[art of noise] peter gunn theme

In 1987, two of us choreographed the Peter Gunn theme for a bunch of kids in a review, around a single street lamp, slightly stage left. Was this one of the earlier pole dances? We were pretty chuffed by it, they looked slick, the guys and gals and my friend was a pretty hot choreographer. The light and sound were in place and a techie I knew came in gave it the once over, so all seemed well.

They did do it well but unfortunately most people likened it to Bugsy Moran so it lost a bit of its wow factor plus the song was still too freshly in people's minds and everyone was doing arrangements to it. Doesn't matter. Whenever I listen to this I still remember that black and white number.

It would have been nice if the Art of Noise could have run the characters in the video in monochrome and the girl's dress in red. That's just my personal preference though.
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[weekend poll] age and beauty

Yes, Rachel, the Boys' Poll is next Friday.

Well, I've already made a hash of this right from the start. I left Nigella off and Freepolls only allow ten variants. So the only way out of it [some votes already having been cast] is to count TOTAL VOTES and I'll tot up the percentages once it's all done, after the weekend.

Now, let's get down to it

Only a fool would claim that young women are not beautiful and enticing but 'sexy' is a much broader term than just perfect skin and sharp movements. It's the combination of so many things and the expression that a woman is like a fine wine - better as she gets older, I'd vouch for from my [limited] experience.

There's an animal wildness and a knowledgeability to the experienced lady [in the one or two I've known] which the younger girl is going to have to wait years to develop.

So, here are eleven such ladies for you to vote for in the right sidebar. Remember that you're allowed multiple votes done at one time.


1. Stevie Nicks [61]

2. Queen Noor of Jordan [57]

3. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. President of Argentina [56]

4. Segolene Royal [55]

5. Michelle Pfeiffer [51]

6. Ann Curry, U.S. television personality [51]

7. Susanna Hoffs, from the Bangles [50]

8. Kate Bush - yes, Kate herself [50]

9. Julia Louis Dreyfus, U.S. actress and comedienne [47]
[This picture was removed on 02/11/10 at the request of JL Dreyfus's management.]


10. Monica Bellucci [44]

You must be wondering about Catherine Zeta-Jones, Emmanuelle Beart, Queen Rania of Jordan, Audrey Tautou, Carla Bruni and many others. They're all too young! Slips of girls.

You might be wondering about why Christie Brinkley's not here either. She's a model and I've left the models out because their profession is beauty.

2nd group - those the readers insist should be there


11. Nigella Lawson [47]

PLEASE VOTE IN THE SIDEBAR, RATHER THAN IN THE COMMENTS :)

[henry allingham] now the world's oldest

Gets you right here, doesn't it? You've seen the news, of course and this blog would like to mark the occasion as well. The Beeb announced:

World War I veteran Henry Allingham is the world's oldest man, following the death of 113-year-old Tomoji Tanabe who died in his sleep at his home in southern Japan, Guinness World Records has confirmed.

Mr Allingham, one of only two surviving WWI veterans in the UK and the last surviving founder member of the RAF, was born on 6 June 1896. He was born in Clapton, London, and now lives at St Dunstan's Centre for blind ex-service personnel near Brighton. Mr Allingham is the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland and has also published his life story.

Mr Allingham's friend and chaperone, Dennis Goodwin, said: "It's staggering. [Henry] is philosophical. He will take it in his stride, like he does everything else. He withdraws in himself and he chews it over like he does all the things he has done in his life. That's his secret I think."

Well done, sir!

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[women] wiis and home accidents

Angus had this yesterday:

WIIs can be dangerous especially for the fairer sex: Women exercising indoors have caused up to £1.3 billion in accidental damage in the last year, as they increasingly give up gym memberships and used games consoles such as the Nintendo Wii.

It seems that Ladies (glass of wine, a fruit based drink) are deserting Gyms in droves in favour of the above mentioned games console. An estimated 13 million women now exercise at home, either in front of a television or computer monitor, or using basic weights and home gym equipment, according to a research by an insurance company.

Hence all the home dumbbells on sale at ASDA? And subsequent visits to the Outpatients?

[the fed] pull the other one

Karl Denninger [H/T Anon]:

I mean, c'mon, $165 billion in Treasuries for sale in the next week?

$31 billion in 3-month bills
$27 billion in 7-year notes
$40 billion in 2-year notes
$37 billion in 5-year notes
$30 billion in 6-month bills

Annualized this is $8.58 trillion dollars!

Now obviously they won't keep doing that for the next 52 weeks (one hopes) but you have to be smoking something if you think the market can continue to absorb this sort of supply and shrug it off.

Today the TNX was up over 5%, undoubtedly on this announcement, almost erasing the benefit from the recent stock market decline.

So Ben's liquidity games have bought him about 15 basis points of improvement in the TNX, but he's given up 35 handles on the SPX.

At this rate to get the TNX down to 3% he'll have to sacrifice 230 points on the SPX, taking it down to about the March lows.

The thing which amazes me in the whole business can be summed up in another article by Karl Denninger:

There is no attempt to hide anything and no conspiracy - simply a conflict of interests.

Readers are at different levels of incredulity over the Fed's actions, from the, 'Oh I'm sure they wouldn't do anything nefarious, those nice men in suits,' through, 'Those incompetent bastards,' to the keen observers [see Sonus articles in the sidebar] who have come to the same conclusion, albeit from a different direction to me, that the Fed and others are simply proceeding to shaft us and position themselves nicely for the next induced stage of the crisis.

I say 'induced' in the sense that certain policies are going to result in certain economic outcomes and to say that from Greenspan to Bernanke weren't and aren't aware of this - come on, pull the other one.

I do sincerely hope that we've all got past the Economics 101 stage of thinking that the Fed is a Government agency, haven't we? We do all realize it's a private cabal of companies who handle the government's business?
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[women over 43] andy mac dowell

This is an ongoing series about lovely women over 43, which reaches its climax in Friday afternoon's Sexiest Woman over 43 Poll.

"Four Weddings and a Funeral" star Andie MacDowell says her 40s were an awkward time partly because Hollywood filmmakers didn't know how to cast the veteran American actress.

The 51-year-old actress hasn't had a big hit since a string of commercial successes in the early and mid-1990s, including "Groundhog Day," "Michael," and "Four Weddings and a Funeral."

She said Thursday that while she didn't have trouble finding work in her 40s, American filmmakers may have had trouble finding good roles for her."In America, there's such a hunger for young people, so you get the young up-and-coming star.

And then it becomes a time when they really don't know what to do with you ... and then it changes, I think, after 50. I think you have to stay open and flexible and look for opportunities and not be arrogant," she said.

"You're so used to being the lead or the hot thing. I think a lot of people get stuck in that moment. And I'm not really stuck in that moment. I just want to participate."

She looks great at 51 but that still isn't enough, it seems. It's the tragedy of people who perhaps have pretty features but something in them, some vibe they project, puts people off. Looking at her, I could be completely wrong but she comes across as a bit pushy, a bit terse maybe, which men don't like in a woman, of course. I think most men would not even notice the physical ravages of time if she was a lovely personality. Perhaps she is lovely in real life.

This article says of her:

[S]he appeals to women as much, if not more than, men, who don't always find her sexy.

That's true.

'Anjelica Huston, Jessica Lange, Geena Davis - what's the girl from Basic Instinct? Sharon Stone - Sean Young, all modelled. The big difference is that I was extremely successful.'

The tartness of the riposte is rather at odds with her likeable screen image.

This is part of the problem with actresses - often you're only as good as your material and how you are typecast. She was most likeable in Groundhog Day but if she had a poor part, she might come across entirely differently.

The bottom line though is that she looks like that at 51. Wow.

[rain] from a warm room

wind drops, vertical rain
tumbles, thunder and lightning,
snug here, observing














Snow does it in a different way but the rain! Why can't Britain have a monsoon season? All the major pleasures and tragedies, all the poignant moments, all the crossroads in my life have been to the backdrop of rain.

[splodginessabounds] two pints of lager ...

[ten banks] chutzpah as an art form

All of us are angry at having the p--s taken out of us these days. This, however, makes me very, very, very angry:

Part 1

Ever since the government gave the O.K. for 10 big banks to pay back the bailout funds, the firms have been rushing to return the money. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be off the government dole anytime soon. Last week, 10 big banks got the blessing from the U.S. to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the rescue fund under which scores of banks got federal funds.

Just days later, banks are giving back the money. Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan have returned $10 billion; US Bancorp $6.6 billion; and BB&T $3.1 billion. Goldman Sachs says it’s ready to repay the money, as well. In all, the 10 banks are expected to return some $68 billion.

So, let's analyse this but not with economic stats. The banks were bailed out. This meant that without this money, they would have gone to the wall and the economy as we know it would have collapsed, right? Now, in a short space of time, what is apparent is that their liquidity supposedly dried up, having stashed the cash into other areas. Now they pay back the loans in full.

How?

Well, they realized assets, didn't they? Assets they'd had all along. So all this talk of expensive TARP is so much hogwash because the simple bottom line is that they actually had the reserves in the beginning, saw the chance of a big handout from the government, took it but now see no further need to continue the charade.

This is the historic Morgan octopus's game. The current game is a variant - they wish to control the government, not be beholden to it. It was always to be this way.

Where did the money come from? From the American taxpayer, of course, those in the bankruptcy queues. What state is the American taxpayer currently in to support cheating banks? Now, if an individual had been up to this creative accounting, in order to secure a loan, what would happen to him?

Part 2

A Democratic president, of course, would be all for ripping off the banks and redistributing it to the common people, wouldn't he? Isn't that what socialism is? Taking from the rich to give to the poor? Well, all right - at least letting the poor go away to lick their wounds.

Er ... no:

This summer, President Obama is calling on all of us – young and old, from every background, all across this country – to participate in our nation’s recovery and renewal by serving in our communities. From June 22 to September 11, United We Serve will begin to engage Americans from coast to coast in addressing community needs in education, health, energy and the environment, and community renewal. Serve.gov is your online resource for not only finding volunteer opportunities in your community, but also creating your own.

Hang on one moment. A people desperate for their steady jobs not to disappear, cynically played around with by the very people who had Obama elected [Morgans, CFR et al], are now being asked by him to volunteer through the summer for the good of the You Ess of Ay, to selflessly give for the good of the country as the dollar is about to be by-passed by another currency, plunging the nation into chaos.

Quiz question - which party's supporters would be more likely to accede to Obama's request, thereby showing themselves to be True Apple Pie Patriots? And what of the other side who point out what they think of Obama's idea? Oh, they're cast in the role of villain of course.

Part 3

There is a Jewish word 'chutzpah'. Here is the Wiki definition:

The word derives from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "audacity", and "impertinence." In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame.

Which is more galling to you - the situation you find yourselves in or the way it has been played by your non-President? There are many words to describe my feelings on the pollies and those behind them.

'Kill' is one of those words, in a completely hypothetical way, of course. Just letting off steam on a blog, you understand.

In a country still maintaining freer gun laws, I wonder if 58 East 68th Street, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or 1585 Broadway are at all worried about the people of the United States and what they might do?

Part 4

If you're not doing anything much in the next few years, particularly if you've just gone to the wall, you might like to pop along to JPMorgan Chase or Morgan Stanley and have a chat to Martine Bond about the situation America's in. A couple of million people should be sufficient to make the point.

[an ordinary person] a plea

Oh nice. Could almost be in Britain:

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

H/T Bag, wherever he is.