The seed grows, the meadow blows

"Summer Breeze" by Erte - click to enlarge

The Cuckoo Song
(Traditional 13th century)

Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.
Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.

Sumer is i-cumin in—
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth
Murie sing, cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes thu, cuccu.
Ne swik thu naver nu!

OR (in a loose translation/interpretation by American poet Michael R. Burch):

Sing now cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo! Sing now cuckoo!

Summer is a-comin'!
Sing loud, cuckoo!
The seed grows,
The meadow blows,
The woods spring up anew.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe bleats for her lamb;
The cows contentedly moo;
The bullock roots;
The billy-goat poots ...
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing so well, cuckoo!
Never stop, until you're through!

The Vernal Equinox was last weekend. Last night our clocks went forward - British Summer Time has arrived!

Long, light, languid evenings are beckoning, dear reader...

On the Jukebox here at Dolores Delargo Towers

The higher the hair...

Today's birthday girl Miss Diana Ross (born 26th March 1944)

Simone Signoret (25th March 1921 – 30th September 1985), whose centenary it was yesterday.

Fanny Ardant (born 22nd March 1949)

Aretha Franklin (25th March 1942 – 16th August 2018)

Gloria Swanson (27th March 1899 – 4th April 1983)

Kelly Le Brock (born 24th March 1960)

Pearl Bailey (29th March 1918 – 17th August 1990)

Chaka Khan (born 23rd March 1953)

Sarah Vaughan (27th March 1924 – 3rd April 1990)

It's Diva Season!

All the boys loved Joanie

"I think the most important thing a woman can have - next to talent, of course, is... her hairdresser."

It's Joan Crawford's birthday, bitches!

All hail.

Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur, 23rd March 1904 - 10th May 1977)

Objets de désir

The Winston Pink Legacy diamond

Perfect for the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers

Art Deco alabaster table lamp, creator unknown

"Roi De Sugilite" by Victoire de Castellane for Dior

"Healing Golden Voice" Art Deco walnut case radio, c.1937

"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves." - Dorothy Parker

"The best things in life are free. The second best things are very expensive." - Coco Chanel

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...just like today's birthday girl, the lover and muse of Florenz Ziegfeld, Miss Anna Held!

Beware...

...The Idas of March!

[L-r: Ida Barr, Ida Lupino, Ida Clough]

Carry On Cleo

"Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

Ides of March on Wikipedia

[I've done this joke before, of course, but in the spirit of recycling and all that...]

Thanks to you

Gran: "You've got your grandmother's hips."
Edina: "Thanks to you. Thanks for all the chips and lard and potatoes and white bread and suet pudding covered in treacle I had to eat as a child. You know, the endless cups of sugary tea..."
Gran: "Mr Whippy."
Edina: "Biscuits and chips and meat fried in six inches of animal fat. Thanks to that!"
Gran: "Before we had the deep freeze."
Edina: "God, even then it was the same food, only colder. And do you know, darling, the real problems started, sweetie, because I wasn't even breast-fed."
Gran: "Don't be ridiculous, dear. It wasn't done in those days, Imagine me having that clamped to my breast."
Edina: "What you two don't seem to realise is that inside of me, inside of me, there's a thin person just screaming to get out."
Gran: "Just the one, dear?"

It's Mothers'Day Mothering Sunday again, dear reader!

Hope you sent a bouquet...

"There she goes, Lisa Minooli!"

"Reality is something you rise above."

"I'd rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of anybody."

"Dream on it. Let your mind take you to places you would like to go, and then think about it and plan it and celebrate the possibilities. And don't listen to anyone who doesn't know how to dream."

"Audiences are the same all over the world, and if you entertain them, they'll respond."

"I'm always looking at the next thing. I'm too curious to look back..."

The incomparable, the unique, the utterly fantabulosa Miss Liza Minnelli is 75 years old today!

All hail our beloved Patron Saint of Pizzazz...

Liza Minnelli - Liza with a Z

Liza May Minnelli (born 12th March 1946)

A gala tribute event A Love Letter to Liza Minnelli: 75th All-Star Birthday Tribute Celebration - featuring such luminaries as Joel Grey, Michael York, Michael Feinstein, Lily Tomlin, Billy Stritch, Chita Rivera, Dame Joan Collins, Lorna Luft, Lea DeLaria, Ute Lemper, Sandra Bernhard and many more - will be live streamed tonight, and viewings are available until Sunday - book tickets here.

Pass me another Sobranie...

...I do not understand the word "No"!

Flashes of inspiration

Gus Solomons, dancer

Gene Krupa

Alicia Alonso, ballerina

Martha Graham

Burt West, diver

Remarkable stroboscopic flash photography by Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton and Gjon Mili.

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...like Yasmin Le Bon in Thierry Mugler’s Autumn-Winter 1997–98 collection “La Chimère”!

[click photo to embiggen]

The smokiest voice in the business

Gosh. Another centenary...

...the lovely Joan Greenwood, star of stage and screen, renowned for her roles in many a classic film such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, Whisky Galore!, The Importance of Being Earnest and Tom Jones, and much later in life, the eccentric landlady in the cult French & Saunders/Ruby Wax/Tracey Ullman sitcom Girls on Top was born one hundred years ago today.

Beautiful though she was - in 1995 she was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history - Miss Greenwood is perhaps most recognisable for her remarkable husky voice:

Joan Greenwood in The Importance of Being Earnest

Facts:

• Miss Greenwood's father was Sydney Earnshaw Greenwood, a painter whose work is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery.
• She was married to André Morell, the actor whose portrayal of Professor Quatermass on television was considered the definitive portrayal of the character.
• André starred in The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1969 (as Doctor Watson), while Joan appeared in the critically-panned 1978 spoof version of the story alongside Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
• She was brought in to dub the voice of Anita Pallenberg as "The Black Queen" in Barbarella at the behest of the producers, but was not credited.
• She made her stage debut aged 18 in 1938 at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, and just two months before her death she appeared in a sketch for a charity gala at the Prince of Wales Theatre just around the corner in Coventry Street.

Joan Mary Waller Greenwood (4th March 1921 – 28th February 1987)

St David's Day reading

Gwych!