to enjoy the balmy midnight hour on a bank holiday sunday. the orchestra is a dream too. love the photo of you and yo eating on sloane avenue. you look the bizz together.
Rufus is really the best in his genre in the world today. What I like is that it’s right at the very top end of pop, so classy it almost needs a special word for it. Yet the only word we have for pop as good as that is ‘rock’. Which Rufus Wainright’s songs really are not - as is shown by what he does on his days off… sings Judy Garland. Great too that you think the orchestra’s a dream. Time was when artists coming to the UK had to suffer backing that just couldn’t match up to what they got in America. Nowadays, musicians and sound-mixers are often better in the UK than the US – vis. the appalling voice to orchestra balances on American Idol.
MONDAY AUGUST 27, 2007
From Jas Merton, London, UK
So Simon, you’re back home in Thailand, but you're still rumbling on about the meals you had on holiday. I thought you said you were going to get down to hard work writing a new book and looking for Asian talent. Too much of the good life, that’s your trouble.
Oh shut up, you miserable fart. Just to let you know how wrong you are, here’s a picture of me yesterday, working my fingers to the bone on a Sunday, meeting with Jordi Devas, manager of Futon, and Singapore's dissident dj Chris Ho, both of whom had flown in to see me and chat up a bit of business. You don’t think sitting around at the beach eating lunch with these people is fun do you?
SUNDAY AUGUST 26, 2007
From Jenny Hansen, Maidenhead, Berks, UK
Hello Simon – I read all about your eating holiday and want to know… in the end, what was the absolutely best meal you had while you were away?
Sorry Jenny, I can’t possibly single one out, every night with friends was a pleasure. But if you’re talking about food, and food only, the best was (and probably always will be)
La Poissonerie de l’Avenue on Sloane Avenue. Yo and I grabbed a lunch there between meals with other people. It’s quite simply the best fish restaurant in the world and has been ever since it first opened in 1963. Luxurious with no attempt to be trendy; everything fishy is served perfectly. And if you want to know why I’m laughing, we had yellow flowers on the table but Yo grabbed pink ones from the table of two ultra-straight businessmen next to us - said it would look better in the photo. He was wrong. Yellow ones would've gone better with the lemons.
Yo and me at La Poissonerie, Sloane Avenue, London, SW3
SATURDAY AUGUST 25, 2007
From Caspar Llewellyn-Smith, Editor, Observer Music Magazine, London, UK
Oh yes. Sincere apols. Just now back from holiday; it was my understanding that Luke would be speaking to you in my absence, it would seem this has not been the case (he alas has been in and out and in and out of hospital again).
It was all laid out, but three things: I didn't much care for the illustrations we commissioned for it in the end (can show you if you like); we had to lose a page from somewhere in the issue, which imperiled it; and most significantly, at the 11th hour I wanted to shoe-horn in an interview which landed in our lap with Martin Scorsese - and your piece took the hit, partly because the Scorsese piece needed less space, so that page to ads was thus accounted for. (The week after we published, the Scorsese PR announced his film had been put back to next year; ho hum).
And so: a bad result for you. But we absolutely will run it: I've put a lot of time into it, and it's a great bit of work; and we'll pay you now of course. I'll sort that. Sorry. But I'm fighting fit and will push through with this!
Hi Caspar. Thanks for your prompt reply. We both know how bad you can sometimes be at replying to emails - most frustratingly so - but the upside is, not only do you edit the best music magazine in the UK, you're also the best editor ever of pieces submitted to you. So forgiveness flows easily. (As you knew it would; and as I knew it would too.) What's more, the Scorcese/Stones/Jagger piece was pretty good. So...
The ‘crabs and tummy bugs’ curse is hereby removed. But for your total lack of communication I still think you deserved a few rainy days.
FRIDAY AUGUST 24, 2007
to Caspar Llewellyn-Smith, Editor, Observer Music Magazine, London, UK
Caspar - you're such a pathetic F-ing coward - why can't you answer my emails and tell me what's happening with my piece - tell me why it's not in the August edition - tell me when you're going to run it - or if not, how much you're going to compensate me for stringing me along for four months when I could have had it published elsewhere.
I hope your holiday was shit and it rained like fuck everyday and you caught crabs and tummy bugs and you don't recover from it for hundreds and hundreds of years.
THURSDAY AUGUST 23, 2007
From Sid Asbach, Toronto, Canada
Hi Si – I’ve been following your holiday tour of friends and restaurants in Europe with some jealousy, stuck as I am behind a desk in sweaty, sticky, humid, Toronto. I gather you’re now back in Thailand and about to start working on a couple of new projects. Give me the rundown on them and I’ll see if I can give you a write-up in one of the local rags. Cheers.
Hi Sid. Got back last night and made the mistake of falling asleep sober around 10pm only to wake up full of life at 1am. So I worked all night then at 7am ate the foie gras I'd bought in duty free with a bottle of Chianti and slept through to midday. So that’s jet lag over and done with!
The first three emails I looked at this morning were for TV shows in the UK which I left only 36 hours ago, so I’ll probably give them a miss. On Sept 27th I’m off for three weeks in India looking at pop and rock culture from the club level upwards in all the major cities - part of research for Sutasi, an Australian company looking for talent right across Asia – and later in the year we’ll start doing the same in virtually every other Asian country. Then there’s John Dang, my Thai/Vietnamese pop singer (but also beautifully English, for that’s where he was brought up). He’s been signed by Sony and is about to start on a new album and live promo around Thailand. And of course, the new book, which keeps changing direction – originally intended to be further insights into the music biz, it then switched to the fifties but now looks like it might be about today and travel, so for the moment I'm just calling it ‘the new book’. I’ve also got to go to Oz for a talk and some book promo, probably in November. The talk’s for Australia’s biggest Aids charity – talking about pop management with Elton in the audience, could be quite an ordeal. And if that’s not enough, there will be workmen to be dealt with everyday because the house still isn’t finished even though we’ve been living in it for a year. The garden, though, looks lovely, as does the pool, which I’about to jump into. Cheers!
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22, 2007
From Bibi Espedes, New York, NY, USA
Hi Simon: I guess welcome home from Holiday is mute. I read today's response to the Kraut and you lambasted him. I still think you would make a wonderful judge of American Idol. Unlike Simon Cowell who has zero musical abilities, except that he claims to be a psychic hit whisperer, you can actually vomit and make others spew too! I have been reading about your adventures with Yo! Sounds like you had a great time and ate your way through Europe. Good to have you back with all barrels blasting away. Your favorite lil bitch girl.....
Hi Bibi. Difficult not to blast someone who sends crap like that, though to be honest I get dozens every month and mostly just ignore them. As for becoming a Simon Cowell or Sharon Osbourne figure, the problem is - although 'Idol' and 'X-factor' end up with pretty good artists, what makes the shows so popular is the slagging off of the bad ones. By agreeing to be a judge, you're agreeing to be confronted by crap day after day. Not my idea of fun. And nor is being too well-known. Being well-known enough to get the best tables is great, being so well-known you get no peace when you eat at them is terrible. What's more, being famous for being rude is simply asking to be endlessly accosted by obnoxious strangers. So if you don't mind, I'll stick to life as I now live it.
TUESDAY AUGUST 21, 2007
From Michael Engel, Angel 231264, Germany
Dear Simon, my name is michael, songwriter for many german stars. Enclosed please find a great unplugged song. Perhaps it could be the right song for your programm. People like the song very much. What do you think? The song is called "Lord of Space". God bless you.
Godammit! My holiday is truly over when I get back to receiving dreadful crap like this. Ghastly song - appalling lyrics - trite concept - a voice like a post-operative transexual frog. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to give up bothering people with this rubbish? What sort of fantasy madness do you live in - 'writing for many German stars’??? Stars of what? Toilet cleaning? Car crushing? Gutter scrubbing? If anyone thinks I’m being unnecessarily nasty, listen to it. And keep the vomit bowl handy.
MONDAY AUGUST 20, 2007
From Alexis Parr, London, UK
Hello Handsome. Hope you and Yo got back to wherever you were going next. It was great to share the occasion of Donavon's wedding with you - and that particular table was a good laugh. (I had only just recovered from all the champagne cocktails I imbibed the night before). By way of trivial chit chat - my wedding pressie to D and A is still languishing in lost property at Stockholm airport coz I left it on the plane, so just spoken to him about that. You did me the power of good with your wit and wisdom. xx
Hi Alexis. Yo and I got back OK but still headachy for a last day in London before heading back home. If you think the vast wedding dinner and all that drink killed off our appetite for excess, you’re wrong. Last night we went with friends for a vast Indian feast and today we polished off two dozen oysters for lunch with suitable wine accompaniment. The wedding was an extraordinary event - the whitest Swedish ice princess hitching onto the blackest London party-king. I agree with you, we had a great table, especially that crazy cuban dress designer Osmany. But regarding wit and wisdom, I can’t remember offering you either. I did, though, find a picture in my camera which suggested we got on pretty well. Will you be writing it up for the Mail On Sunday?
simon and alexis ..................................... donavon and anna
SUNDAY AUGUST 19, 2007
From John Dang, Bangkok, Thailand
Hi Simon. How are you doing?? Last few days of your culinary and catchup-with-friends adventure so make the most of it!! I've been back a week and things are good! Simon Henderson is putting together my band. He has a guitarist in mind and I should be meeting him at the start of next week. Apparently he's quite brilliant and should be able to hook us up with the rest of the band. Sony want us to perform a showcase in September. I can’t wait. I'll pack the place out with ‘my spacers’ and other friends and give them a real show. Ok, that's all for now!
Yep! Nearly over. And it’s been a brilliant three weeks. Suddenly, though, I’m looking forward to getting home and having nothing more for dinner than a bowl of duck noodles from the stall at the end of the street. And an alcohol-free evening too. I can’t believe I’m saying that but it’s the truth! Three weeks of mega-dining and crazy-wining has taken its toll. My belly’s huge and today so is my hangover. Last night was Donavon’s wedding and the dinner was like a mediaeval feast with him and his new wife presiding from the top table. As a wedding party it wouldn’t have gone amiss in Holywood or Bollywood.
Today will be a dreary headachy crawl back to London and tomorrow a day of business meetings. Then it’s back home to Thailand where the fun starts all over again - trawling India and China for talent for the Sutasi project and turning you into Asia’s first international superstar. Oh... and getting on with my new book. During the last three weeks I haven't written a word.
SATURDAY AUGUST 18, 2007
From Ivar Gustaffson, Helsinki, Finland
Hi Simon. How come you get such weirdos writing to you all the time? And why do you bother to answer them? Well, never mind… what I’m interested to know is… the last two weeks you’ve been writing about food, food, food. Now you’re stuck in Stockholm, so what about the food there? Pickled herring, salmon and prawns, washed down with aquavit? Can you stand it?
Can’t explain the weirdos, I’m afraid. They write by the dozen and mostly they’re an instant delete. But sometimes, when I don’t have much time to spend on the website, I use one of their letters as a quick fix, like yesterday.
Re food in Stockholm. It’s forever improving. Ten years ago, when I was here for Eurovision, managing the Russian singer Alsou, there was hardly a restaurant worth eating at. But last night I ate at Merkel Andersson’s F12 and it was tremendous. We had a ten course ‘innovative’ menu, fun and interesting, but even better was the flow of different wines – I mean, a white from Galicia that was actually good! Who’d have thought it possible. It rains 300 days a year in Galicia, the only part of Spain never to attract a tourist.
Today is Donavon and Anna’s wedding. Last night they were up late rehearsing - singers, orchestras, entertainers, dress designers, chefs, sommeliers - to think that Yo and I just did it down Brent registry office with a couple of witnesses (and Donavon, who was meant to be one of them, turned up late so we had to use the town-hall photographer instead). He's asked me to be give a short speech during the proceedings but Heaven knows what I’m meant to say - if anyone knows everything about him he'd rather no-one heard, it’s me. I guess I'll just say - from my own experience, husbands don't come more fun than Donavon.
FRIDAY AUGUST 17, 2007
From Deepak Yusof, Stockholm, Sweden
dear simonnapierbell… i read in your websit you will be in stockholm this week… i want that chance to meet you… i will play some of my song and show you my great personalty… if you will like my song i will like to make you happy for bedtime too… two years ago i was indonesian boy from bandung … now i am swedish drive taxi… with you my manager I will be superstar… you make me a star i will kiss you forever... you can be happy with me…
Hi Deepak. Sorry to disappoint you but I’m in Stockholm to attend a friend’s wedding, not on business. I'm travelling with my boyfriend, Yo, who gives me all the bed-time sustenance I need, and anyway I no longer manage people - least of all illiterate male hookers. Happy taxidriving.
THURSDAY AUGUST 16, 2007
From Jerzy James, Santa Monica, California, USA
Hey Simon - As your holiday has progressed I've been watching the emails going up each day with the occasional photo, and MAN! YOU'RE GETTING FAT. Time to cut back and take some exercise. How about taking a look at that book on exercise and dieting I gave you last year. It will help you - it really will.
Jerzy - you're too late - the exercise has already started as you can see below. Last week my good friend Anthony Wieler, with whom I am pictured above at his small country pile at Feathercombe, provided me with a trampoline after lunch so I could work off the effects before the evening banquet Yo and I had planned. Your book can stay firmly shut at the bottom of the drawer in my office at home.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 15, 2007
From Francis Connor, Sataheep, Thailand
My Dear Simone, such criminal neglect in writing to you, for which abject apologies, but I have been swamped with a most welcome flood of friends visiting from around the globe. I have been reading on the SNB website of your super indulgent time in Europe. You might like to come here for luncheon upon return; Aek has been expanding his repertoire to great critical acclaim. By the way, I was recommended to Le Banyon, a French restaurant, in Soi 8, Sukhumvit. Have you tried it? I will do so when I am next in Bangers. Toodlepip.
Hi Francis. Super indulgent just about sums it up. You probably read yesterday about my first evening in Holt, a remote village in North Norfolk, currently at the receiving end of much spending by London’s latest batch of nouveau riche. Last night I ate with friends at Galton Blackiston’s restaurant, Morston Hall, a favourite haunt of Delia amongst others. Grandly ‘new British’ cuisine with five set courses - butter squash soup with white truffle foam, wild mushroom lasagna, grilled brill on leek ratatouille, well-done Greshingham duck and a strawberry soufflé. Unbelievably good, but no better I’m sure than Aek could rustle up with a little goading from you, so I accept your invitation for lunch a couple of weeks hence. Michael Bellis, with whom I’m staying, and who treated Yo and I last night, will be in town, so perhaps he could come to. (Having him at the table is always a short cut to the best gossip). As for Le Banyan, it’s long been one of my favourites and is featured on my ‘Eating Out’ section - see here. All the best!
TUESDAY AUGUST 14, 2007
From Ian Cooper, Dubai
Hi Simon, I'd almost forgotten what a pleasure it is to find you in my inbox -
life can often get in the way of the good and worthy things. Glad to hear you are officially off the subs bench and off on a trip! Including Norfolk, no less! Don't forget to pop into Gorleston to see my mum and dad - the old man plays the organ (three manual with foot pedals) rather well for a man with size 11 feet, gout and four-badly repaired broken figures. George Shearing by the sea.
Gorleston only just makes it into Norfolk, being right at the bottom and on the wrong side of the river, and anyway, was once a part of Suffolk. Anthony Barron and Michael Bellis, the friends I’m visiting are in Holt, in the North. I thought I was going to a remote and barren retreat, instead it turns out that this part of the world now knocks spots of St Tropez. Anthony gave us a running commentary as we drove to dinner along the coast – first the Cley salt marshes, then Stiffkey, where the vicar (disgraced for bringing fallen women from London and helping them fall even further, usually behind the altar), was forced to join a circus as ‘The Fearless Man of God in the Lion’s Den’ where he was eaten during a matineé performance. Then to Blakeney where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton spent their honeymoon after their famous unstoppable snog on the set of Ben Hur, mid the last century (God, how time flies!). Then to Holkham where Lord Coke (I wonder how HE made his money??) lives in the largest Palladian house in the UK, the Queen has a beach hut and homosexuals run rampant in the woods, and on to Market Burnham. There we ate at the Hoste Arms - décor by Naomi Watts’ mum and frequented by people like Sir John Major and the Deterdings (who used to own Shell Oil) plus dozens of people who’s Monday to Friday lives are more likely to take them to the fifth floor restaurant at Harvey Nicks or Mossimans. Bill Gates’ sidekick has bought himself an estate here, Michael Winner has visited and been suitably lambastic, and property prices are heading for Palm Beach levels. The only problem is, for six months of the year this place is cold, wet, windy and remote. Like today. And this is still mid-August.
Me and Michael - after-dinner bonding
MONDAY AUGUST 13, 2007
From Derek Streetham, London, UK
Hi Simon, I read your grumbles about eating at the Danieli – surely you also ate somewhere else that was better. I'm going there later in the year and I need some recommendations. Can we hear about a good meal you had in Venice rather than a bad one?
My complaint about the Danieli was about value rather than price. Eating there will cost you no more than, for instance, Alain Ducasse’s restaurant at the Plaza Athene in Paris. But at Ducasse’s you’ll leave feeling you’ve had an eating experience you might never again match in your life, whereas at the Daniele you’ll feel you might have done better at the café next door. And if the café next door is what you opt for, the one to choose is alla Fontana on the canale di Cannaregio. Good Venetian food is simpler and less sauced than food from the rest of Italy so to make alla Fontana's steamed local fish or spaghetti with clams taste perfect they need to be combined with a well-aged Vengazzu – the local variation of Cabernet Sauvignon. It’ll cost you more than an equivalently downmarket restaurant anywhere else in Italy but at least you’ll leave feeling content. But the real point is… Venice is for looking at. For good eating go to Milan. Or just come back to London.
SUNDAY AUGUST 12, 2007
From Bobbi Marchini, Villa Christina, Zakynthos, Greece
You look bloody marvelous... like a good wine, better with age... (also more full-bodied). You're brave doing Venice in August but seen from my particular corner of the tourist world it all sounds wonderful. Did you know that Venice is the natural mother of the Zakynthian kitchen. They (I Sereni) were the rulers here for centuries and left behind the musical and gastronomical tradition. If you think you could tolerate the nasty flight you would both be so welcome. There is a 4 kilo wild bunny waiting at this end (that's not me) and I promise to find some decent wine. The weather's great and the pool’s warm. Love and hugs
Remembering how unbelievably delcicious you made that huge cock last time I came to see you, I’d just love to come and sample your recipe for the local hare, but I just can’t fit it in - I don’t mean in terms of squeezing it into my stomach (which as you can see is now large enough to accommodate a small horse) but simply that these three weeks of holiday have become just too jammed up with chaotic travel and overeating. As for fine wine and my being full-bodied, I’d rather be a new vintage - fruity and young. Old wine doesn’t travel too well and August in British airports is pretty hellish.
SATURDAY AUGUST 11, 2007
From The Honourable Ron Franklin, Bangkok, Thailand
Simon! Well that new pic is a little better 1) you have cleverly hidden your tum tum and 2) you look like you just had a much better meal! Hope you have both not gone bust with the prices in Italy!!! My clever Tong spent much time in London at the Harvey Nichols 90 perc off sale accompanied by a group of local Thais all hoping to bring back most of the stuff to resell here at original prices !!! Wasn't enough time left for gourmet dining as we passed our body weight limit after 3 weeks eating those huge portions in Germany/Switzerland! See you soon !
Hi Ron. Yesterday we got back from three days in Venice - murderous on the bank account - main courses in the stunning Danieli rooftop restaurant running as high as 50 pounds and our miserably cooked breakfast costing more than 100 Euros. But in for a penny in for a pound, and if that's where you choose to stay, you know what you're letting yourself in for. Anyway, people who've really got money turn up their noses at the Danieli and the Bauer and head for the Gritti where you can spend 200 Euros on breakfast instead. When I get back home I shall cease eating, totally. After four weeks, I shall be a mere sliver - I mean, a sixteen stone sliver, as against the 18 stone one I now am.
Last night in London we were taken to Racine by James Palumbo - still raking it in from Ministry of Sound and soon to celebrate his financial sex-change from millie to billie, with a thousand million under his matress. Racine is superb. Tonight Larry and Suzy Ashmore are cooking for us at home (Larry arranged all Miklas Rozsa's famous film scores for him, and most of Maurice Jarre's too). On Saturday we go to the country to Feathercombe to see Anthony (still permanently famously broke, but as charming ever). On Monday, to Norfolk to stay with Michael Bellis and his boyfriend Anthony. Do you know Michael? Great chap. For years he was Britain's leading criminal solicitor - he knows every murderer who ever walked free. Yo did their house for them in Pattaya. Then we're off to Stockholm where Donavon is getting married.
After that we might possibly decide to come back home. We can have lunch together and I shall eat a small prawn and drink some water.
with James Palumbo at Racine
FRIDAY AUGUST 10, 2007
From Jay Sunoshi, New Jersey, USA
hi simon… i read a week ago on your website about how much you enjoyed john rechy’s ‘city of night’ when it first came out… that it made you think you’d actually like to be a rent boy… did you ever do it??
The trouble was, I never could manage to have sex with anyone I didn't fancy, though there were many occasions I wished I had the knack. In 1957 I was in Toronto. I’d arrived in Canada, just turned 18, planning to be a musician but hadn't found any work. Flat broke, I decided to pawn my trumpet but when I arrived at the pawnshop the man behind the counter took one look at me and said I should go upstairs and see the boss.
The boss was a burly man with a bright red face. His office was reminded me of a small chapel with his desk in the altar position and a cross on the wall behind it, "Take a pew," he said. He then made smalltalk about the pawn trade and I noticed that while he talked he rested his left hand on a bible on the desk in front of him. Presumably this protected him from any aspects of the business that might be deemed sinful. At one point he swore, referring to his customers as ‘mostly dumb motherfuckers’, and when he did so he lifted his hand slightly off the bible. Eventually he told me, “If you want to hock your horn it'll fetch you thirty bucks.”
Then lifting his hand off the bible, he said, “But if you suck my cock I'll give you the money and you can keep the trumpet.”
I was out of the room before he'd finished speaking. That afternoon I found a job in a while-u-wait shoe repair shop, peeling smelly footwear from the feet of women who’d broken a heel out shopping.
THURSDAY AUGUST 9, 2007
From
The Honourable Ron Franklin, Bangok, Thailand
Simon, Hi. What's with that pic on your website a few days ago? What's with the tummy? I thought you and I were going to be more careful.... I LOST weight in Europe last month…. See you when you are back. Love Ron.
It’s a bit gross, isn’t it! But in the middle of a holiday it's no time to start dieting too stringently. It will have to be when I get back home - I'm enjoying myself too much. To show you what I mean, here's me in fine good mood at dinner in Venice last night.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 8, 2007
From
From Tosh Berman, TamTam Books, Los Angeles, USA
Hi Simon, sorry it took so long in getting back to this letter, but I was busy with work. I am about 3/4th into the Maclaren-Ross biography and I find his character interesting - but also he might be a person admired from a distance. I don't know if I would want to have him stay in my home for a great period of time - but what a fantastic character!
Another great one is Kit Lambert. I read the book "The Lamberts." What a fantastic family tree. Andrew Loog Oldham suggested that I read the book. It took me a while to find an used copy but I did eventually and
I devoured it in bed when I had a major cold a year or so ago.
Hi Tosh. Kit, as you probably know, was one of my greatest friends, which is why my first two books were full of stories of him. Currently I’m on holiday in Venice which was one of his favourite places and where he lived for several years.
When he’d made enough money from managing the Who, Kit came here and bought himself a title, ‘Il Baroni Lambert’, and a palace, Palazzio Dario. He blew money on it ledt right and centre, filling it with paintings and fine furniture. One day I bumped into him into him in Milan when he'd just bought a Louis Quinze commode for a quarter of a million dollars and he invited me to a party at his palace. It was as bizarre as anything Fellini ever devised in his movies. A non-stop chain of gondolas ferried guests in tails and ball-gowns across the canal to his chandeliered palace. Film and pop stars, extinct royalty, La Scala opera stars, Peggy Guggenheim from the palace next door, all elegantly sipping champagne. And then a motley collection of rentboys from Mestre turned up popping pills and smoking joints. Around midnight Kit leapt into the Grand Canal in his dinner jacket and swam to the other side. When he came back he shouted, "Help me out", but some of the guests called back, "No! Stay there." He clambered out anyway, stripped off his wet suit and wandered round the party in bright red Y-fronts dripping dirty canal water over the social elite of Venice and grabbing at the rent boys. A few months later I heard that part of the palace had gone up in flames, which was a normal event anywhere Kit was staying because of his habit of smoking in bed – drunk and stoned.
Later on, Kit was made ‘a ward of the state’, unfit to look after his own money. The palace was sold of for a pittance. I'm told it's up for sale again and tomorrow I’m going to have a look at it. But I don’t think I’ll be putting in a bid.
TUESDAY AUGUST 7, 2007
From
From Leo Stevens, London, UK
Hi Simon. I enjoyed your story yesterday. I've heard there’s a new TV programme about Marc Bolan coming out in September. A journalist friend of mine just got a preview clip of it and said there’s some great stuff in it, some of it from you. Can you give us a preview?
Not really, I’ve no idea what’s in the programme, though I did do an interview. The programme-makers came up with the idea that Marc, in his early days, might possibly have resorted to a bit of gay flirting to smooth his way forwards in the music business. The producer asked me if Marc had ever flirted with me in that way. “Not that I can recall”, I told him, “though we did shag each other a few times”. He seemed pleased with that, so it might end up in the programme. We’ll have to wait and see.
MONDAY AUGUST 6, 2007
From
From Jim Sandys, New York, USA
hi simon... for the thesis of my music course i’m writing about rock ‘n’ roll incidents ‘on the road’... the stories are amusing but i’m trying to make a serious point about the social difficulties of artists touring in a pressure-cooker atmosphere.. can you help me? what i’m missing at the moment is some good ‘train’ stories... seems like rock artists don’t travel much by train...
Except in Japan. There are a thousand stories to be told about rock groups on bullet trains. In 1972 I happened to be in Tokyo when Marc Bolan was there on tour. I was no longer managing him but he suggested I come along with the band to Osaka to see his show there. We went on the night-time bullet train and the band members boarded the with a cask of Suntory whiskey and a twelve-pack of sake flasks. The sleeper carriages had bunks running length-way rows shielded with canvas curtains. Three of the band got totally drunk but the drummer went to bed early, as did Marc and I. Once drunk, the three drinkers decided the pathetic early-to-bed drummer should be ‘got’. They set off to find his bunk intending to throw a load of cold tea and stale rice over him, but they got the wrong bunk. Mine!
Not yet asleep, I saw the stuff coming, leapt up and chased them down the corridor, intending to throw the rice over them instead. I caught one of them and slung him on to the nearest bunk. Unfortunately the nearest bunk contained an austere Japanese business man, fast asleep. He leapt up ready to fight the world and at that moment the group’s tour manager came along. Thinking it was the Japanese man causing the trouble he took a huge swing at him, and bit by bit people in the surrounding bunks woke up and joined in the fray.
An executive from the local Japanese record company was travelling with the group, which meant officially they were his responsibility. When he woke up and saw the mayhem in front of him he went totally to pieces and tried to commit suicide, forcing the carriage door with the train flying along at 120 miles an hour in the middle of the night.
The tour manager and I held him back and meanwhile the open door triggered the emergency brake and the train shrieked to a halt.
The next day the story was reported in the newspaper. Later, we heard that the government under-minister in charge of rail safety had resigned his job - bullet train doors were not meant to be openable from the inside. But for the members of the group it was just a another rock-tour moment, forgotten the next morning.
SUNDAY AUGUST 5, 2007
From
John Dang, Manchester, UK
Hi Simon! I met with Mai last night – as lovely as always and she introduced me to Amp Sawaruk. It seems Mai has been instrumental in organising this concert – bringing the artists (mostly her old friends) to perform. Whilst Mai was reserved about the politics, Amp was shouting away about how much trouble they were in. Apparently they're not allowed to sing any Grammy songs (I'm not sure what that leaves them with), and the only reason they've been able to do this is because they're both 'between' contracts and negotiating new deals right now. So when they go back they have to 'face the music' as it were. Amp was very funny. Everyone seemed to want to hush her but she was very open with me!
Oh dear! So I got it wrong did I? Not Paiboon making his artists support his political ends but the artists doing it for themselves. Anyway, who cares? I’m on holiday. Thai politics and Thai pop seems miles away. Yo and I are having fun with old friends.
Great dinner at Simon White’s (he used to own the Marquee club). Photographer Brian Angel told us about David Hockney’s 70th, which he’d been to a couple of days earlier. Hockney had been given a special brandy, a present from the Queen and Philip. Someone mistook it for wine and poured it as such into Brian’s glass throughout the dinner. Halfway home his bladder rebelled, so the Queen’s beautiful present ended up as a puddle in the gutter in Kensington High Street.
SATURDAY AUGUST 4, 2007
From Jenny Shaw, Marbella, Spain
Hi Simon. Missed your website this morning. I think I told you once before, I’m up at 6am each morning to work on my novel, but before I start I always read the Telegraph online then look at your website. When it’s not up, I miss it a lot. I’m not moaning – just letting you know how much it’s appreciated.
Last year Yo and I spent the whole of May in London and it was the wettest coldest May since records were started 150 years ago. I vowed I’d never come to England again before June. This year I came in the third week of June and it turned out to be the wettest coldest June week since records were started. Two days Yo and I arrived for a month’s holiday and this time we hit the jackpot. Perfect weather! And this morning I simply couldn’t be bothered to update the website. Instead I drove to Windsor to see friends. Here I am in a good mood at lunchtime by the river.
FRIDAY AUGUST 3, 2007
From Jeff Wrigley, Chelmsford, Essex
Hi Simon. I deduced from your previous email postings that you were to arrive in London this week as part of a month’s holiday. I’m really interested to know which restaurant does a big foodie like you head off to eat at on his first night back in London after a long while away?
Not always an easy choice. Last night Yo and I felt hugely in need of perfect oysters. Having just arrived on a fifteen hour flight and with the time change telling us we should already be asleep in bed, we needed somewhere buzzy but not too trendy or showy. The perfect place was La Brasserie, on Old Brompton Road - a beacon of perfect French restauranteuring in a far too trendy London. Open from breakfast to late evening; you can breeze in to La Brasserie at 4.30 in the afternoon and still get a full lunch. But although for forty years it's been the best brasserie in London, it originally got off to a poor start. In the sixties I once ate there with Ike and Tina Turner. Tina found a dead caterpillar in her cauliflower au gratin and leapt onto her chair screaming as if she'd found a live mouse. Fortunately the standard of cleanliness has moved on with the times and caterpillars are nowadays banned from the establishment. Last night the buzz was perfect; the oysters out-of-this-world.
THURSDAY AUGUST 2, 2007
From Allan Simmonds, London, UK
you used to manage ultravox, didn't you... i was a big fan of the group... i met billy currie once at a gig and he was amazing... stood and talked in the bar for a long time... not many artists will do that with a fan...
The trouble is - the artist who is charming one day can turn into a raving lunatic the next. One sunny summer’s morning in the 90s, I made a pot of coffee and took it into the garden with the newspaper. Before I'd even sat down the phone rang and I had to go back inside to answer it. When I picked it up it positively shreiked at me. ‘You’re a CUNT!’
It was Billy, and he was on fire…. ‘You're a stupid CUNT! You hear me? CUNT CUNT CUNT!!!’
To say it spoilt my mood is putting it mildly. I threw the coffee down the sink, the newspaper in the bin and considered leaving at once for a year in Kathmandu.
But five minutes later the phone rang again and Billy was back on the line with his smarmiest what-a-great-manager-you-are voice. “Simon, did I call just now and call you a cunt? I’m really sorry man, I called the wrong number. I thought you were someone else. Sorry mate.”
Cocaine for breakfast, I should think.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 1, 2007
From Andy Sheldon, London, UK
I know you left the UK to live in Thailand but today’s post makes it sound more like you left the real world. Who the hell is Mai Cha-thingmebob? What is Grammy Records? Who gives a toss for Mancunians? Why is Dr. Taksin feeding them loaves and fishes? What’s George Galloway got to do with it, got do with it?
Hi Andy – still trying to get your first hit?
Grammy are Thailand’s biggest record company with 50% of the market. RS Records are 2nd with 40%. Mai is one of Grammy’s top recording artists. Taksin’s a plotter, Galloway’s a rotter, and here’s a piece I wrote about the Thai music business.
TUEDAY JULY 31, 2007
From John Dang, Manchester, UK
Hello Simon! I was supposed to be leaving for Bangkok today but I postponed my flight until next week! On Saturday Dr Thaksin (as he's quoted in the British papers) is throwing a big party with free Thai food for the general public in an attempt to woo Mancunians! Mai Charoenpura is flying over along with 62 people from Grammy Music and RS Records for a concert in Albert Square in Manchester. I did look into getting on the bill but it seems it's being organised by the Grammy Music people, not the people here. Nevertheless my sister and I have been asked to greet the VIPs. Can't wait to get back and do gigs in Thailand.
Paiboon may be chairman of Grammy Music but he's behaving pretty high-handedly making all his artists perform in support of Taksin. That's a big political statement. It must be tough if you’re a Grammy or RS artist and don’t like Taksin. Bearing in mind that the two companies (Grammy and RS) control ninety per cent of the Thai music market, it’s about the equivalent of all the British artists signed to EMI, Warner, Universal, Sony and BMG being told they've got to perform for the benefit of George Galloway. Amazing!
MONDAY JULY 30, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Herfordshire, UK
i saw boris johnson riding his pushbike through seven dials the other day round teatime. I shouted ‘hi boris... i wish your saddle was my face!’ he waved like little lord flaunteroy... smiling and laughing like mary poppins… blonde fringe blowing in the wind. the people outside the pub drinking nearly choked on their mass produced pissy lager
Boris for mayor sounds good. He probably wouldn’t be as good at it as the newt man, but he’d be a lot more fun. Mayor's should have happy faces. It's not really a job for politicians. Being a mayor is 'of today'. That's why gays make great mayors - Paris and Berlin are perfect examples - they care about how their city will be tomorrow morning when they wake up. Straights are prepared to think long term and make it nice for their children in twenty years time. Boris isn't gay but he has a problem fitting in, which is what I like about him - too meddlesome for the genuine poshies, too daftly posh for the middle-class - rather silly, frightfully clever, socially cumbersome, beautifully blond.
SUNDAY JULY 29, 2007
From Ralph Solomon, Beckenham, UK
Hi Simon. Good news! I’m flying to Australia and have managed to fix a short stop-over in Thailand. I’m coming to Pattaya on Thursday and Friday this week and would love to buy you dinner. I've brought that CD I told you about by Willie Bobo.
Good news? My God - have you no idea what an utter pain you were last time? And those dreadful people that came with you.
Now then. I have good news too! The day you arrive is the day after I leave for a month in Europe.
SATURDAY JULY 28, 2007
From Shulah Devries, Haarlem, Holland
I read somewhere that you managed Boney M for a while. Was that the real Boney M with the original members?
In 1986, at the height of Pete Waterman’s success with PWL, I had the idea that if PWL remixed all the old Boney M hits in a current style, the album would be huge. Pete agreed to do it if we could get the original group together to promote it. By then, two lived in England, one in Florida and one in Amsterdam, which made flying to and from gigs a bit tricky, but we managed it and Pete put together a fabulous album of re-mixes.
Working with Boney M wasn’t easy. Apart from living all over the place, there were problems with BMG, their record company. In France, BMG managed to get both the album and the first single from it to number one, where they stayed simultaneously for fourteen weeks. In the UK, the head of A&R said he would lose credibility releasing a Boney M album, so it never went out. (Don’t you just hate those self-seeking idiot A&R men!!)
The band had a reputation for arguing amongst themselves, and my goodness wasn't it well deserved! They weren’t all the brightest of sparks either. Liz Mitchell had a chip on her shoulder about white people and believed in a theory that black people originated in central Russia. Marcia, when her first child was born, mixed caviar with its baby food, hoping it would grow up with high class tastes. Bobby had a wife who, because Boney M had been screwed out of most of their royalties, thought the rest of the world should be screwed to compensate. And then there was sweet Maizie Williams.
The group's producer, Frank Farian, had screwed Maizie worst of all. He’d tried to avoid paying royalties to all of them but bit by bit each of the other three had managed to get a little out of him. He paid them only on the basis that they wouldn’t tell Maizie they were getting it.
Farian’s an odious man. I’ve never seen anyone eat with their mouth wider open, nor with more in it.
FRIDAY JULY 27, 2007
From Dean Simmonds, Washington, DC, USA
hi simon... i notice you have a link to a website about john rechy... i don’t think you’ve ever mentioned rechy in your blogs but i’m delighted you appreciate him... i’ve always thought of him as one of the best american writers ever.
I did too, when I read his first book, City of Night. It was in 1960. I was in the States not knowing what to do with myself, just hitch-hiking around. To pass the time I visited every State, which involved a lot of sitting by the road reading. I came across some chapters from City of Night in a magazine (three years before the book was actually published). The first chapter was about hustling in Manhattan. When I read it I decided immediately I wanted to be a New York rent boy, but then I read the next chapter, ‘The Fabulous Wedding of Miss Destiny’, and decided LA drag bars might be more my scene. John Rechy made being gay seem like a social choice - a way of opting out of normal life - which was just what I wanted. So I hitch-hiked round the States using 'City of Night' as my guide-book.
In his later books Rechy changed. He lost his sense of humour and seemed to write only about freaks and weirdos. But by then I'd opted in again and was back in London being a pop manager. (Well... halfway in, perhaps.)
THURSDAY JULY 26, 2007
From Danny Evans, Lowestoft, UK
Hi Simon. I saw in the paper that Don Arden died. He was a manager of your generation, wasn’t he? Was he really the thug they say he was?
He was. But he was also a stage entertainer. Once, when he lost an act, he decided to give up management and become a singer. He recorded a single, 'Sunrise Sunrise', then auditioned to take over the lead role in Fiddler On The Roof. The single failed and he didn't get the part, which was a pity, because it meant he went back to management.
There were many stories. The most famous was hanging Robert Stigwood out of the window because he'd had a meeting with the Small Faces, a group Don managed. Two days after Stiggy had been swung by his feet from the second floor, the Small Faces turned up at my office too. They were fed up with Don's belligerent methods and wanted me to take them on. Don only had to hear they’d been in my office for him to send in the bruisers, so I phoned him right there and then with the group sitting in front of me. “Don,” I said, ‘the Small Faces are here. It’s pretty obvious they’re unhappy with you. Sooner or later they’re going to leave you, so I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I take over their management and I’ll split the commission with you."
Don loved the idea. “Simon”, he gushed, “you’re the only honest man left in the music business. Consider the deal done.”
“Wait a moment,” I said. “The group still haven’t decided whether they want me to manage them.”
“Tell ’em, if they don’t, I'll come round right now and break their fucking legs.”
In the event, the group decided against it, which was fine with me. I didn’t really want to get involved with Don. Even so, the next day I had to suffer him turning up to buy me a drink and offer some advice on management: “Always fuck the artist before the artist fucks you."
He stuck to that consistently with every act he managed.
WEDNESDAY JULY 25, 2007
From Muir Vidler, London, UK
Hi Simon. Good to hear from you. I’d already seen the sofa picture on your website. Slightly naughty indeed, but not, I felt, on a scale to warrant me unleashing my legal rottweilers. A link, as you suggest, would be recompense enough. But if you really want the rights to use it as and when, there should be a repro fee. Here’s a full-length shot (with my tongue wedged a little in my cheek). I'm leaving town.
Hi Muir. When I first saw the sofa shot in Word Magazine, I started an instant double-crash diet. By the time it had failed (the third or fourth day) people were calling to say how much they liked the picture. And since I put it on the website it’s rather become my image. The repro fee is on its way, and the link to muirvidler.com is in place. I've got to say, your website currently has the best batch of photos by any photographer I know of. I really love the 'Rebels Without a Pause' section - extraordinary shots with extraordinary quotes. Brilliant!
"In my spare time I either go to fetish clubs or do needlepoint"
TUESDAY JULY 24, 2007
From Chris Campion, London, UK
Hi Simon.
I'm working on a story at the moment about masters of scam and hype in the music business. I spoke to the A&R who worked at Decca in the 60s. She denied that any company would ever sign a group that didn't exist. But evidently they would. How would it work, selling groups that didn't exist to record companies?
A woman doing A&R at Decca in the 60s? Highly unlikely! It was the world's most mysogynist company. Anyway, she's a complete ignoramus (which is probably how she got into A&R).
Half of all record deals between 1960 and 1990 were production deals. A producer, or production company, would be given a deal to find and produce a certain number of new artists. It was simple… Here’s the money, get on with it.
I've done hundreds of those deals. The woman's a fool!
MONDAY JULY 23, 2007
From Deirdre Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
hi simon... i noticed one of the websites you have a link to is simon jenkins whose writing and opinions i love... but I also love yours… had you ever thought of doing a column the same way he does?? i’m sure yours would be more entertaining
Simon Jenkins is the most astonishingly clear-thinking person I’ve ever come across. On several occasions I’ve been offered a column, but the truth is, writing opinionated pieces day after day is a tedious chore. Whatever subject you choose to write on, you first have to work out what you really think, then find rhetoric and amusing bigotry to back yourself up, which is hard work. And tomorrow there’ll be another one, and another, and another, until there’s hardly anything left to have an opinion about. Moreover, I can’t believe that people would really care how I felt about these trivial things. I mean... I don’t even care much myself. And often have no idea.
Which is where Simon Jenkins comes in. Whatever trivial (or weighty) matter he's writing about, he’s always thought it through and come to just about the right conclusion - the same sort of conclusion that any other sane, liberal, atheist, anti-death penalty, thoughtful, tolerant person would come to if they gave it sufficient thought and research.
So rather than waste my time making me write a column, why not read Simon Jenkins? I hereby appoint him my proxy on all thinking matters.
SUNDAY JULY 22, 2007
From Sam Baretto, Miami, Florida USA
Hi Si. Just found your wesbite. Remember me? We met when you were in town for the Hurricane Relief concert in 1992. You were here with Asia, running round town trying to get an amp for Steve Howe’s acoustic guitar. I was in the shop where you found it.
What an energetic weekend that was! Asia were asked to play for Hurricane Relief so we flew out on the Friday afternoon and arrived to find some dissolute friend of the group waiting for them in a triple-stretch white limo stuffed from end to end with coke. This junkie sleazeball was trying to talk the group into having him as their manager instead of me and Sir Harry. But before Harry and I could deal with him a more pressing problem cropped up. We were told Asia would be going on first and that their set would be acoustic. One of the world’s great electric noise-making rock groups brought to near silence!
Actually, none of them cared much. Except Steve Howe. He whined and moaned and said he wanted to get on the next plane home. The coke pusher had the cheek to take his side so I stood over him as he lounged in an armchair in the hotel lobby and threatened to jump on his nasty junkie face. (Sometimes it’s useful being a big fat bugger).
Finally Steve said he’d play if he had some gadget or other, I forget the name, but it would allow him to mike a small practise amp instead of miking his actual guitar. Which was fine - except everyone doubted we’d find one. They were like gold dust.
Saturday morning Sir Harry and I set off round Miami looking for one while the group stayed at the hotel hoovering up the contents of the sleazeball's white limo. They fully expected us to fail in our quest and for Steve to throw a wobbly and fly back home. But we found one.
(At your shop!)
In the event, Asia's acoustic set was a triumph. The show had been organised by Gloria Estefan who insisted on topping the bill herself. Lesser mortals were lower down on it, like Jon Secada, Jimmy Buffet, and the three artists sharing our dressing-rooms – Julio Iglesias, Paul Simon and Crosby Stills & Nash.
Going first wasn’t such a bad thing. At 7pm the sun was still out, the place was full and nobody was bored. Later, as Gloria Estefan came onstage for the finale at twenty to midnight, a massive thunderstorm struck.
By then we were with all the other artists, getting sozzled in the executive bar high up at the side of the stadium, regaled with funny stories from Whoopi Goldberg, watching through the window as Gloria's rain-sodden audience melted miserably away into the night.
SATURDAY JULY 21, 2007
From George Sellen, New York, NY, USA
simon… i googled for quentin crisp and it bought me to a picture on your website… he’s someone who totally fascinates me… i’ve read all his books and try in my own life to do many things the way he did...
AND…
i seem to remember in one of the books there was a chapter about you… didn’t you make a record with him? was it ever released? i would do anything to hear it…
does a copy still exist????
It does. It's on the desk in front of me at this very moment, retrieved from a cupboard after receiving your email.
It was recorded shortly after the Naked Civil Servant was shown on TV sometime at the end of the 70s. In the true tradition of lazy English pop (where anyone light and frothy who's in the news gets signed to sing a song), I noted the splurge of reviews and decided to ask Quentin to make a record. My idea was something half-spoken half-sung like a French chanteuse. He could sound old, nostalgic, even half-sozzled, it would just make it better.
I got hold of his phone number and called him. He didn't seem too keen but invited me round to talk. His extraordinary one room flat hadn't been dusted for thirty years – his theory being, after the first week it would get no worse, so why not learn to live with it? What was strange was - how, out of this dusty-dingy flat, Quentin could emerge so clean and sparkling in his weird bright-coloured gear and make-up?
I was living with Allan Soh at the time and Quentin came to our flat frequently for dinner and enjoyed meeting our pop celebrity friends. Rather than a quick hard-sell, I felt a slow gentle coaxing was the right route, but what finally turned him on to it was the mention of a fee.
The record never got released. Record companies were nervous of him. "Top of the Pops won't accept him," they said. "He's just too weird". (Yet this was the 70s, with punk at its height, the Sex Pistols selling bucketloads, and safety pins through every ear and nose on the Kings Road!)
Until ten minutes ago, the tape has sat in a series of cupboards for thirty years. Now it's on my desk and I'm faced with a peculiarly 2007 problem. I haven’t got a tape-recorder (haven't had one for years). I presumed someone else would, but when I started calling around I found they've become more extinct than gramophones, even in the local recording studio.
(That's seaside towns for you!)
Never mind. Next week I’ll pop up to Bangkok and get the tape transfered to digital. Then I'll put a snippet on the website. OK?
FRIDAY JULY 20, 2007
From Jenny English, Liverpool, UK
simon, my dear, it’s been ages.... just discovered your website and love it.… but really.… the more i read through your emails the more i come to the conculsion that you might have a problem with alcholol.… would I be right, do you think.… ???
Not at all. I always keep the house well-stocked, and anyway I have the good fortune to live just three minutes from a 24/7 supermarket that sells the stuff day and night. So in the entire time I’ve lived here I’ve never had a problem. Hope this puts your mind at rest. Good to hear from you.
THURSDAY JULY 19, 2007
From
Tony Shirland, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Hi Simon. I just read your book You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me and was amazed by the story of the two Hong Kong lawyers who tried to force you into obtaining records by a top pop group for the insertion of subliminal propaganda. You said you didn’t know who was behind it, but is that really true? You made it sound like they pretty much threatened your life. Surely you must have had a good think since then about who was behind it.
I never knew for sure, and still don’t today. But from talking to other people to whom something similar happened, I came to presume it was Moral Rearmament (MRA). This was a hugely powerful, rich, semi-political, semi-religious organisation started by Frank Buchman, an American evangelist, born in Pensylvannia in the last century. He was brought up speaking Pensylvannian German and became a Lutheran minister. He admired Hitler for turning back the tide of communism in Germany and he started an organization called the Oxford Movement the purpose of which was that people should ‘re-arm themselves morally’. Buchman was an acute homophobe (all new believers had to make detailed confessions of sexual indiscretions, especially homosexual ones) but he himself was a secret homosexual. He bagged loads of well-placed young people who later went on to become highly influential in politics and by the 50s, when the organization had become known as Moral Rearmamant, it had become hugely rich and profoundly sinister – a worldwide cult with much influence on people in government in many countries. For instance, fifty yearsa ago when Kenyan nationalists were fighting for independence, the British government handed the job of rehabilitating prisoners to MRA (God knows why!). MRA proceeded to use many of the methods used more recently in Guantanamo Bay – starvartion rations and sexual humiliation, bringing in prostitutes who postured naked in front of prisoners forcing them to get erections in front of their captors. There was always an element of sexual guilt running through MRA. In America, large groups of youths were organized into ‘Sing Outs” and went evangelising with crass MRA pop songs. If you asked these Sing-Out kids questions they quoted God-based answers verbatim from the MRA handbook. The movement was overtly anti-intellectual and spoke of the 'moral poverty of brainpower' In London, MRA bought the Westminster Theatre and every night unwitting theatregoers were subjected to subliminally mind-bending plays, which was perhaps the first stage of what MRA were doing when they began to contact people like me (if indeed it was them) in the hope of being able to doctor tapes by pop and rock artists. They were the sort of organisation one didn’t want to cross and I certainly felt lucky to get out of what I nearly got into, especially when they executed someone in front of me to prove they were serious.
MRA are still around today and call themselves 'Initiatives of Change'. From the outside they appear credible, laudable and moderate.
But BEWARE!!
WEDNESDAY JULY 18, 2007
From Ben Irons, London, UK
bloody hell simon… with all those ancient old fogeys at the top of your email page you don’t deserve to have your knob in working order… most of ‘em are dead aren’t they? this week you seem to have regressed to another age… can i persuade you to come back to the present please!!
You’re right Ben – between writing a book about the 50s, Tosh at TamTam sending me books about the 40s, and my friend Gregory sending me old Stan Kenton tracks, I’ve been railroaded into retro mode. Back into forward gear and there’s plenty going on. Had a great meeting with QBoy when I was in London last month. He is very much of the present, and SO alive. We've got a cracking idea for a most unusual TV show. Might be something your company would like to get involved with. Cool your derision about my retro mood and I’ll let you in on it.
TUESDAY JULY 17, 2007
From Clive Shaw, Brisbane, Qeensland, Australia
Now then Simon... I'm looking for a bit of honesty here. From reading your website it seems as if you’re still as busy as ever, rushing round the world, writing a new book, eating great meals, all that sort of thing... but are you still up to it sexually? You once told me that everything you did in life was motivated by sex. Is that still true? Are you still as horny as ever? Now remember please… I’m looking for honesty.
Hi Clive. Honest answers are never a problem, only dishonest ones; they're such a bore to think up. My principal philosophy has always been - follow my dick wherever it points. It’s led me on all the best adventures and found me lots of great people. But since my prostate operation it’s been rather grumpy. In fact, were I to continue to follow wherever it points I’d end up sticking my head in the sand like an ostrich. My answer is to ignore it and get on with my life regardless. Sooner or later, no doubt, it will come to its senses and realise what it’s missing. Meanwhile, for all I care it can stay sulking in the bottom of my briefs while I go out and enjoy good food and wine and conversation.
MONDAY JULY 16, 2007
From
Chris Campion, London, UK
Hi Simon. I was going through a heavy Lou Christie obsession a few years ago and came across his recording of The Boys Lazed On The Verandah. It's an outrageous song. Hilarious. Should by rights have been on Jon Savage's Queer Noises comp. After a bit of research I discovered that Fresh had recorded it. Was it written specifically for the Fresh record?
In the late 60s I was bored of managing groups so I went off to the States with record producer Ray Singer who’d had a big hit with Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’. I’d just co-produced the Yardbirds latest album so between us we had enough credentials to get in to see the heads of A&R at all the major companies. The idea was to get a deal for a group we’d just found but we ended up being offered deals at every company so we invented new groups as we went – Plus, Brut, Heavy Jelly, Fresh – whatever came to mind. We came back to the UK with half-a-dozen deals and needed groups to fulfil them. We volunteered as judges for an all-night rock talent contest on Weymouth Pier and gave the top five groups record contracts. Recording them was a struggle. They weren’t good enough and in most cases we had to bring in session musicians. In the case of Fresh we had to bring in other people to sing too. Somewhere along the line someone got the idea of pretending the group were ex-borstal boys. We collected some suitable songs, wrote a few ourselves and asked friends to write others. One of these resulted in The Boys Lazed On The Veranda, written by Peter Sarstedt. Then we dressed the group in prison outfits and took a shot of them outside a heavily barred gate at the entrance to the Alexander Palace exhibition centre. That album was 'Fresh Out Of Borstal' and became something of a cult item. Actor Sal Mineo bought a couple of thousand and sent them out as Christmas cards. Mick Jagger sent them to friends too. As a result the album did so well we had to make a follow-up. But by then the fun was wearing thin.
SUNDAY JULY 15, 2007
From Tosh Berman, TamTam Books, Los Angeles, USA
I just started reading this fascinating biography on the writer Julian Maclaren-Ross. Do you know of him or his work? It seems he was a hardcore citizen of Soho bar life during the 40's and 50's.
I have sent you some Boris Vian titles, including 'Manual of Saint-Germain des Prés', as well as the Gainsbourg book we talked about. The Manual I would open up first. It's a fascinating title because it covers a key series of moments that took place in Paris 1949. As well as being written by one of the key participants of the scene it has lots of images from Nighclub Tabou and other assorted locations. It's unique for the photographs, very hard to find of that period, but also for Vian's text which is hysterical. Ciao for now.
Hi Tosh. Very provocative of you to send me these books just when I wanted to avoid distractions and get on with my own new book. They’ve proved instantly irresistible and I’m justifying the interruption on the basis that a small part (truly tiny) of my own 50's book will be about Paris too. I went there in 1950 when I was 11. It was an exchange visit with a family who had no absolutely interest in me. They simply handed me the key to the apartment and told me 'Dinner at seven'. I roamed Paris alone for three weeks and was mesmerised. I already had a fascination for the seedy, especially when combined with an underlay of glamour - broke poets, down-and-out authors, penniless ex-royals, transvestite entertainers - all the things Paris did best. Even at age 11 (and restricted to pre-7pm) I found plenty in Monmartre and St Germain to point a path to the future.
Julian Maclaren-Ross was a huge London character of the pre-50s generation, competing with contemporaries as diverse as Constant Lambert and Quentin Crisp (all about the same age as my father). But when I re-read one of his books I found his lilt awfully 40s/50s English, like listening to Richard Burton’s dialogue in a British movie of the same period. Whereas, Boris Vian's 'American book', written in French around the same time and translated into English, reeks of Kerouac (who wasn’t to appear for another ten years). Moreover Vian was also a jazz trumpet player and singer, a sort of trad jazz Chet Baker. Fascinating!! So with all these books in front of me how am I going to get any work done?
SATURDAY JULY 14, 2007
Brigitta Renyi, Magyar-Dental, Budapest, Hungary
Dear Mr Napier-Bell. Having seen you converse with Mr Mathew Wright on his London television programme of two weeks ago I felt not totally satisfied with the plight of your teeth. Accordingly I draw your attention to our special services. Being manager of popular singing star you must already know that the unimpeachable guise of an important person is not only proposed but also requisite. A dazzlingly lustrous denture can be the most indispensable key to perfect complacency. If, dear Mr Napier-Bell, you wish to make an overture to me in regard to this matter, the secrecy of your special private wishes will be assured.
Brigitta, my sweet - in my own mind the stunning munificence of my smile and the gleaming whiteness it reveals on being unleashed is legend amongst all who know and love me.
Admittedly, those who view me less fondly might find its shining splendour more easily resistible, but even so a trip to Hungary for a dental appointment seems a mite extravagant. I hope you won't mind then if I forego your offer and stick with my local chap here in Pattaya who's frightfully nice and lends me all the latest movies before they're even released. (Downloaded, I expect, from illict file-sharers. But I operate a don't-ask-don't-tell policy.)
FRIDAY JULY 13, 2007
From Bibi Espedes, New York, NY, USA
Dearest Simon. Hope your cold is better. I have been busy as a wasp! I read your recent posts and as far as the abuse directed at rude people, they should thank their lucky stars they did not pull that crap with me. I would have used my long nasty nails to autograph their foreheads.
Bibi dear, since my nails aren’t up to your face-scratchingly high standards I had to deal with it other ways. In the last few days the emails seem to have become excessively bitchy, so next week I'm aiming to raise the standard. That will mean no space for anything from you. But never mind, in due course standards are bound to fall again and your re-entry will be assured.
THURSDAY JULY 12, 2007
From Stephen Ashley, Cambridge, UK
Hello Simon - it looks like Émile and I shall in Venice at the same time as you. We will be staying at the Bauer for a week from Aug 6th. Shall we meet for a meal?
No, Stephen! Not all four of us. Yo and I can't stand Émile's endless bitching. We'll be at the Danieli. If you can dump Émile for the evening we'd like to invite you to dinner. Otherwise, let's leave it till you've got yourself free of him once and for all.
WEDNESDAY JULY 11, 2007
Susie Henderson, London, UK
Simon, how one earth can you be so outrageously rude to a man who appears to have done you no harm other than introduce himself and talk about his son’s pop ambitions? I have never met Mr Downes, but I am sure he is nothing like as bad as you made out, and even if he was, why should you abuse his son like that when you have never even met him?
Rubbish – he was every bit as annoying I said. He walked up behind me as I was standing on a moving staircase and plonked headphones over my head. I pulled them off without listening so he then started spouting on about his darling son.
You’d be surprised how often this sort of thing happens. I’ve been given tapes by milkmen and dustmen and shopkeepers and waiters. By a clerk at the
passport office, an immigration officer at Los Angeles airport, a customs officer at Heathrow, a traffic warden in Swiss Cottage (who still wouldn’t take back the ticket he’d given me), an elderly tramp outside Victoria station who blamed his situation on record companies never having taken him seriously, and even by the official receiver 20 years ago when he turned up to put one of my companies into liquidation. They do it because they’re trying to help their kids become pop stars, but when I was managing artists the first thing I looked for was star-quality and chutzpah. For me it came ahead of songs and singing ability so having your father give me your tape would instantly earn you nil out of ten. By the way, that bore in the airport lounge showed me a picture of his son, so it wasn’t just a figure of speech when I said he was hideous. He really is.
TUESDAY JULY 10, 2007
From Gerald Downes, Plymouth, Devon, UK
Hello Mr Napier-Bell. You will remember I met you a couple of weeks ago in the premium class lounge at Doha airport. As I told you at the time my son is a singer and has been writing pop songs, and because in the seventies I myself was briefly in a pop group and therefore know something about the music business, I am trying to help him get started. He will shortly be sending you some songs to listen to and having listened to them I would appreciate if you could advise him how you think he might move forward.
I remember you well - self-important, boorish and intrusive. Thank goodness they eventually carted you off in your business-class bus and allowed me to escape to the first-class lounge. As for your hideous son, perhaps if you show him this reply he’ll decide not to bother me. I hope so.
MONDAY JULY 9, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertforshire, UK
i was watching this silly concert on telly last night… how i
laughed... pop stars bleeting on about carbon emissions... surely a star by its very nature is going to burn fuel like billy-o and then burn out. they are in themselves metaphors for lovely little planets that do a little orbit and then de-compose. why do today’s pop stars feel the need to be so virtuous?
They're not that different from those ten-year-olds holed-up in the mosque in Pakistan saying they want to be martyrs for God, both have been brainwashed into spouting the local brand of fashionable verbiage. You know my views on 'Save the World'… less people! The Pope could do more in a few seconds than a thousand Al Gore concerts. Why aren’t some 'Live Earth’ terrorists car-bombing the Vatican and holding him hostage until he comes out against naked knob-ends; declares condoms compulsory, sex pleasurable and procreation deviant? Oh never mind… at least there were a few pretty tunes.
SUNDAY JULY 8, 2007
From Archie Schwartz, Chicago, Ill, USA
Hey Simon, the other day I checked your old emails and found ‘Pennies from Heaven’ by Stan Kenton. I'm an old jazzer dating back to the 50s, and d'you know... While you Brits were going mad about American jazz in the fifties and sixties, some of us Yanks where equally keen on jazz coming from Britain... first George Shearing, then the Ted Heath band. Don’t you think some of your guys rated with ours?
The answer has to be ‘no’. Funnily enough only yesterday someone sent me a track by Ted Heath. The Heath band had amazing musicianship, especially the saxes whose fluidity was the equal of any American section, but the problem came with the brass. All the top players were northerners and learnt their craft playing in brass bands where they used cornets not trumpets. Their sound was too warm. It had none of the steely cool of American bands. And listen to the trumpet solo - sure, it’s technically proficient, but it feels more like ‘pour out the beer’ than ‘pour out your heart’. And then there’s the final big chords. They remind you that the Ted Heath band was a radio band making its money playing variety shows. Those four rising chords with the drum rolls in between sound like they’re preparing for a vaudeville finale – a man is about to jump through burning hoops, or throw knives round his wife’s boobs, or have performing dogs swing from a trapeze. It’s SO fifties Saturday night out - SO working man's club. Even the last big chord! It has none of Kenton’s ninths and thirteenths; just a plain old seventh. Pub stuff, really.
SATURDAY JULY 7, 2007
From Charly Felton, Basingstoke, UK
hi simon… i bought a copy of black vinyl white powder last weekend and was reading it when my gran comes to the house for tea and screams... she was soooooooooo angry… she says she can never forget your name becos you came to her mum’s boarding house years ago and disgraced all the village… she won’t tell me more so i’m writing to ask you what it’s about? by the way gran's mum used to live in dorset
Hi Charly. I can’t be sure this is it, but there was a slight incident in the mid-70s. I was having a fling with a young Chinese chap called Tony Doo. One sunny bank holiday weekend we headed for the South coast – Bournemouth, Poole, that sort of thing - but when we got there we simply couldn’t find anywhere to stay – every hotel and every boarding house was full. After a long lunch on the terrace of the Royal Bath in Bournemouth we decided to head inland and found a bed-and-breakfast place in a picturesque Dorset village. We got strange stares from the lady who owned it but having signed her guest book and paid seven quid in advance, she showed us to a nice first floor room overlooking her back garden which was set up for a tea-party. “Come down and join us if you want,” she told us. But once she’d left the room we forgot about it and got horny instead. Tony liked a bit of a thrashing when he was being shagged so there was a fair amount of throwing him around the room and pulling off clothes, not to mention knocking things over. All in all it was quite jolly and as we approached the finale I gave him a last hefty fling towards the wide-open window. He grabbed the window ledge and I heaved myself up behind him, completing our pas de deux with a final lusty thrust. Then we noticed....
Fifteen feet below us, in the garden, was a gathering of the village’s finest – men in white suits, ladies in nice hats, the vicar, the vicar’s wife, the local headmaster – all holding plates and tea cups – fingers cocked, faces shocked – staring up in horror at the two noisy shaggers hanging replete from the open first-floor window.
Ten minutes later we were on our way back to London, our seven quid returned, bidden never to set foot again. Instead of the countryside, our Saturday finished with lobster thermidor at Chris Hunter’s restaurant in Fulham Road, accompanied by Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle - my favourite! (Particularly good with oysters and crustacea.)
FRIDAY JULY 6, 2007
From Paul Rymer, Middlesborough, UK
Hi Simon. Got back from Japan a few weeks ago. We meant to do more cultural things and sightseeing but no, yet again just spent most of the time shopping, eating and collapsing back to the hotel. A friend's wife dragged us 'round Disney and I disgraced myself on one ride by getting off before it started (having a row with the other half in the process in front of shocked Japanese children), then having the embarassment of having to get back on because I was not allowed out the way I had come in. The air was blue after we got out I can tell you! Why do people pay good money to be frightened half out of their wits?
We now have enough air miles to do something else fun. Trying to decide between New York (never been), Vegas and San Fran (been to both, other half hasn't). Which would you pick? Or suggest another US city.
My goodness what a kerfuffle … A couple of queens arguing on a fairground ride because one of them is scared and wants to get off and all the school kids sneering in contempt. Such a great movie scene!!
And now re America.... Where indeed?
You know I'm not a fan. But maybe you're prompted to go there because of music. If not, I'd look where else the airmiles might take you - Rio? Mexico (my favourite). Or Cuba (another place that's great for music). But back to America….
The good places in America are not in the centre of the cities you'll end up in if you go as a tourist. New York is hideously claustrophobic (this is me talking – all prejudice and opinionated). You've got to remember I've been there hundreds of times, always for business, have loads of good friends, stay in the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, have had dozens of fantastic experiences there, go and come back first class. AND STILL HATE IT.
Miami I can tolerate because (once again, remember, I'm there for business and therefore not at a loose end) I tune all the presets on the car radio to Spanish stations then pretend I'm not in America at all.
Los Angeles is a must see (so is the three-titted lady at the funfair – five seconds is more than enough, and once is sufficient). You spend hours and hours driving miles across vast urban tracts to get to places not worth going to in the first place. The only reason to go is to see it and understand it. And to work.
San Francisco is always freezing cold, especially in the summer - by which I mean... it's equally cold summer and winter, yet just across the bridge it can be wonderfully suntanningly hot.
Vegas – utterly ugh ugh - I don't like the kitsch - I don't like the gambling - I don't like its restuarants - I don’t like its commercialised hospitality or being told to have a nice day when I would like nothing more than to have a thoroughly nasty one and sulk all the way through it.
Listen, if you're going to America, I'm hopeless. It's like telling me you've just become a Christian and which church should you go to!
How about Vancouver when the whales are migrating. Go up to the the rockies, then over to beautiful Vancouver Island for an English cream tea? Or have you got enough airmiles to get to Buenos Aires? That's really rocking these days!
THURSDAY JULY 5, 2007
From Tosh Berman, TamTam Books, Los Angeles, USA
Hello Mr. Napier-Bell. Time-to-time I read your blog, and find it wonderful. Big fan of your books and basically fascinated by British music culture of the 50's and 60's - especially dealing with the managers and record labels at the time. In your post on Tuesday you mentioned that your agent wants you to write about your 1950s Soho years, and that sounds like a fantastic project. I am looking forward to reading that future book when it eventually comes out!
Hi Tosh. I love the feel of the Tam Tam Books website, especially the critics on Evguénie Sokolov (Serge Gainsbourg's farting-artist book). Brings back memories of first trips to Paris in the 50s, buying editions by Olympia Press at the famous drugstore at the top of the Champs Elysees, sitting there reading Henry Miller all day. It also reminds me of 50s San Francisco - the 'beat' poets and the City Lights bookstore, all of which was fuel to my own 50s - a young teenager on holiday from public school, prowling round Soho trying to be a beatpoet-cum-jazzmusician, somewhere between pathetic and hilarious. (As you can see, I’m getting myself into reminiscent mode, ready to start this new book.)
WEDNESDAY JULY 4, 2007
From Pam O’Brien, Conversations, ABC Radio, Brisbane, Australia
Dear Simon. This is a long shot, especially with the time difference, but I thought I'd email quickly to see if you may be monitoring your site right now and may be able to reply! I produce a program on ABC radio in Australia; John Paul Young is our guest today. I wondered if you may have any little anecdotes about your early meeting with him or your working together you could tell me about? I really should have done this before - I could kick myself for not thinking of it. However, I have three hours before the program and I have my fingers crossed! If the time doesn't work or you are of course too busy I obviously understand. Hope you don't mind me asking, though.
Hi Pam - you're in luck - it's 5am, I'm still up, still on the whiskey....
In 1972 I went to Sydney to escape the English winter and visited a few record companies. At Alberts, Ted Albert played me a tape I liked - Pasadena, written by Harry and George of the Easybeats together with David Hemmings, the actor. David was my partner in my British record company, SNB records, so there seemed every reason to do something with this song. But I liked it just as it was - a demo - made with a simplistic drum loop, common enough nowadays but simply never heard of in those days. In fact the drum loop was fractionally out of time and had developed a click which occured every two bars. The lyrics were about a guy going to Pasadena, which was a long way off, and the click gave the feel of a limp, as though there was a never ending road and the poor guy was hobbling slowly along it. Ted was thrilled that a producer from London was going to make a record for Albert's and offered me any budget I wanted. Actually I thought the record was fine just like it was - just change the voice. But with a bottomless budget I thought, what the hell, let's spend it. So I told him to book the string section of the Melbourne Symphony and the biggest studio in Melbourne (Armstrong's), and it was booked for two weeks ahead. I promised Ted I'd find him the best new singer in Australia but unfortunately I had a busy schedule of eating and drinking and partying and the night before the recording arrived without me having done anything ahout it. A bit desparate (eight in the evening and tomorrow at ten I had to fly to Melbourne with a singer) I looked at the gig guide in the local paper and found I'd picked the worst night of the week (Wednesday, I think, and the only pub with music that night was in Newcastle). Resigned to an evening without dinner, I took the train to Newcastle and a taxi to the pub. It was ghastly. Noisy, beer-sodden, smelt of vomit, sounded of crass rough rock bands. I retreated to the balcony outside unsure what to do and standing there smoking a cigarette was an almost cute young chap - a bit grubby, but with a pleasant face. I asked him if he could sing. He said, "Sort of". So I said, "Here's a cassette of a song and an air ticket. If you learn the song and come to Armstrong Studios in Melbourne at 3pm tomorrow I'll make you a hit record." Then I fled back to Syndey and got there in time for a half-decent dinner up at the Cross where I was staying.
The next morning I flew to Melbourne at 10am and busied myself adding the Melbourne Symphony's string section to Harry and George's clicky drum loop. I'd done a huge arrangment and had great fun conducting it. Finally it was all done and Ted Albert asked anxiously about the singer. "You'll love him." I told him, but I wasn't at all sure he'd show up. Amazingly, on the dot of 3pm, the door of the studio opened and in he came. He sung the song perfectly in one take and gave it a plaintive quality, like he really was limping along that long road, far better than the original demo. And although I made him sing it again (because that's what record producers are meant to do), it had been perfect first time. On the mix I took out most of the expensive strings because, as I'd known from the start, it was already almost perfect as a demo. And two weeks later it was in the Top 5.
I bumped into John a few years later in Paris. I was there with my group Japan. We were doing a TV show, and so was John. By then his song ‘Love Is In The Air’ had been a worldwide superhit. John was wearing the same shirt and jeans and strange hat he'd worn in the pub at Newcastle three years earlier. He had a manager (a trifle camp, I seem to remember) who was travelling with a trunk containing eighteen suits. The manager spent two hours deciding which one to wear for John's TV appearance. John just put on his same old clothes.
He's a marvel, is John. A truly natural gifted artist - and more Aussie than any other Aussie artist has ever been. I love 'im. And John.... thanks for turning up that day in Melbourne and saving my bacon.
TUESDAY JULY 3, 2007
From Jim Chandler, London, UK
So, Simon, I've read all about it on your wesbite but now I want to know... apart from snuggling up to Julie Bruchill’s big tits and ‘preening’ yourself on the Mathew Wright show, what else did you do in London last week that made you too busy to have dinner with me?
In general, I caught a bloody awful cold that still has me sniffing and sneezing even though I’m back home in the warm. More specifically, I had a happy cascade of lunches, dinners and business meetings, including one with my lovely literary agent Julian Alexander who decided my next book shouldn't be about the music business but about school, 50s London, Soho jazz clubs and life as a musician in the USA pre 1960. Another meeting (a bit strange this one) was with Gregory Gray, my most regular website correspondent whom I’d never met before. I’d dropped into the bar at the Soho hotel to sober myself up on some mineral water after a three-hour lunch with Paul Jackson (he's Britain’s most successful Freddie Mercury lookalike but don’t ask me what the purpose of our lunch was because it’s too complicated to explain), when in walked Gregory, recognised me and plonked himself down. Although we’ve had a long email relationship I wasn’t sure it would convert easily into actuality (like having sex with a friend you've known for years) but it did. We would have sat for hours if I hadn’t promised to meet Chauffeur Driven Aviator in a weird Moroccan hookah bar, then Jonathan Shalit for dinner at the Ivy.
I won’t list all the other people I ate meals with. You’ll feel bad about coming low in the pecking order. But the point is – this was a business trip so the meals were aimed in that direction. Friends, pure and simple, have to wait till I'm there in August, which is simply a holiday.
MONDAY JULY 2, 2007
From'Christian from America'
Greetings, Simon! would you be interested in managing a 'wonderkind' who comes from America?
this artist composes, produces, plays and sings every note of his music - he is not a lip-syncher, programmer or sampler... this artist feels it is now time to secure a record contract and spread his music 'round the world! this is where you come into play. let's make some great music together and also some $...
this is a self-contained artist with no baggage to weigh him down. the artist's name is simply Christian.
hope to hear from you soon kind sir.
No baggage to weigh you down? What about the negative connotations of your single-word name?
What about your simpering pomposity? What about your sounding like a nincompoop?
SUNDAY JULY 1, 2007
From Lester Henson, Bangkok, Thailand
Hey Simon. I saw your piece in the Bangkok Post last Friday and the picture with it. And I want your shirt. I’ve been looking for one like that for ages – just like it, same colour, same design. Where did you get it?
My friend Ron Franklin turned up at lunch a few weeks ago in an identical one. He’d got it at Turnbull and Asher in Jermyn Street and paid through the nose - 165 quid-ish. Mine is 'GUY de Laroche', and you can buy it at the Guy Laroche shop on Avenue Montaigne, Paris, for about 95 Euros. However… I bought mine for 300 baht (less than a fiver). The shirts are made for Laroche by a factory in eastern Thailand. After 6pm they go out of the back door instead of the front and end up on sale at a discount shop in Pattaya.
SATURDAY JUNE 30, 2007
From Joe Landis, London, UK
Hi Simon. I saw you on Mathew Wright’s breakfast show yesterday... what a pity we couldn’t hear more from you instead of that bruising lady journalist belting her noise about anything and everything. (I presume the space where her brain should be is filled with extra amplification equipment for her strident voice.) Still, back to you… Couldn’t you do a TV show where you talk about your experiences and introduce interesting music-people? I'd love to see you chatting with the likes of Maclom Mclaren, or Neil Tennant, or Loudon Wainwright. It would be SO-O-O good.
Maybe! In fact, there are people proposing such a thing, but I’m not keen on spending too much time in television studios (certainly not in London when it’s raining). Perhaps guests could be flown to Thailand and interviewed on the terrace by my pool. When that offer arrives, I’ll accept it! As for the lady journalist... Off-screen she seemed pleasant enough, but television can do that to people. It brings out the brash! With me, of course, it simply enhances my already beautiful nature.
FRIDAY JUNE 29, 2007
Adrian Deakin, Carlisle, UK
Hi Simon. I know you'll think I'm a nerd but after reading Black Vinyl White Powder I became interested in you and read your other books too. I found out quite a lot about you and puzzled over one thing. How come in 1966 you wrote You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me and yet you never wrote another hit song until five years later when you went to Spain and worked with that Spanish guy Junior?
In 1966 ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ went to No. 1 in the Britsh charts. United Artists persuaded me and Vicki Wickham, my co-writer, to sign an exclusive songwriting contract with them. Having done so, we were flown to New York to meet the two guys at the head of the company.
The big boss was Mike Stewart – a monster of a man - a jelly gorilla. When he sat at his desk, ripples of spare fat ran down the underside of his arms like melting liver sausage - three hundred and fifty pounds of collapsing flesh. How he ever managed to pull it all upwards and balance it on two legs was a mystery.
His number two was Murray Deutsch, a piece of tailored perfection. Five foot seven and neat beyond belief, he was an unreal mannequin housed in a perfectly-cut suit with a perfectly-tied tie and a perfectly-rounded collar. At the bottom of his suit his shoes shone like black onyx, and at the top his pinky-scrubbed face stuck out like a dollop of pink mayonnaise on a prawn cocktail. He was Mike Stewart's little psycophant - an ego-booster for the boss. In the middle of our brief meeting a shoe-shine boy knocked at the office door. Mike flipped him a quarter and told Murray to have a shoe shine. “I don’t need one," Murray told him.
Nor did he. His shoes were like mirrors. But Mike snapped at him, “Murray, if I tell you you’re gonna have a shoeshine, you’re gonna have one.” So he concurred.
Vicki and I instantly loathed them. But these were the people we'd signed to. If we were going to break into the inner-circle of international songwriters we would have to make friends with these two men - a slagheap of falling flesh and his perfectly-tailored pet frog.
And we thought... How on earth could these people know anything about pop music? About Swinging London? About rock groups and nightlife and cool sex and everything else worthwhile that was happening in our lives?
So we pretty much decided there and then, we would both put off serious songwriting until our three-year contract expired.
And by then of course, we were into other things.
THURSDAY JUNE 28, 2007
From Clive Savitt, Hove, UK
simon… i said hello to you on tuesday but you looked right past me… i wasn’t sure if i was being cut dead or simply not noticed… it was on the seafront at brighton and you were hugging a large happy lady… anyway… how the devil are you? i didn’t know you were in england.
Hi Clive. Definitely not cut dead, I obviously just didn’t see you. The happy lady was Julie Burchill and I admit it was a very big hug – you see, she has these huge waterbed tits which are so damned comfy you never want to let go. You must have seen us just as we were going into Due South – an excellent place for lunch, especially if you happen to be with Julie and gang. Sorry I missed you. Are you still with that flea-bag wife of yours?
WEDNESDAY JUNE 27, 2007
From Miriam Steiner, London, UK
Simon –I’m mightily pissed off about you blowing out our breakfast meeting on Friday just so you can preen yourself on some trivial TV programme. Since I’m not available on Thursday and have to fly to New York at midday on Friday it means we’ll now be unable to finalise things until you're next in London. This means the whole impetus of the project will be set back. I’m not at all happy with your approach.
Miriam – your project is just one of many things I’m working on and your borish scoldings are beginning to make it look like something I won't much enjoy. You seem to forget, amongst other things I write books and like to get them publicized. The Mathew Wright show is not trivial; it’s the best morning TV show on Britain. Not only will appearing on it provide good publicty, it will almost certainly be more enjoyable than having to sit through breakfast with you. Have a good flight.
TUESDAY JUNE 26, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertforshire, UK
crikey… you can tell david cameron or his 'people’ wrote his sterile wikipedia entry... nothing will ever come of him... he is typical of those thirtysomething heterogeneric men with comfy smug opinions on anything... even if he gets in he'll simply come and go and that'll be that... any cultural change will have happened anyway. gordon will be good on the world stage... he'll keep his nose out of other peoples business except the poor in africa…
that thing gordon does with his jaw is the horniest thing... i beat my wee wee wand harder than an iraqy prisoner when i think of him... i havent felt so attracted to a politician since the late john smith. a politician with sex appeal is a good thing... men with sex appeal are less selfish and ingrown and evoke an upbeat atmosphere for their country. bill clinton springs to mind.
No-one could disagree that Bill Clinton was the sexiest politician of the last twenty years but who are the sexy ones today? You say Gordon Brown, but I’m not convinced. My friend Larry Ashmore used to go potty over Maragaret Thatcher, but has anyone got the hots for Angela Merkel? Vladimir Putin seems to turn a lot of people on but when he kissed that five year old’s belly button he looked distinctly pervy. Sex and politics seems to work best when it’s something of a joke – Bill and Monica with the cigar - John Major with the lady egg-minister - the Washington madam who’s threatening to blow the whistle on half of congress. I’ve often wondered, during those long late-night sessions at Westminster, how many MPs are sitting bored-to-tears on those hard benches, their dicks equally hard and their minds anywhere but on the debate in question.
MONDAY JUNE 25, 2007
From Susie Elspeth, Brighton, UK
hi simon... i read your website yesterday evening and when I looked at it again this morning you’d changed something you’d written…something about taxi-drivers being racist homophobes…
That particular night I was staying in a hotel in Bangkok and got back round midnight rather pissed. I intended to fall straight into bed and aimed myself in that direction, but I missed and fell into a chair next to my laptop. Result? Drunken rubbish - removed first thing next morning. (Not the first time it's happened either.)
For anyone who catches these short-term posts of midnight ramblings, think of them as a bonus. If it was a newspaper, they’d be collectors’ items.
SUNDAY JUNE 24, 2007
From Eric Glass, London, UK
So Simon - it seems you don’t believe in joining groups with a common interest! Why on earth not?
Better not to commit yourself on the basis of just one characteristic. You can find yourself forced into being sociable with people whose mores or manners are abominable in relation to everything else. I’m English, gay, middle-class, public school educated, city-living, wine-loving, jazz-listening, and so on…. I prefer to sort out my social life on a case by case basis. That way, depending on who I find myself with, my identity's negotiable.
SATURDAY JUNE 23, 2007
From Geoff Templeton, Leeds, UK
hi Simon… the other day i came across a record in a second-hand record shop on the ‘snb’ label… it’s simply ghastly… by someone called francoise pascal… who was she? what’s the story behind it? what was the snb label all about?
In the late 60s I set-up SNB Records in partnership with the actor David Hemmings. I’d met him when I was managing the Yardbirds and got them into Blow Up, Antonioni’s film about London, in which David starred. Recently someone sent me all the old tracks to listen to, the first time in thirty years I’d heard them. What an embarassment - portentous and over produced, and what a strange mix of stuff too! A sweet unbroken boy’s voice from Mark Lester, who starred in the movie Oliver. An excessive French-accent from Francoise Pascal (the record you picked up in the 2nd-hand shop), a soap-opera starlet known mainly for appearing naked and horizontal. There was a Dean Martin sound-alike, a Joan Baez look-alike, a Dylanesque folk-alike and a copycat John Lennon who dotted his recordings with Penny Lane trumpets. The singer I liked best was Alison O’Donnell, a dreamy Irish teenager who nowadays sends me occasional emails about life in Ireland as a fifty year old gran. Out of forty or so tracks there was only one I enjoyed listening to again - a ‘B’ side written on the spot in five minutes at the end of a session.
"Endlessly friendlessly blue" by Rory Fellowes. Fun. And with a tremendous groove.
FRIDAY JUNE 22, 2007
From Jules Penniston, San Francisco, California, USA
Simon! Pleased to see you saying something so direct and to-the-point about religion and public office. Have you thought of becoming a member of the atheist alliance? It has a marvellous president, Bobbie Kirkhart, who does a wonderful job educating people in atheism around the world.
Bugger off! You’re as bad as all the other belief-pushers. I’ve said this before and it’s getting tiring - you can’t go round joining societies for things you DON’T believe in - anyway, I just don’t believe in joining societies. I avoid having anything to do with anyone who thinks I ought to have something to do with someone I want nothing to do with.
THURSDAY JUNE 21, 2007
From Archie Frith, Lowestoft, UK
simon n-b… why are you such a grumpybollocks when it comes to religion… why shouldn’t people believe in whatever they want to believe in...?
They can. I couldn’t give a toss. But if they believe money grows on trees, they shouldn’t expect me to use them as my accountant. If they believe putting blood on a stone in the full moon will cure illness, they shouldn’t expect me to use them as my doctor. And if they they feel the need to pray to an all-powerful God for guidance, they shouldn’t expect me to vote for them to run the country. I think it’s time other people said the same thing. No votes for people who believe in God. People with religion are unfit for public office.
WEDNESDAY JUNE 20, 2007
From Henry Isow, Birmingham, UK
Hello Simon. I spent half my life devoted to politics but now I've given up and listen to my collection of jazz records instead. I'm interested to know you're point of view on the following... Does living abroad leave you free not to care about who’s in charge in the UK? As an ex-pat, do British politics matter anymore to you? In fact, do you think they should matter to anyone anymore?
From abroad it’s more a matter of who’ll be a tolerable face for Britain on international news programmes for the next four years – Cameron with his vacant smile or Brown with his strange habit of tongueing his lower front teeth while he’s talking. Anyway, since they’re both Godies, a vote for either is a vote for religion, and it’s time people started taking a stand. Voting is the one time in modern life when political incorrectness is allowed. You can refuse to vote for someone simply because their black or Jewish or gay or ugly. And no-one can do anything about it. So having seen the problems caused by the axis of Christ - Bush, Blair and prayer - why don't people start refusing point blank to vote for anyone who has religion? Only atheist music-loving wine-buffs need apply.
TUESDAY JUNE 19, 2007
From Charlie Combes, London, UK
Simon! We used to come to your website for tart comment, sharp views, bawdy anecdotes and occasional tongue lashings for idiot correspondents. Now what do we get? Tips on washing your hair. What a load of codswallop! Your website seems to have run its course. Off to the grave with you Mr N-B.
Charlie – you ancient balding bastard – for you, hair-washing tips have been over the horizon for twenty years or more, but that’s no reason to deny them to the well-thatched. Last time we had lunch together you made me repeat everything five times ‘cos you couldn’t hear properly, then you couldn’t read the menu either ‘cos you’d left your glasses in the car. Time to get your own grave dug, I’d have thought. A double plot too - unless you’ve been on some sort of miracle diet.
MONDAY JUNE 18, 2007
From Celia Stevens, Hartlepool, UK
Hello Mr Napier-Bell. I’ve been asking questions of older men who have a good head of hair with a view to trying to find a common factor. I notice that your hair is still full and still has its natural colour. Is there anything you could ascribe that to?
A bit old to be giving beauty tips, aren’t I? Still, my basic rules for healthy living have never changed - don't be persuaded into drinking too little alohol, have plenty of sex, don’t sleep more than five hours a night (but have a nice nap in the afternoon), and never let yourself get bored. Of course those things may have nothing whatsoever to with a good head of hair but it's certainly not hereditary – my father was totally bald before he was thirty. There’s one more thing that might be relevant. I wash my hair every time I bath or shower, which means ever since I left school my hair has been washed at least once a day, usually twice. (And I choose shampoos by how nice they smell.)
SUNDAY JUNE 17, 2007
From Wendy Hoo, London, UK
Hi Simon. You’re always telling us about memorable meals you've eaten and great wines you’ve drunk. What about the best sex you ever had?
I can remember occasions when I thought afterwards it had been great but I can’t really promise it was. To recall the actual sensation seems impossible, as is remembering the moment of orgasm - except for just one…
In my mid-twenties I was having an affair with a 16 year old girl and drove down to the country to stay with her and her family for the weekend. Her parents knew nothing of our affair and thought - because I was gay - she was in safe hands. (You see, I was also having an affair with her nineteen-year-old brother). The parents thought their daughter was still a virgin and wanted to keep it that way so they rather liked the idea that she had a crush on someone gay. On Sunday morning she came into my room with a breakfast tray, put it on the bedside table, pulled down the bedclothes and started a hand-job. The door was open and her mother was doing housework outside, chatting to her daughter while her daughter was actually doing it to me. But at the very instant I came, shooting over my head as I lay on the bed, mum’s head appeared round the door. It was a transfixing moment – beyond embarassment – completely impossible to resolve. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my trousers, and without even putting on my shirt, left the house and drove back to London, leaving mum watching in shock as a splatter of sperm rolled down her expensive hand-printed wallpaper taking the colours with it.
From Gregory Gray, Herfordshire, UK
hi Simon. i'm guessing it would be shorty rodgers doing the ripping solo on this one
stan kenton was a great arranger.
Hi Gregory. Thanks for another great track. Your gentle flow of MP3 jazz classics is most welcome. The trumpet soloist on this ('Pennies from Heaven' by the Stan Kenton band) is actually Conte Candoli - Shorty Rogers was much cooler and less brash. The arranger on this song was Lennie Niehaus. Stan Kenton had the best modern band ever and totally revolutionized big-band sound and arranging, but it was his musicians who did most of the arrangements - out of the Kenton band’s on-the-road repertoire of around 200 songs, usually less than 20 would be arranged by Kenton himself. One of his most used arrangers was trombonist Bill Russo whom I met ten years ago when I was judging a music festival in Khazakhstan (Bill was one of the other judges). Old and frail, but very charming, for a week he gave me the lowdown on every last bit of behind-the-scenes gossip from the great days of the Kenton band, including the one amazing tour they made with Charlie Parker as a featured soloist.
Bill had also produced some great pop records, the Platter’s early hits - Only You, My Prayer, etc. The Platters manager was Buck Ram, formerly an arranger for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Glen Miller, so he passed the production on to a fellow arranger. But Bill was so ashamed of being connected to pop he did the songs quickly for a fee and left, turning down a percentage and any further involvement, which forty years later he regretted greatly.
Incidentally, I saw the original Stan Kenton band in its glory days, including all the greatest musicians – Gerry Mulligan, Maynard Ferguson, Shelley Manne, Bud Shank, Art Pepper - a who’s who of modern jazz. It was 1953 when they came to London to play the Albert Hall – the first American jazz band to play in the UK for twenty years. I was only 14 and had next to no money so I sold half my record collection to buy tickets for the gallery two nights in a row. The acoustics were terrible but the sense of occasion was beyond belief.
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2007
From Julie Teel, Glasgow, Scotland
Hi Simon. Reading through your emails of the last few weeks I came on one about cooking suckling pig. You said - after it had been cooked to a crisp - one should ‘scour’ the fat. What you meant, I’m sure, was that one should ‘score’ the fat. To scour it would be to rub it as one would clean a saucepan, whereas to score it should cause it to separate into small sections.
Hi Julie. It was a slip of the brain as I typed and I’ve now corrected it. I got a load of emails complaining about that dish - not because I used the wrong word to describe its preparation but because I used the word ‘cat’ to describe the size a tasty suckling pig should be. People seemed to think I was suggesting that cats too could be cooked this way, and as a matter of fact I’m sure they could. Back in the 60s my local Indian restaurant in Putney was prosecuted for stealing cats from the street and serving them in the restaurant. Since I’d often eaten there I presume at some time or other I must have eaten one, though whether it had been passed it off as beef or lamb or chicken I have no idea. Anyway, so long as they’re bred for the purpose rather than stolen from little old ladies, I can't see much wrong with cooking and eating cats, providing that's what you want to eat and that they're correctly identified on the menu - 'pussy vindaloo', for instance.
(Though having said that, I can see I'm on a losing wicket. I just noticed that the last cat restaurant in Guangdong has been closed as a result of protests from Miss Shenzhen. The next thing you know they'll close those lovely doggy restuarants too, and all those tasty snake ones.)
THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007
From Eleanor Sandys, Bristol, UK
Wow Simon, how could you blow out that Jim Shertov chap without even checking what he was going to offer you? More worrying, you may have blown a good meal too. Anyway… how the hell are you? Ages since we’ve spoken. I’m now a grandmother. Can you imagine it? The last time we met was at my wedding. I simply daren’t send you a picture, but I’m still healthy and ride my horse every day.
Eleanor – good heavens – another blast from the past - this website certainly digs out the faithful (and unearths a few long-held grudges too). As for the Shertov person, I haven’t a clue who he is and don’t want to know. I get lots of people like that contacting me and there’s no possibility I blew a good meal - a meal is only as good as the people you’re eating with. However, I did have another friend write to tell me the waiters at one of those restaurants are particularly louche and pretty – so perhaps I should try it anyway, but with someone else. Good to hear you’re still riding. From our brief relationship I remember your unusually strong thighs. I'm glad to know you’re keeping them in shape.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007
From Jim Shertov, New York, NY, USA
Hey Simon, you don’t know me yet, but hopefully you soon will. Denny Ashburn let me know you’d be in London the week after next and I want to invite you both to dinner to propose a deal - something you’re gonna love. I’m flying in on the Tuesday. Could we do it Wednesday or Thursday? Maybe Cocoon, the Asian fusion restaurant on Regent Street - or Mamounia, the new Moroccan on Curzon Street? Or just name somewhere else you’d prefer. If you let me have your schedule I’ll get something fitted in.
Denny Ashburn is not a friend, he’s someone I met briefly at a party. I know very little about him and have no desire to learn more. About you I know even less, which seems a good way to leave things. My diary for the week is full. Perhaps you’d do better to cancel your flight.
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007
From Eddie Staines, London, UK
Hi Simon. I read recently read in an old fanzine that back in the 60s, Chris Townson, the drummer from John’s Children, a group you managed, played for the Who. Is that really true?
He did. But only temporarily. It’s another of those unbelievable Keith Moon stories. Keith was specifically NOT invited to a trendy party in Chelsea and took umbrage. It was on the top floor of one of those five story red-brick houses along Chelsea embankment. He went to the place, climbed to the top floor, bashed on the door and started to push his way in. A bouncer came out and told him to piss off. There was a scuffle and Keith fell down five flights of stairs and broke his right leg.
Two hours later, at 2am, his leg in plaster from ankle to thigh, he was released from the out-patients deparment of St George’s hospital and immediately decided to go back to the same party. He hobbled up the stairs and was confronted by the same bouncer. Another scuffle, another fall and half-an-hour later he was back at St George’s having his other leg put into plaster. Which is where Chris Townson came in. Keith couldn’t play for a month so Chris joined the Who for their UK tour dates.
MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2007
From Kenny Sullen, Sydney, Australia
Hi Simon. It’s been a long long time, hasn’t it! Do you remember me? It was thirty years ago that we were introduced by John Baldry in the Star pub in Belgrave Square one Sunday lunchtime.
When I started out on the gay scene I decided to keep a note of each person I ever went with. I came across your website the other day and thought I’d write and say hello because you were one of the first.
One of the big downsides of this website is people who come out of the woodwork after thirty years. I remember your miserable hysterics well. You were drunk and cried for hours afterwards saying if your mother found out you were gay you’d have to kill yourself. Then you went in the kitchen and stuck your head in the gas oven which made you vomit. (I never did manage to get rid of the smell which was the reason I eventually sold the flat.)
I'm sorry to hear you’re still alive. I always hoped you'd make a more successful attempt sometime later.
SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2007
From Adrian Essington, St Louis, Missouri, USA
Dear Mr. Napier-Bell. I recently came across your website and found myself disappointed to find you expending such energy on something so spiritually bankrupt. As a previously successful songwriter could you not be persuaded to turn your thoughts back to the creation of music? Please check out our website writeaboutjesus.com - it is devoted to developing and supporting the Christian songwriting community. You could help greatly by contributing to songwriting forums. Or you could create uplifting new works of your own. This could change your life and bring you inner peace as you approach the more mature period of your life.
Hi there Adrian. It’s good to know you’re devoting yourself to helping people whose lives need changing but right now I’m not in the market. I’ve got a nice house, lots of material possessions, money in the bank, a loving boyfriend, interesting work, an ample collection of fine wine and hordes of atheist friends who come round to drink it with me. Writing about Jesus wouldn’t do much for me. Moreover, if I were to write about him, the things I’d say wouldn’t do much for you either. I wish I was in a foul temper and could throw a profoundly offensive insult at you. But because you’ve caught me in a rather good mood I can think of nothing nastier to say than I hope your bullying malicious tyrannical all-powerful God can find a suitable way of punishing you for interrupting my pleasant Sunday morning.
SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
charlton heston really is a rancid slab of old showbusiness isn't he? i remember meeting him in cbs studios on whitfield street in the eighties, and i swear, I think he's gay. he kept looking at me in a desirous way… his eyes kept travelling
from my face down to my nutsack. my gay radar is pretty good, simon... i'm rarely wrong... that charlton heston with his vest on was deffo a creepy old queen... and all that gun stuff he's into.....i think it’s a fetish… he's probably into gun sex... i bet he's a got a gimp mask too.
I couldn’t agree more. I checked back on the video of me talking with him on that show. He has the precise pursed lips of a schoolmaster on the make, you know, the one who lectures you on the horrors of masturbation then asks you when you last did it and what did you think about. There was something underlyingly unpleasant about him, like today’s American neo-cons – religion, repression and self-righteousness. I had an enormous urge to lean forward and spit in his face. And I think he felt it - in the picture I posted he looks very defensive. But I’m too imbued with middle-class caution. Paul Weller used to spit at people all the time, it was the best thing about him - way better than his music.
FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2007
From Steve Benton, London, UK
simon – a local newspaper recently did a poll on the 20 worst movies ever made and one was ‘gordon of khartoum’ with charlton heston… i thought you’d like to know ‘cos i remember you once having a row with him about it on tv… though I’ve forgotten now what it was about…
It was on Breakfast TV many years ago. We got into a discussion about how Charlton prepared for his roles and he said he took a great deal of care about getting them accurate. “In that case,” I asked, “how come you played Gordon of Khartoum as straight?” There and then on TV, Charlton insisted he knew nothing about Gordon being gay, but later over breakfast he admitted he'd known but had thought his fans wouldn’t like him to play someone who was gay - though he then hastened to tell me that he wasn't really anti-gay at all. His anti-gay statements in public, he explained, were just a stance he took to appease his fans. What a tosser! Not surprisingly I was pretty rude to him and said that made him worse than someone who was anti-gay to start with.
In fact there's a fabulous movie to be made if someone would go back and look again at the story of Gordon of Khartoum. Gordon had advanced up the Nile to Khartoum but was surrounded by the Mahdi's army. He called for re-inforcements but the British government refused to send them and told him instead to retreat. Gordon refused, the most likely reason being his devotion to his Arab boyfriend whom he would be unable to take back to London with him. What the troops thought of being condemned to die because their commander was a poof has never been recorded, but they did as they were told and there was no mutiny (though it was also recorded that before the last battle Gordon appeased them by allowing them to finish off all the fine wine from the officer’s mess).
Charlton Heston & SNB on TVAM 1986
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007
From George Howell, New York, USA
Hi Simon. I was surprised to see you so squeamish about Rosie Sashinger’s pussy-shopping. I can’t imagine any food not being plastic wrapped these days, and a good dose of hot water and Fairy Liquid would surely have revived the cutlery. For impoverished persons lucky enough to be endowed with decent-sized personal storage facilities it’s long been a tradition to shop lift in this manner. Moreover, it’s a favourite stashing place for lady terrorists. I heard tell that Golda Meir, who was a longtime Zionist activist before she became Prime Minister of Israel, frequently helped out by smuggling explosives in exactly this manner.
Yes, but I didn’t have to eat them for dinner.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2007
From Jeremy Sales, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Hey Simon. Would you believe it, the other day I bumped into Rosie Sashinger, that fat American dyke who did PR for you in the early 70s. She’s living in Miami, is plain enormous and has become a grandmother to boot. (So much for her being a lesbian – she has a current husband and two exes!) I had dinner at her house and when I mentioned you she fell about laughing and laid out her best cutlery for dinner. She said you’d know what she meant.
Rosie was beyond outrageous. I opened an account for her at a stylish restaurant in Marylebone so she could entertain journalists and other clients. She took a fancy to their very posh cutlery – something expensive from Heals – and set about stealing it. I only found out a year later when she asked me to dinner at her flat. I'd just finished eating with it when she told me she’d smuggled it out of the restaurant one set at a time, hiding it where (since it was Rosie) we all thought no man would ever go. I had to drink a whole bottle of brandy before I felt cleansed. It wasn’t just the cutlery. If Rosie got hold of her knives and forks by that method I reckoned she probably used it for her chicken breasts and camembert too. And I never ate with her again.
TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2007
From Jordi Asprey, New York, NY, USA
hey simon... are you still honking for the homos?? i mean i know you are one but you don’t strike me as one of those fanatical fanfare-fags who join marches and demand rights not worth giving a monkey let alone a fag... ok so you’re gonna abuse me for being anti-gay but here’s the low down truth… i’ve only ever had sex with guys and i've never so much as glanced at a boob or a pussy in my life... but man do i hate faggots with demands!! i chose faggotry as a way to say 'screw you' to the straight world... now they come round and tell me it’s ok... but shit man it's not!! i ’ve spent fifty years being happy as an outcast... i’m a man-fucking dick-sucking fag-loving fairy... if only they could leave things the way they were...
It's upsetting, isn't it, living your whole life as an outsider only to be told you’re no such thing - like having the rug pulled from under your feet. But in these boring days of tolerance there’s not much you can do except perhaps go to Iran or Iraq. I’m sure you could find people there who’d be happy to hate you. They might even string you up and you could die content, shouting abuse at the world.
MONDAY, JUNE 4, 2007
07
From Michael Duvic, Austin, Texas, USA
Hello Simon! You haven't the slightest clue of who I am, and you certainly shouldn't care. I was doing a totally random search for some Dusty Springfield photos and somehow I ended up doing some reading up on you. Here is a rather random question. How was it growing up gay in the UK? (I'm a gay guy from New Orleans, from a VERY Catholic family, and trust me, the guilt will never go away.)
Each person’s growing up is so different it seems pointless trying to encapsulate it in a sentence or two. As I see it, what gay people have in common is not that they all fancy people of the same sex but that they’ve all had to find their own way of dealing with it. As for guilt… Since I’ve never been cowered by anyone else’s ideas of how I should live, I’ve no idea what it feels like.
As a child, if I did something I was told not to do it left me feeling naughty, which was rather empowering. Whereas guilt, I presume, is rather wearing.
SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2007
07
From Eddie Sengan, London, UK
Hi Simon. I loved your description of the roast piglet. My mouth has been watering ever since. Can’t find anything like that in London though I managed to get suckling pig in Spain last year. In the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, a small ancient restaurant which looked like it had been around for a couple of hundred years. But the Spanish emphasis was on the softness of the meat not on the crispness of the fat.
Hi James. The restaurant is Botin, supposedly the oldest in the world, opened in 1725. It’s very touristy, but is still the best place for suckling meats and still the place where Madrilenos go to eat them. It’s true, the Chinese breed suckling pigs for their thick back-fat which they make stunningly crisp (and the meat is often left uneaten). The Spanish eat suckling animals for the white sweetness of the meat. At Botin they also have suckling lamb, but best of all is suckling kid. I first had it there in the early sixties (I know, I know – it makes me bloody ancient) but the point is… In those days Spain had some great old wines that don’t exist anymore. With the suckling kid we had a magical Catalan wine over seventy years old and something like a Sauterne. It had a taste of honey on the tongue but once swallowed the sweetness was just a memory without the vaguest hint of it remaining in the mouth, so you had to take another sip to remind yourself. (Probably a blend of grenacha blanca and albarino). It was extraordinary, just perfect with the splayed out kid, no bigger than a guineau fowl, as white and soft as sea bass, with a flavour so unique it still lingers after nearly fifty years.
SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
i googled bobbi marchini... she's a quite a lady.... i sense she's someone who can take care of herself in this life... my eyebrow lifted high when i read she'd worked with chris gilbey... he produced one of my favourite pop songs by a band called 'the church'… a great great single called ' the unguarded moment'.
recently in passing i heard that great old thing 'get dancin' by disco tex and the sex o lettes... it sounded so exciting... the drums start off slow and rev up over the intro... it really hits the nervous system, we never get those kind of moments anymore.
did you read the tony visconti autobiography that came out earlier in the year? here's his favourite studio at the moment.... breathtaking.......
Chris Gilbey is a great old friend of both Bobbi and me. These days he runs a technology based company in Sydney with a website called Perceptric.
Re that recording studio… a good deal of my early music-biz life was spent in studios and at one time I thought I would just be a producer. In a way it was a pity not to have been, but it meant being enslaved to long hours, darkness, no fresh air, cigarettes, musicians, groups and all that stuff. Which is very addictive. But for me so is freedom, the beach, trolling, travelling, sex, booze and utter irrepsonibility. So I became a manager instead which meant I had to do little else but pick people who would definitely succeed then take 20% of what they made when they did so, which of course was largely due to the confidence generated by me agreeing to sign them – a lovely round-robin situation.
"Get Dancin'" was one of my favourites. It was a hit when I was on holiday in Puerto Rico in the early 70s - such a horny place - so extreme - butch guys became butcher, camp ones camper, trannies trannier. There was a stunning gay sweat-box of a disco that churned out Get Dancin' and other fine ditties till four-in-the-morning. Night after night we danced, sweated, crotch-rubbed and danced more - then lay on the beach next day sipping pina coladas or pedalling pedalos way out over the horizon to have sex bobbing around in the afternoon sun.
Me in Puerto Rico - 1974
FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2007
From Esther Brandt, Nurnburg, Germany
Hi Simon. The other day, ruminating as I perused your eating out section, I wondered what you best 3-star meal this year has been and when you will share it with us.
It’s not been a great year for 3-star eating – I wasted the first three months of it being unwell. But to be honest, 3-star eating is often a million miles from ‘best meals’, especially with the contemporary trend towards thirty bite-size dishes, endlessly interrupted by the waiter bringing the next one. In fact, as a result of being unwell I missed a visit to Barcelona and a meal at El Bulli, you know the place where they give you 173 consecutive different mouthfuls of breathtaking inventiveness – bee’s bacon wrapped round a slow-baked cashew-nut topped with a teardrop of haddock icecream and a caramelized pepper grain – that sort of thing). On the other hand, a week ago Yo and I went to a local Chinese restaurant and had roast suckling pig. Now here’s a recipe for a genuine ‘best meal’. Take a piglet the size of a cat, slit it down the front, open it into a butterfly shape and barbecue it over charcoal for forty minutes until the top fat is as crispy as well-fried grasshoppers. Score into small squares and eat with a bottle of Marlborough sauvignon blanc, as mouthsuckingly dry as the piglet’s fat is mouthwateringly sweet. Sheer perfection.
THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007
From Phil Whelan, RTHK radio, Hong Kong
Hi Simon. Looking forward to seeing you next week. I'm just wondering why, all of a sudden, 1001 numpties are pitching you with their bands, expecting you to turn them platinum. Your frustration is becoming more and more aparent. I once worked with a Scottish sound engineer who told me that their motto is "you canna polish a turd". Wise words indeed.
Polish them, maybe not; but you have to admit they can sometimes be turned to surprisngly good use. Gilbert & George use their own for creating works of art, and here in Thailand high quality parchment is being produced from elephant dung. Consequently I occasionally offer crumbs of advice to singers whose turdy songs seem to have a glint of something worth rescuing from the potty. Mostly they retaliate with abusive emails telling me I don't know what I'm taking about. Which is probably true.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2007
From Tim Cain, Illinois, USA
Dearest Simon Napier Bell, I have enjoyed thoroughly reading your insights into the times that were and are. I am a queer-rocker from the mid-lands of America. I have been rocking for 30 years, acknowleged from time to time in the national press. (BILLBOARD SINGLE OF THE WEEK, twice!), but I have never broken into the larger consciousness. Ten years ago, I wrote a tribute to Princess Diana. Last December, I realized this would be the tenth anniversary of her passing. I re-recorded the single as “Boys' Entrance” with some amazing backing players. The result references Queen's "Flash", in the choruses. Techno and disco brighten the mix, New Wave and Art Rock ala Roxy Music deepen the blend, and that is just the radio edit. I am hoping you will take the helm and make this happen.
Dear Tim, your polite and complimentary email seems deserving of a similar reply, but having listened to the track I’ll settle just for the politeness. Your song is dated, trite and irrelevant, the production is predictable, the voice annoying. You call yourself a 'queer-rocker' yet nothing in your singing smacks of rock, though its feyness, I suppose, justifies the other part of the description. Helm-taking is not what’s needed so much as a little objectivity. Throw it out and start again. Or better still, don't.
TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2007
From Paul Osborne, Paris, France
Re your last email to me, Dalida committed suicide in 1987 and this year there is a huge exhibition on her life at the Hotel de Ville. She was destined for immortality the moment she knocked back the bottle of barbiturates. However, I must point out that her music lives on here in France and has stood the test of time so she must have got something right.
Are you living full time in Bangkok? I’m guessing it's a lot different to Bryanston Square (I visited you place once further to an invite from Donovan – my only memories are of a Warhol piece and being chased around a room in what can only be described as a Benny Hill’esque).
Dalida committed suicide with me the very first time I heard her sing. I guess she’s one of those strange singers who tickle a particular Gallic nerve and are loved for life – and in her case, afterwards too (but not by me).
Yo and I live by the sea in Pattaya, two hours from Bangkok.
As for Donavon chasing you, he’s calmed down a bit now. He’s lives in Gothenburg with his girlfriend of seven years. They have two children - Yo is godfather to the first (see below) and we're going to Sweden in August for their wedding. I imagine good-looking Swedes in Gothenburg still get chased round rooms when wives are absent.
MONDAY, MAY 28, 2007
From Gregrory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
here's an mp3 of satin doll by barney kessel... it's hard sending you anything after oscar... he's just the best but
i'm acquiring a taste for this kessel guy... he's got ray brown from the oscar trio playing bass for him. its barney's slightly raw style that endears me to him.
Hi Gregory. Barney Kessel was the original third member of Oscar Peterson's first trio with Ray Brown on bass and no drums. I always missed the drums so I was pleased when he left, though that's not to belittle him (and anyway, to begin with he was replaced by another guitarist, Herb Ellis, who was too smooth for my taste).
Do you ever listen to Errol Garner? Deliciously different from Peterson, yet exactly the same in that he could get into orgasmic mode then hang in there, more fists than fingers, pumping spunk all over the keyboards for chorus after chorus after chorus. The listener, not the piano, was the true recipient of this huge horny uncontrolled sticky excitement. Give it a try.
SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2007
From Robert Watson, Jomtien, Thailand
Good morning Simon. I'm not sure that you are interested in football but I came across this snippet on the BBC website yesterday that amused me, I thought I'd share it with you! Watford Football Club have secured a new sponsorship deal with …..
Hi Robert. I checked it out and it's Turkey’s largest public company, listed number 98 on the Fortune 500. If you’ve never heard of them go to koc.com and you’ll see they plan to become Europe’s biggest company once Turkey enter the EEC.
Part of their plans include sponsoring a British football club. Poor Watford - when you've just been relegated I guess you get into bed with whoever will have you, and of course it's given rise to all the usual snide remarks from the tabloids. On the other hand, when you're feeling down, having your cock held is never a bad way to start re-building self-esteem. Unfortunately Watford's directors have decided ‘Beko’, one of the company's brand names, might be a more suitable word to use on the team's shirts. Pity!
SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2007
Sean Caroon, Glasgow, UK
Hi Simon. I see you’re busy again exterminating hope for budding young musicians. Can’t you give them a word or two of encouragement for a change?
Hi Sean - you dreary dullard. Surely you realise, encouraging kids to give up everything else to become rock or pop musicians when they show little talent at it is little different from encouraging them to play the lottery rather than work. I hear lots of new acts that are quite brilliant. Even then, I think twice before recommending they quit everything for a career in pop. If you think I’m so unkind, listen for yourself to the group I was rude about yesterday and imagine having it on your car radio for forty minutes. You’ll soon agree with me. If you want to hear a couple of good new groups listen to these. Chauffeur Driven Aviator. Switch22.
Though knowing how stuck in the Seventies you are, I doubt you'll like either. If they don't sound like the Sex Pistols or look like Glasgow rent boys, you're not interested.
FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2007
From Cyannamon, London, UK
Hi, we are Cyannamon, an ambitious band with a powerful sound, a singer who has often been compared to Kurt Cobain, and awesome potential hits (more than a hundred and fifty songs have already been written ). We want to make it big and we want you to help us… Check out our myspace page, three awesome tracks have just been added. A gig is coming up on the seventh of June, at The Hope and Anchor in London.
If these 3 songs are your best, and you have 147 more, then you have a remarkable talent at avoiding self-criticism. Kurt Cobain’s voice had a sensual flexibility and offered insights into mental angst; this voice sounds tense and coarse, as if its owner is about to vomit. Since it’s totally contrived anyway, my advice is to start again and re-invent it. The most ‘awesome’ thing about these songs is that you could imagine them leading to success.
THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2007
From Bibi Espedes, New York, NY, USA
Simon: What a funny surprise to hear it was a drag queen. In all seriousness I thought it was Sir Harry's mum. I have been traveling and being the evil witch in Hollywood. How are things coming along with John Dang?
Big kiss. Your favorite lil bitch girl!
How lucky can Hollywood get? A week of your evil-witching!
Re John Dang. It’s four years since we started working together and it’s been slow. He finished recording the album in the UK a year ago then decided he wanted to live in Thailand, which meant learning the language. Now he’s re-recording the songs in Thai and the first single will be released by Sony at the end of July.
John Dang
WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2007
From Trudi La Délicieuse, Clacton-on-Sea, UK.
Simone, my sweet. Perusing the delightful CV section of your ever enjoyable website I came to a picture of you with a gentleman drag queen. Nothing against trannies of course, as you can guess, but perhaps you could tell us what part she played in your life.
None whatsoever! The event was Sir Harry Cowell’s 40th birthday - a ‘James Bond’ costume party. I hate costume parties. If you dress up to the nines you’ll arrive to find they weren’t serious; if you ignore it, you’ll find everyone dressed to the nines and serious as hell. The answer is - do it all with the hat. It shows you've made the effort but if it turns out not to be a real costume party you can take it off and throw it away. In the photo below I have a large piece of broccoli on top of my sombrero - Cubby Broccoli, you see, was the executive producer of the Bond movies. One poor chap went as a frogman, complete with flippers, breathing apparatus and a mask. Then realised it was a formal sit-down dinner. For him, not an evening of fine dining.
TUESDAY, MAY 22 2007
From Paul Osborne, Paris, France
Hi Simon, I just stumbled onto your website while bored to tears watching a documentary on Dalida in Paris! You won`t remember me as its been years. I worked for Allan Soh at his salon in Kensington. Coming from a council estate in Tottenham and working ‘uptown’ was a real eye opener to what could be achieved. Since leaving Allan's I took a career in Banking Technology and have been fortunate to have worked all over the world. I now live in Paris with my partner of 17 years (snap!). I have browsed your site and enjoy very much your writing style and opinion. Shame I was too shy at 17 to talk to you more than I dared.
Shy and 17, eh? You wouldn't have found me too hard to talk to. Anyway, I’m glad to know you’ve done well since then. I can’t believe Dalida is still going strong, she was already dull as ditchwater when I lived in Paris with Allan thirty years ago. For the book, try the most recent one, I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch. You’ll find a lot about Allan in it too. (Though I’m afraid your own talents went unnoticed).
MONDAY, MAY 22, 2007
From Bill Jenkins, Cleveland, Ohio
Simon. I used to enjoy your website emails because you stayed clear of politics and all the other obvious things everyone else talks about. Lately you've been touching on them more than usual and I find it boring. Could you please get back to being entertaining!
No politics as far as I can see - just a revulsion to U.S. religionists. However, to try and make your own dull email more interesting I found your IP address and ran it through search software. Apart from your address and phone number, it showed me you had an unpaid traffic violation, $389,000 outstanding on your mortgage, a wife and two children, a fine last year for not correctly licensing your dog, and…. Oh dear, all such boring stuff. You’re too dull for this website. Go and moan elsewhere.
SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2007
From Heather Clark, Washington, DC, USA
Hi Simon, great to see you lambasting the eternally revolting Jerry Falwell. Later the same day, Christopher Hitchens launched into that facist no-brainer Sean Hannity on Fox TV when Hannity criticized him for speaking badly of Falwell. When you think back to Bush saying Iraq and North Korea were the axis of evil and then you see how the USA harbours evil anti-humanitarians like Falwell and Hannity, and give them full access to media - that’s where the real axis of evil exists. Over and over again it makes me ashamed to be American.
Hitchens on Fox about Falwell was marvellous ( "his death was a deliverance"). Even better was the feedback from the public (scroll down on this link to Hitchen's marvellous interview with CNN and the comments that follow). One hundred per cent pro Hitchens. It confirms what I’ve always thought – this ‘Americans are ninety per cent church-goers’ that were always being told, is crap. With regard to religion the USA is a police state. People are more ready to come out about being gay than about being atheist. They’re afraid of their jobs and their neighbours. It would take just one eminent respected American to come out and say, ‘I’m atheist and always have been, and I’m ashamed to have concealed it from you’, and the next day America would find no more than fifty per cent of the population still claiming to be religious. One day it will happen. Who will it be? Hillary, if she becomes President? I guess not - she's too addicted to lying. Maybe just someone fun and loved, like Jay Leno.
SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
hi Simon... please let your good friend Bobbi know that i'll raise a glass of chapmagne to her and to the exercise it makes bearable... the strawberries are a nice idea.... a dash of creme de cassis is another option, since the strawberries might take up too much room in a smallish glass for the all important alcohol.
a question i've been meaning to ask you forever...did you own that fantastic rehearsal complex on sinclair road in shepherds bush called 'NOMIS ? that was the best place... it made getting together to work up new songs a real pleasure. if it was your business,why did you sell it?
Yes, Nomis was mine. It took three years to build, and the best part of a million quid. That was in the mid-70s. In the eighteenth century it had been a dairy so it had
been built with two-foot-thick concrete walls, which kept it cool
in summer. And made perfect sound-proofing too. The idea was to make it the
best rehearsal facility in the world, and for two or three years it was. But the
money was raised in 1975 when the interest rate was 7 per cent, which meant an average capacity usage of 80 per cent. In 1978, when we
finished building it, the interest rate was 18 per cent, which meant an average capacity usage of 98 per cent. By then, because of the
financial state of the country, record companies had cut back on signing new
bands. Since half the cash flow was made from smaller rooms (for
new bands), we floundered. It lost about 3 thousand pounds a week. Every Friday
I went along to a dismal meeting, vowing each week to have the courage to
say, OK, let’s just write off the investment and close it down. But each week I chickened out and went off to find another 3 thousand pounds to throw into the pot. After eighteen months of doing this, a buyer turned up. A wealthy man with an annoying son for whom he wanted a business - both to occupy him and keep him out of dad's office. He bought it, covering all the losses but not giving any profit. I was delighted. But also disappointed I hadn't managed to make it the success it should have been.
Now, of course, it's all offices and recording studios and the clubby
atmosphere of those first three years - with the Stones or Wings or Queen mixing in the canteen with Diana Ross or Bruce Springsteen or Herbie Hancock - has gone.
FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007
From Steve Jenning, London, UK
Simon. I don’t want to be responsible for starting a cold war and frankly I don’t need it. But I do want you to be aware of a regrettable incident I experienced tonight that indirectly involves you and after sometime deliberating I decided that you would appreciate being aware of the circumstances. I arrived alone at Bluebird Restaurant around 8pm. Soon after being seated Andrew Sherwood and two other male persons occupied the table next to me. I was not more then five metres from Andrew whom I was facing directly. I could not help but overhear every word especially from Andrew who was overly loud and in high camp mode.
Their conversation turned to dinner parties and how people should be seated. I was of course intrigued when your name was raised by Andrew who declared Simon Napier-Bell is off his guest list for dinner parties for two reasons. First, because the last time you were in London and he invited you to his house, you apparently disagreed with his planned seating arrangement, which he found to be appalling bad-manners. The second reason you are off his guest list is that although he has called you often you never reciprocate.
Knowing you as I do, I suspect you will be disappointed but not surprised by this revelation. With fond regards.
Hi Steve. Not disappointed at all. I actually had lunch with Andrew when I was in London just before Christmas, which was long since the last time I was at his house. It was thoroughly enjoyable and finished with pleasant 'goodbyes' and 'see you again soons'. In due course I'll meet up with him again. I'll not mention what you've told me, and I'm sure he won't either. Everything will be as normal. Frankly, if Andrew finds the need to use my name to entertain his dinner guests, I’m flattered.
THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2007
From Cyndi Ashton, London, UK
simon, i was reading your book ‘you don’t have to say you love me’ last week and i got to the part about a group you managed called john’s children which i never heard of before and it was so funny i was laughin out loud… i was round at my grans at the time meant to be doing my homework and she ask what i’m laughing at… when i tell her she laughs even louder than me… says she loved that group and went to all of their gigs… then giggles even more and tells me she had sex with two of them in the back of their van… now i’m in total shock… i never knew my gran could do a thing like that…
Cyndi, my love, it wasn’t just your gran, it was the grandmothers of all your friends too. It was swinging London - the permissive sixties - the pill had just been invented and the streets were awash with randy teenage grannies-to-be, each and every one of them a splendidly good fuck.
(As were many of the grandpas-to-be too.)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2007
From Sherry Strickland, Denver, Colarado, USA
hi Simon… often in your amusing emails you say things like "i’m looking forward to you dying" or something like that… what i want to know is… for someone who claims to be against the death penalty how can you say such things without contradicting your own moral standards..??
What a stupid question! On one side you’re talking about the state taking someone’s life in cold blood, on the other you’re celebrating someone unpleasant being permanently removed by nature or circumstance. For instance, today I find it impossible not to be full of good cheer about the death of the American evangelist, Jerry Fulwell. Not only did he have as much inate evil in him as, for instance, Sadam Hussein, but he was also in a position to disseminate it. I think it would be great if there could be a public holiday to celebrate his death, yet I would never have proposed the state should kill him. Incarceration in chains, with flogging, water-boarding and sexual abuse would have done just as well.
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2007
From Archibald Hart, Brighton, UK
Simon, did you know I once met Sybille Bedford, the writer you were going on about yesterday? I was seated next to her at a dinner pary in the days when she was a food critic. She was devilish charming, even at the age of 75. So much so that I subsequently bought a selection of her books. Marvellous style, I agree, but not much worth reading about. I thought, if only one could capture her prose but insert more content. Your books, unfortunately, have managed neither. Definitely not stylish and mostly rather boring. I always expected you would write something impressive, but it seems not. What a pity.
Archibald, you miserable groucher. I can’t say it's good to hear from you but at least it's a surprise. I thought you were long gone. I used to think of you as old when I was in my twenties yet here you are still mouldering on. You must be truly ancient by now! How on earth did you master sending emails? With your penchant for malice no-one’s going to thank the person who taught you. Are you still in that foul-smelling flat in Lansdowne Place?
MONDAY, MAY 14, 2007
From Natalie James, Douglas, Isle of Man
I’m puzzled by your continually objecting to people who want to do something to make the world a more liveable and sustainable place. A cleaner planet seems such a laudable aim. How can you oppose something so obviously beneficial to all of us, including yourself?
There’s many a proposal made by the ‘save the world’ mob I agree with, but my point is, you don’t need to turn the planet into a religion and force everyone to worship it. It shouldn't take the imminent end of the world to persuade people to live cleanly, it should be ordinary common sense. Industrial hygiene should be as obvious as personal hygiene. If the man down the road who’s building a house burns his rubbish and the smoke blows into my garden when I’m sitting on the terrace with a bottle of Monrachet and a lobster salad, I don’t go round to his house to tell him he’s polluting the planet. I go round to tell him he’s a cunt!
SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2007
From Anthony Sturgess, Torquay, UK.
Hi Simon. Do you read much these days? I just finished your last book ‘I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch’. Now I’m gong to buy your other two books. I like your style so much and I was wondering where do get it from. What are you reading at the moment?
By my bed for the last two weeks has been Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford, probably my favourite writer of English. Her style and ease of phrase is amazing - then you learn that she was brought up speaking German first, then Italian, then French, with English effectively her fourth language, and that she never went to school but learnt from occasional tutors and from being around adults (upper middle-class, unconventional and all nationalities, including people like Aldous Huxley). Jigsaw was written when she was in her nineties. Impossible to believe. Her lightness of touch makes every sentence seem sexy and young. Nobody writes English better.
I alternate my reading between Thai and English. Before Jigsaw I read Dogs Of War by Frederick Forsyth in a Thai translation. Much less erudite, I know, but Forsyth writes great stories. And to help with the effort of reading in Thai I need a story that pulls me along. During a period when I wasn’t drinking, the Forsyth book took the place of a bottle of wine each evening and put me to sleep. Sybille Bedford puts me to sleep a quite different way - like having my brain stroked.
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2007
From Debi Andersen, The Hague, Holland
Sometime ago you mentioned to me that you were dreading the arrival of Yo’s relatives who were coming for a weekend to see the new house. Did that ever happen? I’m interested to know how you cope with in-laws in Thailand (though I guess it’s like in-laws anywhere else).
Hi Debs. The inlaws were the reason I was in Bangkok last weekend when I fell down that staircase. Yo told me weeks ago that some of his family wanted to come for a weekend. It turned out to be nine people – six adults and three children, including his sister’s autistic son. I find all these people to be charming enough on their own ground in Roi-et, or in twos or threes when they occasionally visit us in Pattaya (and stay in hotels). But now they were coming in their entirety in the back of a pick up truck and planning to stay in the house. “They want to get the feel of it,” Yo explained, “they'll bed down the Thai way.”
It meant nine people sleeping on mattresses on the sitting-room floor. And staying for three whole days.
An hour before they were due to arrive I realised it would be utterly unliveable with. So I upped and left for Bangkok, checked myself into a suite at the Montien, phoned a few friends and arranged a chain of lunches and dinners which would continue until the family left - Biscotti, Caffe di Roma, the Oriental, Aubergine, Breeze. For two and a half days I ate enormously well, then got the call I was waiting for. “They’ve gone.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. We're now having to convert the pump house into a guest suite. A million baht, but cheap at the price if it protects the sitting-room from weekend dormitory duties. In return for this I’ve extracted a promise there'll never be more than five at a time. And having once said hello, I still reserve the right to bugger off to 5-star luxury in Bangkok and a few good dinners.
THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
your swimming pool looks lovely... i like the dark tiles instead of
the usual pale ones. i swim at that health club on brewer street [third space]… all the pricks who work out there are virtuous bores and i must confess i sometimes have a couple of swift glasses of champagne at the soho hotel before my swim... i find it helps me go at
it for longer and i never seem to drown… turns a rather dull thing into something a little bit cerebral. afterwards i go up to my friend
clayton’s shop on the corner of compton and dean street... he shuts
at nine and once he pulls the shutters down we go down into the
basement and smoke spliffs and just talk talk talk... good food and sleep and happy times and no powdery drugs are my recipe for good health.
Champagne before swimming seems very new London – prosperous and sybaritic – though that's only one side of it, the other side is the ridiculous political and social correctness you find everywhere, like the ‘virtuous pricks’at your health club who work out so unnecessarily hard.
Last year John Mortimer was being interviewed by a girl from one of the broadsheets and she asked him about life as an author. Was he a disciplined writer etc? He said he woke every morning at 5.30, had a shower and then drank a half bottle of champagne before sitting down at his desk to write. "The combination of bubbles and alcohol gets my brain working," he explained.
The girl was shocked. "Have you tried counseling?" she asked.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2007
From Jamie Elsworth, London, UK
Hi Simon. Weren’t those pictures amazing yesterday - Paisley and McGuiness together. I remember the time you and I were in Belfast and wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time (and said the wrong things too – well you did, not me) and nearly got killed for it. Paisley then was the epitome of hatred and intolerance - on a par with Idi Amin - almost at the level of Hitler. It’s Tony Blair who’s done it, probably because of the religious thing. He could talk faith with both sides whereas most people just wanted to bang their heads together and shake God right out of their brains.
I never though it would happen. But that’s not the only thing that Blair did which I thought would never happen. In his first hour in power ten years ago he called the Home Office in Croydon and told them to accept applications from foreign spouses of gay couples. It was the deal that Mandelson had made with him in return for helping him get elected, and it was that which enabled Yo and I to live together while I worked in the UK. And eight years later Blair was behind the change in law that allowed civil partnerships. So for once (and it certainly doesn’t happen often on this website) I’ve got something good to say about someone who’s an incorrigible god freak. But then… think what he might have achieved if he wasn’t!
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2007
From Anton Renshawe Strack, London, UK
Hello Simon. Just visited your site for the first time in ages because I haven't till now had the internet at home. I have instead been have been using my local library, where your site is classed as 'restricted'. The IT technician tells me their system picked up on the words 'cats' and 'masturbation' in the same sentence, and put you in the category of porn rather than pop. Anyhow my home PC is now working and I’m glad to see the daily rabble rousing is back firing on all cylinders.
Hi Anton. Good to hear from you. Strange that it's the combination of ‘cat’ and ‘masturbation’ that upset the censor's computer. If I'd talked about masturbation in another context do you think it would have been allowed? In relation to horses, perhaps, or librarians, or senior citizens - or its health dangers, 'wrist extensor overactivity' sometimes causing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (otherwise known as wanker’s cramp).
MONDAY, MAY 7, 2007
From Jeff Salmon, Birmingham, UK
hi simon. i’m doing a management and media course and your book 'black vinyl white powder' is one of the books we have to read. i’m halfway through it and am finding it interesting but was thinking… since it’s a standard book in most management and media courses it would be really useful for students if there was an abbreviated version that contained all the most important info in a quickly absorbable way? have you ever thought of doing one?
A couple of years ago a student at London Metro University wrote asking me much the same thing. I said if she wanted the information further compressed she’d best read through the book again and when it was all freshly in her brain lay her head on the ground and have someone jump on it. For the next three months I received abusive emails from her friends and supportive ones from students who couldn’t stand her (they worked out about fifty/fifty). The bad news was... No-one, as far as I could tell, had actually jumped on her head. I hope in your case they will.
SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2007
From Ed Shinklater, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Hello Simon. Sorry I missed you Friday. I hadn’t realised you were coming to Bangkok for dinner; I thought I was supposed to be going to Pattaya, which I did. When I got there I called you only to have Yo tell me you’d gone to Bangkok. Never mind. I had a debauched night on the town and enjoyed myself thoroughly. What about you? Was your evening OK?
Mixed! I had dinner with a friend at Caffe di Roma, that strange Italian restaurant in the middle of Patpong (such an odd location for a place so good), then went to a bar my friend knew, upstairs in an alleyway. I didn’t enjoy it, so I left him there.
Outside it was raining. Half way down the iron staircase I slipped and fell, bumping all the way to the bottom - on my back, on my shoulder, on my neck, on my thighs and on my bum. I landed at the bottom thoroughly shook up. I would have liked to stay there on the ground but it was wet. A man appeared from the shadows and offered me his hand and I managed to get up, hurting horribly. He supported me with an arm round my back and I leant against his shoulder – a nice moment of human warmth. I needed it.
After a minute I straightened up. When I did so I saw the man properly for the first time - mid-fifties, powdered face, mascarad eyes, bad teeth and lip sores - an ageing doorway whore offering quickies down the alley by the garbage cans. I pulled away quickly, murmured cursory thanks and hobbled off as fast as I could.
Which left me feeling bad the next moring. Not from the bruises, but from having needed that necessary moment of human kindness - and been given it – and then not thanking him properly. I could at least have offered him as much as he earns for a dustbin blowjob. Thoughtless of me and I’m ashamed of myself. Well…, just a little bit. After all, he’ll have earned some good Kharma which might help him come back next time as someone pretty and young who I’d be happy to thank all night.
SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2007
From Kurt Schell, Hamburg, Germany
Hi Simon. Long time no see. I was working with Bravo magazine in the 80s when you came to Germany with Blue Mercedes. You did an interview with me. Remember? I came across your website the other day and it gave me the idea to do a new piece about you. I now work freelance. Are you up for it?
Travelling around with pop groups in the 80s I found it difficult to remember everyone. But you stood out. The perfect tabloid journalist. Pure slime. Obnoxious, intrusive and dishonest.
There now! Based on having made contact with me you’ll be able to write your piece and claim you interviewed me by email. If you get any money for it, put some aside for dental treatment. Your breath, I seem to remember, was as poisonous as your personality.
FRIDAY, MAY 4, 2007
From Leo Nine, Bangkok, Thailand
Dear Simon. In the end, of course, I simply couldn't resist opening the Wham/China book, and Dawkins' delusional Gods had to make way for Connie's sex-gods for a few days. Loved it; thanks again. Your mention of Graham Chapman and the Jeremy Thorpe musical reminded me that I met Graham at a Python party a year or so before he died. The party was in the room where they shot the Mr. Creosote sketch for The Meaning of Life. Terry Jones had been a neighbour of ours in S. London (which is presumably how I ended up at that event) and, for the 1977 street party we held to celebrate HMQ's silver jubilee, he, my dad and I performed some sketches in a sort of cabaret. Subsequently, and rather amazingly, he used to send me sketches that he and Michael Palin had written that hadn't made it into the TV series so that friends and I could perform them at my school Christmas party. I'm not sure I realized at the time quite how cool that was! All best!
Cool beyond belief. How could you not have known? If you'd kept the scripts you'd have made a fortune. A few years later the Pythons were huge in the States and schools all over America would have have paid thousands for sketches for their end of term functions.
The Pythons never quite ‘got it' about money matters. My friend Nancy Lewis was their American business manager. She had a great apartment overlooking the park between Sixth and Seventh where I'd sometimes pop in for coffee only to find I’d gate-crashed an impromptu Python meeting. Very glum affairs. John Cleese in particular could reduce everyone to misery.
THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007
From Sachiko Tanaka, Nagasaki, Japan
Hi Simon-san. I write you last month about do you remember me. Then I say about my daughter is fan of the Japan band Titan Go King’s. Now she change… is now number one fan of The 5678s. So she ask me, ‘Maybe Simon-san mention this group too.’
Hi Sachiko. Pushy little thing, aren’t you, though I guess you must have been to get my pants off all those years ago. About your daughter’s new passion... whereas I liked Titan Go King’s, this group is awful... everything I dislike most about women performers... truly dreadful music - no androgeny, no camp, no humour - real breasts and not a banana surprise between them - I doubt they even do drugs. Tell your daughter to go back to punk rock, drag acts and gay boys.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2007
From Laurie Tuttle, Christian Healthcare Center, Wyckoff, NJ, USA
Hi Simon, I wanted to let you know I just finished reading your book “I'm Coming to Take you to Lunch”. It was fantastic and I couldn't put it down. I can't wait to get my hands on your other books because I want to read more about your experiences and fascinating adventures. I've been reading your blog for a while now, and I love it when you tell off some of these assholes that write to you. I've noticed that the majority of them are from the U.S. I would like to know what some of the things are that irritate you most about Americans.
I presume you consider yourself not to be one of the ‘assholes’ but you’re on dangerous ground writing to me from a ‘Christian Healthcare Centre’. I went online and checked it out and found it was for old people. There seems to be plenty of ‘caring’ going on, which is good, but also plenty of religion, which isn’t (though it fills the time, I suppose). At least the old people looked clean - ready for a spotless departure.
It’s difficult to put a finger on what irritates me about Americans. The ones I like don’t irritate me at all - it's only the ones I dislike. Since it’s a big country it has a lot of both, which could be the only problem. If the USA were to cut its population by four/fifths, Americans probably wouldn’t irritate me any more than Germans or French or English.
(Well – not that little – but maybe not much more.)
TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2007
From Steve Ashton, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Hey Simon! I saw a posting on your website saying the Thai government has banned Youtube? What sort of dumb ass thing is that? As a political animal I watch Youtube every day to keep up with current affairs. I can’t imagine being divorced from it. Next month I shall be holidaying in South East Asia. If Youtube is not available in Thailand I shall give the place a miss.
Brilliant decision, Steve! Don’t come. At first I wasn’t sure the government had done the right thing. But if banning Youtube keeps the likes of you away, they got it right.
MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2007
From Bobbi Marchini, Villa Christina, Zakynthos, Greece
When I arrived back I decided to stop smoking. I hated being that person at airports... sitting in the stinking smokers room with a dozen ethnic males… me the only woman sucking on a fag. It's far too late to worry about my health and I don't give much of a toss anyway... I'm biodegradable and replaceable... I quit because I just hate to smell bad.
The trick in giving up is keeping busy and away from the usual triggers… so I got back into the garden. It's been a month and the garden is looking wonderful and I no longer smoke and never will again… the only problem is that I use the muck from the bottom of the aviary for fertilizer and now have cannabis plants coming up all over.
The aviary happened about a year ago when a budgerigar I'd rescued from the gypsy fair looked lonely so I brought it a mate. They went forth and multiplied and soon I had a budgie kingdom so an aviary was built. Then a bad tempered green parrot came my way and his habit of flinging food has made the problem worse. Every morning I go out and pull up small dope plants. Lots of them. As for the budgies… my two little gay males are devoted, smart, and the link between me and the rest of the pack (40).
Please come for a visit as I want you to taste my hare. No puns here please! It needs a day to reach perfection and it's a once a year thing and only for special friends. They are hard to find (hares, not friends) and usually quite big ... around 5 kilo's. I promise something special. I'll send my cleaner’s husband hunting in the hills a week before you arrive. This needs a particular wine as it's a strong flavour... Kisses and stuff.
Hi Bobbi. With hare on the menu it looks like I can’t avoid coming to Zakynthos again, though I’m told budgies are tasty too, though I doubt that you allow that.
I’ve had hare a couple of times in the last few years, both times in provincial France, once in a honey sauce, and once in bitter chocolate, which was rather too strong a flavour and not pretty on the plate. I suspect you’ll go the red wine route, as you do with your cocks. Whichever, it needs a robust wine to balance it, possibly a good Hermitage, though the one which comes to mind and is simply no longer available, is one of the old Cahors wines. They were very stiff and unforgiving and had to be kept in the bottle for at least a hundred years. I bought a batch of them about twenty years ago, dating back to 1860, and not one of them was off, some even needed more aging, with a big whiff of sulphur when the bottle was first opened. Nowadays, it’s no longer economical to produce wines that take so long to age so Cahors makes an ordinary unclassed Bordeaux-type wine. I shall attempt to find us a stunning Cotes Du Rhone, plus some champagne. It will probably be in August when Yo and I will be in London for a while before going to Sweden where Donavon and Anna (two kids already and Yo the godfather to one) are finally getting married. I’ll let you know. Lots of love. xx
SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2007
From Tracy Cunliffe, DirtE Records, London, UK
"seriously beneficial to humanity" my arse! don't these people have a sense of humour? you know what simon i've got mates who are buddhists and i think they're full of shit. they'll harangue you for swatting a fly but then happily tuck into a burger! like all religions, hypocritical as hell. plus they put across this front of being serene and non angry – yeah right! like hippies - repressed ticking time bombs. i really don't go with abstention (of anything!) no drinking, no 'naughty' sex', control, control, control. bollocks! surely the way forward is, as you say, to sort things out for yourself. as you can see i feel quite strongly about this. also, there’s nothing like a good rant on a saturday morning! xx
Hi Tracy, living in Thailand I take a gentler view of Buddhism than you do. For most people (and like most religions), it’s mainly connected with behaving decently and in a neighbourly way and occasionally enjoying a wedding or a festival at the temple. But this week we’ve seen hordes of self-seeking monks descend on Bangkok demanding that Buddhism be enshrined in the contstitution as the state religion. When you see these militant monks you realize you’re looking at the same old thing, be it Christianity, Islam or any other religion – pompous self-seeking preachers of supsertition. Pity really, because the outward image of Buddhism in Thailand is generally so attractive.
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2007
From Sue Lessin, London, UK
Simon, I was wondering - seeing as you live in Thailand and are such an incorrigible atheist - how you feel about the military government planning to give Thailand an official religion by incorporating Buddhism into the new constitution?
Since atheism is Buddhism's key precept, it doesn't sound too bad - no divinity, no supreme Creator, no all-powerful, all-frightening, retributing God - instead, the way to a better life is to hoist yourself up by your bootstraps. Quite laudable really, and rather Thatcherish, except that the better life it proposes is nothing to do with globalism and market economy. If you opt to give it a try, the first 5 of 227 precepts you’ll have to live by are… Don’t harm people, Don’t take what isn’t given, Don’t have any naughty sex, Don’t lie, and Don’t get intoxicated. I can't help but approve of the atheist bit, but I’m not too keen on no booze and no naughties. But whatever the government decides, I doubt that much will change. In Thailand it never does.
THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2007
From Eddie Shearn, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Hey Simon. So Funny. The whole of America has been up in arms this week because Sheryl Crow said we should help save the world by using just one square of toilet paper. I know you have been a great proponent of no toilet paper at all – that is… wash your bottom rather than wipe it, like civilized people in South East Asia and the Arab world. Yet despite this subject having been discussed all across America for three consecutive days I have not seen one single mention from anyone about washing being a better method than wiping. Strange!!
Strange indeed, but then Americans are a strange lot. A nation of shit-smearers. Preferring to use paper to smear it around until there’s just a thin layer left around the bum rather than use water to wash it clean. You should never forget when you look at Wolfowitz and Rumsfield and Bush and Cheyney, and especially Sean Hannity, that on top of all their other faults, they have dirty bottoms too.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2007
From Rob Cairns, London, UK
Hi Simon. The last time we spoke you were explaining to me how 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' had already sold more copies than the record it had replaced at No. 1, (The Reflex, I think, by the Durans). We were in your office at Gosfield Street. It was 1984 and I was well impressed by the cardigan that you had on. It had a pocket just the right size for a cassette tape, the demo format back in those days.
I’m having a nostalgic Sunday moment. Those were ace days. I was just 21 at the time and the world was a jewel-encrusted tree of opportunities. I was the guitarist for a band you and Donovan were managing called 'The Living Room'.
Just wanted to say Hi, and thanks, and hope you are well. You’re a cool dude; always were.
Thanks Rob. Nice to be appreciated. The bad news is I don’t remember the band The Living Room at all. Don’t take it badly though. Despite writing books that make me seem to have a photographic memory I doubt I remember even ten per cent of went on… what with the upsides of alcohol in the evening and the downsides in the morning.
But I do remember the cardigan. More of a knitted wool jacket actually. Grey with leather round the pockets – bought in the Gucci shop in the basement of the Shinkjuku Hilton in Tokyo at the colossal price of $1500 US, which twenty-three years ago was quite a price. It lasted twenty years, and by having a large inside pocket, successfully made the transition to the CD age.
I hope your jewel-encrusted tree hasn’t yet been hacked totally to the ground.
TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
From Geordie George, Portland, Oregon, USA
Hi Simon. Having read your anti-'save the world’ comments a few weeks ago, I’ve at last encountered a journalist who agrees with you. Last week Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian, “The planet can and will look after itself just fine, as it has for aeons. What the slogan really means is, ‘keep the planet safe for me in the style to which I am accustomed’. That is quite different.I am all for species-ism when it is my species we are saving, but let us call it what it is.”
Just thought you’d like to know.
I saw it. And while I agree it’s impossible for any living thing not to want to save itself, had dinosaurs managed to save their world we wouldn’t be here now. And if we manage to save our world, someone or something more interesting than us won’t be here one day instead of us. Which would be a pity.
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2007
From Bobbi Marchini, Zakynthos, Greece
Hi Simon. That DeeDee is good!
Your friends remember you often and not just because it's your birthday. I was thinking about this yesterday and realised that it's because interesting things happen when you're around.
Do you remember going up and down endlessly in a lift in some big hotel in Oz looking for a bar that wasnt full of suits? Somehow we got into a strange now forgotten interesting discussion/argument and up and down on the lift... up and down. Then… the doors opened on us and there was Soekarno and his full bodyguard with guns. They had been trying to get the lift downstairs where there was a reception for him but we'd kept pushing those buttons. I dont remember if they got on or we got of but I do remember thinking… "oh shit"
Hi Bobbi. I half remember the story, but it can’t have been Soekarno. I first arrived in Sydney in September '71. Bored of the music business, I auditioned as Uncle Grumpy for a kid's show on Perth TV - was auditioned (and failed) in the North Sydney Travelodge by a grossly enormous TV exec who sat on his bed next to a 12 pack of beer and drank 7 of them in the twenty minutes I was with him.
Too nice, obviously, to be Uncle Grumpy I resigned myself to fate and told a few record companies I was in town. RCA gave me Alison McCallum to record and I met you when you turned up as a backing singer. All of which puts the earliest we could have been arguing in a lift as October 1971. But Sukarno died in 1970, having been deposed from power in 1967 and been confined to house arrest ever since.
But it could have been his successor, Suharto.
Funnily enough, shortly after that first six months in Oz, I met Suharto. I went for a weekend in Jakarta, got involved with a guy called Ade, and stayed six months. He was the youngest son of one of the country's top families. His father was the mayor of the capital city, Bogor, and had been the only member of Sukarno's cabinet to move on to Shuarto's cabinet. A great survivior! There were eleven sons, amongst them the ambassdors for Australia, Sweden and America, also, the head of Garuda and the head of IBM Indonesia. One of Ade's uncles was the country's top record producer and one of his nieces was the country's top girl singer - Teti Kadi. I stayed six months, learnt Inonesian (all forgotten now) and recorded her. Ade had another uncle who ran the army. He gave us a permanent military escort and a general's jeep to run us round town. The family all knew what the relationship was between me and Ade but there seemed to be no problem with it. Between that six months, and the six months in Oz, 1972 was quite a year.
There - that's today's bit of trivial racontery.
SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2007
From Didee, Marseilles, France
Didee again
gay rappa debest
da orgyboy still hurtin in da skrilla pool
waitin for da fatman Didee hear nothin but screams
dreams u is his 4 by 4
he wanna be squash beneath ya wheels
give u hear his squeals
lick ya snowhite butt
be a nigga slut
wish u happy for ya birthday
Thanks, Didee. Another literary triumph. Always nice to have my birthday remembered. Sorry your wishes can’t come true for the moment. Try again next year.
SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2007
From Elli B, Dallas, Texas
Hi Simon. Halfway through “I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch” I was reading the bit about you pulling a bandage out of your ear in front of a Chinese cabinet minister and laughed so loud the woman next to me on the bus moved away. Now I’m afraid to read your book except when I’m at home in case I embarrass myself.
Not everyone likes the book as much as you. Last time I flew back to Thailand from London I was thrilled to see the man next to me had a bag of books from Borders one of which was “I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch”. He opened it, started reading and within minutes had fallen asleep. When the stewardess woke him for lunch, he shoved the book into the seat pocket in front of him and took another one from the bag, "The Asian Grocery Store Demystified", which he seemed to enjoy very much. In Bangkok, I saw he’d left my book in his seat pocket so I pulled it out and held it toward him. He screwed up his face and shrugged. “You can have it,” he said. "I grabbed it in a hurry. I thought it was about Chinese food."
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007
From Ahmit Ganesh, Mumbai, India
Hello there Simon. I thought you were a little harsh to the gentleman who wrote yesterday. I have to admit though that the difference between eating dinner with my mother and eating with anyone else is most considerable. Importantly, my mother fondly remembers the meal we had together not least because during the course of it you proposed marriage to her. She is keenly awaiting your arrival back in Mumbai in order to make acceptance and take things forward. Do you know when that might be?
Hi Ahmit. Proposing under the influence doesn’t count. Especially to someone as imposing as your mother when surrounded by her vast family. They're quite right to call her the 'warrior woman'. However, if she let’s me off the hook on the marriage front, I shall certainly propose we have another meal together. I should be in Mumbai in July or August.
THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2007
From Ed Tate, South Beach, Florida, Miami, USA
Hey Simon. I just got back from a business trip to South Asia accompanied by my wife. It included a brief stay in Mumbai and on the advice of your ‘Eating Out’ section we went to have dinner at Masala Kraft. We were disappointed. We both adore Indian food but seemed to find nothing here to match the best we’ve had elsewhere. What was it you actually ate that was so special?
For goodness sake Ed, I haven’t a clue. In my Eating Out section I make it quite clear that these are ‘memorable meals’, not a catalogue of dishes. I went with Ahmit Ganesh's family, not some boring old wife. I was drunk; I was with fabulous people; I was having a good time. If you can’t get that part of the evening sorted out, it hardly seems worth going in the first place. Why not stay home in South Beach
and sulk à deux?
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2007
From Leo Nine, Bangkok, Thailand
I will probably get you everywhere on the vibrato front.... but I do have a
problem with 'falling off the keyboard' of a guitar. Sorry to be pedantic,
but surely those often delightfully phallic stringed instruments share with
the violin a fingerboard (much more fun) rather than a keyboard. My guess is
that several hundred others will email to point this out! I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday!
I think most people realise I'm an opinionist, not a factualist. I get things wrong all the time, but the gist is usually right. I have many guitar playing friends and none have written to complain. Maybe they're afraid of my notorious ire. Yet I would never dole it out for being corrected when I was wrong (except perhaps if I didn’t like the person, or he was totally annoying, or unnecessarily ugly). Anyway, I stand corrected.
But for a guitar (as against a violin), don't most people call it a fretboard?
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2007
From Bibi Espedes, New York, NY, USA
Simon… now that was nasty.... a major public Bitch Slapping.... Trolls are genetically Trolls...... that poor repulsive queen.... be nice.
Oh, he's nothing special, neither in the nasty department nor the nice one. Just an old acquaintance who pops up more often than I'd otherwise choose. Sometimes he's quite funny, then you find yourself annoyed you laughed. Pity I don’t have a picture of him to show. You’d see I really wasn’t being that nasty.
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2007
From Art Selstrom, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Simon – it’s just GROSS – having to look at that huge sludgy figure of yours lounging on the settee and think of some unfortunate nineteen-year-old suffering a kiss. Don’t you think you would be better served by avoiding such frank revelations and behaving with more dignity?
You, Art - as anyone who knows you can attest - are the most miserable, wrinkled, humourless, skinny, squinty, yellow-toothed, old faggot on the planet. At least I was describing an occasion fifty years ago when I was positively gorgeous (see picture below). While you (and I can remember this clearly) were every bit as repulsive as a teenager as you are today.
SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK.
hi simon. i think loosing our sodding virginity is a constant thing... it's a skin shedding, sexually defining thing, we loose our virginity several times throughout the course of a lifetime.
the first salient thought regarding sex is a kind of a loss of virginity... you step into fresh territory right there. then there's the first realtime contact and intercourse that for most of us is a fucking disaster... followed up by another first time where you actually “get it”, which is probably the most powerful and defining loss of virginity in a lifetime... birth and death have got to be in some sexually defining moments too... i just think we keep losing our virginity all the way to the grave,
Hi Gregory. Yours, and most of the others answers, confirm that most gays see loss of virginity as the moment they first have sex with another guy and realise this is what they really want. (Or as you say, ‘get it’). For me it was the first time I kissed a guy (a young barman called Robin in a pub in Cheltenham, circa 1959) and found myself transported to a place I’d never been. That was the moment I lost my virginity. Whereas the first time with a girl was simply an interesting addition to sexual repertoire.
SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2007
From Judy Passel, Oranjestad, Aruba
Hey Simon. There must be a good story about how you lost your virginity. And with whom?
Please tell!
Complicated! Being gay presents virginity in a less cut-and-dried manner than being straight. I can think of four or five different virginities that need to be considered before settling on the real one. For instance…
The first time I had sex with another boy. The first time I had sex with another boy after leaving public school, therefore understanding that this really was to do with being gay not just being at school. The first time I screwed another boy. The first time another boy screwed me. The first time I screwed a girl.
(I’m using the words ‘boy’and ‘girl’ because all these things happened in my teens and no adults were involved).
Why don’t a few gay guys write and tell me what they think.
For someone who is predominantly gay, which of those constitutes 'losing your virginity’?
FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2007
From Paul French, Shanghai, China
Hi Simon. Just out of interest how do you know it's paedophiles? Have you considered the possibility that people may be searching for images of 'well preserved full bodied older man lounging provocatively on sofa' and then were shocked to see an image of a 4 year old peeing in a tin bath tub?
Hi Paul. Everyone who comes to my website leaves an imprint of where they've come from. So I can tell when people link to it from that particular image on a Google or Yahoo search.
It's quite shocking what you can find out about anyone who comes to a website. If you have the right combination of softwares, and link it all to information available on the web - i.e in the UK, voter registration, in the US, information from local city records, or from the FBI's public records, or even just the phone book - you can track most people right back to where they live and find out their voting preference, their credit rating and whether they owe any parking tickets. I don't bother with anything other than occasionally checking how they came to arrive at the website. Like I said, thousands of people arrive come regularly from that image of me in the bath when I was 4-years old.
As to your other point - I've never noticed anyone arriving from the image of the bigger, older, much more interesting-looking me. But I've noticed a lot of people coming from internet lists of well-known gays and lesbian. Terrible isn't it. You work hard at what you're good at all your life but end up being best known simply for whether your willie points left or right.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2007
From Sam Smithi Bedi, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Hi Simon. I read your website often and find myself frequently browsing around it. What is the most visited item?
There’s a picture in my CV section with me playing naked in the garden when I was four. It’s been an eye-opener to me as regards paedophillia on the net. I get thousand of people a week coming to the website because they’ve been fooled. They've found that photo on a Google or Yahoo image search and presumed they’re going to get a whole website of four-year olds. What they get instead is the whale on his sofa.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2007
From Leo Nine, Bangkok, Thailand
Glad you got back OK, and many thanks again for the delicious lunch. I was thinking later about the vibrato thing, one person who demonstrates it perfectly (i.e. that vibrato goes below the note not above it) is Elvis Presley. 'Soldier Boy' and 'I want you, I need you, I love you' are two examples that spring to mind.
Hi Leo. Well you were certainly right about vibrato always falling, not rising. I’ve now checked it out fully, not just strings and brass, but all instruments. In fact, in Principes de la Flute (1707), when Hotteterre discusses the fingering needed to create a vibrato he refers to it as UN FLATTEMENT, which pretty much says it all. Strangely though, there is one exception - the E string of the guitar. Pushing the string in a falling direction will make the finger fall of the keyboard, so on the bottom string the vibrato is usually upwards.
Great lunch!
TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2007
From Eddie Dee, London, UK
Hi Simon. Did your read about the extraordinary ‘Easter Quiz’ that Somerfield supermarket ran on its website last week. Unfortunately they’ve taken it down now, but it was a quiz for kids and it asked questions about Easter. It would have warmed your heart to learn how ignorant modern Britain’s are about Christianity. One of the questions was… Why do we give chocolate eggs at Easter? Three of the answers the kid’s had to choose from were – Because it was Jesus’s birthday - Because chocolate was Jesus’s favourite treat - Because an egg was the first thing Jesus ate when he came back after the resurrection.
Whereas the correct answer was… that's how the Virgin Birth came about.
The Virgin Mary hated eggs so when her mum boiled her one for breakfast and insisted she eat it Mary hid it between her legs. Before she could fnish her toast and marmalade the damned thing had hatched into baby Jesus.
(This, by the way, is from the rather better informed quiz on Sainsbury’s website).
MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2007
From Brian Sanderton, Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK
Simon, your comments on global warming belittle you. I simply don't believe you don't care. You're just being flippant aren't you? Sure, the world's population needs to be reduced, and that would help the situation, but the diminshment of pollution must surely be the first objective.
Oh gosh! Yours and a hundred other emails. Of course, clean is nice. But it shouldn't take global warming to make people realise that filthing up the atmosphere is a bad idea. Anyway, I can't be bothered with everyone's affrontery. I'm going to agree with you all. Let's dance around our Easter eggs and save the world. Fa,la,la,la,la!
SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 2007
From Adrienne Shaw, Northampton, UK
Hi Simon. I saw that EMI were suing a removal firm for losing a box of 452 photos of the Beatles valued at £700,000. The executive who had them in his office put a notice on them saying “Not rubbish”, but the removers threw them out anyway, and the woman who did it got fired. Which made me think…
Amongst all your old boxes of memorabilia might there be photos and other things you’re not interested in that could be auctioned for charity? I am involved with a fund for autistic children and we have auctions every six months.
It’s a question I’ve been asked several times. The answer is no. I’ve moved too many times in my life and thrown out too many boxes. As for the EMI thing, it reinforces all my prejudices about record comapnies. It’s the EMI executive who should get fired, not the lady from the removal company. He must have known there was a chance of the removers throwing the box out or he wouldn’t have put a sign on it saying “Not Rubbish”. If I had something in my office worth £700,000 which I thought the removers might throw out I’d put it somewhere safe. In forty years dealing with record companies I’ve never known them offer a single penny to reimburse an artist whose tapes or photos they’ve lost or mislaid (which is something they do all the time). Even worse is this story...
In the 80s, the group Erasure finally finished their album after seven months work. On the last night they worked through to dawn to finish the final mixes. They stacked up all the boxes of tape – the multitracks, the premixes, the backing tracks, the final mixes, the master - then at 7am went home to sleep. At 8am the new studio junior came in. He saw the pile of boxes with Erasure written on each one and spent the day erasing them. The studio was PRT in London, and the group got no compensation.
SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2007
From Jenny Dennison, London, UK
Hello Simon. I have noticed you are usually scathingly disinterested in ecological matters. It is an attitude reflected in many people. I suppose it is self-protective, allowing them to continue self-centred lives and forget the broader picture. After yesterday's report by scientists surely you can see it is time for you to stop being smug and join with others to do something about it.
Jenny! Four things...
My world will end well before any of this happens.
The people I know who I care for are already alive and should also just scrape through.
Any new human beings who crop up after that, I shall have no more emotional attachment to than the mosquitos that buzz round my garden all day.
If the scientists are right and these problems are truly man-made then the only satisfactory way to solve them is to reduce the world's population by half, or even two thirds. I saw the headline. Hundreds of millions at risk. Most satisfactory. Seems like the problem's well on the way to solving itself.
FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2007
From Mark Aspen, Geneva, Switzerland
Dear Simon. I read in the paper today that you can no longer get YouTube in Thailand because it's been censored as the result of a video defaming the king. Is this really true? How do you live without YouTube?
It's hard. In just minutes a day YouTube keeps me up to date with everything that's current - Bill O'Reilly losing his cool and pulling the plug on the lady soldier who disagreed with him - Ricky Gervais's great piece on the Bible - Sanjaya's sister playing the guitar nude - totally unimportant, maybe, but unmissable too. By banning it the Thai government has probably shot itself in the foot. It's something they're very good at and there'll be plenty more of it in the next few months. In fact, it's one of the things that makes living here fun. Thai politicians come from a long tradition of foot-shooting.
THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2007
From Ed Ramentier, Newark, NJ, USA
hey simon... cool down man... some gal writes to you about an unfortunate meal shes had and youre all over her like shes the one to blame rather than the restaurant... shes obviously someone who eats out a bit so she must know what shes talking about... and after all... you recommended the place... why dyou have to get so instantly anti?
You're must be blind, or daft, or dumb, or American, or French, or straight, or married, or some other loathsome ghastly thing. I never recommend restaurants. If you go to the Eating Out section on this website you'll see I simply tell people about meals I had which were enjoyable. Since I know loads of incredibly lovely people to eat with, it stands to reason that I have masses of enjoyable meals out. Conversely, since you and most of the other people who write and complain are obviously totally obnoxious, and probably physically repulsive into the bargain, it stands to reason you have no-one pleasant to eat with and therefore rarely enjoy your meals out.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2007
From Judy Hart, London, UK
Simon. Because of your review in the Eating Out section of your website my husband and I ate an appalling lunch on our anniversary. It was at the Grill Room at Brown's hotel. The meat on the trolley was cold. When we complained they took it away and heated it up until it was too dry to eat. After we ordered our wine the wine waiter simply disappeared and failed to bring it until we had already started our meal. The service was neither friendly nor efficient but downright patronising. After the meal our coffee was stewed and the staff obviously anxious to get off duty. All in all it was everything that is so often bad with this type of traditional British restaurant. It reminded us of a restaurant in a station hotel somewhere like Cleethorpes or Carlisle. I cannot believe you recommended it. No thanks to you at all.
Firstly, I ate there with Miles Tredinnick, one of the world's most charming men.
You ate with your husband, who I have to presume is a pathetic, quivering, hen-pecked mass of self-pity. Whatever your complaints about the meal, I can't believe the staff at Brown's would take the lead in being unfriendly. Could the unfriendliness possibly have come from you? If you order with the same tone as you complain I imagine it did. I agree with you that Brown's is a trifle old-fashioned - a more contemporary place might have suggested you leave and go elsewhere.
TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007
From Barry Soames, Bristol, UK
Hi Simon. Roaming the internet yesterday I came across a news item about the members of the Thai government going to see a fortune teller. How on earth can Thai people accept leaders who indulge in behaviour of that sort? You live in Thailand, perhaps you understand. Please explain.
Why is it any more extraordinary than Tony Blair or George Bush going to church to ask God for a quick resumé on how they're doing and what they should do next? Both situations are bizarre, yet there's little difference between them, except perhaps the fortune teller is better. He might after all be a wise man and give good advice, whereas, since God doesn't exist, Blair and Bush are behaving schizophrenetically, trusting a fantasy voice inside themselves for advice they're otherwise unable to dig out of their consciousness. The Thai situation smacks of superstitious country folk. The British and American of insanity.
MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2007
From Allan Soh, Singapore
hi simon... if you're currently in the mood to show embarassing pictures of yourself then how about this one... i found it an old photo album from when we were living in London about twenty years ago... it's you and your sister after christmas lunch at your parent's place.
They don't come worse than this. I'm not about to make a habit of showing embarassing pictures of myself, it's just that I'm in a rush to do the website this morning 'cos I've got to drive to Bangkok for a meeting with Sony. For that reason alone you can all be treated to the full ghastliness of family celebrations.
I'm not rolling a joint. We're playing some sort of guessing game and have each been given a piece of paper with a clue. (I've no idea why I am dressed like that. I think my mother had been demanding a white Christmas.)
SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2007
From Dr. Jorge Arocho, Tampa, Florida, USA
Hey Simon. I just discovered your website. I have a picture of you I took in Acapulco 20 years ago. It is, I would suggest, a bit more gay than we normally see you. In case you cannot remember... I was the boy you picked up in the Zona Rosa in Mexico City and took to Acapulco for the weekend. Then I was a 'chichifo' (more or less a rent-boy). Now I am a doctor. Not bad I think!
I always like a success story, even at the expense of my own embarassment. Jorge - I remember you well. If you only perform half as well as a doctor as you did as a rent boy, you'll be a credit to the medical profession.
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