FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2007
From Derek Hayden, London, UK
Hi Simon. When all is said and done, and you're at home... is living in Thailand really that different from living in England? Apart from the good weather.
Living in a house in Thailand is in itself a full time occupation. There’s no shutting the door and retiring into your own home the European way. A house involves people - lots of them. Usually I’m up at 6am. If possible I like to be at my desk writing. By 7am people will start arriving.
First every morning is the gardener, Mr Wit.
Mr Wit has a game that amuses him, though to me it’s pretty damned annoying. He rings the bell at 7am. The door in the outside wall into the garden is never locked. If he wanted to, he could walk right in. Somewhere in the early days of his working for us I made a little English protest about the fact that he (and about fifty other people a day) always walked right in without letting us know they'd arrived, so I told him, “When you arrive at our house please ring. Having done so, by all means come on in without waiting for us to open the door, but at least we will have been warned of your arrival".
Mr Wit took this talk very much to heart but interpreted it in his own way. Every morning at 7am he rings the bell. At that moment it’s quite likely that I’ll be in the middle of an excellent bit of writing, something that has been trapped constipation-like inside my brain for several days but now is finally starting to run smoothly onto paper. I don’t want to break off and rush to open the front gate, so I don’t. So Mr Wit rings again.
If on the other hand I do break off and go to the front gate, Mr Wit, who will have been peeping through the crack in the big double doors, will see me coming and before I get there will come in anyway. But if I don’t, he’ll ring again.
This way honour is served. He is not being made to suffer the indignity of not being allowed in unless I open the door for him. (Thais simply don’t live that way). But he’s not offending me by coming in before he’s totally sure that I’ve heard his arrival.
And try as I might, I can never get to the front gate before he is through it and inside.
At 8am the maid comes and repeats the same bell-ringing process. Her name is Miss Redbox. (In Thai it's Glongdang, which sounds a trifle less odd, though not much). She usually brings her husband too so she can get the work done quicker. He seems more of a slave than a husband, but that’s not my business. He does as he’s told and it’s his wife who tells him. Actually, there's a touch of the same trait in our own domestic set-up. If Miss Redbox's work needs to be criticised, it’s Yo who has to do it. I'm not allowed to.
At 9am, when the pool girl comes, there’ll be more bell ringing of the same type. (Mr Wit, you see, took it upon himself to train all the others in the art of how to ring the bell.)
In between these times, and from thereon all day, there’ll be plenty more rings. Everyday a continuous stream of workmen pass through the house fixing things that need doing. Sometimes they make banging noises then leave with a promise to return and finish the job later (never kept). Other times they say, “Reeup roy laaw” which translates as, “All ship-shape now.” Unfortunately this only means they've finished for the moment, because for sure, whatever it is they’ve just shipshaped will be found in need of further shipshaping in a few days time.
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2007
From Simon White, London, UK
Simon, I see in your blog parents are bewailing the fate of their off-spring in leaving his legal studies for a possible recording career. I remembered Jack Barrie's story about a guy who used to help set up the Marquee Club for gigs (we had chairs in the auditorium then - do you remember?). He told Jack he'd had an offer to join a band but his parents wanted him to go on to further education. Jack said that they were perfectly correct - he could always go back to drumming after he had finished his education. The guy ignored him... he was Phil Collins and the band Genesis.
Hi Simon. That's a much better answer for those parents than my flippant comment. Let him do it - he's probably the next Phil Collins. (My God! Even duller than a lawyer!!)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2007
From Gwyneth Reece, Bristol, UK
Dear Simon, I want your help. My son Tim is determined to be a pop singer and composer; my husband and I want him to be a lawyer. Tim is halfway through his legal training and wants to give it up. He's had some interest from a record company and having read all your books he's always quoting your words of wisdom.
We really don't care what he chooses to do once he's finished his studies because he can always fall back on the law if he needs to. He says he doesn't want to have something to fall back on because it will take away his determination to succeed in music. Any chance of wisdom-wording him into sticking with his studies?
Stop worrying! It's only life, for goodness sake. Surely you don't want me to behave like a responsible adult and tell him to do as you say? If he's that bored with the law having got halfway through it, he's hardly likely to make much of a lawyer. And if he's left it this late to have the confrontation with you about throwing up his studies in order to be a pop star, he probably won't be much good at that either. Seems like he's lacking dedication in both directions. Are you sure he's drinking enough and taking the right drugs?
TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
hi simon. here's some fun writing from a friend of mine who gives me midnight post pub phone calls... you may have already read some of mark's pieces in the broadsheets and gayer rags. i think he's proper bright and entertaining. 'The fascinating science of Sporno' - Mark Simpson on how ‘eyetracking’ has revealed men’s interest in other men’s packets.
I don't buy it. When your friend Mark says it proves all men are interested in other men's naughty bits, he's stretching the facts. Look at the scans for yourself. The men's crotch glances seem to be about a fifth of their face glances. That figures! Ten per cent of men are gay, probably another ten per cent are bisexual. So there you have it - if all men were looking the colours would be of equal intensity. Still, let people see Mark's blog for themselves. Amusing, but a load of old cobblers.
MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2007
From Danny Lee, Barabdos
On the plane from Mexico as I type.
This will make you laugh..... such language problems at dinner. After insisting a waiter replace 3 steak dinners that were served only warm and on cold plates, I spoke to the chef and made a suggestion. "We have a saying at my company which is very important to us - 'Today is an opportunity to do better than yesterday'. After some thought the Mexican chef replied, "I wasn't working yesterday."
Unanswerable!
You're being in Barbados reminds me of the last time I was in that area. I was staying for the weekend on a small island owned by a friend, with several other house guests, most of them friends of both of us. The cook spent too long preparing dinner and it arrived three hours late, by which time we were all mightily pissed on island cocktails. Over dinner I said something that insulted one of the guests. "I've never been so insulted in my life," he cried indignantly. "Oh for Christ's sake - you must have been," I told him. The host jumped to the guest's defence and said I must leave the island at once - at 1am in the morning!! They phoned for an air taxi but couldn't get one till daylight - 6am. And dammit - the next morning they actually did it - escorted me to the airstrip and threw me off the island. Two weeks later we were all back in London and couldn't even remember what the argument was about. All still best friends!
SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2007
From Paul French, Shanghai, China
It's a good job you didn't tell Jiz he was treating heterosexuality as a lifestyle choice - you could be shacked up with him now in Southampton and perhaps even preparing for leading the hymns at morning service rather than sunning yourself in Thailand. Scary thought.
No way! You never saw him. He had owlish glasses, poor skin, lank hair and rubbery lips which blew spit bubbles when he spoke - perfect for the church, imperfect for a gay relationship. I suspect his passion to preach covered all sorts of sexual guilt, as it does in most people. Anyway, I'm pleased he took my advice. Religion can only be weakened by such additions.
The ugly and mentally wanting are always best directed to the church.
SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 2007
From Jiz Sidhu, Southampton, UK
Hi Simon, we met ages ago, 3 years at least, when you were on Granada TV's religious programme in Manchester. I talked to you afterwards and told you I was a member of my college's atheist society. When I told you about the things we did you said I was treating atheism like a religion and might just as well be a Christian or Moslem. I thought about what you said and decided you were right, so I became a Christian. I have you to thank for that. And now I want to ask you a question. Is there honestly nothing that has ever happened in your life you could thank religion for?
Jiz, you obviously have an intellect of steel. I shall say nothing futher about religion in case it prompts you to switch again and fall for Zorastria, or become an Aspidestra, or even a Lupin. Re your second question.
When I was in my mid-twenties I had an emergency operation for peritonitus and ended up in a public ward of about thirty at Wembley Hospital. For nearly two weeks I dozed and slept and didn't eat and felt most unwell. I was sufficiently conscious to notice that almost every day someone left the ward, and not because they'd got better. The last three beds on my side of the room seemed to be where they shoved the beds of those about to die, and as time went by I vaguely realised my bed was heading in that direction. One afternoon my mind returned from wherever it had been wandering to see a priest at the end of my bed moving his hands around in that dotty Catholic way. I was incensed. Wherever my brain had been for the last two weeks it came back with a jolt. "Fuck off," I yelled at him. And he went. Then for the first time in two weeks I managed to get out of bed and get to the bathroom. What I saw in the mirror was quite a shock - two weeks without washing, shaving or eating - and after that I began to take an interest in things. But I can't thank the priest for that. He was just trying to notch me up as one of his before the local vicar got to me. Creeps, the both of them!
FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2007
From Reg Stains, London, UK
hi simon. as something of a gourmet what do you think about all these american resataurants banning foie gras? i see the latest person to get on the bandwagon is wolfgang puck, who is THE celeb chef in hollywood... he has spagos in beverly hills, spagos in la, and he just did all the catering for the oscars... he says it's cruel to force feed geese. but that's ridiculous... just look americans, all force-fed the lot of them... even at spagos the portions are gross.
Hi Reg. Since I myself am American size I won't comment. Instead I'll tell you about the best foie gras I ever ate. It was in 1986 and I was with John Riseley-Prichard driving from Cannes to Bordeaux to watch Andrew Ridgeley race in Formula Ford. At Eugenie-les-Bains we decided to stop overnight at a one star Michelin restaurant/hotel. We had the foie gras menu which meant foie gras was incorporated into every course - first as a pate, then grilled with rasberries, then as part of a duck confit, then with beef in pastry and finally as a mousse with a plate of fruit. I can't remember now what any of it tasted like but I do remember we both decided it was the best meal we'd ever had - well, at least since lunch, which we'd eaten at ''Le Clos de la Violette" in Aix.
THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2007
From Bibi Espedes, New York, NY, USA
Simon: your response to the American issue truly unnerved me today. Little Black Sambo!!!!!! Holy Cannoli, I was in that play in the first grade. My best friend Oscar Munoz who was the darkest Mexican in the class got the honor of playing Black Sambo. Us brown ones were just honored to be spoken too. The year was 1963 and we also killed our President. The Belch who wrote you has a lot of nerve removing racist images from books and cruising the internet for intellectual porn and writing you to be bitch slapped via email.
The furore about 'Little Black Sambo' typifies what these tossers get up to. It was a children's book about a dark-skinned boy in India - a charming story about how four tigers waylay Sambo on the way home and only let him go when he gives them his new red coat, his new blue trousers and his new purple shoes, which one of the tigers then wears on its ears. Sambo outwits the tigers and gets home safely where he eats 169 pancakes for his supper. For fifty years it was one of the world's best-selling books; then the race-eradicators struck and had it banned. The story contained no racist overtones whatsoever and the original illustrations were clearly of an Indian boy not an Afro-American. In 2003 a new version called 'Sam and the Tigers' was published which took away Sambo's dark-skin. Even more racist if you ask me. Now you have to be a clever white kid if you want to outwit tigers.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2007
From Jan Dagger, Brussels, Belgium
Hello Mr. Napier-Bell. I have been working for some years now in conjunction with various government agencies to try and co-ordinate the removal of unnecessary stereotypical images from books used in primary and secondary education in both North America and the EEC. Regarding your comment yesterday about Americans, which I presume you considered amusing, I wish I could impress on you and people like you the damage done by this sort of trivial racist (so-called) humour.
You stupid donk!
Firstly, Americans aren't a race, they're a religion. What makes them American is believing in a set of ideals to which they swear allegiance. One of them is - Thou shalt always shout thy head off in restaurants.
Secondly, my first favourite children's book, when I was about 3 years old, was Little Black Sambo. I think it was one of the things that led me to like jazz so much in my teens, and then to go to America and play and live with black jazz musicians, and later to have a black lover and never in my life to have one inkling of what race prejudice is about. But you people had the book banned.
Thirdly, stereotypes are wonderful things - the British understate emergencies, Americans think everyone will love them if they talk loud and brash, Mexicans sleep sitting against walls with big hats on, Jews screw you for your last cent, gays are shirt-lifting effeminate hand-wavers and the French smell of garlic. Nothing wrong with any of those - all great starting points on which to build your own character and prove the stereotype right or wrong. Better than ending up a politcally correct nerd, like you.
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2007
From Jodie Ilverson, New Jersey, USA
Re....
“I'm an American living in London”
Lucky wanker!
“love the place and the people”
Of course he does
“and the people seem to like me”
An American Delusional living in London
“sometimes you seem anti-American”
Even the Americans are anti-american!
Hi Simon Just having my say. It’s icy freezing in New Jersey, not too cheerful today. I just enjoy the mere fact that I can do this. Please never publish my emails to you, as they are private between you and me. Hope you've recovered and resumed your full life. Big Kiss.
Sorry Jodie, I can’t agree with that. I really can’t be doing with any of this ‘private between you and me’ stuff. I don't go through a hundred or so emails every day just to be told I can't use them. Emails sent to me go on this website if I want them to. If it’s protecting your privacy you want, send it under a false name. If it’s protecting your copyright, don't send it. If you’re after an intimate relationship, look elsewhere.
MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2007
From Ed deVries, London, UK
Hey Simon. I'm an American living in London. I love the place and the people, and the people seem to like me. I also like your website, but sometimes you seem to come across as rather anti-American. This doesn't fit well with your generally tolerant attitude to things. I don't get it.
Me tolerant? I hope not. Tolerance is something I have no truck with. I always make a point of letting people know what annoys me. Perhaps you're muddling 'tolerance' with 'not giving a toss' (a completely different matter). As for being anti-American, that's ridiculous. I have no objection at all to Americans; only to people who behave like them.
SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2007
From Shirley Lavell, Perth, Australia
Hi Simon. In your CV section there's a photo of you and Yo, apparently in a plane cockpit, labelled 'High in Hawaii'. Were you in an aerolight or what? It looks fun. My boyfriend and I are going to Hawaii next month on our honeymoon. Any suggestions?
An aerolight - with me? That's a joke. It was a glider, as you can see in the picture above. When we called to book it they told us the maximum weight was my weight plus about ten more pounds. We didn't fancy going separately, and Yo isn't exactly a lightweight, so it looked unpromising. "Come along on anyway," the girl on the phone said, "we have one pilot who sometimes bends the rules."
Bend them - he positively wrenched them asunder.
Together we were 100 pounds over the maximum. But he was really helpful - a navy pilot who flew planes off an aircraft carrier but flew gliders as extra work at the weekend. It was brilliant - an amazing way to see the terrain below - way better than a small plane. He flew us way out to sea until we were over a schoool of whales. Then said he shouldn't have come so far, our weight might bring the plane down before he got back again. We arrived back over land at almost ground level but suddenly he found an upwards draft and we shot up another thousand feet. Best holiday thing we ever did.
Well, apart from about a hundred other things. Whenever we go on holiday Yo and I behave like regular tourists. Totally uncool.
SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2007
From Kevin Atkinson, Auckland, NZ
Hi Simon, I am writing this on behalf of Irvine Black of New Zealand who bought a 1935 Chrysler Imperial Airflow from you in 1974. He has asked me to say that he still has the car but hasn't used it for some years. Last year he went to the National Meet in Nevada for Airflows & has seen another similar car being restored. he would love to write to you direct - do you have a postal address he could use?
Hi Kevin. The whole Airflow story was so sad. Towards the end of my 60s good fortune as a pop manager/producer I came across this old Airflow and bought it for a thousand pounds or so (I don’t remember now). Then I had Chrysler in London completely rebuild it as a modern car - new engine, automatic gear box, restored bodywork, electric windows, black glass chaufeur's partition, best hide upholstery, aircon, the lot. They took for ever, five years to be precise. Finally it was finished and looked magnificent. The perfect car for some young 60s Al Capone type pop manager. But by the time it was finished the world had moved on and so had I. Still, I paid the bill - a lot, I seem to remember around 4,500 pounds (about 60,000 in today's money, allowing for inflation). I thought I might use the car for a bit and looked around for a driver, but then the oil crisis came along. I had a car which did 7 miles to the gallon and people were trading in their Austin Allegros to get minis instead. To have been driven a hundred yards down the road in it would have been enough to get me lynched. Then Irving turned up. He wanted to buy the car and restore it - i.e. undo all the work I'd just spent five years (and all that money) doing. I'd love to hear from him, so if he's not the emailing type, please give him my postal address.
FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007
From Jenny Selhurst, Boston, Mass, USA
Hi Simon. Me again! Suddenly got the urge to write. It's 'cos I've just been made mad. Funny isn't it how something you can usually manage to be cool about can suddenly drive you into a fury. I was just watching Larry King interview that presidential candidate who's a moron - well, a Mormon actually, but to me, anyone religious is a moron, so I guess he's both. Larry asked him if he would be able to vote for someone who was an atheist and the moron replied he would only ever be able to vote someone who saw the world as a family, that we're all human beings and should love one another, and thus would only be able to vote for someone of faith, though it wouldn't matter to him what faith (which he had to add since he's trying to get elected as a member of an even wonkier faith than all the others). Anyway, it just left me feeling angry and somewhat ashamed of being American so I thought I'd let you know.
Hi Jenny. Sorry you're angry, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it. It's your own fault really for getting yourself born in such a stupid country. You should have thought of that before you popped out. Anyway, I'm in a particularly good mood today so if you don't mind I'll get on with my happy day and leave you to your sour one.
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
....religion has always given me a sign on the road for me to walk and cut willfully in the opposite direction... even so, i'm arriving at a fun place where i'm beginning to arbitrate the bad and the good fruit of its tree. there's the obvious bad fruit, but then there's the good fruit too... i love the religious fervour in really hot rock and roll
and gospel singers like al green...
No no no no no - there's no good fruit on the religion tree! Rethink!
Fervour of all sorts is suspect. Very interchangeable - fervy people simply
need to ferve - you can often swtich them from 'for' to 'against', but once
they're there they'll simply ferve away as usual. We should at least try to
make them direct their fervour towards benign causes. As for Al Green's lyrics… Gay's have always had to get off on straight passion - had to, because it's all we've been given to listen to - all those love songs directed only at the opposite sex. We've learnt to listen to the passion and feeling in a singer’s voice rather than the actual
meaning of the words. That's why you find it easy to overlook the object of Al Green's affection. It's the way we've always listened to every other singer.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2007
From Deborah James, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Hi Simon. I came across your website some months ago when I was googling 'Thailand' with a view to a short holiday later this year. You probaby won't remember, but way back in the 80s we had a bit of a thing together - more than a one-night-stand, less than a relationship - (Tel Aviv, 1985). I'm sure you've long forgotten but I never have, even though I've since been through two marriages and four kids. While I'm on holiday in Thailand could we meet and say hello? Seems you call yourself gay these days but that's not what I remember your dick telling me that wekend in Tel Aviv.
My dick and I have a very good relationship. I've always given it freedom to make its own decisions. It jumps up for no-one other than it decides for itself and I've only ever applauded its freedom of thought. Sometimes it's suprised me, sometimes it's shocked me, but whenever it's been up there in front of me, probing, leading me on, I've always gone along with it, because that's the deal we made together some fifty years ago. We've been together a long time now and by any standards it's a pretty good old knob. I give it credit for most of the good things that ever happend in my life. (That, and me doing my bit, feeding it a decent amount of alcohol). It's getting on a bit now and I have to let it take things easy. Poor old thing. These days if I followed in blind faith wherever it pointed I'd spend most of the time with my head in the sand like an ostrich, so I take it's proposals with a pinch of salt. But on a good day it can still spring into action and lead me a bit of a dance.
I'm concerned, though, that it might be suffering from dementia or alzheimers - it keeps pointing unexpectedly at things it never used to glance at before, ladies with big boobs, for instance. Who knows, if you were to turn up here for a weeekend you might find yourself subject to one of its more unexpected calls to arms. But don't expect me to have the energy to follow it.
TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2007
From Trevor Aston, London, Ontario, Canada
Simon, I enjoy your website, especially your often scathing put-downs of the religious freaks who bother you. Have you ever thought of subscribing to one of the principal atheist organisations? Do a search on 'atheism' in Google and you'll turn up most of them. All have good forums to which you would be a perfect contributor.
I don't believe in God so I have to join an organisaton? What utter piffle. I don't believe in kicking old ladies, peeling potatos, living in cardboard boxes, licking dogs' bottoms or eating Nestles disgusting ice cream. This list could get awfully long, several billion items I should think, which is an awful lot of organisations to join. As far as I'm concerned proselytising atheists are just religionists in another guise.
Couldn't you find something more worthwhile to obsess about - like sadism or self-mutilation or American Idol?
MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007
From Archie Sax, Sacremento, California, USA
I was just reading that when Janis Joplin finalised her contract with CBS she proposed to Clive Davis, the head of CBS at that time, that they consummate her signing by having sex together. But he declined. Simon, were you ever offered any similar delights by your artists? Did you ever accept? Any regrets?
Offers: a few. Acceptances: a few. Regrets? Only when the people I fancied didn’t make the offer - Francoise Hardy, for instance. I was crazy about her when she was 18 and looked like a boy. I wasted months producing a record with her and never even got a peck on the cheek. Then my publishers sent me off to Paris to make a record with Amanda Lear, someone I’d known years before as a young Asian-looking guy called Peki who hung out in the Gigolo, a gay bar in London in the 60s.
Now that Peki had become Amanda, I wasn't interested anymore, but other people were - Amanda's new companion was Salvador Dali. From there she went on to have several disco hits, had an affair with David Bowie, got engaged to Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music (and appeared on the cover of their album, For Your Pleasure), then married a French aristocrat, Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele, who had been the teenage lover of writer Roger Peyrefitte. Her husband died in 2000, so at 60-years-old Amanda has now gone back to making records. Talk about never give up. All together she's released 56 singles and 18 albums. She's always denied her sex-change past and says she just happened to be born with a baritone voice. Never mind - she still looks brilliant – probably due to her Chinese mother (she was born in Hong Kong). But I still prefer to remember her as Peki from the Gigolo. There you are! That’s today’s three minutes of trivia.
SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2007
From Elizabeth Ashton, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Dear Simon, you seem to be in such a bad mood these last few days yet you have all those uplifting songs that Wendy and I sent which would change everything for you if you'd just give them a chance. Never forget, please, that God is patient. When you're ready, he'll be there. If you like we could send you some new recordings. MP3s OK?
Elizabeth, fancy an email from you putting me in a good mood, but somehow it has. It's amazing how tenacious you and Wendy are in pursuing my conversion. To be honest, I'm not sure if the conversion you're after is for me to find God, or for me (or anyone else for that matter) to find talent in your songs. Both equally unlikely I'd have thought. I don't know what it is about Terre Haute, I had another email from there a few days discussing Anne Coulter. It's sounds a challenging place to live, the more so for you two being there. Don't bother with the MP3s, you've sent enough already. Salvation Rock isn't my scene, but if God one day decides to be merciful and turn you into junkie lesbians I promise to give your music another listen.
SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 2007
From Jig D, London, UK
the kaiser chiefs are number one and UR nowhere... go back to the 60s you fat meg
Hi Jig. Your arguments in favour of the Kaiser Chiefs are impressive. It's always good to have eloquence and intellect brought to bear on these matters, especially when coupled with brevity. Have you thought of a career in PR?
FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 2007
From Steve Berenson, Vancouver, Canada
Hi Simon. Just yesterday I was listening to the Kaiser Chiefs who are currently number one in the UK – and I was thinking, they’re so big, and everyone says their lyrics are so good and all that, but really there’s nothing about their sound that’s NEW. Nor about their lyrics. Nor about anything in all the other pop and rock records I hear these days. And I started thinking – was there ever anything really new?
There was! What Elvis did, what the Beatles did, what the Rolling Stones did. All of them new both musically and image-wise.
Also, big stadium rock in the 70s was new – huge rock tours in processions of limousines, hotel wrecking and massive drug taking, living in groupie paradise.
I’m not sure it’s possible to be truly new again, not as a pop or rock group, not as a recording in any format we know. If anything really new happens in music it's going to be video based, or ringtone based, or perhaps consumer based. Maybe everyone will have their own Personal Surroundsound Hologram Walkman – projecting their own choice of images and music in the air above their heads as they walk round town.
Maybe there'll be gang hologram clashes - like break dancing contests - intimidating each other with an ever more incredible flow of image and music in combination. Gang members co-ordinating to blank out their rivals with a hundred holograms in sync.
Beats the Kaiser Chief's pathetic lyrics, doesn't it - "due to lack of interest, tomorrow is cancelled." Oh, please! Hopefully so is their next album
THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
hi simon… its funny how the rudest people with the most vitriol are often the kindest souls at the end of the day. i had a christmas dinner with marcia faulkender once… it was round at the late stewart stevens’ house in chiswick… an ex-editor of the mail on sunday... i was alone in london and they took pity on me and invited me over for food... marcia sat beside me all evening just talking about northern ireland… full of questions with no airs or graces... a really cool lady... and yet you could meet people who'd never use the word cunt in their whole lives and actually be that very thing.
All the more so, I would suggest, for their failure to use such a splendid word.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007
From Jon Lindsay, Sydney, Australia
Simon, re all those stories about dear old Jack Wolfe. I stayed with him for weeks at a time in Chenye Walk and had to drive Jack everywhere as he was always being banned for DUI. Once at one of his court apearances we had to drag him out of the next court where he had gone to watch the head of the National Front up on some charge because he fancied all the skinheads who accompanied the bloke. Another time he had a dinner party with the charming Mark McCormack who brought a handsome young German boy who upset Jack with some anti-Semetic remark and Jack hurled his shoe at him which hit me in the head. Jack then picked up a poker and chased the boy down the staircase screaming obscenities at the poor lad who cowered on the first landing. At that moment a door opened and Jack's neighbour Lord Weidenfeld ushered out his dinner guest, ex-PM Harold Wilson. "Good evening Jack," he said calmly and they both just walked down the stairs. It was never dull with Jack Wolfe.
Pleasant man, Lord Weidenfeld; I bumped into him several times during my stay at Jack's flat. I can't say I liked Harold Wilson though - pompous, self-important and humourless. Wilson's private secretary, Joe Haines (the Alistair Campbell of that time) recalled the extraordinary way the Prime Minister put up with abuse from his personal secretary. In front of other people, she called him both "you silly little man" and "you little cunt!"
He then promoted her to the house of Lords, making her Lady Faulkender.
TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 2007
From Joey Sanden, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Hi Simon. What do you think of all this fuss about journalist Anne Coulter calling Democratic presidential candidtate John Edwards a fag? Amazing really – everyone from leftish Democrats to rightish Republicans have denounced it as a hateful thing to say. Aren’t they being homophobic?
You’re dead right they are. If I thought John Edwards was a fag, I’d be behind him becoming the Democratic candidate. If Anne Coulter had said he was black, no-one would have said she was hateful, they’d have just said she was nuts. Everyone who has denounced Anne Coulter for insulting John Edwards should go on the homophobes register. Calling someone a fag isn’t hateful. It’s not even insulting. It’s either true or false.
MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2007
From Alan Burstein, Santa Monica, California, USA
hey simon... seems weve at last found something that upsets you as much as religion... record companies... but listen man enoughs enough... three days of ranting on and were all bored... so can you please get back to sex or food or even religion
OK, I'll go for religion. My friend Bobbi Marchini sent me an article about the moron Christian Right in opposing vaccinaton against cervical cancer. A quote...
If as a parent you're so obsessed with abstinence you'd risk your kid's health, there's a word for what you are. It's not "follower of Christ." It's not "moral." It's not "Christian." Just admit it - you hate sex. The Family Research Council says giving girls the vaccine is bad, because the girls "may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." Which is really a stretch. People don't get the vaccine for typhoid and say, "Great, now I can drink the sewer water in Bombay."
Full piece is here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/03/02/hpv/
SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2007
From Shaun Deedes, Manchester, UK
Hi Simon. I read Tom Robinson's piece about the amount record companies are taking from their artists for downloaded singles. It does seem high but surely it's in line with the proportion of the total income that they've always taken? Anyway, you must admit its a big improvement that the Top Fifty can now include legal downloads.
The Top 50 will never mean anything while it's just a tool of the record companies. It should stop being the Top 50 best-selling songs and become the Top 50 most popular songs. At the moment, if a singer puts a track on his website that can be downloaded free, and it becomes the most popular song in the world bar none, it won't he listed in the Top 50 unless he agrees to make people pay for it. 'Legal downloads' doesn't really mean what it says, it simply means all downloads commercially approved by those who run the record business, the BPI (the British Phonograph Industry). The same people who for fifty years have made a killing selling vinyl at distorted prices now want to control downloads.
It's like oil companies being given a monopoly on selling electricity for electric cars.
SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2007
From Aidan Elliot, London, UK
Hi Simon. Seems from yesterday’s posting you still hate record companies. What on earth is it about them that gets you so upset? Surely every success you’ve had in your career has been through forging a good relationship with one or another of them and getting promotion from them to make your act a success. Can’t you even credit them with that?
Not really! I still stand by what I said in 1982 when I wrote You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me..........
“Whether you’re a record producer or an artist or a manager, record companies are the enemy. They’re the voice of gloom. A barrier between enthusiastic creativity and the waiting public. Record companies always play safe, lose faith, change their minds and hesitate. They’re rest homes for the mentally sluggish. They’re over-staffed. They’re out to lunch. They’re in a meeting. Beating about the bush. Avoiding decisions, and deadlines, and phone calls. Ninety-thousand-a-year executives asking the messenger boy his opinion because, after all, it’s the kids in the street who buy the records, isn’t it?”
All the major record companies are still the same, even in this download age. Still stealing money from everyone in the industry who is creative. See Tom Robinson’s great piece in the Guardian today. But soon they’ll be gone. Like the end of segregation in America’s southern states, like the end of apartheid in South Africa, like the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, like marriage rights for gays – another of the great things that will have happened during my lifetime. No more record companies!
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2007
From James Addison, London, UK
Hi Simon. I got my monthly copy of Record Collector this month and found an excerpt – a huge excerpt, more than a 100 pages – from your book Black Vinyl White Powder. I can’t think why I never bought it before. It's SO good. I whizzed through the 100 pages they gave in the magazine then whizzed down to Waterstones to buy the real thing. One thing I want to ask. In the last chapter you forecast (quite correctly it seems) that everything will go electronic and digital and records will die out, but that drugs will stick around. The phrase you use is – “Black vinyl may have gone. White powder seems here to stay.” Do you still stand by that?
In both Britain and America CD sales this year are down 20% on last year which was 25% down on the year before which was 18% down on the year before that. In Britain HM Customs & Excise estimated cocaine usage to have doubled in the last year with an eight-fold increase in the number of cocaine related deaths. In the USA the figures are similar. So there you are… prophet Napier-Bell. Next thing will be the complete demise and obliteration of all the major record companies. Wonderful! The great things that happen in one’s lifetime!!
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2007
From Sir Harry Cowell, Kingston, Surrey, UK
Sorry to tell you that one of your old haunts from the 60’s just burnt down....Chez Victor...is no longer. Hope you are feeling better. Pissing down here.
Chez Victor! I first ate there with my dad and Karel Reisz when I was sixteen. It was the first time I'd ever had snails, a little stew of them done in Pernod. Ever since the 30s it had been THE place for film people to eat, the one true French bistro in Soho. And it had that wonderful sign on the door which gave it Parisienne credibility, 'Le Patron Mange Ici'. Grumpy old sod he was too, always sat behind the door, scowling. At some time or other every well-known British film person ate there - stars, directors, producers, the lot - but however famous they were they could never get a smile out of old Victor. If they got one they talked about it for weeks - it was better than a rave review from Alexander Walker in the Evening Standard. Last time I went there was a couple of years ago. It had become Italian and Le Patron had long been six feet under. But despite pizza and pasta and tirimasu they still called the place Chez Victor. Ridiculous! Would a French restaurant call itself Trattoria Vittorio?
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2007
From Jon Lindsay, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Hope you have recovered from your operation! We are now looking at May (if you are available) and the Bobby Goldsmith people are very excited and relieved we held off from the Mardi Gras as they unebelievably flat out. I caught up with Rupert Everett last night (see pic below) and passed on you regards as I know you would have wanted. "How amusing," he said with an odd look on his face! He's going to be the ‘Mardi Gras Ambassador’ and ride in an open limo at the head of the parade. Or as he puts it… "like JFK without the assassination". What fun!
Hi Jon. I'm almost recovered, thanks, and May should be fine.
Looks like Rupert was having a pretty good time, and so he should. He’s the perfect ‘Mardi Gras Ambassador'. Still the only Hollywood leading man ever with the courage to come out. I hope you fill his limo with booze and boys in equal quantity. But the comment having been made, you’d better not drive him past any deserted wharehouses.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2007
From Andrew Loog Oldham, Bogota, Columbia
lou adler said to me a few years ago, "how on earth did we think we knew anything?” were we that stupid? he fell for david platz with the mamas & papas. freddy b at least said i'll only do a 50/50 deal. platz agreed to an 80/20 with 15% abroad, except on covers where we allowed him 50/50, as we (mick, keith and i) felt like benevolent publishers. what we did not know , and platz did, was that once he had one cover he had 50% of the copyright including 50% on the stones’ version. so he had a little studio in paris churning out covers on the stones and thereby got the lot. the last of the manicured, pipe smoking makeovers. died an awful vegetative death.
David Platz? He screwed everybody. He probably didn’t know he was screwing people, he just thought that’s what music publishing was about. He always did it with a smarmy smile. He spoke like a vicar - one of those soft leary voices - you almost expected to feel a creepy hand descend on your thigh. Freddy B was certainly no vicar, but I never had one of his lunches. The thing was, all those creepy publishers had a head start on us managers and all the other new record people - they'd been at it for a hundred years already - stealing with great panache. I later did a deal with Dick James. Worse than either of the other two. But the REALLY bad people where in the States. The likes of Mike Stewart and Murray Deutsch at United Artists - the epitome of everything that was wrong with the old-fashioned American publishing business from where the likes of David Platz learnt their thieving craft.
Us young managers knew nothing about publishing and we were led to believe it was a huge complicated maize of knowledge which required us to put it in other people's hands, when the truth was, a week's good tuition would have given us all there was to know. But we were sloppy. Anti-detail, all of us. Still am, to be honest. I don't really care about being fucked by people, if that's what they want to do. Most of them come to a bad end anyway, so there's no point wasting time being vindictive. Like David Katz's 'slow vegetative death'. I'm glad about that. He deserved it. And he got it without me having to use a lawyer. Excellent.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007
From Steve Ellis, London, UK
Hi Simon. I just caught up with your last week’s emails and saw the bit about masturbating Jack Wolfe’s two cats before guests arrived for dinner. Funnily enough, I once rented Jack’s flat on the same basis – my friend and I had to walk the dogs and look after the cats. (Jack rented his flat most summers and spent the proceeds going to the races at Longchamps in Paris). Anyway… here is a picture of those two rampant sex-mad cats during the three weeks of each month when they calmed down. Difficult to believe it’s the same animals, isn’t it?
Hi Steve. All I can remember of them is two backwards-walking felines, tails in the air, festering with vaginal wetness, searching for human legs to rub up against. They were insatiable and I don’t remember any quiet part of the month. To get them looking so docile you must have used a kilo of cucumbers on each.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2007
From Bob Wellings, Dover, UK
hello simon napier bell... i bashed into your car last year in twickenham... remember??? it was probably my fault but you didnt seem too worried... i thought what a bit of luck bashing into someone who dont make too much fuss... quite a nice bloke i thought... but recently i came across your website and learnt youre just a big poofter windbag....
Well thanks, Mr Wellings. Just the sort of email one wants to receive first thing on a nice sunny morning. Sort of sets the day up just right, doesn’t it! You'll be pleased to know that since you sound such a nice chap I’ve forwarded your email address to a dozen major spammers each of whom guarantee to get around a thousand email ads a day through all known spam blockades and into your actual inbox.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2007
From Sealie Jones, Trenton, New Jersey, USA
hi simon. i’m in a new band called ‘god sucks’… we love your website and read it often… we’re atheists but we're activists too and notice you never touch on politics… in particular you never mention the war on terror and all that stuff… i mean… you must have a point of view… you can’t just talk about sex and music and food all the time… what about torture? what about all the bombings in baghdad? what about iran?
Iran? I haven’t been there for a while. The last time was in the 60s when it was run by Shah Pahlavi. Tehran had the prettiest belly dancers, the best boy brothels and the only good French restaurants in the Middle East. I suspect these days it’s not up to the same standard.
Besides, gays get hung, so it seems best to stay clear.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2007
From Sammy Nguyen, Paris, France
Hello Mister Simon. I read your Eating Out column and find a review of Brasserie Lipp which you say you eat there with Fred LeClerc. Now I introduce myself, I was good friend of Mister Fred too. Unfortunate he die last year which probably you were not inform. Here is the good story of Fred dying. He was cancer for two years and in the end they come to take him to hospital but Fred refuse, he want to stay home. He was go downhill fast so we took him for one last lunch, not at Lipp but at Gard du Nord brasserie which is Fred's another favourite place. With lunch he drunk too much then come home and take four Viagra. He said he want to die with an erection but one hour later he die with a heart attack. Before he die he wrote a letter “put me in my best suit with flies buttons open and hard dick sticking out”. We can not find the funeral shop who will do this so Fred’s last wish is cancel. Afterwards everyone has a good party for him so I thought you like to know.
Hi Sammy. There's not much I can add to that. Thanks for such a beautiful story. It’s good to know Fred died amongst friends.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2007
From Charlie Shoals, London, UK
Simon - re your deliberately provocative comment the other day opting for the melting of polar ice-caps and resulting worldwide flooding here's a map that shows what the result of a complete meltdown would be… it would mean a rise in the world’s oceans of 100 metres…
Looks good to me. Less land, less people, but all on a healthy diet of fish from the bigger oceans. And it appears to get rid of the religious right in the southern US. I’m getting quite excited about the idea. Any chance of moving the date forward?
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2007
From Janie Sayer, Birmingham, UK
How can someone like you, who is such fun and so much likes good living, be so negative about doing something positive for the world? Surely you must be able to see how man continually makes progress despite all the obstacles. For one thing look at the current acceptance of gays - or blacks, or Jews. When you were born that sort of acceptance was unthinkable. Doesn’t that at least please you?
Not particularly. I preferred being an outsider. I’m comfortable with gay-bashing. And when the law’s not intervening it still goes on. People either have that particular prejudice or they don’t. It’s true that gays and Jews and blacks are now seen as part of mainstream society but once they’ve finally been fully assimilated life won’t change one jot. Do-gooders will look for new minorities on the fringes of society to incorporate into the respectable mainstream - prostitutes, perhaps, or paedophiles - strange people from other planets, robots or the higher apes. Similarly, the do-badders will protest vehemently against their incorporation and say it means the end of civilized society as we know it. That’s the requirement for happy living - plenty of good, a bit of bad, nothing perfect, always a problem to keep our minds busy. You can work hard for it or against it, but I prefer to sit and watch the world go by like a good movie. Preferably with some good wine and someone nice to snuggle with.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2007
From Dan Starr, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
man… that was such a silly reply… simplistic and bad-tempered… like some sort of gay facist.
Bad-tempered and simplistic, maybe, but not wrong. Whatever we do, the world is going to outlive us. One hundred million years from now it will just be a big uninhabitable rock with mankind long gone. This whole ‘save the world’ thing is a totally straight thing - it's so man-egotistical. What these people really mean is ‘save me’ (and my precious children). Why can't they accept melting icecaps, rising oceans and massive flooding? If there’s a billion or so deaths, what’s the big deal? Change is exciting. The people who are left will soon adjust and propser. They may even give up overbreeding. Great! Away with the icecaps and roll on the flooding.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2007
Archie Symonds, Rhode Island, USA
Listen Simon, I like your style and I like your openess about being gay and not giving a shit about living the way you want, but I’d like to ask you just one thing about gay people. I look at all the people in the world today doing something positive about pollution or making the world more eco-friendly or working for Greenpeace or a new Kyoto agreement, and there seem to be no known gays involved in these things. If gays want to be totally accepted by straights, shouldn’t they be doing their equal share in helping make the world a better, cleaner place? Like you for instance, for all your big opinions, I've never heard you mention a word about it.
Dumbest question I ever heard. And anyone gay would agree. There’s only one problem with the world that causes the problems you’re talking about and it’s not too many cars, or too much heavy industry, or too many gas-emitting sheep and cattle in New Zealand and Wyoming and Texas. It’s too many people. Without them none these things would exist. So…
Until you stupid, dumb, blind, ignorant, selfish, straight bastards start putting condoms on the end of your willies whenever you fuck, the world will continue to deteriorate.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2007
From Phil Whelan, RTHK radio, Hong Kong
Hiya Simon. Just sitting here, on air, pissing myself laughing at the wanking cat story. So funny, the mental image of you and Allan whacking off your friend's felines. Just read out the link to your site on air... bit of culture for the crusties on a Friday morning. I'm going to be 40 today and not quite sure how to deal with it. Any pearls of wisdom?
In order of importance – alcohol, dinner with someone worth talking to, and sex. I can’t remember my 20th birthday, but from my 30th through to my 60th that was the order of the day. And with regards to sex… the period from 30 to 40 (when, as you've now learnt, I was reduced to masturbating cats) was not nearly as good from 40 to 50 which were the years I had the most and enjoyed it the best - so you’ve got it all in front of you. (Whatever you do, though, don’t have your dinner at that dreadful Indian place you took me to last time I was in Hong Kong.) Happy birthday.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2007
From Jackie Sales, Birmingham, UK
Hello Simon. I just got back from a business trip to the Far East with my boyfriend. Before we went we’d been reading your ‘eating out’ section and decided to stay at the Oriental Hotel which you seem to like so much. We were disappointed. We got a very good discount price from our tour operator, but still it didn’t seem good value compared with say, the Hyatt in Hong Kong where we stayed a few days later.
You silly cow. The Oriental’s not for staying in cheap rooms at package tour rates. You’re meant to be in the Somerset Maugham suite in the author’s wing, or one of one of the special suites on the 16th floor of the new wing, or my favourite, the Barbara Cartland suite, done out in lilac. If you think the hotel isn’t much good, try calling down to reception at three in the morning - explain you’ve got a few of friends with you and you’d like a late night snack in your suite - foie gras, pheasant-under-the-glass, a saddle of lamb, Crystal Champagne, Mouton Rothschild 95, “and a couple of butlers to serve us, please.” Then you’ll find out if you’re in a good hotel or not.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2007
From Jules Esteve, Oakland, California, USA
Hi Simon. I was looking through your CV and saw a pitcture of you with a large dog on a bridge, entitled, “Me with Jack Wolfe’s dog.” I knew Jack Wolfe in the 70s. Was that the dog which could count?
It certainly was. In the days when we were living in Paris, Allan Soh and I came to London for three months one summer and rented Jack's flat from him. The deal was, we would pay half the current rental but look after his two dogs and two cats. One of the dogs was the Great Dane in the picture. And it could count. Jack demonstrated this to me before he left us with it. Anything from one to ten, plus or minus. I thought Jack was doing it by blinking at the dog, telling it when to bark, but not so. I looked after the dog for three months and anytime I sat it down and asked “two plus seven” or “eight minus three”, it barked out the right answer. Amazing. But a difficult dog nevertheless. It liked to jump on top of pillar boxes and then terrify the next passer-by by barking from above his head. The dog wasn’t malicious. It just liked a good laugh.
More problematic were Jack’s two cats, both females. They were wildly oversexed and whenever we had guests they would back up on their legs and wank themselves off leaving slimy deposits on the guests trousers. To avoid this happening, whenever we gave dinner parties, Allan and I would sculpt slithers of cucumber into small penises and offer the cats masturbation in the kitchen before the guests came.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2007
From Andrew Loog Oldham, Bogota, Columbia
looked over your site and was surprised to learn that you too had an early innings of rich schools, poor schools.... my darkest moment was being caught in the loo at marylebone grammer school and being forced to sing "the man from laramie". the jimmy young version, i'm afraid, not the one that appeared in the film. a joyous moment last year was going back to the farmer's public school i attended (wellingborough ) to open the new music wing. plaque and everything. as the grounds are intact regardless of the school having shifted from boys, to mixed to just day school, esther thought she was at buckingham palace. hoots of former prettiness as old codgers shook my hand and told me they'd been in the chorus with me in HMS pinnafore. in any event i have my plaque, fuck the blue one.
Rich schools - poor schools - the lot. At 5 I was sent to a posh prep school and at 7 to the toughest local primary where I got beaten up for speaking with the wrong accent. At 9 I was sent back to another posh prep school and got bulllied all over again for sounding common. At 11 I was sent to grammar school where I first got teased for sounding to posh, then (when I reverted to the common accent I'd learnt at primary school) for sounding too common. (This was Harrow County grammar where Michael Portillo went later.) I had to sort out a new middle-ground accent but just as I’d got it right I was shipped off to public shool (Bryanston) where my voice sounded wrong all over again.
For years after I left school I could never speak to anyone without immediately assimilating their accent - just self-defence I suppose.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2007
From Alex Michaelides, Singapore
Simon. Give Amyra a break. She is who she is and nothing worse than that. God knows, as her brother I’ve been annoyed by her often enough, as we all have, but she doesn’t deserve such excessive abuse.
Yes she does. But since half your family and most of Amyra's ex-husbands have written to me complaining I shall solve the problem by adding her to my spam list so that in future her emails will be automatically deleted. As she herself ought to be.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007
From Amyra Michaelides, Hong Kong
Hello Simon. I noticed on your website that you were recently about to have surgery so I thought this would be a good moment to let you know that although you have written to me dismissively in the past I really do believe you did so in haste and without intending your words to be hurtful. Your friend Amyra.
You STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPID WOMAN !! You're NOT my friend. You're an insufferable intruder.
I knew you’d eventually find some way of persuading yourself that the contents of my last email were not meant. But they were. I didn’t write to you in haste but with careful consideration. Here - read it again...
You're the most suffocating, intrusive, interfering, fag-hagging hussey in the world.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2007
From Dennis Sheer, Seoul, Korea
Hi Simon. Sitting round the Lotte hotel here in Seoul with far too much spare time between meetings, I found some books in English in the bar. One was a biography of Margaret Duchess of Argyle. Not very exciting - I mean not as exciting as it should have been for someone who's divorce involved the jury being shown pictures of the aristocracy having sex with dogs. But there was one great photo in the book, and it was of you. With her! Strange thing is, it said you were someone else, can’t remember who, but the photo was you in a white suit arm-in-arm with the Duchess. You can imagine how bored I am if that’s the most exciting thing I’ve got to report after five days.
Hi Dennis. No-one can pretend that Seoul in winter is anything but boring, except of course cold. But I bet it warmed you right through to come across such a lovely picture. Me in a white suit with the duchess – I remember it well - we were coming out of the Caprice on a summer’s evening in the 80s and the idiot photographer who snapped it thought I was an American banker and filed it under the wrong name. For months afterwards, everytime the banker pulled off some sharp new deal, my picture (carefully parted down the middle to leave out the duchess) kept turning up in the financial pages. My friends thought I’d taken on an alias and was scamming the city of millions so in the end I took legal action to stop the picture being used. The banker (as ugly as a wart-hog) was disappointed. He’d been enjoying his new good-looking image.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2007
From Angie Sandrieu, Paris, France
Hi Simon. We met in Morocco when you were there on holiday many many years ago. I was working as a production secretary with a French film unit in a small town at the edge of the Sahara and you turned up in a big American convertible with an English film director and joined us for dinner. Remember? Well probably not. After all, it was 1964 – but you gave me your name card. Now I’m retired and I’ve got boxes and boxes of name cards going back forty years so I bought a computer programme which scans the cards and searches the names on the web. Your name came up - isn’t that amazing. Do you remember any of this?
I’m sorry Angie, I don’t remember you at all. But I remember the event. Clive Donner had just finished directing ‘What’s New Pussycat’ on which I worked as music editor. Midway through December we took off together for a holiday in Morroco. In Tangier, we persuaded Peter Churchill to rent us his white Buick convertible. We put the hood down and drove all the way south - stopped for two days at the Mamounia in Marakech, then went over the Atlas mountains and into the desert. Finally (very sunburnt indeed), we arrived at the last little town before the Sahara. And having come all that way to get away from a year of film-making, there was a film crew. You lot! With Omar Sharif starring, I seem to remember.
The next day, like complete idiots Clive and I drove off into the Sahara (in an American convertible for goodness sake, with the hood down) and got hopelessly stuck. We were quite fortunate to be rescued and only managed to stay out of the sun because in the middle of endless sand we came across a concrete pill box from the 2nd World War. Inside we found graffiti in both German and English the most memorable inscription being “Fatima’s a good fuck!”
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2007
From Iain Cooper, Dubai
Hi Simon. Did you hear about that poor Malay Chinese guy who found out that he had been handed to the wrong parents at birth. They were Muslim. His real family are not. He has now found his real parents and is applying through Sharia court in KL to be allowed to leave the faith. What hope for democracy in the Muslim world if a court has to decide for you which god you can worship! God is, indeed, great.
When potential expats look at the tempting financial plan the Malaysian government offers retirees (seemingly a good deal compared, for instance, with what Thailand offers), let's hope they realise they’re simply being bribed to support a facist theocracy. In the northern Malay state of Kelantan, apostasy (changing you religion), is punished by death. The strange thing is, since Muslims believe in ‘life after death’, changing their religion to something else should logically lead to ‘death after death’, which you’d have thought (providing they really believed in all this crap) would be punishment enough.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2007
From Tim Gee, London, UK
Hello Simon! As our post lady battled through the snow to deliver to-day's mail I thought you ought to have it as soon as possible. Such envelopes as have arrived for you and Yo recently have been singularly uninteresting. It seemed this one might contain a cheque but no such luck. Just a bill (scanned and attached). No mowing of corn to-day.
Incidentally an American friend (straight, so he maintains) has asked if he can have the use of my spare room between March 25th and April 2nd. I have said yes provided you do not need it. I hope this is OK.
Hi Tim. Thanks for your prompt forwarding of my accountant's bill. Of course your American friend can use your spare room. I suspect I shall not be over for a while. This weekend I'm off to hospital in Bangkok to have my prostate removed. Last weekend I had my eyes lasered. Next weekend, who knows, probably coffin-measurement. I shall keep you informed.
THURSDAY, FEBURARY 8, 2007
From Susan Allerton, Plymouth, Devon
simon, my dear, we’re looking for rock memorabilia to auction for a local charity… the money goes to under-priviledged children… have you got things we could use? did any of your artists ever leave you with anything?
Legal aggravations, unwanted bills, occasionally a little affection, sometimes a few royalties, but nothing you could auction. Anyway I never keep ‘things’. Not even things I ought to keep. I even erase computer files for no other reason than I hate accumulation. Which is probably why I write – throw it all out of my brain like spring cleaning. I'll autograph some books for you if it will help.
WEDNESDAY, FEBURARY 7, 2007
From Richard Cranford-Brooke, Toronto, Canada
Hello Simon. You'll remember I wrote to you a year ago explaining that at the ripe old age of 67 I was embarking on a career in show-business - political stand-up in drag - Angela Merkel, Cherie Blair, that sort of thing. You asked me to let you know how things went so I'm here to tell you that as a comedian I was was no great success. However I now have excellent work as a financial consultant. The funny thing is, how I got the job. I was doing a sketch as Hillary Clinton talking about the cost of keeping house for her and Bill. Afterwards someone in the audience approached me and said it sounded like I knew what I was talking about when it came to fiscal matters. Turned out he was a closet drag queen working in the finance department of a major plc. He needed advice on the very things in which I was most experienced - so there you are - I'm back in work.
Hi Richard. You've not made yourself clear. Are you advising him on make-up or on finance? Or is it perhaps the cost of make-up? Anyway, whatever it is, it's good to know you're back working.
TUESDAY, FEBURARY 6, 2007
From Eric Sellens, Manchester, UK
Hi Simon. How are you today? Warm I hope. It's frrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeezing here!!
I read in the local paper that someone from Manchester Grammar (4 years above me when I was there eight years ago) has just auditioned for and been put through to the next round of American Idol! He's called Tom Lowe. He just recently graduated from Harvard which explains why he's in the States. Also, he’s gay.
It'll be interesting to see if he keeps it quiet!
Well, he might, but obviously you won’t. Which is a good thing really. It would be nice to see Americans choose someone they actually knew was gay. But it won’t happen. America just isn’t ready for a gay idol, though in the past they’ve had many – James Dean, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson, etc. But never knowingly - and these days American stars seem more coy than ever about coming out. Anyway, now you’ve let everyone know he’s gay, let’s see if America goes for it. Good luck Tom!
MONDAY, FEBURARY 5, 2007
From Tracy, DirtE Records, London, UK
bloody hell simon... just logged on to your blog. all this anti london music vitriol. whats a young lady to think? and yes you deserve a good mauling... russ (who is neither strange or boring) has got 4 monitor mixes for you of paul's (chauffeur driven aviator) new songs so feedback on those would be great. just got a very big radio plugger on board for the the 'strap it on' so shall be interesting to see how the single does in this nasty little dead end of a country!! will keep you posted. lots of love and cold kisses. xx
Hi Tracy. I knew I'd be in trouble with you as soon as I'd written it. But there was Bee complaining about a cold damp winter in London - and here was me having lunch on the terrace of the Royal Cliff Hotel overlooking a sparkling blue sea under a cloudless sky, temperature in the mid-70s - and all I could think of was those awful people at the major record companies who prevaricate and play-safe and go back on their promises. Everything I've ever done in the British music business that's given me a real kick has been through small companies but what tends to stick in mind is the awful negativity you meet every time you have to deal with a major record company. I should have prefaced the whole thing by defining who I was talking about, and of course it was NOT YOU. If only I could do British music business summers only and never through the majors. (By the way, d'you mind if I forego the cold kisses and wait for some hot ones later in the year?)
SUNDAY, FEBURARY 4, 2007
From Beee Futon, Singapore ( home to Bangkok tomorrow
Hiya !!!! You are gonna love Russ (Junkscientist) he's a complete darling! In fact lunch in Patty with you both
would be such a pleasure that I am gonna be presumptuous and gatecrash!
UK shows were a blast but that country is too cold to live in unless you're into flakey-pastry-skin and furs! Futon album mixes are cooking nicely... sent you a track about torture (add your own victim and enjoy). Hugzzzzzz XX
Back already? Only last week I read a full page article in the Bangkok Post saying Futon had taken over the world and would never be seen in Thailand again. About the last part, I wasn't too happy; about the first, delighted. But then I read another piece that told the truth - you'd simply played a few of those seedy London clubs where groups who want to make it in the UK are officially required to test their mettle (like having to spend a year in those awful immigrant camps in the outback if you want to live in Australia). You know my feelings when it comes to the UK music business - give it a big miss. Nowadays it's become a nasty little dead-end. Futon should blossom first in France and Tokyo, then straight to California, each stage giving its own reward - good food, good clothes, good weather. In the UK all you'll get is a good mauling from a bunch of snooty critics.
Oh dear, now I'm going to get my own personal mauling from Tracy at DirtE, but it's difficult not to tell the truth. Just thinking of the British music business is as depressing as... Well actually, I can't think of anything else as depressing!
By all means gatecrash my lunch with your strange Junk Scientist person.
I'll think of it as lunch with you, with him doing the gatecrashing.
SATURDAY, FEBURARY 3, 2007
From Tracy, DirtE Records, London
hello simon, hope this finds you fighting fit. couple of things... firstly futon single 'strap it on' gonna be released mar 19... secondly our lovely producer russ (junkscientist) is gonna be in pattaya from 5th - 14th feb (he's then returning to bangkok to finish mixing the futon album). he says he'd love to meet up with you for a drink. he's a very sweet guy so can i give him you're email?
i appreciate if you're not up for it (but he is cute!!) xx
Tracy, surely you know - one man's cute is another man's poison. It's not for everyone I'll undertake these social drinking duties, but for you...
I hope he's amusing. If not, I have someone unbelievably boring in mind to dump on you by way of reciprocation.
FRIDAY, FEBURARY 2, 2007
From Jim Lynford, Manchester, UK
hi simon... got a question… which of the artists you ever managed, if he turned up on your doorstep and said let’s go and have dinner together, would you most enjoy chatting with??
Difficult. If you take away the business element artists become less interesting to spend time with. The trouble is, they’re mostly self-obsessed, which makes them a trifle boring. The only artist I ever managed and still stay friends with is Duncan Millar from Blue Mercedes.
Jeff Beck is always a pleasure to bump into but eventually gets round to the mind-numbing subject of cars. Jeff Downes of Asia has a broader view of things than most artists, and so does Chris Townson who played drums with John’s Children, or if I felt like discussing the world from a more esoteric viewpoint, perhaps David Sylvian.
Marc Bolan might be amusing, but because he’s been dead so long he wouldn’t know much about what’s going on, which could prove a bit of a downer. Any chance I could side-step this dinner altogether?
If not, perhaps we could change it to managers. Now there’s an interesting bunch of people! Worth dining out with, every one of them.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2007
From Richard Macauley, Norfolk, UK
Hello my dear. Re ‘The Scotch of St James’, not a lot to report I'm afraid. My current pursuits (excluding olde tyme hand-jiving at Fakenham Bingo Club) are… accumulating vast quantities of books and "Record Mirrors"… trying to trace the manager of the club at the time… e-mailing infamous people as well as ex-managers to glean bits and pieces or even more. I suppose this accumulating of stuff will end at some point and then I can begin to shape it. I'm still trying to think of some intelligent questions to ask you. Any ideas?
What a strange obsession you’ve got hooked on. On the other hand, with old-people’s hand-dancing at the Bingo Club as your best other option, I suppose I understand. You never quite explained what you were going to turn all this information into once you’d got hold of it. A TV documentary? A magazine article? A blockbuster novel? As for questions to ask me…
Well obviously you want to know good Scotch of St James stories. There were so many. With me, many revolved around Robert Stigwood. We had a volatile relationship. We would have dinner with each other three days in a row, then have a blazing quarrel. One night at the Scotch, with both of us blind drunk, I said something that offended him dreadfully – I’m not sure what, probably about his awful hairstyle or the inferior quality of the boy he’d just picked up. He flew into a pompous rage and called Louis Brown, the owner of the club, and insisted I was thrown out. Poor Louis – two of his best-spending customers.
Stiggy somehow got the upper hand and Louis took me aside and suggested I leave. It was around 1.30am and I was double-plastered. The week before I’d been threatened by a thug working for a rival manager so I’d bought myself a mace-gun by mail order from America. It had arrived just that day and as I staggered home down St James Street and along The Mall towards Victoria where I lived I pulled it out of my pocket and pretended I was shooting Stiggy. “You fuckin’ pompous tosser. You loud-mouth Aussie git. You ancient balding bastard.” And with each muttered phrase I pointed it left and right and pretended to fire it. All of a sudden a huge figure stepped out of the shadows and without meaning to I flipped my hand up and fired the mace gun in the bloke’s face. Then realised it was a policeman.
Fuck me, did I ever run home fast - down the Mall, across the park, over the main road (almost crushed by a speeding lorry), through the lobby of my building and plonk into the lift. I must have done half a mile in ninety seconds. Eat your heart out Sebastian Coe.
The next morning I wouldn’t leave the flat till a friend had bought me all the newspapers and I’d scoured them from end to end. There were no reports of a policeman having been maced so eventually I got up enough courage to go to the office. As soon as I got there the phone rang and it was Stiggy. “What happened to you last night. I thought we were going on to the 21 club but you disappeared.” “You had me thrown out, you bastard,” I shouted at him. But he couldn’t remember a single thing about it. “Dinner tonight, then?” he asked. “How about the Connaught?”
Strange relationship. But I suppose we quite liked each other.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007
From Chris Mosey, London, UK
Hey Simon – what d’you think of poor old Michael Levy getting arrested again? Looks like they’ve really got it in for him. I remember the days when he used to sit up at Magnet Records and harang anyone who took in a demo tape as if he was the biggest mogul in the world. I can’t say I feel sorry for him. What about you?
No feeling either way. When Michael was spouting off, it could be thirty minutes or so before anyone else could get a word in edgeways, but whether that’s grounds for arrest or not, I’m not sure. Still, it’s the same old thing we saw with Watergate, with Monica Lewinsky, and now with Tony Blair. If, when he’d been asked about an affair with Lewinsky, Bill Clinton had said, “Sure, we’re having an affair, but it’s none of your business,” he would never have been impeached. And if Tony Blair had said to the police - “everyone in Britain knows that honours are given for donating to political parties, that’s how it’s always been and that’s what we’re doing too” - the police case would have closed the next day, replaced by a debate on the subject in Parliament.
These people just love lying. And look at them - religionists every one. ‘Cos they think they’ve got God on their side they try to bluff their way out of it. If they knew they hadn’t, perhaps they’d act more sensibly.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2007
From Alan Geraint, Boston, Mass, USA
Simon! Do you really believe what you said, that “anyone who believes in God is a brain-dead moron”? What about your Prime Minister Tony Blair? What about four great liberal thinking Americans, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Bill Gates?
I never said they were. I said I reserved the right to call them that. However I certainly believe that anyone who believes in God has a large part of their brain permanently malfunctioning.
As to the extraordinarily unbalanced bunch of people you picked out, I would say without doubt the first four suffer permanent brain malfunction. They all have those religious bullshit frowns on their faces. But there’s no way you'll persuade me Bill Gates believes in God. Unlike the others he has intelligence written all over him.
MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2007
From Jamie Sander, London, UK
Hi Simon. I’m been a Marc Bolan fan dating back forever. I thought I’d read every book there was about him but recently I found one in a second hand book store by you and a journalist called Chris Welch. In the forward to the book you wrote that in the 60s Marc used to come round to your flat in Belgravia early every morning, make you both a cup of tea and 'get into bed with you’. Was that a way of saying that you were having a sexual relationship with him? Or was it really just to talk and drink tea? Is the time right yet for us to be told?
I guess in all the things I’ve written or said about Marc I’ve rather danced around this subject. Marc and I had a very good relationship. But although it was sometimes more than just manager/artist you couldn’t call us lovers. This was the sixties. Getting into bed with people was the thing to do. And if a little sex resulted, all well and good. Nothing more than that. (I doubt if I was the only person he made tea for.)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2007
From Archie James, Seattle, Washington, USA
Hi Simon. How come you're always able to put the town in which your correspondents live? I get loads of emails every day. No-one ever tells me where they're writing from.
First and simplest method - write back and ask them. Second method - read the details of their internet header. You'll find out their originating server and the time they sent their email and the local time zone they sent it from. If you deduce it's from within the USA or Canada you can use a variety of programmes (easily available online) to find their current address, previous addresses, every parking ticket they ever had and probably their religion and voting pereference too. If they're from outside the USA there's a quite hard-to-come-by, rather nasty, CIA derived people-finder programme which is quite shocking in its thoroughness. I don't have it but I've seen it in action. Starting with just an email address and a received email, it can track down everything there is to know about almost anyone in the world who has ever done anything in an official capacity - i.e. got born (with a birth certificate), got married (with a marriage certificate), applied for a driving license, been to school, been in court, been in prison, written a letter to a newspaper, etc. Personally, I go for the write back and ask method.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2007
From Anthony Shearn, Liverpool, UK
Hi Simon. Meandering through your website I came across a lot from you about your dislike of religion and your lack of belief in God. Here is a question I would like to ask of you. You live with your boyfriend and claim to love him but surely ‘love’ is just as abstract and personally invented a conception as ‘God’. If I am to be laughed at for saying I believe in God, why should you not be laughed at for saying you love your boyfriend? Prove it to me. You cannot! Tell me what it means in clear logical language. You cannot!
I have a Chambers dictionary next to my desk. Its primary definition of love is, ‘an affection of the mind caused by that which delights’.
I’ll settle for that. And on good days I’d say it’s how I feel about Yo. On bad days you might find something under 'hate' which would be nearer to how I feel about him. But together they seem to average out to someone I enjoy sharing my life with.
However, in regard to the actual word 'love', even if you go through my website from end to end you won't find me using the word in relation to anyone I've ever lived with or cared for. It's just too imprecise and indefinable - an easy, one-syllable, cop-out way of expressing something much more complex. So I avoid it.
Now then! Having given up my right to use the word 'love', I'd like to reclaim my right to say that anyone who believes in God is a brain-dead moron.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007
From D'Andre Michael, London, UK
Hello Mr Bell. I'm a singer song writer. I would really like you to Manager me all the way to the TOP. Just listen to my song and take it from their. You are the ONE. I can get my music to you anyway you want just let me know. Come on Mr Bell!!!!
I get so many annoying emails from people who think they’re potential superstars it’s difficult to know why one should stand out as more annoying than the others. Yet in today's bunch yours certainly does. Re getting your song to me – you already have – by telepathy. It’s ghastly.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2007
From Sarah Heisler, Norfolk, Virginia
Dear Mr. Napier-Bell,
I just wanted to write and tell you how much I adore you. A friend of mine is a journalist in London and recommended your 3 books to me. Thank goodness I heeded his advice because they provided hours of pure entertainment. For all the joy you've brought to the world through the bands you managed and the brilliant books, I'd sent over a coterie of shirtless, Latino 15-year old boys to feed you peeled grapes and regular intervals if I could (after I'd auditioned them myself, you see).
Once, I took my dad to chemotherapy (he unfortunately has lung cancer from decades of too many cigarettes) and was seated beside him in a room full of other cancer patients, all quietly hooked up to IVs. Because his treatment takes 4 hours, I had brought along 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' to help pass the time. I can't even recall what the story was, but your book had me laughing hysterically. The more I tried to shut myself up (because, really, getting chemo isn't a particularly hilarious experience), the harder my body convulsed in giggles. I finally had to excuse myself and sit in the lobby alone. That only solidifies my place in Hell.
By the way, because you and I share the same opinion on Christians (I'm hoping the Rapture hurries up and happens so we can have the planet to ourselves), I thought you'd enjoy this: http://lovegodsway.org/GayBands Beware the gay menace! (The best bit is where it says "Elton John (really gay)". Ha!
Hi Sarah. I'm not sure I've ever been adored before - it feels rather nice. I'm glad my book made you laugh, I hope you gave it to your dad and got him laughing too. As for your link... Extraordinary! I never saw Oscar Wilde called a 'reformed homosexual' before. Just because they wanted to use something he'd written, I suppose.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Herts, UK
hey simon... that was an amazing post yesterday... i clicked on michelle's webpage and listened to her little show reel... she's a real fine drummer, all groove and full of restraint... on the photos you can see she plays one of those little gretch kits too, which is the height of taste.
i think the fact she gets rejected simply for being a transexual shows just how and why rock n roll has lost all its cultural force. rock and roll started out with people like little richard who wasn't in spirit that far removed from michelle... elvis with his dark eye shadow and limp wrist... all the great people weren't afraid of sex... now it's just a clusterfuck of conformists who get nervous when confronted with the likes of michelle. any band worth its salt should kill to have that kind of character in its ranks... someone who is above the mediocrity could easily clock michelle and take her way above the people who try and marginalise her. i fancy the new york dolls should fire their hired drummer on their comeback trail and recruit this talented soul. she's really rather 'charlie watts' in her style.
Your dead right. If I was putting together a credible rock band Michelle would be abolutely first choice. Great drumming; great personal character. What's so strange, living in Thailand, is observing these prejudices in a country which is so tolerant of gays - i.e. Canada. In Thailand, transvestites and transexuals, if anything, are more accepted than gays. I suppose, because they so openly state their case. One of the top beauty-care celebrities in Thailand is a transexual and is constantly on TV, taken seriously as a beauty expert, doing TV commercials, appearing on chat shows. And the number one teacher of the Thai language to Thai children is a transexual. She has one of the most popular programmes on TV and teaches kids in the 10 to 18 year old bracket to enjoy and investigate their own language. These are things I've never seen in the UK or the USA. The head cashier at the local hospital is a transexual (could be a transvestite, I'm not sure), so is one of the receptionists at the local Toyota repair shop, the manager of a local hardware shop, the staff supervisor at my nearby supermarket and many shop assistants around town. If Michelle lived in Thailand, without doubt she would be a top session drummer. Only her drum playing ability would be considered, nothing else.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2007
From Michelle Josef, Toronto, Canada
Hello Simon. It seems that we have a fan in common - a fellow from New Jersey who sent us both the same email, lauding us as the best ever and requesting an email. I don't know about you, but I don't usually get this kind of attention from fans. Here’s my situation....
I live in Toronto and am a professional drummer. Jeff Brown sent me an email stating that I am the best drummer ever and that he has many records that I have played on. Very flattering to hear, but I am not the best drummer ever although I have established a reputable career in Canada and I have played on a lot of records. Although Toronto is a big, vibrant and incredibly multi-cultural city, the music industry here is like a little village, and like any little village it is full of gossip and long term prejudices. I have been an established drummer in Toronto for many years and then about 7 years ago I announced to my world that I was transsexual and underwent gender transition from male to female. My gender identity has been a hidden struggle since I was a small child and I simply couldn't keep up the charade any more.
In many ways my "coming out" improved my life and my musicianship, but it seriously impacted my career in a negative way. Too many people in the music business here have small, narrow minds and unfortunately for me, the issue of what I am seems to be more important than the kind of person that I am or the quality of my musicianship. Even people that I don't know or haven't met seem to have strong opinions about me and I'm tired of trying to rise above it all here in Toronto. Despite my talent and experience, it is difficult for me to jump the hurdles of politics and gossip and get quality work. So, while searching the internet to find what I can about Jeffrey Brown, I stumbled upon your website. You certainly have had an interesting life and have many, many contacts. This email may be a complete waste of your and my time, but what the heck, what do I have to lose in pitching you. I need to find a place where I can overcome my history and get on with the business of making great music with cool people. If, in your many adventures you hear of someone auditioning or needing a drummer I would be deeply appreciative if you were to pass my name along or direct someone to me. Check out my website: www.michellejosef.com (just to let you know that I am for real). All the best.
Hi Michelle. Looking through your website brought back memories of when I was 18, just arrived in Toronto, wanting to be a musician (trumpet) but couldn’t get in the union for a year. It was 1957. I got a job selling magazines door-to-door and played jazz wherever I could in the evenings - there used to be a pub at Dundas and Bloor where musos could sit in. There were also the Town Tavern, where top jazz stars came from the states. I watched Oscar Peterson there everynight for a week which left me no money to eat with, the only time in my life I got truly thin. After a while I deserted Toronto for Montreal where there was work to be had in non-union bars and clubs. Funnily enough the best non-union joint in town had a band fronted by Chuck Peterson, Oscar’s brother, a trumpet player. He was the spitting image of his brother but only had one arm. He was most welcoming and I often sat in with the band. (Sadly, though, Oscar never did.)
Since then I’ve been back to Toronto many times as the manager of groups playing gigs there - Japan, Asia, Wham!, etc. Hasn’t the place changed! Good clubs, good restaurants, truly cosmopolitan, yet I can see how village-like it is, and jazz musicians are the straightest bunch, which is why I gave up being one. It must have been amazingly difficult for you to annouce to your musician friends you were about to change sex. In the UK in the 60s and 70s there was a composer called Wally Stott, much liked by everybody. Wally wrote and conducted for BBC shows like Hancock's Half Hour and The Goon Show. In the 1970s he became Angela Morley. One Monday he conducted the band for his current show as Wally and turned up the next Monday to conduct them as Angela. Some nerve - yet nobody blinked an eyelid. (Except for a trombonist who asked for a date.)
I’ve no idea who might be looking for a drummer but at least you now have a bit of a story on this website (which a lot of music biz people look at). I hope it helps. Cheers.
MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2007
From David Valla-Dury, Lyon, France
As a student of Lyon University of Economics, I'm in charge of collecting information regarding the role of English agents working in the field of live concerts. I need this to compare the main differences between the French agent & the English agent. Please help me find official information about the job - law, rules & regulations, responsibility, commission.
Well thank-you darling David, what a lovely little project for me. And once I’ve rounded up all this information, how would you like it delivered? As a PDF file? On a CD? Or perhaps I can arrange for someone to deliver it to you personally as a hard copy - printed matter in a large cardboard tube suppository.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2007
From Andrew Borden, Bridgetown, Barbados
Simon... long time no see... just found your website... marvelous... like bumping into an old friend in a pub and catching up over a stream of beers... gosh you've done a lot since we last spoke. I know when we last spoke we were a bit at loggerheads but they say time heals and that's what I felt when I read your website. Drop me a line and we'll talk further.
Time only heals when you want it to. With you I'd rather it didn't. You destroyed trust, stole ideas and lied endlessly. I heard from a mutual acquaintance you were terminally ill. I wasn't sorry.
But it seems he was mistaken, which is a pity.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2007
From Jeff Shipley, London, UK
Hello Simon. I once was a tape operator at Olympic Studios and happened to meet you in the 60s when you were recording a band there. I’m now retired but of late I’ve been working up an idea for a fun biography of lesser known pop managers in the 60s and 70s. Can you suggest any that might be amusing?
I suppose you expect me to remember you, but I'm hardly likely to. I only noticed tape operators if they were exceptionally pretty or exceptionally stupid - messing up the drop-ins, that sort of thing. You might, of course, be the one who always made my tea too weak and added sugar though I told you a thousand times not to.
With regard to your idea for a literary work, it sounds like a series. The subsequent one could be ‘lesser known bus drivers’, followed by ‘lesser known plumbers’, 'lesser known postmen', 'lesser known dustmen', and finally ‘lesser known tape-operators.’
That should see you through to the grave, don’t you think?
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2007
From the Right Hon. Ronald Franklin, Bangkok, Thailand
Hi Simon. Finally got around to my favourite website and read the last 3 weeks entries. I have to laugh when I read that some Brits are worrying about small bombs in Bangkok with things like “Oh My God I couldn’t possibly go to Thailand.” What short memories people have. Simon, do you remember Britain circa 1975, a few years after I had moved to London? Bombs going off all over the place... bombs thrown in restaurants (I was in Walton’s restaurant, then one of my favourites , the day before)... bombs in pubs… bombs all over England. I am trying to think back but I don’t think that I changed anything I had intended to do for fear of the bombs or bombing. Is there a safe place anywhere these days? Love to Yo and of course you. ( Last word to Dr Seuss.... )
It’s a troublesome world. All the people who’re in it
Are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You ought to be thankful a whole heaping lot,
For the places and people you’re lucky you’re not.
Hi Ron. You're right about the bombs in London. I was living in South Audley Street when a bomb went off there and blew out every window in the road. And on the night of the Waltons bomb, I was actually on the way there with Alan Soh when we suddenly changed our minds and told the taxi to take us somewhere else. But change our lives because of them? Not a bit!
Being afraid of these bombs is like being afraid of flying. The day after 9/11, a columnist in an American newspaper worked out that even if 9/11 happened every day of the week, year in year out, meaning, even if four full jumbo jets crashed somewhere in the world every day of every week, it would still be safer to get into an aeroplane than a car or a bus.
By the way... Happy Birthday! (39 again?)
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2007
From Dave Anders, Singapore
Hi Simon. A couple of days ago you wrote something about the Lapa Palace in Lisbon which is a place I have stayed in and enjoyed a great deal. I was wondering... what do you think is the best hotel you ever stayed in? Or the best hotel experience you ever had?
Hi Dave. There are too many great hotels to pick just one. The Oriental in Bangkok is one I love, but is it really better than the Taj Mahal in Bombay, the Peninsula in Hong Kong, the Camino Real in Mexico City, Las Brisas in Accapulco? It so much depends on what you're doing in each of these places, and whether you're in the best suite or the cheapest room. Several years ago I was with Donavon in the the Four Seasons in Bangkok. We'd just arrived from Dubai where we'd bought half a kilo of Beluga. We called downstairs for some toast and five minutes later three young butlers appeared dressed immaculately in bow tie and tails. One held a tray with a loaf of bread, the second held a tray with a toaster, the third held a tray with the plug (the wire swooping downwards between them). Smiling beautifully, they stood next to the dining-table in our suite preparing fresh toast while we gorged ourselves. (Later, Donavon dated all three of them.)
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2007
From Mary Cigarettes, Herts, UK
holy lyposuction!... what the hell happened to micheal winner?! only a year a go he was quite a nice piece of mantwat but now he looks like a dried fig... how silly of him to have lost all that weight. it puzzles me to see what people will do, just to add a few extra days on to an already limited lifespan. promise us Simon you'll never loose your full firm plump roundedness.
on an even more absurd note.... i was reading womans own in the hairdressers today, and i'm intrigued to learn that the man ( eric nicoli ) who runs emi records... his history is in biscuits... a company called united biscuits, and he invented the yorkie bar?! how camp and blindingly rock and roll is that?!
Eric Nicoli is rubbish and is surely due his comeuppance. For years now he’s managed to hold the top position in EMI’s boardroom blaming everything that goes wrong on the people below him, most of whom he chose and hired himself. Best of all was the way he dismissed his two top executives – David Munns and Alan Levy. He said he wasn't firing them, he was ‘de-layering’ the company. Moreover, despite inventing the Yorkie bar, United Biscuits was in terminal decline under him and was only saved by EMI's strange decision to have him come and do the same for them. But then who cares about record companies anyway? You can only wish the worst for them.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2007
From Ben Hartley, London, UK
Hi Simon. A couple of weeks ago I read Michael Winner on the Lapa Hotel in Lisbon. The hotel's restaurant is one you write about in your Eating Out section. You thought it was fabulous. Michael Winner thought otherwise. Did you see his piece? Eddie and I were there last spring and we thought it was one of the best places we'd ever stayed.
Michael Winner complained there wasn't a bidet in his bathroom. Since he was with his girl-friend he was probably thinking of it in terms of pussy-rinsing rather than bum-washing. For me it's the latter that makes it such a welcome sight in a bathroom. Though to be honest, I've long given up on finding good bum-washing facilities outside the Middle East, Thailand and Japan.
As to his complaints about food, he said his mashed potatos were cold and his bottled water warm. I don't go to Portugal to order mashed potatos and I rarely drink water with meals, so I can't comment. However the lunch Yo and I ate on the terrace of the Lapa Hotel was one of the most memorable meals ever.
MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 2007
From Francis Connor, Sataheep, Thailand
Dearest Simone. I have been away from home for a while and am only now catching up on your website with its hysterically amusing mail box. My latest new year's resolution is to get into the knickers of a gym freak I’ve met who is built like a brick shit house. He apparently loves to be screwed and gives a blow job to die for. The trouble is, he has many paramours, one of whom is a passionately jealous Ruskie who I fear may try to beat me to death. Do please let me know when you are offering guided tours of your splendiferous new home. I can then sweep you off in the barouche to a gargantuan luncheon. Toodlepip.
Francis, for the last couple of days I've been trying to raise the tone of the Daily Post with replies that give good and interesting information about life in Thailand. My first reaction to your email was to press 'delete'. But it has its merits in that it illustrates the shallow sexually-motivated lives that so many local residents lead. Avoid being beaten to death for a day or two and we'll have that lunch.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2007
From Jeb Simmonds, Bristol, UK
Simon, I read your piece about Thailand saying everything is just fine so come on holiday but you don't even metion the bombs. It seems plain irresponsible to ignore a thing like that. Are you working for the Thai tourist board or something? How are we expected to holiday in a place with bombs going off?
In a city of 14 million, you're chances of being at the spot where a bomb has been placed are pretty small. But if you're afraid of bombs, consider this. In Thailand more than 6 million people a year are involved in road accidents. That's 10% of the population every year. Over the recent New Year holiday 351 people were killed and 3970 were injured. Every day in Bangkok 10 to 20 people are killed and a hundred or so badly injured. If you're in Thailand, that's the thing to worry about, not bombs. The murder figures are pretty high too, and there's still some bird flu around. So why not stay in Bristol? No-one here's going to miss you.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2007
From Will Henley, London, UK
Now listen Simon, the serious side has gone out of your daily posting. This week it’s been all groupies and sex and silliness. You used to write a good weekly piece that was a bit more serious than this stuff. There you are living in Thailand and a lot of us who sometimes go on holiday there would like to know your views on things. The coup, the bombings, that sort of stuff! Does it still feel the same? Is it different? Is it safe?
Hi Will. Thais are irrepressibly Thai and really don’t care who runs the shop. Everything they normally do, they continue to do. As a tourist, you would see no difference whatsoever. Thais know - whoever’s in charge the police will still be corrupt and the sun will still shine. The good and the bad, always in balance, as decreed by Buddhist philosophy.
The Thai press is extraordinarily free. Picking up a newspaper it would be impossible to know that the current government was militarily imposed. It’s talked about and criticised (both in editorials and by named journalists) in just the same way that a normally democratically-elected government would be talked about and criticised.
In 35 years coming here I’ve seen coups, elections, riots and student confrontations with the army. But it always goes back to normal. ‘Normal’, admittedly, is very different from what it means in the West. ‘Normal’ in Thailand means a fine balance of all the different power factions with each of them sharing in the spoils. Taksin, the deposed Prime Minister, made the mistake of taking too much for himself. The coup was intended to correct this imbalance. Once things are rebalanced everything will continue as normal. Only in Thailand do corruption and public service work happily hand in hand. (More Buddhism for you.)
I was staying at a hotel in Bangkok 20 years ago when a note was pushed under my door at ten in the morning. It said, “Because of small coup guests are advised to take long breakfast. Should be OK by lunch time.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2007
From Sachiko Tanaka, Nagasaki, Japan
Simon-san. I was young Japan fan in 80s... in Kanazawa... we meet in hotel where Japan stay on tour and go in your room... Remember? Yes? No? Never mind!! Thing is, now I am mother. I find your website and my daughter is big fan of new Japanese girl group Titan Go King's. She say I must write you and ask you put news of this group on your website. How about it? Do you like voice from past?
Hi Sachiko. I vaguely remember the occasion, but not you yourself, I mean 'as a person', for I distinctly remember your naked bum. I recall it being a day off and pouring with rain and there wasn't much to do except lounge around in the hotel bar. I must say I wasn't much known for going with girl groupies but a rainy day in Kanazawa can affect people strangely. However, I can't imagine it was long before I was back in the bar again.
I'm happy to have given you such a lasting memory and here's the link to Titan Go King's. They're a great band in the true Japanese tradition of dotty pop, I agree with your daughter. (Bloody hell!! I hope you're not trying to tell me she's mine!!).
THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2007
From Jenny Shaw, Costa Del Sol, Spain
Hi Simon. First thing I do every morning when I struggle out of bed is check my emails and
look at your website - well, not only yours, I also read the Daily Telegraph too, so you see, you're in good company. That's usually around 6am, and today you hadn't yet updated which was a let-down. But in no way am I writing to complain, I just wanted to let you know how disappointed I feel on days when you haven't updated because whatever is up there always gives me a lift to start my day, (which, after emails, you, the Telegraph and a cup of coffee, continues with half-an-hour's jogging and a hard day's work in front of the computer writing a novel set in Spain before the Moorish invasion). Please keep updating.
Hi Jenny. Nice to hear my site gives you a lift. This morning's lapse was due to the sudden arrival (last night) of flashing lights in my right eye. I had to wait till this morning to be quite sure it wasn't just the effect of too much wine over dinner, and once I realised it wasn't, I hi-tailed it to our super-efficient local hospital who had me eye-dropped and laser-checked within the hour. It's a small tear behind the retina. Tomorrow morning it will be operated on and tomorrow evening I'll be back dinnering as usual. Thai hospitals put even private hospitals in Britain to shame with their speed and efficiency. If only Thais could take over the running of the NHS.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2007
From Jon Lindsay, Sydney, Australia
Hi Simon... Re your Mardi Gras 'talk', I have a few meetings set up for next week to finalise your trip but I just need to know... What do you actually do !!! I mean, of course... Do you give a talk and enthrall an audience for half an hour or so (like you do over dinner)?
Do you and Yo have seperate rooms ? Or a suite? Please tell me what your requirements are.
Hi Jon. Actually, I haven't a clue what I do. I thought you'd be the one telling me. Usually I speak to enthusiastic music students and tell them that the music business really IS based on sex and drugs (as legend has it) and isn't (as their universities try to delude them into thinking) a proper modern well-run industry. (Or sometimes it's not students but just people with nothing better to do than to come and listen to me - like at 'M On The Bund', a restaurant in Shanghai, a couple of weeks ago). Afterwards they ask me questions and I give answers and end up feeling I haven't really done much and it wasn't very good. Then everyone tells me it was great and when will I come back again. Is that the sort of thing you want?
Re accomodation. Suites are lovely, but for Yo and me, the essential instrument of our comfort is one nice big king-size double-bed. (Oh - and a hair-dryer for Yo).
TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2007
From Charlotte Cornish, Cambridge, UK
Hello Simon. Thank you so much for sending the images. It's wonderful to see the work in such a beautiful environment! Heidi is a friend of mine, (we were at art college together), so its great to see the work together. It was strange to get your email this morning. I was up very early watching a programme on 1982 pop music, and up comes your name... checked out website of same name and there's a mention of a new house being finished... so are you the one and the same..? Many thanks and best wishes.
Hi Charlotte. Well yes, one and the same. I'm glad you're friendly with Heidi. When I emailed you the snaps I thought, 'Oh she's going to hate this. I've told her that her pictures make the room. Now I'm sending photos with someone else's pictures in them too.' Yo (my boyfriend, who's an interior designer) has hung pictures by Heidi in the last three places we lived. Now that he's discovered yours, Heidi's going to have competition. Not that we're planning to move again, this place is too idyllic, but I'd love to find a place to hang those two upright pictures of yours called 'Equating'.
MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Herfordshire, UK
no no no simon.... always know that i only write to you with the intent of a moments innocent mischief... its not your wee wee wand i fancy... only your brilliant mind which i've been having the pleasure of all along... honestly, i pull my head out of my 'stinking low funk' only to be stoned by some guilty masturbating fish from bournmouth who wants to piss on yours or my chips... i can see that 2007 is going to have a certain salt and vinegar flavour to it.... bring it on! later elevator
Naughty, naughty, Gregory - I told you not more than one a week, which is tough because you're one of the most articulate and amusing of all the seven million people who write to me. And pleeease… I KNOW it's all just in fun.
As for the girl who wrote in, she’s Loudmouthian rather than Bournemouthian. I've had emails from her before so I know what she's all about. A strident student from Stutgart who proselytises in guilt. Lotsaluv.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 2007
From Heidi Schuler, Bournemouth, UK
Simon, I just cannot believe that you would put an obscene email like that of yesterday onto your homepage. You have some status in the music industry, and as a writer too, and if you let people plaster their personal filthiness about you onto your own website it is as if you consciously wish to demean yourself. I am not a prude, and I have enjoyed your books very much. I even enjoy your humour on the website though I sometime feel it goes a little far, and this is one of those occasions. It has made me lose some of the respect for you I previously felt.
So piss off and find someone else to respect! Your desire to censor my website is far more obscene than anything anyone might say about me. Besides which, Gregory Gray’s comments are obviously meant with affection and probably arise from his own desire to be the person he'd most like to see on my ‘bellend’. I only wish I could give him the pleasure, but…
1. He simply isn’t my type.
2. My bellend is taking a well-earned rest and not seeking new engagements.
If you happen to encounter an opportunity for early death I hope you’ll consider taking it. Regards.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 2007
From Gregory Gray, Herfordshire, UK
hello beefstud. we went to see futon play last night... i can't believe how skinny gene is... he's fantastic and i couldn't help but wonder how appropriate he'd look locked on your big stubby bellend, bouncing away on your nice big buttery balls (they are big and buttery arent they?! say it's true).
i love the superskinny girl bass player too... she has no tits and wears a vest... the flattest chest ever and completely rockin. and to top all that, they have a guitar player from barnsley?!
my friend keith chummed me along... he was derek jarmans lover and assistant for the last twelve years of his life. he lives just round the corner from where the gig was on the charing cross road in a flat
where christine keeler used to live, and he tells me that one of the prettiest villages in england is near barnsley and its called "penistown"
i met your lovely friend tracy at the show... she's actually as interesting as the band... this whole new generation of record business people all energized and enthusiastic... they look so good and vital
through my old slappery eyes.
i'm sorry i haven't been writing much lately Simon... i've been in a stinking low funk for months, but i'm pulling my finger out now in honour of the new year and all that... I hope you're over all the teething problems with your new home. ride easy now sweet man.
Hi Gregory. Good to hear from you again after so long.
I'm happy you thought Futon were so good. I've been telling people about this group for ages and it seems at last they might be going to happen. As for bouncing Gene on my bellend, I think he gets his bouncing done elsewhere, and anyway I'm comitted.
>
Re Penistown - it's a hoary old story - halfway between Huddersfield and Barnsely and spelt Penistone. Here's an even hoarier one. On holiday in Spain with Allan (about a thousand years ago) we drove through a village called Penis. Ten minutes later we arrived at Cunt.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2007
From Michael Ludes, London, UK
Dear Simon. Poor Andy. Mp3 software that screens out-of-tune vocals? How very cruel! If I remember correctly, you were full of praise for David Sylvian'sJapan-era out-of-tune-ness in 'I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch'. I suppose the good man wouldn't stand much of a chance with you these days.
Best, Michael, a Japan fan.
Hi Michael - yes, cruel indeed! And quite unlikely to work. But it would be nice to think there was a way of screening out all those hopeless, rambling, tuneless voices I get sent while still being able to access occasional flashes of talent. Recently there was one voice that managed to make it through the ‘out-of-tune’ screen even though it sounded David Sylvian-like. It was from a band called ‘Opium’. Russians living in Israel. Pretty good. Have a listen.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2007
From Richard Macauley, Norfolk, UK
Hello Simon. I hope you don't mind me interrupting your normal flow of entertaining banter but I have been sidetracked by the hub that the "Scotch of St. James" seems to have been in the 60s. I wondered if you could help me with nuggets/anecdotes from characters that inhabited that place at that time. If I am asking too much or this is in any way a pain, do ignore it. Richard Macauley - 61year old hetero from Norfolk.
Hello 61-year-old hetero from Norfolk. Gosh – life can’t come much duller that that, can it? No wonder you’re passing your time collecting info about an ancient old disco from the 60s. However, you’re in luck. There’s a whole chapter about the place in my book ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ (published by Ebury Press, available at all good bookshops, and most bad ones too). But for an extra special treat, I’ve put the entire chapter about the Scotch of St James on the website. CLICK HERE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2007
From Sean Gurney, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
so simon… what do you think of the scientists in the u.s. who’ve come up with a method of reversing the gay gene in sheep? it makes gay rams stop mounting other rams… they mount ewes instead thus producing profitable offspring for wyoming farmers… gays in america are screaming about it... there's a big petition being got together … would you sign?
The hell with all these strident queens and their daft petitions. They’ll all be dead before this happens anyway, so why should they care? Personally, I always enjoy a bit of good science and i
f a scientist wanted to make me enjoy sex with ewes I'd have no big objection. But once I'd been given the urge I'd like to be sure of finding a pretty one with a pleasant personality.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2007
From Andy Meredith, Belfast, N.Ireland
hi si…. here we are at the start of another new year but we’ve heard nothing from you about your new year resolutions… do you make them..?? for my part i’ve decided to drink less and take every wank a bit slower… oh… and not to bother you with any more of my songs… how about you?
The only New Year’s resolution worth making is to never make another one. I’ll guarantee you, within days you’ll be drinking as much as ever and wanking yourself through the sound barrier. Worse still, you’ll be MP3ing me more of your God-awful songs. But don’t bother. A computer wiz in Toronto has designed me some some software that screens MP3s for out-of-tune vocals and deletes them.
MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 2007
From Eric Lindsey, California, USA
Hey Simon! Thanks as ever for your mondo entertaining website, Happy New Year, and Happy 17 Anniversary to you and Yo! And remember - 'Whatever note you blow... you're never more than a Semitone away from the correct one'. (Miles Davis)
Hi Eric. Remember, I live in Asia where they also use quarter tones. That means I'm always more in tune with things than I would be in Europe or America. Cheers.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2006
From Anders B, The Hague, Holland
Hey Simon - for a New Year’s treat let’s see you naked. Betcha ya don’t dare!!!
The picture above was taken in the 70s when I was living in London with Allan Soh. Allan borrowed a Polaroid camera from a girlfriend. To test it he wandered into the bathroom and snapped me in the bath. But the camera didn’t work and no photo came out. Allan gave it back to his friend and borrowed one from someone else. A week later the girl went to France with her fiancée. As they drove off the ferry he snapped a picture of her and what came out of the camera was me in the bath. The girl had no idea who I was and couldn’t explain how the picture got there. Her boyfriend was furious; he went straight back to England and broke off the engagement. The girl gave Allan the photo as a souvenir.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2006
From Abe Sands, Santa Monica, California, USA
Hi Simon. In the CV section of your website there’s a picture of you on a camel in 1973. I think you look rather good on it, thoroughly at home. Were you up there just for the picture, or were you off on some sort of safari? What’s the story?
Hi Abe! No safari. Just twenty dirhams to the camel owner so I could have my picture taken. I was on holiday with Allan Soh, my first ex (no sorry, my second - hello Tony, happy new year). We’d had an almighty row (no idea about what). Allan hadn’t talked to me for nearly 24 hours so I thought a bit of cameling might get him back in a good mood. And it did. Nowadays I quarrel with Yo, which is much better. No matter how big the row, he’s back to normal in ten minutes. Which is just as well ‘cos there’s no camels in Thailand.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2006
From Archie James, Seattle, Washington, USA
Hey Simon! The two New Year's greetings you received this week went from the ridiculous to the sublime. I would like to add another one... May you have an excellent, productive and amusing year and continue to entertain us with your blunt replies to idiot emails (or sometimes, to be honest, rather rude replies to quite inoffensive ones). I'd also like to add that while you yourself might have found it a little impolite, the phrase "you is my snow white fatman" was as good as I've heard. Mr Didee gets my congratulations. Perhaps you should sign him up.
Thanks, Archie, for your kind thoughts. Briefly, I thought of adopting Didee's phrase for the top of my website, putting it under the picture of me lounging on a sofa. But I realised my beautiful and almost permanent suntan would render it inappropriate.
As for signing Mr Didee, I suspect he's quite a handful. There've been many previous emails from him, most of them profoudly obsecene. Having now been published he'll probably feel encouraged. Whether his mini-raps get nicer or nastier remains to be seen. I'll keep you informed.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2006
From Didee, Marseilles, France
hi si… i’m didee… gay rappa delux… fasta than da wheel wit heat… drinkin da whiskey… nigga friskee.. lickin de niple tips…hangin with da orgyboys… you is my snow white fatman… wanna get ya draws off… make ya ass cough… wrap my lips round ya dick… I wish ya happy for da new year man… send didee a kiss
Thank-you Didee. What a lovely little poem - an object lesson in how to wish someone Happy New Year. If only more people had your secular writing skills. As for that kiss, I’m sending it herewith. xx
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2006
From Judy Allerton, London, UK
Hi Simon. I noticed a couple of weeks ago you said you would be updating your eating out section for 2006. Do you know yet when you are going to do it? It would be great if you could include the meal you had with me and Shelley, and give my project a mention.
Judy, when I say the the meals I write about are memorable ones, I mean pleasurably memorable. The only thing I can remember of my meal with you was your overbearing pushiness. In future I shall be more cautious whom I allow Shelley to introduce me to.
The pleasurably memorable meals of 2006 are now posted in the 'Eating Out' section.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2006
From Jim Saradin, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Hey Simon - reading your website you seem like a guy who is against racial prejudice and sexism and homophobia yet you seem totally prejudiced against Christians. How do you reconcile that?
Jim, sweetie. I don’t dislike Christians; I simply dislike people who behave like Christians. Not only that, there are quite a lot of blacks, Jews, gays, Irish, Moslems, cripples, Greeks and Jehovah’s witnesses that I also dislike. However, there are even more people from each of those groups that I like. Rather than prejudge people I prefer to dislike each person on their own individual merits.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2006
From Wendy Backer, Terre Haute, Indiana
Simon Napier-Bell. You are a bully. My friend Elizabeth sent you a card with only the nicest of thoughts. As a fellow Christian I feel for her. God will surely forgive you but I find it difficult. Can you not understand how hurtful it is to have kindness dismissed so rudely?
Wendy, you're talking crap! Considering the number of times this year you and Elizabeth have jammed up my net connection by sending me MP3s of your lousy Christian rock songs I'd say I was surprisingly nice to her. To suggest to someone who wants nothing to do with religion that they should have this creepy-crawly God thing hanging round them all year like a smelly damp cloud is pretty distasteful. I’d rather have slugs in my nose and red ants up my arse than have God crawling invisibly around me for the next twelve months. All things considered I think I was unusually polite. The reason, perhaps, was that the angel on the card was quite cute and it brought out the best in me. But YOU don’t!
I wish you the worst for this year and every other year until such time as you stop bothering me with your religious clap-trap.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2006
From Elizabeth Ashton, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Elizabeth - you misguided, brain-washed, Salvationist maniac. May I wish you a New Year during which God does the dirty on you and walks out, leaving you to survive solely on the resources of your own brain, which will undoubtedly result in you having the best year of your life.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2006
From Timothy Gee, London, UK
Hello Simon! I have just received an e-mail from Amazon in which, on the basis of my past purchases, they recommend me to buy several Preston Sturgess DVDs, 'Black Vinyl, White Powder' and 'I'm Coming to take you to Lunch'. My reading matter recently has been 'Mainly about Lindsay Anderson' by Gavin Lambert. It is actually more in the nature of a double portrait - Gavin the openly gay man who took the first opportunity to leave Britain and thereafter lived mostly in California, though also for a time in Morocco - alongside Lindsay (they were at Cheltenham and then Oxford together), who could never bring himself to admit he was gay and if the topic came up in conversation abruptly changed the subject, who was vitulently critical of things English all his life, yet took 'The Daily Telegraph' as his newspaper and refused all suggestions that he should re-locate.
Hi Tim. I’m delighted to know that the Amazon computer is trying to persuade people who buy (bitchy) Gavin Lambert’s book about Lindsay Anderson that they should also buy my two books. But while I can understand it proposing I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch (for the book contains quite a lot about Lindsay), I can’t understand how it comes to make the connection with Black Vinyl White Powder - though come to think of it, Gavin Lambert was much quoted in William Mann's book Behind the Screen, which credited Hollywood's underground gay culture with being its greatest creative influence - pretty much what I said, in Black Vinyl White Powder, about the British music industry. So... Clever computer.
Now to a more important matter. What is ‘vitulent’? You’ve always been a stickler for words and many times have pulled me up for misusing them – not least, in your pre-editorial readings of my above-mentioned books. Is 'vitulent' a three-way combination of ‘virulent', ‘vitriolic’ and 'vituperative' - if so, not a bad word to have coined - or is it simply a boring old typing error? Lots of love.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 2006
From Jock Logan, Stirling, Scotland
Simon. A few weeks ago, in the true tradition of all good correspondence columns, you published a limerick from a reader. Since then I have noticed several occasions on which you have shown your distaste for the Christian religion. Therefore I thought I might propose for your consideration a limerick from the pen of the Very Reverend Fergus Fearchar, one of my professors when I was at Bible School.
From the depths of the crypt at St Giles
Came a scream that resounded for miles.
Said the vicar, "Good gracious!
Has Father Ignatius
Forgotten the Bishop has piles?"
Jock - it’s difficult to imagine you attending Bible College, though I remember you once told me it was a necessary pre-condition to receiving your inheritance. However, since you’ve managed to fritter your inheritance away more unwisely and sacrilegiously than anyone could possibly have imagined, those that imposed the pre-condition seem to have got their comeuppance.
If the millions haven’t run out yet, why not come to Thailand in the New Year? Easy to spend unwisely here – you’d enjoy it.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21 2006
From the Hon J.P.Ronald Franklin, Bangkok, Thailand
Gosh Boss, you don't want to miss Her Ladyship's party tonight..... 'Le Tout Bangkok' will be there and maybe the Long Haired Bitch who was there last time that we can have some fun with!!! Get in thine Rolls and get up here and we can even have lunch Friday at the Normandie!!! L & K!
Sorry Ron, this is party-pooping week. I got back from LA on Sunday with a stinking cold which has descended to my lungs causing me to cough up green bits. I’m not up to joyful chatter, even with Lady F and her top Bangkokians. However, I guarantee my presence for lunch at the Normandie once New Year celebrations are out of the way. If you fancy coming to Pattaya on New Year’s Eve there’s a bunch of us dining at Brunos, Lady F included. For me and Yo, New Year’s eve is also our 17th anniversary. And you could come and see the new house, which at last is becoming livable-in.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2006
From Pedro London, London, UK
Simon. The website is great reading as usual!! You may have been asked this before but i was interested in whether we will ever see any films based on your books/experiences? If so who would you like to play you during the various stages of your life?
There’ve been a few possible movie ideas. One company currently has the rights to my first book – You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me – and has produced several draft scripts. Other people are talking about other possibilities. My old friend Miles Tredinnick (a TV scriptwriter, but once Riff Regan, lead singer with London, a punk band I managed in the 70s) is threatening to write a stage play about me along the lines of "Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell". I’m not sure it will materialise, but the last time we needed to discuss the matter it required us to eat a four-hour lunch at Browns during which we consumed an entire shoulder of lamb, a bottle of Chassagne Monrachet, two bottles of '86 Margaux and twelve glasses of 1947 Armangac. It was far more enjoyable than watching a false image of myself on stage, so perhaps the play should be for writing rather than performing. In the 80s I had a similar experience with Graham Chapman. For almost two years we had fortnightly lunch meetings on the pretext of putting on a West End musical based on the Jeremy Thorpe case (gay Liberal Leader in court on conspiracy to murder - brilliant story and should be revived). Perhaps, if Miles is silly enough to get his play about me finished, we could revive the Thorpe story in order to continue our lunches…. Now then… what was your question?
Oh yes, who should play me? Well, I can tell you from reading various scripts I’ve been given, it’s pretty embarrassing seeing myself through someone else’s eyes. The further from the truth it gets the more comfortable it feels, so perhaps we should use someone as unlike me as possible. Easier too. Because of all the current actors I can’t think of anyone nearly good-looking enough.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2006
From Chris Gilbey, Perceptric, Sydney, Australia
Simon - the last time we met was actually at Bobbi Marchini’s place in Xakinthos.... Only a couple of years ago.... But the duck in Cannes was a truly memorable moment! Look forward to seeing you here in March....
About Zakynthos - it's simply not true. You were at Bobbi's place in Zakynthos the week before me and we missed each other. Bobbi took you to dinner at an open-air restaurant on top of a hill. You thought it was the most amazing place and told her she should take me there the following week. But when she took me there just ten days later the place had totally changed. It was cold and windy and we had to eat inside a room created from plastic curtains. The next night Bobbi and I had dinner at her place and opened a bottle of wine you'd left behind especially for us to share, but it was corked. You and I exchanged emails about all this.
Apparently our exchange of emails became so vivid in your mind that it seemed we'd actually met. The funny thing is, it felt like that for me too, and it was muddled up with all those previous times we'd been together, plus... your two super wives, dozens of amazing meals, a strange erotic trick your first wife played on me after dinner at Bondi (making me close my eyes and then sucking on my finger), and an exciting sex adventure you told me about yourself involving the beach in Penang.
This is to do with both of us (1) getting tremendously old (2) being fantastic wonderful-to-know people. See you in March.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2006
From Chris Gilbey, One Minute World, Sydney, Australia
Simon. I just stumbled on the mail section of your website.... Good reading! Hope you are keeping well. Come visit sometime. Still in Sydney.
Hi Chris! Despite occasionally exchanging emails it seems like ages since we actually met. Could it have been at Cannes when we ate that meal which was so amazingly good that when we finished we ordered the whole thing over again? Or was it in Hong Kong when we were both on an industry panel and I'd been off skiving for a year and hadn't taken notice of what was going on, so when people in the audience asked me about CD Roms I had to whisper and ask you what they were? Or was it round the time when you quit the music biz for a while and bought a winery? Whichever of those, it's been far too long, BUT....
I'll be coming to Sydney in March. Someone has invited me to talk at a literary lunch during Mardi Gras. So please be around.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2006
From Tracy Cunliffe,www.dirterecords.com, London
simon. futon mix sounds fantastic. will get you a copy as soon as its mastered which should be early next week. i assume our 'tea' at the landmark will zoom straight in at number one of your 2006 top tea events?! as for julie burchill becoming a god botherer. what the fucks all that about? i'm so with you on religion. i mean i assume it is the ex nme, hardcore drinker, bad-girl julie burchill ? scary, but it kinda goes hand in hand with retiring to brighton! thats all for now. lots of love to you. xxx
Hi Tracy. Of course - tea at the Landmark was fantastic. Most people don’t know that the Landmark in London is a Thai owned and run hotel. That’s why it’s so brilliant.
I’m so glad you and Futon have clicked. Giving them help to get started outside of Thailand has been my charity venture of 2006. I suppose, if they take off big, I’ll wish I’d made it a business venture. But maybe not! I’m busy with Brothermandude, and I really believe they’re going to happen too.
Re Julie Burchill and God! She is, perhaps, the one person from whom I might accept a little preaching. After all, she’s one of the world’s greatest enthusiasts for whatever she’s for or against. I remember when she first moved to Brighton and her next five newspaper columns were about how utterly dumb and stupid anyone was who lived in London. I’m somehow convinced she’ll eventually give up religion and move on to something more intellectually substantial - a new drug, perhaps - or a new husband, or girl-friend, or best-seller. Meanwhile, it’s impossible not to continue to love her as ever. Besides – she gave me the greatest revue ever for Black Vinyl White Powder – for that I have to make allowances, even where God is involved.
Cheers.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2006
From Shirley Sanding, North Devon, UK
Simon - sometimes your emails are sparkling, sometimes a little serious, sometimes too bawdy, but with regard to the email from Sally Jenkins, I’m surprised at you. Sally Jenkins sounds like a ghastly nymphomaniac widower but I don’t believe a word of her email. It’s trash, and by replying to it you compound its trashiness.
Shirley, you’re not only a prude, you’ve missed the point. Sally Jenkins is not the sort of woman you think she is. She’s a tubby, elderly, good-natured (and rather naughty) old queen with a penchant for tweed jackets, fishing and good wine – oh, and of course, young men. It’s not unusual for old queens to be referred to by girl’s names and in Sally’s case I can hardly remember the last time I heard him called anything else. However, he was once an officer in the army and then did something in local government in the UK before deciding to retire gracefully to Oz in order to keep himself warm during the winter. I bet you anything you like the scenario he described took place, and I’m equally sure he dealt with it pleasantly and with good humour. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he went out and bought the young man in question a sheep of his own to keep in the garden. Or even a year’s supply of kangaroo steak.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006
From Brice Jameson, Edinburgh, UK
I enjoyed reading the ‘Eating-out’ section of your website but noticed the meals were from last year or earlier. With this year nearly over, can we expect an update? Or have you not been eating?
There’s been plenty of eating but not much writing. Who knows, a New Year’s resolution might get me round to updating it. If I do, I can tell you that three of the most memorable meals will be, ‘Daniel’ in New York, ‘Pure’ at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, and a noodle shop in the back streets of Shanghai into which I wandered late one Sunday evening a few weeks ago. I couldn’t read the sign on the door and thought it was open but it turned out not be. The people inside were the owner and his family celebrating a birthday. Before I could walk out again they sat me down and made me eat with them. I speak no Chinese and they spoke no English, though their young son could say ‘Beckham’ and ‘Man U’. Nevertheles we feasted together for two hours and even sung songs and danced. I left around 1am, very pissed, and the next morning went back with a small present to thank them. But I couldn’t find the place. I searched and searched but got lost in a maize of back alleys. The night before I’d studiously copied down the Chinese name on the front door but when I showed it to a taxi driver he told me it just said ‘noodles’.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2006
From Sally Wilkins, Perth, Australia
hi simon… here's a shocker… i caught my boyfriend wanking off in the shower with a kilo of kangaroo steak wrapped round his pee-pee… when i asked him why he said he really prefers fucking sheep but finds it too much bother to go out looking for them... what d'you reckon... have i got a problem or what???
Sure you have, you ageing old crone. Listen Sally, I’ve no idea if you're joking or serious but what I do know (and am perfectly happy to let everyone else know too), is that about forty years ago you and I had sex together. You were considerably older than me then, which means by now you must be older than fuck. Knowing your preferences, I doubt if your boyfriend is more than thirty and I expect he’s gay too. I quite understand why he’s disinterested in having sex with you and I reckon your best bet is to find something creative to do with the steak once he’s finished with it.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2006
From Michael Dunn, Shizuoka, Japan
Dear Simon, I just returned home to 6C temperature and driving rain and would like nothing more than to be on the next 'plane back to Thailand. I had a super month over there – highlighted by seeing you again. Thank you so much for the two books. I have got halfway through your tale of getting Wham! into China and feel that you should be getting gongs from both sides for your efforts. What a story! The only one I know of who can come close is John Roderick, 94-year-old veteran of Associated Press Far East. He covered China in the fifties and survived. In his bedroom he has a photograph of himself with his arms around Mao Tse Tung and Chou En Lai – all three laughing at the camera. Not something you see every day.
With Best Greetings from freezing Japan.
Mao and Chou and that chum of yours all laughing together - on good days it was always possible with the Chinese hierarchy. The thing is; they all drank, as did their Russian counterparts. It was the one saving grace of Communism that it was alcohol inclusive, as is Christianity, the only thing about that ghastly religion that lets it off the hook a little. All the best vineyards are the ones the monks started a thousand years ago. And if it wasn’t for Cortes and his men taking priests with them to South America we wouldn’t be drinking Chilean reds today. It was a pretty good idea, really, spreading religion by offering a quick slurp of wine to those that came to worship. Better than the mosque, with all those rows of praying supplicants bent over nose to bum.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2006
From Julie Burchill, Brighton, UK
yes, i can see perfectly well how faith must look from the outside. i'm surrounded by atheists and agnostics, so i can hardly forget it! but i wasnt surprised to see that churches, for the first time in ages, have had to put on extra carol services. there's a 'stand up and be counted' feeling that Christianity could, given the guts, counter Islam in a way secularism can't seem to bring itself to do. Islamists are given to squealing at the slightest critique of their monumentally mean religion. but things are definitely on the move.
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU! did you hear that sugar rush got an emmy?!
Julie, sweetheart, I do NOT belong to that miserable bunch of secularists who are afraid of giving offence to Islam - or Christianity, or any other religion. I see little difference between any of them and am happy to offend the lot. I'm not an atheist, by the way, I'm an anti-theist - a profound loather of all religions, faiths, beliefs and preachings. In my entire life there's only been one Christian I've managed to stay friends with and that's by regarding his faith as a minor disablement, like having a wooden leg.
There now, that's pretty patronsing, isn't it! We should have plenty to jabber about when we finally get our lunch together. Great news about the Emmy for Sugar Rush. xxx
MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006
From Julie Burchill, Brighton, UK
Hey maestro! I havent started theology school yet as i had 2 books and 2 tv things to deliver, which is now just 1 book and 1 TV thing. at this rate I should start in 2008 i hope. but i still feel i am on me Christian Journey and work with handicapped adults 2 days a week - i love it! as for the india thing, my excuse (for apologising) would be that i was drunk on finishing my brighton book and feeling goodwill to all gals - but i was saying sorry for repeating in public that she'd turned her husband gay, NOT for our fight about islam. i hate it!
hope you have a gorgeous one, and would love to see you. XXX
Hi Julie. Thank goodness you weren't letting India off the hook over Islam. But I'm still mystified by your new Christianity. On that subject my mind is shut tight as a clam. I revel in my bigotry and can't even pretend I'm open to re-assessing it. Which is why, when I see someone so unbelievably eminently sane and wonderful as you take to religion, I have to presume you're simply out of puff half way up the hill and have decided to sit down on a large comfortable rock of mythology and get your breath back before setting off again.
I'd love to see you. Next time I'm in the UK perhaps I'll invade Brighton for lunch. xxxx
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2006
From Bobbi Marchini, Zakynthos, Greece
Simon. I love you..."miserable dribble of discontent" !!! That is so good I may have to steal it. XXXX
Unattributed copying, eh? That's not a good idea. They'll make you send your Booker prize back. xx
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2006
From Amie Devreux, Dublin, Ireland
Simon Napier-Bell… there's something of the Michael Winner about you… oversized and bolshie… I don't like Winner and I don't like you either…. being a shirt-lifter probably gives you the edge but truly there's not much in it…. ignorant big-headed belligerent old farts, the both of you.
My dear Amie, Michael Winner is a perfect example of charitable capitalism at its best, a very fine person indeed. Having worked industriously all his life he now uses his hard-earned money to fly around the world and eat in establishments most people can't afford. Then, through his column, he generously shares his experiences with all and sundry, writing with great wit and style.
What Michael Winner does is positively philanthropic. He certainly doesn't deserve your miserable dribble of discontent. Whether I do or not is another matter, but I suspect your views on most men are much the same. You sound shrivelled and shrewish and in need of good sex. Or perhaps death.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2006
From Horst Becher, Bonn, Germany
Hello Simon. When I was browsing on the internet the other day I read you were once manager for CC Catch. She was superstar here in Germany. I had no idea you were her manager. Is this true?
Yes. The idea was to try and break her in the UK and throughout Western Europe but it never really happened. However, in most Eastern European countries she became as big as in Germany. Once, in the state TV studios in Moscow, someone tried to barge into her dressing-room while she was changing so I slammed the door on them. The result was a pounding on the door as frightening as a midnight visit from the secret police. So I opened it again. Outside were two uniformed men one of whom shoved a notebook into my hand, “CC must make autograph".
I realised the person with them was Boris Yelstin (at that time Moscow 's mayor), who'd just been making a broadcast. “For grand-daughter,” he explained.
Rather touching, I thought, that someone so powerful should come asking for an autograph. Even so, I left him standing outside while I went and got it. And once I'd given it to him I shut the door in his face again. I've never much liked mixing with politicians - almost as phoney as actors.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2006
From Zen Jacobs, Tucson, Arizona, USA
hi simon… just finished reading ‘black vinyl white powder'…. great… loved it… it gave me so much insight into how the music business works… but i want to ask you… if you were starting out again today would you still choose to go into the music business????
I never did choose ‘to go into' the music business. The point was, I just sort of followed my nose, or rather my dick – which to be honest is all I've ever done. In my early twenties I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself, except perhaps to write, so I decided to let my dick point the way. And it's done fantastically for me. It found the first artists I managed - a pop duo called Diane and Nicky - it helped me choose Marc Bolan, then John's Children, and later Japan. It took me round the world and finally to Asia, and then Thailand, which is where I live now very happily. All in all my dick has been life's most brilliant tour guide. Lately, though, it's been getting a little lazy and I'm afraid it might be considering retirement. Which would mean for the first time in my life I'd have to sort things out for myself. Quite daunting.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2006
From Susie Linten, Torquay, UK
Hi Simon. I just read Rupert Everett's autobigoraphy and like another of your readers a couple of weeks ago I'm puzzled about his description of a staircase in your house that went nowhere. I read your explanation but still couldn't visualise it. Have you got a photo?
Good Heavens! Rupert is spreading the fame of that old staircase far and wide. It brings back quite a few memories. That house (and the staircase) was the centre of so many goings on in the 80s (see "I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch"). The only photo I can find is this one of me with Allan Soh (in a rather strange leather outfit). The staircase and landing are a little indistinct, but what you see is all there was. The stairs went only as far as the first floor landing, the rest of that floor and the floors above it were connected to the house next door and had been converted into flats. On the landing was a flower display, a pair of china dogs, a crystal chandelier and a velvet covered chaise longue. It was a great place for sex.
Me, Allan and the staircase, circa 1986
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2006
From Jim Selhurst, Los Angeles, USA
Hi Simon. You told me over dinner about a TV interview with a man called William Strauss who'd written a book called ‘Generations'... I bought the book and can tell you it's bloody fascinating. Basically, each 80 years is composed of 4 separate 20-year periods that consistently follow each other, century after century. The 1st a 'High', the 2nd an 'Awakening', the 3rd an 'Unravelling', and the 4th a 'Crisis'. Every 80 years this whole thing repeats itself and has been for over 500 years.... for instance children born in an Unraveling (the period that led up to the 2nd world war, and the period we're in right now) will spend their 20s and 30s in a Crisis period... but at 40 when they attain status in society they will initiate a new High period by changing society for the better.
Conversely children born in a High period (for example, children born immediately after the 2nd world war) will spend their 20s and 30s in an Awakening period... but at 40, when they attain status, they will create an Unravelling by doing things for moral good rather than solid reason – Tony Blair and George Bush going to war to spread democracy are good examples - Theodore Roosevelt with his ‘New Order' was another. This period is the most dangerous to society because it's always followed by a Crisis period.
Isn't that amazing?
Sounds as daft as Scientology. I checked it out and although at first glance it seems to be backed by historical fact, my conclusion is that it's utter piffle. How could white English-speaking societies, in isolation of all other European, Asian, Arab and African societies, fall into a 4 x 20-year cycle not shared by the rest of the world? It's cultural and linguistic chauvinism simply aimed at selling books.
I noted that William Strauss is also a playwright – a writer of dramatic fiction – of which, I would say, this is just one more volume. Typical, blathering, racist, American bollocks.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2006
From Sue Crowling, Singapore
Hi Simon. Round Christmas we're fixing three of four days on the beach in Johor… renting a five bedroom villa, more like a small palace really. Do you and Yo fancy joining us? We'll be ten… me and Tina, Dan and Peter, another gay couple, plus Tina's Mum and Dad. It's a great place… perfect beach, swimming, boozing, restaurants, discos… though for me the main thing is windsurfing. Have you ever tried it? I'm sure you’d manage!! Please let me know.
Sorry Sue, we're going to pass - still up to our eyes in getting the house finished. Re windsurfing, I only tried it once - in Kenya, on Bamburi Beach near Mombassa. I was there for a weekend and was determined to learn. For more than an hour I clambered aboard, stood up, fell off, splashed around, clambered back, fell off again, and so on. Then suddenly I had it, zooming along nicely, but straight over the reef and out to sea with no idea how to turn round. I thought about sharks and panicked - jumped off, clambered over the reef scratching my feet and legs, and hauled the surfboard back to the beach.
What indignity – I’d bet the friends I was with I’d master it in two hours, instead of which I was crawling up the beach like a shipwrecked mariner with blood all over my legs. It took a good few margaritas to get me back ship-shape and I've not tried it again. Though who knows, if you gave me the margaritas first, perhaps I would.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2006
From Jamie Henderson, Perth, Australia
Hi Simon. Over the New Year I'll be visiting Pattaya for the first time in 12 years. I'm particularly looking forward to some good meals. Is Dolf Ricks' restaurant still going strong?
Hi Jamie. Dolf Ricks sold up some ten years ago and since then has died. He was a great restauranter and a fascinating man, born into a Dutch family in Indonesia ten years before the 2nd World War. When the Japanese moved in, he was interned in a prison camp with his family, age 13. As a teenager he spent his time learning how to cook. Their food was whatever they could catch around the camp, mostly birds and mice. Dolf was much admired by his fellow prisoners for being able to make river rat taste like filet steak. Later he learned to cook European cuisine and opened his restaurant in Pattaya. When I first came here he was the town's favourite host and raconteur and we became friends. As he got older his stories rambled and the cooking went downhill. Finally, when the filet steak started tasting like river rat, the customers dwindled. Nowadays, for some unknown reason, the best eating places in Pattaya all start with an ‘M' – Mata Hari, Manhatttan and Mantra.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2006
From: Penny Carrion, Valencia, Spain
Hi Simon. I have some sad news for you... Andy died.... it was bang on his 60th birthday. Harold and I took him into Barcelona for a celebratory lunch at Tragaluz where we carried on almost till dark and got magnificently boozed. You know Andy... he was so proud of the size of his willie and so keen to prove that getting older wasn't going to damage its abilities... in the evening he took four Viagra tablets and set off for a brothel (boys only) in Calle Tuset. He died of a heart attack on the way (the doctor said it was the Viagra – apparently four tabs is considered a bit too much) so he never received his birthday honours.
Poor Andy, always such fun. But his knob was bigger than his brain. I saw it once when he was showering on the beach in Rimini, not the sort of thing I'd want to get too close to. Yet it was loved by many people - girls as well as boys - and he was never mean about sharing it around. I think his brain suffered from having to export so much blood to it each time he got an erection. Thanks for letting me know. I'll cross him out of my address book.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2006
From Jeff Standing, Jersey, UK
Did you see the piece in the Times last week about crazy George W Bush's latest appointee - a gynaecologist who's been made Federal Overseer of US Family Planning? He was quoted as saying that ‘teenagers shouldn't have sex because it gets them addicted to oxytocin'. This is an enzyme secreted into the body at the moment of orgasm. It lowers anxiety and induces bonding. Is George W scared of people becoming more friendly and less anxious? Does he think it will allow terrorists to infiltrate?
Hi Jeff. Yes, it's strange indeed. I checked it out and found that one orgasm releases enough oxytocin to increase trust and friendship for 12 hours. Researchers found that after receiving a dose of oxytocin by nasal spray people became so trusting they were willing to lend money to strangers. Presumably if you were to give them a shag the same thing would happen. Which probably explains why hookers and rent boys hardly ever fail to get paid.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2006
From Justin Morey, Leeds Metro University , UK
Hi Simon. Thanks so much for your visit yesterday. I've had great feedback from the students, who I think were awed and charmed by you in equal measure. I don't think there's anyone else who could have given them such insight into the music business in such a short space of time.
They're a nice bunch, your students. Yet after meeting them and listening to their questions I still think the same as ever – that for anyone who really wants to get into the music business (whether as an artist or someone behind-the scenes), the best way is just to get started. The reality is; you'll learn more about the music business as an office boy in a record company than by studying. It's to do with the unique atmosphere. Even though these days the music biz looks vaguely like a real industry, really it's still just an enormous self-indulgence. I don't think it will ever break free of its “drugs & sex & rock'n'roll” image. Nor should it.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2006
From Sara Wilkerson, PCP Agency, London, UK
Dearest Darling Simon, I had the most delicious lunch with you. I love you so much, I wish you lived closer. Until next time… (I'll try to lose a bit of weight). Lots of love.
What great food! That foie gras ravioli could be enough to put The Ledbury into London's Top Ten, as close to perfection as anything on this planet, (you & me too, of course).
I'm looking forward to hearing about your meeting with Adrian - business or pleasure or both? Will you think he's still shaggable? Will he think the same about you? (I hope you are. It's time you got another man on board and gave Noah a father-figurre.
Anyway, lots and lots of love. And since I'm lusting after more of that ravioli it shouldn't be too long before our next lunch. xxx
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2006
From Jeff Brown, New Jersey, USA
Dear Simon, I'm your NO.1 FAN. We LOVE you here in New Jersey, I think
(SORRY , I KNOW) you are the GREATEST Record Producer of all time.Could i PLEASE PLEASE have a autograph picture of you,if so send to JEFF BROWN 9 LAKESIDE AVE RUMSON NJ 07760.USA,,,,,,THANK YOU YOUR THE BEST
Firstly, I'm a manager, not a producer. Secondly, a quick Google on your name shows that your undying admiration is being thrown around all over the place. I'm a monogamist at heart. I feel jilted. Try a little constancy.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2006
From Francis Conner, Satahip , Thailand
My dear Simone, on your website I noticed a link to the "History of Oysters". In 1985 when the British royals made a State visit to Japan, I was one of their interpreters. Amongst other things I had to accompany them to an oyster farm where (through me) Phil the Greek asked one of the specialists into which part of the oyster they inserted the piece of grit that made the pearl grow. “The clitoris,” the specialist replied with untypical Asian bluntness, and I passed on the information. "Oh well,” HRH said. “Ask a silly question…”
So pearls are nothing more than gall stones of the clitoris - how unromantic. And pity the poor oyster! Grit in the clit must be agonisingly itchy. No wonder it has to secrete something to wrap around it and fend off the discomfort. I'm surprised animal rights activists haven't cottoned on to this. Was the queen wearing a string of them on the day in question?
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2006
From Ed Bellens, Brollyland, Chicago, Il,, USA
Mr Napier-Bell. I read your unfortunate story about getting soaked to the skin on a windy Thanksgiving Day in New York due to your umbrella having been blown inside out. I would like to introduce you to our windproof umbrella which has a special double canopy to allow wind to pass through from below but not rain from above. It sells for @ $28.75 and I'm attaching a brochure.
You solicitous creep! Why didn't you have it on sale at the corner of Central Park South and Broadway last Thursday morning? ‘Zero' for creative marketing. Anyway, I'm on the way back to Thailand where it's hot and sunny.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2006
From Gerry Sinden, New York, USA
Hi Simon. Sorry I missed you in New York , my editor sent me to Saskatoon. It's the most boring place on earth - in the middle of the Canadian wilderness - famous for wheat, wood and uranium. I had to interview an elk. How was Brothermandude's show?
Hi Gerry. BMD's show was brilliant. They've changed guitarists since the last tour and it's taken them up a notch or three. Shake was whirling round the stage like a dervish and the energy in the band was like the Who in their prime. But rock star's energy levels are poor in the morning and Thursday 11am we had a meeting with Peter Brown. Shake had gone on to Baltimore with the band for another gig and had to come back late Wednesday night in a limo. And we hadn't reckoned with the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Peter lives in some magnificence in a condo on Central Park West. Because of the parade, the streets were closed and taxis couldn't get through, so we walked, pushing through crowds of people. It was cold and pouring with rain and whichever way we went the streets were blocked. Along 6th to Central Park South – blocked! Back to 57th and down to Broadway – blocked! Back along to 59th to cross to Columbus - blocked! We bought umbrellas but there was a foul wind and they immediately blew inside out. Soaking wet and freezing cold we went back to 6th crossed into the park and walked through the mud to 64th, and even then it was another nine blocks to Peter's condo. We couldn't have arrived wetter, colder, muddier or more bad-tempered, but when we rang the bell Cilla Black opened it with a brilliant smile and a glass of champagne. Amazing how things can get better so quickly!
After the meeting Shake realised he'd left his passport on the tour bus which was now heading for Georgia. With no other ID he couldn't get on a plane or a train and was trapped in New York with a gig to play in Atlanta. (And the passport couldn't be sent by courier because in the US couriers don't work on public holidays.) I did what all sensible managers would do – fled the camp and got on a plane for London.
Did the elk have much to say?
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2006
From Fiona Napier-Bell, London, UK
Dear Simon. I just wanted to get in touch as us Napier-Bells tend to be ignorant motherfuckers ( you included!!)
Congratulations on your marriage i read it in the paper!! Anyway just in case you don't remember me im your niece, Nicks eldest most beautiful and most talented daughter (haha), he may have told you that im an aspiring actress, i say aspiring as the work is pretty thin on the ground since leaving drama school!! ...however im currently working in production on a new film by universal (dad wont let me work for him!!) afaid of women, perhaps i remind him of my mother!! Any way next time your in London do please get in touch or i'll have to come over to Thailand and visit you myself!!! I hope your well and not eating to much? All my love. Fiona x
Hi Fiona. I'll be in London this weekend. Having Sunday lunch with Susan (my sister, your aunt, remember? Good!) and you're invited. Are you coming? I hope so, because it's three years since I saw you last and I hadn't realised you'd now turned into a super-talented gorgeously brilliant actress (aspiring).
Lunch will be fun. You'll make it more so. Please come. xxx.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2006
From Alan Shenton, Glasgow , UK
hi simon... i just bought an old acetate album of a band you once managed… japan… i'd heard their name but never their music… i'm only sixteen so this record was made ten years before I was born... it's fantastic… i love the sleeve... david sylvian looks amazing... but where's the rest of the band???
We were in LA and had to shoot a sleeve for the new album. The group were stony broke and had no clothes to wear but I managed to persuade the American record company to come up with 3000 dollars (which in 1980 was a really substantial budget). I gave the money to David but instead of going shopping with the rest of the group he went alone. A couple of hours later he came back with just one item – a red leather jacket he'd bought from a shop in Rodeo Drive. He'd spent the whole three grand on it. The rest of the band were scandalized. “What are we going to wear for the shoot?” they asked.
“You don't have to worry,” David told them. “I've decided the cover will just be me.”
Things like that let you know who really runs the band.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2006
From Phil Whelan, Hong Kong
Farrrkkkkk……..what's the story with that woman you layed into on your website? Bloody funny!!
Hi Phil. As you're living in Hong Kong, I'm surprised you haven't come across her. But then you're not gay. She caught me (nearly) at Kowloon station coming off the Airport Express. Ghastly beyond belief!
An appalling interfering international faghag who hangs out with anyone gay and tells them on first sight that they're her best friend. Greek aristocracy (ex royal family, she claims), probably about sixty, her husband (divorced) was a property developer. She also has places in Manila and Bali, don't ask me why - probably looking for more fags to hag.
One way or another I'll be made to suffer for what I said.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2006
From Sean Bolden, Manila, Philipines
Hi Simon - so utterly surprising to see you on Sunday - I walked into 'M on the Bund' at four in the afternoon planning to make a reservation for later in the evening and there you were giving a talk. - amazing - and so is Shanghai.
As an old China-hand I guess you know it well but for me this first visit was truly an eye-opener - I probably missed most of the culutral 'must-sees' but I had a wonderful two days. Hope to catch up with you over the New Year in Thailand.
Sean, it was extraordinary to see you too, especially as your principal business is porn. Are you now looking for openings in China?
As for cultural 'must-sees', in today's Shanghai they are many oddball things. For instance, for Sunday lunch I went to the Westin hotel and was completely bowled over. At my age it takes a lot to bowl me over and to find it at a hotel called Westin (which sounds down market even from Holiday Inn) is amazing,. (Though I suppose we have to remember that the Plaza Hotel in New York is a Westin Hotel, so perhaps I'm just being snobbish.) Anyhow....
I walked into the Westin at 1pm and saw a sight of sheer kitcsh madness. The hotel, is vast, extravagant and magnificently vulgar. It has an atrium of five floors. One side is a double staircase, like those that descend to dining-rooms in ocean liners, except that this one descends from five floors and is made of glass, lit inside, changing colour every fifteen seconds - red, blue, purple, green, orange.
On the other side of the atrium are four levels of seating, like the seats of an opera house - stalls, grand circle, balcony, upper balcony. On normal days of the week these are the dining areas of four restuarants - bar on the ground flooor, coffee shop on the first floor, Italian restaurant on the second, Chinese restaurant on the third, etc. But on Sunday they're all turned into one vast brunch area for the new business elite of Shanghai and their families, champagne on the house.
They sit at laden tables ogling five flights of descending glass stairway through the fronds of fifty-foot palm trees (all fake, of course). Last Sunday, on the first landing of the staircase were twenty slender Chinese girls dressed in white chong-sum playing violins. On the landing above were other members of the Shanghai symphony. In front of them was a diminutive Chinese tenor in an ill-fitting grey suit singing opera the like of which could not be bettered anywhere in the world. His voice was Pavarotti and Domingo rolled into one. But he didn't have the presence. It made you realise that to be a first-rate star of opera you need to be Italian - not for the tradition or the operatic training - but for the swagger. The Chinese simply don't have it, but my goodness the sound was wonderful. The setting was as magnificent as any great opera house and although it was in appalling taste, aren't most opera houses too? I mean... all that velvet and gilt!!! What's wrong with coloured glass stairways, fifty-foot faux palms and the nouveau riche of Shanghai in all their finery?
This is the new China. Outside you'll find people begging in the street.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2006
From Amyra Michaelides, Hong Kong
Simon – I thought I glimpsed you getting into a taxi in Kowloon on Friday evening. I called out but you didn't hear. Then next morning I heard you talking with Phil Whelan on his radio show, so I knew I'd been right, it was you. I felt SO-O-O disappointed you hadn't found time to call an old friend while you were in town. You owe me some time, you know.
Owe you some time???? Amyra, it's time I told you….
You're the most intolerably pushy person I've ever known. You impose yourself on people and call them friends ( best friends even) when in fact they're nothing of the sort. I've never spent one second in your company without wishing I was a million miles away. If you were any sort of normal person I'd presume that by telling you this I'd be free of you forever but your insensitivity is so acute you'll probably manage to persuade yourself I don't really mean it, or even if I do, that you'll forgive me.
But Amyra… Please DON'T forgive me… I DO mean it…
You are without doubt the most interfering, most insufferable, most suffocatingly ghastly faghag in the world. (And by the way, I did hear you call out. The closeness of my escape sent shivers down my spine and I was so pleased with the taxi driver for rescuing me that I gave him a hundred dollar tip.)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2006
From Francis Connor, Satahip, Thailand
My Dear Simone. Recently I read the autobiog. of Rupert Everett. You featured large in the chapter "Rock Follies" during which Rupert attempted a career in pop music, sadly an enterprise not blessed with success. As Rupert's manager, you are variously described as, ‘a self-proclaimed legend', ‘utterly delightful', ‘a campish sergeant major' and ‘a master of fakery and hype', but…
Did you really live in a Bayswater apartment with an oak staircase that ended in a blank wall at the first landing?
Lovely Rupert! Right about the staircase, wrong about the location. The house was in Marylebone, in Bryanston Square. The upper floors had been donated to the house next door to knock into flats. These were entered by the front-door of the house next door. But mine (the ground floor and basement of the original house) was entered by its own original front-door. Upon entering you were confronted with a magnificent oak staircase, about which Rupert was correct - it was a trompe d'oeil. When the staircase reached the chandeliered first-floor landing it turned left and went no further. This left me with one staircase, two sitting-rooms, three bedrooms, four bathrooms PLUS my two warring ex-boyfriends. The rest of the story is in I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch.
(For more about my first meeting with Rupert click here ).
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2006
From Paul French, Shanghai, China
Simon. As you are checking in to a Chinese hotel this weekend I thought I would prepare you by sending you a copy of the list of available toiletries I was offered at a Beijing hotel last week.
So Paul, did you go for the travellers mates - a couple of pretty lads from Shingtao, perhaps, (or for you maybe girls) - or did you choose some solitary pleasure in the tub with the bath article? The magic towel sounds amusing; the shake condom less so. As for the last item, I trust your every orifice has been sparkling ever since.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006
From Jamie Guest, London, UK
this week on your website youve harangued religion… told us you know a girl who farts in bed… moaned about the problems you have with your new house… informed us which asian languages dont have the future tense… posted a silly limerick about a camel… and given us information about the worlds most tedious popstar george michael… for heavens sake, why not just tell us how many pices of bog paper you use when you shit???
The answer is none. In the civilized world – Thailand , Japan and most of the Middle East – toilets are provided with a bumwasher while in the rest of the world people smear the shit around their bottoms with bits of paper.
Once you've become used to having a perfectly washed behind at all times, it makes traveling abroad (i.e. outside Thailand , Japan and the Middle East ) quite a chore. Since there are no bottom washing facilities available, a middle of the day crap has to be taken in your hotel room and will necessitate undressing yourself and showering, at the very least, the bottom half of your body.
I often wonder how those elegant Arabs from the Gulf States must think when they're sitting negotiating with Americans, aware that they all have dirty bottoms.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2006
From the Honorable Ronald J. P. Franklin, Bangkok, Thailand
Dear Simon. As you travel and try and resolve the woes of the world in a wine glass and Brothermandude just give a thought to this silly limerick courtesy of former Hong Kong High Court Judge Jackson-Lipkin.
The sexual life of the camel
Is stranger than anyone thinks.
At the height of the mating season
He tries to bugger the sphinx.
But the sphinx's posterior sphincter
Is clogged by the sands of the Nile
Which accounts for the hump on the camel
And the sphinx's inscrutable smile.
HEY! I'm hungry! Love Ron
Hi Ron. I'm sorry our lunch at the Oriental never seems to materialise but as you've gathered the new house has recently got on top of me (rather the reverse of the camel and the Sphinx).
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2006
From Steve Landing, Sheffield, UK
Hi Simon. It's been a while since you blasted us all on the evils of religion. I noticed in yesterday's Times that your favourite atheist, Richard Dawkins, has finally flipped. He's no longer talking reasonably about the ‘stupidity of religion', he's just come right out and said anyone who is religious is stupid. Highly intelligent people, he claims, are mostly atheists. He also points out that there's not a single atheists in the American House of Congress. He concludes that they're all either liars or stupid. D'you think he's right to burst out like this?
Of course he is. There's no good pussyfooting around on a subject like this. If you're religious you are by definition either fundamentally stupid – that is, you've thought about it a great deal and have come to the conclusion that there really is a God (like the Archbishop of Cantebury or Tony Blair and his wife or George W) - or you're trivially stupid – that is, you've thought about it just a little bit, you're not quite sure whether you believe in it or not but you accept it because it makes life easier for you - like most people in America, where ninety-five per cent of people claim to be religious.
This ‘saying you're religious' thing is like living in a facist state and paying lip service to the dictator who runs it. America's facist dictator is 'religion'. To align yourself against it is as scary for most Americans as for North Koreans to speak out against Kim Jong-Il. Yet I'm sure, if just one well-known respected public figure in America – Oprah or Clinton or the old President Bush - came out and said they were not religious, that they'd lived their whole lives as a lie, that religion was crap and they were ashamed of themselves for saying otherwise - in just one day the number of so-called religious people in the USA would fall to below fifty per cent.
The fundamentally stupid could stay that way while the other fifty per cent could throw off their trivial stupidity and become at least as intelligent as Europeans.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2006
From Sara Wilkerson, London , UK
As I flicked through my Observer magazine on Sunday I saw your lovely little face staring back at me and I thought how long it had been since I emailed you. How are you? How are BMD doing? You'll never guess who phoned me last week. Do you remember David (from Blue Mercedes)'s gorgeous straight friend from Suffolk who wanted to be a photographer? I shagged him (not that it will narrow it down much). Anyway he telephoned me and asked if I'd be interested in representing him – so we're meeting up next week, it's been about 10 years since I saw him. Are you in the UK before Christmas? It would be great to see u. xxx
Hi Sara. I remember your photographer well. He did a session for me a few years ago when I was managing the Russian singer, Alsou. You always did shag the best-looking guys (hardly surprising seeing how dazzling you looked). I remember at the Montreux Festival you told me you'd woken up one morning and let off a monster fart before realising you were in bed with someone - the lead singer of the Christians, no less - and were so embarassed you had to spend the next hour pretending to be asleep. On Tuesday 28th I'll be in London on the way back to Thailand from the States. Fancy lunch?
Me & Sara, circa 1987
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2006
From Andy Boulet, Miami, Florida, USA
hi simon…. you speak thai don't you… i heard asian languages have no future tense… is that true… why would you want to waste your time learning a language that cant speak in the future… is it cos youre so old the future simply doesn't matter to you anymore…
You miserable clever-dick, you're wrong on all counts. Malay is the Asian language that doesn't have a future tense (virtually the same language as Indonesian). You might think this would make for imprecise conversation but the very opposite is true. To define things that will happen in the future Malays and Indonesians have to find the appropriate words – I intend to come, I plan to come, I would like to come, I 've been told to come, I've booked a ticket to come.
Thais, on the other hand, have a simple future tense which is the mainstay of their relationship with life, enabling them to endlessly put things off the same way Mexicans do with ‘Manana'. Moreover, Thai's believe in reincarnation. How could they do that without a future tense? They believe if they behave charitably in this life they could come back as a millionaire. Or if uncharitably, as a worm. Since you're already a worm I'm not sure where this would leave you.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2006
From Bobbi Marchini, Zakynthos, Greece
Hi Simon. Well here I am and it's nearly all over (work). Hotel closed and olives all picked and on their way to the press... Job done!.. next year?.. delegate. Hot mouse-shit chilies all picked. Job done. Next year? Definitely delegate and never rub eyes while or after picking.
How are you my love, apart from having a head that needs exorcism? Are you still camping in with boxes and smelly house? Do you know it's not only Thai workmen... it seems to be universal. My plumber connected the solar panels with the toilet flushing water and every time you pressed the button steam came out of the loo. I arrived at a point where even anger left me and I stared dully with each new disaster. The main problem was getting them to come to work at all "it's raining, it's the hunting season" (fully grown men go up into the mountains in camouflage gear and shoot small migrating birds)........
......was interrupted in writing this by Dimitri shouting outside my window "look what you've done" and holding a dead chicken. Although I do get hungry in the night it was hard to imagine I wouldn't at least remember hunting and savaging a live chook. It turns out that my dogs couldn't wait for me to finish writing to you and went off and got themselves some "fast food" but the poor chicken wasn't fast enough. It was my fault, as the latest addition to my cartoon animal pack is a hunting dog that I'd saved at three weeks old from sure death on the road out the back here… mea culpa. I must present myself to the owner of this unfortunate bird and cough up a bottle of something good, or at least the money it was worth which will be calculated probably on eggs not laid and lemon chicken not eaten, which could be quite a lot knowing the larcenous bent of this lot… Oh well.... I'm off to check damage after a violent thunderbolt hit here last night leaving me without power in the house. Now the cat's come through the bathroom window and chewed up the steaks I'd put on the draining board... Will serve Dmitri what's left for lunch. My love to you both and I miss you.
Hi Bobbi. Good to hear that island life is continuing as usual - so is life in Thailand. We're making progress with the house, though this week, just when we thought it was all but finished, the air-conditioning (built-in and ducted invisibly to each room) had to be torn out and replaced (ceilings ripped apart, walls replastered, previous aircon people having tantrums). And in the garden, which a week ago looked so perfect, the sprinkler system failed to work. "No problem," the landscape gardener told me (it's the Thai's number one favourite expression). Loads of workmen turned up to dig up the flower-beds and stand scratching their heads over how to re-connect the dozens of pipes that lie below the soil. Then there's the pool - a week ago it was an idyllic cool repsite from all that was going wrong but then rust started streaming into the water from the stainless steel handrail. It had been fitted with ordinary iron nuts. The pool was drained and workmen arrived with brass screws and welding machines to re-fix the rail. The pool is now full again but the water has turned green and refuses to become swimmable. The pool-boy says, "Never mind" (which is Thailand's second most favourite expression), but the problem is, I do. Yo reckons, in four more weeks the house will be finished, and I tend to believe him. There's simply nothing else to go wrong, except that they forgot to put air-drainage ducts in the septic tank, and.....
Next week I'm off to the New York where Brothermandude are on tour. On the way I'll stop in Shanghai and give the talk I should have given during the literary festival but was unable to because (outrageously careless) I forgot my visa. On the way back I'll stop in the UK to have Sunday lunch with my sister. Meanwhile, the house problems will be left to Yo. Hopefully I'll come back to paradise.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2006
From Naveed Hassein, UK
hi simon, you're 100per cent right about your your pet shop boys comments... they did some brill singles when the sexuality was ambiguous... now they are too camp.... likewise your old employee george michael... did some brill stuff when he was confused but now appears to be heading down the dumper... were you his manager when he did careless whisper? …if so what was the story behind the video.... i've seen another version on youtube.
Employee, eh! Don't think George would like to hear himself called that. I'm sure he prefers to think of his managers as the employees and of himself as the boss. No matter! The Careless Whisper video was originally intended to be shot on location in Miami. And was. But after it was edited it looked a bit too lightweight so we thought a bit of gravitas would be added if George were to re-sing the song onstage in a theatre (no audience - lonely, after hours stuff) and intercut it with the location material. Which is what we did. I don't know how anyone ever got hold of the original edit for You Tube. But these days it seems everyone digs out their darkest video secrets and displays them to the world.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2006
From Tina, UK
Hi
can you help promte a new artist dance music hes 23years old loads of talent ,I am his agent ,.
dontfink got time for new artist dance music lots of talent ,. nor for agent shes complte tosser
THURDSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2006
From Gregory Gray, Hertfordshire, UK
Hello big boy... reading your post today made me think of how a lot of these questions people ask you, are designed to disarm you. I mean... why don't they just come out and scream it.... ohhhh you're godless.. .ohhhh you're awfully smug [I don't think so].... and finally... ohhhhhh you're an alchohiloic... Now Simon I have no clue, but why should anyone care or question it? You get the job done. Music?.. everybody knows the story.... job done. Sixteen years in a relationship?.... job done. Sixty-seven years old and still willingly hanging out in every other city.... job done. So if alchohol has helped make your path a little sweeter, then what the fuck. When will everyone finally realize we have reached the age of self medication. It's terribly important that people get their head around this so they medicate properly.
Medicate properly? Certainly not last night! That 'sweet path' you talk about has to be a perfect blend of alcohol and relationship, like hydrogen and ogygen combining to create water. Last night my blending went seriously wrong. It was H3O, or maybe HO2. End result - grumpy boyfriend and green viscous liquid running through my brain. Perfect hangover?... job done.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2006
From Minty Harden, Quebec City, Canada
Hi Simon. You're always going on about booze… seems like you like it a lot… maybe NEED it even. You also often write about the good life you share with your friend Yo. So here's the big question... If you had to choose between booze and Yo - the rest of your life with one or the other but not both - which would you choose?
Yo without alcohol? Alcohol without Yo? My first instinct says Yo; no thinking needed. But when I think further, alcohol has been a good friend for fifty years whereas I've only known Yo for sixteen. To choose Yo without alcohol would be a blind leap of faith - something I've never known - whereas for over thirty years I knew alcohol without Yo and enjoyed it enormously. So I guess… goodbye Yo.
When he was still an alcoholic, George W. Bush came home pissed one night and poured himself a whiskey. Laura came into the room and told him, “George, once and for all, this is it! You gonna choose, right now... me or booze.”
Because he chose Laura and gave up drinking he's now president, which is a pity. So you see, there's good precedent for choosing booze and ditching your partner.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2006
From Benny Locke, London, UK
hi simon. i'm a student studying Music and Media Management at Uni in London. i have just this second finished reading your book 'Black Vinyl White Powder'. i just wanted to tell you that it was the most amazing piece of writing ive ever read. i am currently writing an assingnment on artist management and was thinking about discussing homosexuality and drugs and how much it is involved within the industry. i was wondering if you had any advice....
As far as both things are concerned they're pretty well covered in the book. But while the influence of certain drugs (cocaine and marijuana) was already becoming apparent way back in the days of Cole Porter and Noel Coward, the influence of gay culture was always discreet and subversive. For instance, for gays, ‘Mad About the Boy' sung by Noel Coward is the song of his most likely to catch their attention, but the truth is, it wasn't songs with gay subjects that made Coward so great, it was songs with straight subjects but perceived through a gay sensibility. Likewise with the Pet Shop Boys, sixty years later. What made their early songs so good was that they never came out and said they were gay. They had to find an ambivalent way of expressing themselves, which is what great gay songwriters had always done. From Cole Porter to Stephen Sondheim to Lionel Bart, songwriters learnt that that gay words need straight presentation to turn them into powerful lyrics.
In the sixties, the underground nature of gay influence began to change. This was mainly due to the Beatles having a gay manager. It gave an aspirational boost to other young gays to get into the same business. These gay managers were a major influence on the way British bands transformed themselves from pop groups to rock groups and sold themselves to America in the seventies. I've written a piece about this for this week's Observer Music Magazine, an issue devoted entirely to the influence of gay culture on pop and rock music.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2006
From John Dang, Bangkok , Thailand
Hi Simon. Hope you've settled into the new house now. I came down with a cold at the weekend which forced me to do essential boring things like reinstall my computer studio (which i've been putting off for while). I will now get on to more producing and recording for your aural delights!! I thought you might like to read this: http://www.forbes.com/business/global/2006/1002/054.html. It's about Grammy and their massive losses but how they still control 70% of Thailand's legit record sales. Also talks about how they've failed to crack any international market and how rich Paiboon still is. By the way, I managed to get the contact name you wanted, she's Ms. Rungsnappa. Much love.
Hi John. It's late at night and I'm pissed. Yo and I spend all day every day fighting with endless ridiculousnesses from the builders working on our house (i.e. running the water outlet from the aircon straight into the main drain so that the whole house now stinks of sewage). Consequently my attention hasn't been turned as fully as it should have been towards the advice you asked for. As for Ms. Rungsnappa - her name conjures up a pussy with a full set of teeth. More later when I sober up.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2006
From Rev. Benjamin Suberu, the Church of 'Jesus the Living', Lagos, Nigeria
Dear Mr Napier-Bell
He is Alive! He is Alive! Jesus of Nazareth is alive! And it could be your body in which he resides.
The ecumenical council of the 'Church of Jesus the Living' has received your name for consideration as the person in whose body our Lord Jesus will make his return to this Earth. If our committee reaches a positive conculusion, you will be informed in 28 days and invited to become the nominal figurehead for our Church with an initial golden handshake payment of five million US dollars and a subsequent salary of two million US dollars per annum. Forthwith, you should refrain from masturbation, fornication, the consumption of alcohol, the use of unnatural stimulants and telling of untruths.
MOST IMPORTANTLY. To be considered for this position you must first be comprehensively insured. In order to waste no time we have already put this into effect on your behalf. PLEASE, AT ONCE, contact Miss Magdelane in our office to facilitate payment of the small premium now due to Nigerian Christian Assurance Association.
Hi Rev. That's a hell of a scam you've got going. My own view is that Jesus was a bit of a scam himself. Nasty ending too! Were he to re-appear I fear much of the same nastiness would happen again. It's tempting though, especially as you Nigerian Christians are the most anti-gay in the world and your computer has picked me, a big fat poofter, to be the new Jesus. However, I think I'll decline your offer and continue as usual, happily pissed, wanking my way to the grave. Cheers.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2006
From Jon Lindsay, Sydney, Australia
Hello Simon. By a strange co-incidence I googled Rob Astbury's name and yours came up on the second page! What can this mean? I've been helping that well known Pattaya resident Rob promote his book "King & I" in Australia and he's had mass of publicity, hence my search. Rob has written a tome about his 20 year affair with Australia's first big TV star, the late Graham Kennedy. Now he's announced he will be standing for Parliament at the next election on a gay platform (or maybe it was platform shoes).
Sadly I see our dinner at Mantra in Pattaya didn't make it into your Top 40 list - hope it wasn't the company. Thanks for dropping me off in Sunnee Plaza afterwards. I woke up the next morning with a katooey in my bed and the pillows smeared with pancake, but then strange things always happen on nights out with you!! Cheers
Strange things on nights out with me, eh? Inside an old book I happened to find a picture of one of our previous nights out. I must have been using it as a bookmark. South of France I think, circa 1986. Gosh - don't we both look lovely!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2006
From Charles Kinnersley, Edinburgh, Scotland
Come on Simon - you've written about going bust two days running and made it sound like a holiday. I don't fall for that. Tell us about the downsides. Didn't you ever get desperate? Depressed? Wonder what the future held and was it really worth living for? Losing your assets is usually considered major mental trauma and a prime cause of suicide. Stop writing fiction and give us some real insight.
Kinnersley - you prying git - I had no trouble with it at all, just as I have no trouble facing any other problem (including nosey emails). The upsides from any new experience always outweigh the downsides. However, if it makes you feel better, I can tell you that during the time I was bankrupt I was sometimes depressed, disillusioned, worried, lonely, bored and pissed off.
Which make it just like every other period of my life. I was also happy, horny, excited, expectant, stimulated and buzzing. As normal. By and large, you see, I'm content with my own thoughts. You, it seems, need confirmation that other people's lives are as depressing as your own.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2006
From Gregory Gray, Herfordshire , UK
yeah but what was it like?... what was it like having to do without? did you have to do without things you were used to after the bankruptsy or did friends keep life at a sumptuous level. it must have been an incredible clusterfuck to have to adapt to the circumstance... to live without money having mostly always having it, must be a strange experience. maybe it was fun… the charm of meeting Yo compensating for everything.... cheaper bottles of wine, but love and romance in abundance. were you frightened?... maybe someone like you in never frightened of such things
GOING BROKE Part II…
It was strange. For four years after receiving those tax demands I'd struggled to keep the businesses afloat. It wasn't just pop management - I had seven other companies, including Allan Soh's hairdressing salons, and over thirty employees - and there was more than just the tax demands to pay, it was the cost of the lawyers and accountants who were dealing with it for me. Finally, though, I put the companies into liquidation and got rid of all the staff and offices. But that wasn't enough. I had to go bankrupt myself too. When the day could no longer be put off I set off for the bankruptcy office but stopped first for lunch with a friend at the Ivy. The end result… I eventually arrived with no cash and when I handed in the bankruptcy form the official asked me for fifteen pounds. “I don't have it,” I told him. “The Ivy swopped it for a sticky toffee pudding.” He was most unhelpful. “Well, you can't go bankrupt then, mate. Not without fifteen quid.” So it was back home on the tube and try again tomorrow (the first time I'd been on the tube for years).
From then on I enjoyed it. No pressure, no more struggling to sort things out - it was peaceful, like being young and irresponsible with the world in front of you. I'd had to get rid of the house in Bryanston Square so I moved into Allan Soh's spare room in Redcliffe Gardens. It was summer. I jogged in Kensington Gardens with Herbie Hancock on the Walkman, and lunch was pasta on Allan's terrace overlooking the communal gardens with wine from a cheap Australian 3-litre box.
In the US they long ago ammended bancruptcy laws so that the whole thing lasts just three months - enough time for them to gather up your assets and divide them between your creditors. But in the UK, after they've done that, they then insist you stay bankrupt for three years. It's just punishment, that's all. “You've been naughty boy – you've been careless with your money - stand in the corner for three years with your arms out.” It's damned silly because immediately after you've gone bust is the time when you feel most energized to sort it out and get back to where you were. Whereas, after three years of lazing round, you begin to decide that life's more pleasant at a slower pace so the government loses out on the tax they would have earned if you'd rushed off to earn a new fortune. Anyway, I decided - if I'm not allowed to earn big money I might as well do something totally unconnected to money making. To test my brain was still in good order at 50 I learnt Thai. People would call me and ask, “How are things going?” (By which they meant, ‘are you making any money?'). But I wasn't thinking about things like that, I'd tell them, “It's going brilliantly. I've got the hang of the high tone and at last I'm beginning to hear the difference between the low tone and the low rising tone.”
Then almost before I knew it my three years was up and it was back to hard work - travelling the world first class and having to eat in all those posh places. Quel bore!
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2006
From Gregory Gray, Hertfortdshire, UK
Hello Simon… I see Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers has gone to jail for tax evasion? it seems a bit harsh to me to cage a singing bird like that. i mean...Ronald Isley is getting old...let him sing and live a little...he leaves a whole money making musical legacy when he dies. they punished poor old Willie Nelson with jail for silly tax evasion too. in Ireland they have that great law of no tax for artists...and it works. it keeps and brings talent to the country. poor Ronald Isley having to suddenly adapt to prison life at his age.
tax is a terrible thing... you had a bit of a barney with the tax man didn't you Simon? just how much of a mindfuck was that? actually...I always wanted to go to jail... for three days.. .and i get to pick my cellmate. ride easy
Hi Gregory. Well.... I'm not sure about 'a bit of a barney'. I woke up one morning twenty years ago to find a tax demand on the front door mat for £450,000. Bit of a shock, but I didn't worry too much, my accountant always dealt brilliantly with these sort of things. I put it on my desk to send to him later then went for a weekend in Spain to with stay with my crazy cooking friend Hilary Jenks who liked making caviar paella.
Four days later, when I got back, amongst the letters were nine more copies of the same tax demand - it seemed the Inland Revenue were getting impatient. I couriered them to my accountant who called me right back to explain it wasn't ten copies of the same thing but ten separate tax demands – 1975 to 1985, a total of four and half million pounds. I had a marvelous lunch that day because money didn't seem to matter.
Anyway from there to finally sorting it out was three years of meetings with lawyers and folk from the Inland Revenue. The problem was… to pay it off I was going to haave to earn four million pounds which would be taxed at forty per cent. That turned the total into six million pounds, and then the extra two million would be taxed too, which turned it into seven. And during the time I was earning this money I would be paying interest on the outstanding amount.
Once my accountant had worked out it would come to a total of ten million I decided the best thing to do was go bankrupt, but first I went for a holiday. Which is when I met Yo.
Since we're still together after sixteen years I reckon the Inland Revenue did me a favour. To thank them for it, these days I pay my tax promptly.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2006
From Tracy Cunliffe,www.dirterecords.com, London
hiya simon - i hope this finds you and yo well. its a beautiful sunny morning here in london. i've just logged on to your website and for the record loved your response to andy coppertone. believe me simon i come across so many sad, deluded, but bizarrely confident idiots that have about as much musical talent as a gnat (maybe thats unfair to gnats?). so its great as i feel you give a voice to all us managers who get inundated with crap and never get a chance to tell the offenders! lots of love
Hi Tracy. Strange, isn't it, how people with a complete lack of talent are often bursting with arrogant confidence. It's not just aspiring pop stars either - George W Bush is a perfect example of the same sort of thing. So let's hope Andy Copperstone completely ignores what I said and sticks to making crap demos. It might be safer than sending him off in a new direction. Cheers.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006
From Jason Barnes, Isle of Man
Don't you think that what Shirley Sands was talking about justifies some serious thought? In the past music & lyrics (and art of all sorts for that matter) have sometimes helped highlight social problems and focus people's attention on them.
Shirley Sands has the sound of a 'do-gooder' about her. Worse than that, she only seems to be do-gooding as a way of coming up with a hit song. Imagine if 'Strange Fruit' had been sung by a white pop singer looking for a hit rather than by Billie Holiday.
Anyway, this "Islamic women's oppressed situation" stuff brings us back to the "is there a religious gene?" question. If there is, I suppose we have to feel sorry for those that are born with it and are therefore uncontrollably religious. If there isn't, then religion is a choice, and so too, presumably, the oppression that goes with it. I know, I know... the social and family pressures that prevents young Moslem women from breaking with their social roots... but in this case we're talking about people who live under Australian law. They can choose to live their own lives or they can keep the veil pulled over their brains and put up with the madness of Mullahs and Muftis.
Having to listen to Shirley Sandys sing a song about it won't help much.
MONDAY, SUNDAY, OCTOBER, 29, 2006
From Shirley Sandys, Cairo, Egypt
Simon... what's your take on this stupid tosser in Australia who says for a woman to go out without a veil is like leaving uncovered meat around for the dogs. Don't you think ‘Uncovered Meat' would be a great title for a song? I'm thinking of writing and recording one - a lament for the Islamic woman's oppressed situation – in the vein of Billie Holiday's ‘Strange Fruit'. Cheers.
Sounds like you've got a hit on your hands. And you seem to be in the right part of the world to get it organized. Put it out on Mullah Records, get the video shown on Al Jazeera TV and take out some life insurance.
Hope you're not looking for a manager.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2006
From Jeremy Tillock, Brighton , UK
Simon - How can you be so ridiculously rude to some poor guy who only wants you to listen to his songs? Couldn't you just say they're 'sort of OK'? No need to go over the top and destroy him. I just say this, because I've been sending tapes out for years and have never got such a nasty reply as the one you gave poor Andy Copperstone.
But it's probably time you did. The best thing I can do for anyone who misguidedly thinks they have talent when they don't, is to let them know it in no uncertain terms that they should stop dreaming. You, it seems, want to continue in an optimistic fog. And if that's what you want, why not? But don't send me your songs or your likely to hear back that they're as pathetic as your sympathy for Mr Copperstone.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2006
From Andy Copperstone, London , UK
hi simon... i'm a singer/songwriter from canada living in London and soon to have mega success... i'm what every record company needs to get themselves back in the black... the sound of 2007.... but first I need a manager... since youre the best you deserve the best... and that means me... together we can make millions... get back to me soon... lets get stuck in
For a potential pop star self-confidence is useful but yours is profoundly misplaced. Your melodies are trite, your lyrics are abysmal, your voice is infuriating and the overall imact of the first song (the only one I listened to, and then only to the first eight bars) has the musical charm of a midnight cat fight. Since you didn't send me a photo, I presume you're ugly too.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2006
From Erica Hindler , Bonn, Germany
Hello Simon. For my university course I've been writing a thesis about David Sylvian, with particular reference to his time with the group Japan. I'm interested to know why a group who specialised in such esoteric music would agree to be recorded by Georgio Moroder who was such an out and out pop-dance producer.
The reason was simple. After three years and two albums Japan still hadn't had a hit in the UK. Georgio Moroder seemed to be the answer and agreed to do it. David and I flew to Los Angeles to meet him but because David was so solidly committed to his own material I felt sure the meeting would come to nothing, especially when Moroder told us he would only agree to produce a record if it was one of his own songs.
David asked to hear them and several were absolutely great. Strangely, though, he chose the one that was most outstandingly awful. Outside, I asked him in amazement why he'd picked that song. “Because,” he said, “it's so bad that I'm sure Georgio won't mind if I change it. That way I can turn it into something suitable for our style.”
And that's what he did. He managed to get all the benefits of a Moroder production - the clarity of sound, the superb engineering, the uncluttered mix - without actually compromising the artistic integrity of his group. No other Moroder record ever sounded so off-the-wall melodically and vocally. It was unmistakeably Japan yet unmistakeably Moroder too. But when it was released in Britain it was a total flop.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2006
From David Boon, Madrid, Spain
Hi Simon, I just got back from a trip to Thailand of which I enjoyed every minute. I'm so jealous of you being able to live there. One of the things that amused me most were the endless funny signs in English. For instance, in our hotel there was a buffet breakfast. The sign in English said: "Food items will parade daily to your pleasure". You must have dozens of these.
I do. But in case I eventually get around to writing a book on Thailand, I'm not going to give them all way. However, there was an eye-catching one in a brothel in Chiang Mai: 'Our girl is train for service you in standard fashion with clean and efficient'. And in the back of a tuk-tuk in Hat Yai: 'Driver will not travel bumpy road'.
Buddhist philosophy? Or just wishful thinking?
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2006
From Jenny Sales, Winnipeg , Canada
Hi Simon
Just finished reading your book “I'm Coming To Take You To Lunch” which I loved. Just wondering - whatever happened to your two ex-boyfriends, the ones featured throughout the book, Allan and Donavon?
Allan lives in Singapore but also has an apartment round the corner from our house in Jomtien Beach (Thailand ). Donavon lives with his girlfriend (Anna) in Gothenburg and they have two children. (Yo is godfather to one of them). When I was moving house over the weekend an old photo fell out of a file - me and Donavon in the South of France twenty years ago (at the time the book is about). Donavon won't thank me for letting you see his hair like this and I don't do myself any favours either. Usually I look pretty straight but not this time. S-o-o-o-o swishy!!
MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2006
From Bobbi Marchini, Villa Christina, Zakynthos, Greece
Hi Darling. It's great to see your site back up and working. The season ended last Friday and it was a good one. Lots of old friends and lots of new. Managed to throw together some wonderful meals for my best and favourites...a few mediocre ones slipped through, but what the hell when the night is warm and the wine's cool. We made it though earthquakes and fires and heat so fierce it melted my shoes ...another season in paradise.
Re yesterday's email. How do we stop ourselves from laughing when something's truly funny and involves religion, blindness, fatness or any other 'ness'? We can't, it's impossible, so let's stop this precious rubbish and get over it. Your emailer wouldn't last long in Oz. I remember the nicknames we had as kids… "shorty", "fatty", "4 eyes". We survived.
Enough already! The house looks brilliant. More photo's please. Did Yo design everything? Very stressful building a house and I'm happy you both survived. I'll never do it again! Much love
You're dead right about building a house being stressful. More than I could ever have imagined. But worse for Yo. He designed the whole thing then had to struggle with workmen day by day as they screwed it up. Currently we wake up to share the day with fifteen or so builders. Not much fun, but the garden is great. Especially the little summer house, which Thais call a 'sala'. Perfect for sitting and doing absolutely nothing when nothing is the last thing on earth you should be doing.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2006
From Gerald Aston, Exeter, UK
Dear Simon Napier-Bell, I happened on your website and saw the ridiculous comment you made about David Blunkett. I found it offensive that you should make a joke about someone who has acheived so much despite being blind, and that you should base the joke on his blindness. As a gay person I would expect you to act with more sensitivity.
Dammit! Blindman, blackman, beggarman, queer – there's no reason not to be able to say what you think about someone. That's exactly what Blunkett himself was trying to impose on us, making it an offence to tell religious jokes in case they caused offence. As far as I'm concerned, jokes about religion can be as offensive as they want to be. So can jokes about Blunkett. Gays too, if you like. As long as they're funny who cares.
I've always found people who take offence are a pain in the butt. Much more so than the people who are supposed to have given it.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2006
From Ron Franklin, Bangkok, Thailand
Hi Simon! Glad you are back and so very happy you have resumed your website. Whilst you were away I was invited to dinner with a certain Lady Pishtafel at the Normandie. Guy Martin, from Le Grand Vefour, was the guest chef for a week, and the place was packed.
It was certainly one of the better meals of my long existence and fun to eat as each of the 8 courses was a surprise. The bill was long too, although my hostess didn't bat an octagenerian eyelash. However I much prefer our lunches there and am available anytime you come up this way. Love to both of you.
Hi Ron. Between posting these emails everyday, trying to get started on a new book, writing a piece for the Observer magazine, working and traveling with Brothermandude, and, this weekend, moving house, there's not much chance of lunch at the Normandie for a week or two.
Which seems absurd! To live in such close promixty to my favourite restaurant yet to eat there so infrequently is plain daft. Anyway, as soon as Yo and I are settled in I'll come up to Bangkok for one of our all-afternoon lunches. The house is just about finished. The garden arrived from nowhere almost overnight.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2006
From Terry Narowicz, Sydney, Australia
Hi Simon. I've been a fan of yours for a long time. I'm in my mid-forties, just finishing off my second divorvce and am three-quarters of the way to accepting that I'm gay. Recently I gave up Buddhism in favour of all-out atheism.. I've read all your books and love your website. Next month I'm flying to London and will be passing through Bangkok. It would be brilliant to buy you a dinner and have a chat? I feel just sure we're made for each other.
Terry. You sound truly horrific. Luckily I don't live in Bangkok so you're unlikely to end up anywhere near me. Even so, you might do better to forget your trip to Thailand and fly straight to England. Check into one of those rehab clinics where they drain your brain and refill it with distilled water. Or try 'promession', where human bodies are freeze dried, shaken to a fine powder and used as compost.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2006
From Susan Henderson, Gibraltar
Simon - I didn't like the comments you made about the veil, in particular in reference to Britain's Foreign Minister, Margaret Beckett. Don't you realise that these sort of chauvinistic remarks are no better than the homophobia you often complain about.
Susan. You've got me wrong. I never complain about homophobia. I accept it as part of life's rich pattern. Without gays the world wouldn't be normal. And nor would it be without homophobes. As for Margaret Beckett, she's not a pretty woman and that's all there is to it. (What are we meant to say these days, that she's facially disadvantaged?) But since her eyes are her best feature, I thought a veil might help. I can't see what's chauvinistic about that. I'd happily say the same thing about David Blunkett.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2006
From Jordi Devas, London, UK
Hi Simon, I hope you're fine. This is a mail of thanks for your introduction to Tracy over at DirtE records. What a great girl. Very cool and very switched on. We're going to work together on the next FUTON single in the UK - late January or early February. So...THANK YOU very much. The band recorded the new album in Bangkok with Tim Simenon (Bomb the Bass) as producer. We reckon it's going to be even wilder and edgier than before. I'll be in Thailand in November and it'd be my pleasure to take you to lunch.
And MY pleasure to let you.
I'm delighted you got on with Tracy. From the start I thought Futon and DirtE Records were made for each other. Let's hope this finally cracks the band outside of Thailand .
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006
From Lawrence Ashmore, London, UK
Dear heart, with regard to the dinner we missed having with you when you called unexpectedly, I am sorry beyond words that we had to pass it up but we are OLD PEOPLE, set in our ways, do you see. We had expected to have an evening at home when Suzy would wash her hair, effectively putting out of the question any further social engagements for that day.
Now Suzy's hair, as you may be aware, is no laughing matter, for it runs her life. A bad hair day is, to Suzy, no day at all and those of us who love her (and I include you in that category), have to respect this fact and run our lives accordingly.
We trust that the above explanation will help you to forgive us, so that when, (or if ) you ever ask us again to come out to play, you will give us 24 hours notice so that Suzy can instantly fall in the shower and WASH HER HAIR.
Love and hugs. xxx
Larry, I'm so sorry about the ridiculously short warning - it was just an 'off-chance' phone call. I was on the way back home from New York and found myself unexpectedly free in London for an evening. My thoughts immediately turned to you and Suzy and the chance of a repeat night out at Le Columbier.
I quite understand about Suzy's hair. I'd hate to be responsible for making her appear in public with it anything less than perfect, which in thirty years of knowing you is the only way I've ever seen it. I thought it just came that way naturally. Next time I promise to give you LOTS of notice. xxx
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2006
From Andy Terrain, Liverpool, UK
What do you think about this veil business? Do you think a pop singer could become a major star wearing one?
Probably! Sort of Roy Orbinson in reverse. In the end, though, it would become irrelevant. All that matters in pop is hit records.
But re the veil. It would be great if various well-known figures were to wear one for a while so we could check their ability to still interact with people. Could Paul O'Grady get through a show wearing one? Could the Prime Minister do question time? Would Margaret Beckett get more respect?
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2006
From Nick Jones, London, UK
I'm researching a movie project based on the Eurovision Song Contest, a fictional feature film. We would value the direct experience of anyone who has actually participated in the competition and can give us insight or stories.
I only got involved with Eurovision once, in 2001, when I was managing a Russian singer. Russia had never been higher than 17th before. But by the time we'd finished they came 2nd.
On the way home from Stockholm, where the had event taken place, I sat next to a chap from the BBC's Eurovision organising committee. He was disappointed that the UK had received nul points. "But never mind" he said, "at least it's a straight musical competition, judged by the public, with no fixing and no corruption. I guess it's just that we picked the wrong song."
I realised then that Britain would never win again. During the five months running up to the competition I'd visited every single country that was in the competition and met top members of their organising committees. Of course, nothing untoward took place in relation to the artist I was managing (she came 2nd due due to a great song and a superb performance), but amongst things I became aware of that other artists' managers were up to, were...
bilateral trade deals, meetings at ministerial and in some cases head-of-state level, mutual deals between countries on voting, plans for the public phone-in vote to be ignored or simply changed to conform with what was pre-arranged, free holidays, free travel, girls, boys, drugs, suitcases full of cash, and a great deal of bacon being bought from one of the committee chiefs who happened to own a pig farm.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2006
From Derek J, Bristol, UK
A year ago I read you were building a new house in Thailand. How's it going? Have you moved in yet?
It's been very slow and endlessly frustrating, not to mention increasingly expensive. A few weeks ago in London a friend told me an old saying, "Wise men buy houses, foolish men build them". I know what he means. Here's a picture of the garden being installed.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2006
From Miles Tredinnick, London, UK
Hi Simon. Your old charge ‘Riff' here! I've really missed your emails. Your ‘grumpy jet-setting rock manager/author' persona is a winner! Have you ever thought of doing it along the lines of a stage play a la 'Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell'?
I reckon your life story played out as a one-man show would be hilarious! Provisional title: ARISE SIR SIMON (or ASS for short!) It could take place aboard a 747 flying from Bangkok to London. Starts with you having to slum it in economy because First Class is full and you have to get back to London as you're being knighted for Services to the British record industry by the Queen (or something like that).
The point is you're in a hurry, so you're slumming it in economy with the great backpack unwashed and you don't like it. Cue: grumpy SNB persona - 90 minutes or so in which you tell your extraordinary story, anecdotes about those you have known/managed/ fucked/recorded/written-about etc.
I reckon it could be a hit. What do you think?
Hi Miles. In general, I quite like your idea but you misunderstand my strength of feeling with regard to flying economy. A knighthood would not be enough to get me into it.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2006
From Endymion G. Titlow, Woking, Surrey, UK
Hello Mr Napier-Bell. How's the new book coming along? It'd better be bloody good to make up for not amusing us every day with your rude emails.
Well, Mr Titlow, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the book isn't coming along at all. Yo and I have been building a new house and I've been travelling with Brothermandude, who've just finished their first US tour. As a result, I've been ridiculously lazy about writing. However, I've now decided to go back to answering emails. I was afraid I might have lost the knack of being rude but if I get emails from people with names as daft as yours it should come back quite easily.
