Simply the Best

Miss Tina Turner is 80 years old today...

...all hail!



Rather than rely on what "the expected" by way of a tribute, let's try a lesser-known performance by the great lady...

Tina Turner - Hold On, I'm Coming (Arquest Remix)

Congratulations, Ma'am.

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock, 26th November 1939)

On the Jukebox at Dolores Delargo Towers

Grace and favour

“I would like to be remembered as a person who did her job well. An understanding, kind and decent human being.”

“I’ve been accused of being cold, snobbish, distant. Those who know me well know that I’m nothing of the sort. If anything, the opposite is true. But is it too much to ask to want to protect your private life, your inner feelings?”

“The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale.”

“I'm basically a feminist. I think that women can do anything they decide to do.”







Princess Grace of Monaco would have celebrated her 90th birthday today. One of the most beautiful faces in Hollywood, taken away too soon.

Grace Patricia Kelly (12th November 1929 – 14th September 1982)

Winter draws on...

...time to get the thermals out!

Wintour wisdom

Dame Anna Wintour DBE (born 3rd November 1949)

Glorification of Chernobog

Hallowe'en. Samhain. Hop-tu-Naa. Día de Muertos. Calan Gaeaf. The Season of the Witch is upon us once again...

Fantasia - Chernabog the Demon (Mussorgsky - Night on Bald Mountain)

More about the "Chernabog" sequence and its origins courtesy of the Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy blog.

Not my father's legs

"My mother said to me, ‘You’re no oil painting, my girl, but you have the spark. Thank God you’ve got my legs and not your father’s!’”

"I have always resented the comments that it was I who was the homewrecker of Larry's marriage to Vivien Leigh. Danny Kaye was attached to Larry far earlier than I."

"Nothing is so sexy in a man as talent."





Sharing a birthday, as she does, with another mixed bag of luminaries including Hank Marvin, Dame Cleo Laine, Elsa Lanchester, Joaquin Phoenix, Francis Bacon, Caitlyn Jenner, Auguste Escoffier, Edith Head, Suzy Parker, David Dimbleby, Matt Smith, Bill Gates and Julia Roberts, the lovely Dame Joan Plowright blows out 90 candles on her cake today!

All hail.

Many happy returns, Joan Ann Olivier, The Lady Olivier, DBE (née Plowright; born 28th October 1929)

Read about our Audience with Dame Joan back in 2014.