It's a look...

Karlheinz Weinberger - Rebel Youth: Photographs of youths of the "Halbstark" cult in Switzerland in 1958.

John Waters on Karlheinz Weinberger

I am the captain of my soul

It's National Poetry Day, apparently.

To celebrate, how about a bit of a poetic pick-me-up? This is a great one for one of those days when everything seems to be conspiring against you...

Invictus
by W.E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

And here's the late, great Alan Bates to read it:

Alan Bates reads Invictus by W.E. Henley

National Poetry Day

A good deed never goes unpunished

"A good deed never goes unpunished."

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."

"Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. Of 60."

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so."

"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests."

"By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over."

"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."

"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults."

"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

"Never have children, only grandchildren."

"Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale."

"Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself."

"Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences."

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."

"The four most beautiful words in our common language: 'I told you so'."

"Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either."

"We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself."

"What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?"

"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."

The incomparable Gore Vidal would have been 90 years old today.

RIP a bitter genius.

My Fair Julie

"I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well."

"Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly."

"I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on."

"I know what I'm capable of - it's other people who have a problem with my image, not me."

"Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That will be a wonderful legacy."

"Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it."

Dame Julie Andrews is 80 years old today.

All hail.

Julia "Julie" Elizabeth Andrews DBE (née Wells, born 1st October 1935)

More Julie over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle

I think today should be...

...a "Say Something Hat" day...







...don't you?!

La bella di Roma

Our new favourite Italian nonogenarian diva - Signorina Sylvana Pampanini (born 25th September 1925)

If you want to achieve your dreams, you must follow them

"One magazine said that no-one writes sex in the back of a Bentley better than Jackie Collins."

"The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them."

"If anything, my characters are toned down - the truth is much more bizarre."

"Do not copy my style! The first rule of writing is write about what you know, not what you think you know. So, think about what you've done in your life and write about that."

"If you want to achieve your dreams, you must follow them, and the best way to follow them is not to think about wanting to be very rich, but to think about doing something that you really want to do."

"My weakness is wearing too much leopard print."

RIP darling Jackie, doyenne of the "bonkbuster", chronicler of the salacious underbelly of Hollywood glamour. We'll miss you...

Jacqueline Jill "Jackie" Collins, OBE (4th October 1937 – 19th September 2015)