Oh man. I'm addicted to EAT's Peach and Mint blasts. Really. You need to try one. They're pricey at £2.90 for a big one. But I know that if the sun actually emerges this year I'm going to be craving them day and night. Real mint. Real peach. Frozen. Gulp. Slaked.
I don't know if there's a German word for it, but I'm experiencing another pang of nostalgia for something I didn't actually experience. After watching this Monkees advertisement for Kool Aid I just want to go to a 'den' in my 'mom and pop's' basement and guzzle sticky cool cordial.
Even though when I hear the words 'Kool Aid' it just makes me think of Jim Jones ladling out poison laced juice to his followers at Jonestown. And killing almost a thousand people
Ohh. I've got a hankering for the pot pourri taste of Parma Violets. If you're popping down the shop, will you get me a packet? Thanks!
In 1945 mouse man Walt Disney and surreal artist Salvador Dali started work on a film, Destino. The project was aborted due to financial difficulties. But when Walt's son, Roy was reworking one another of Disney's more adventurous outings, Fantasia, he unearthed some of the Destino footage, and decided to rekindle the project.
Released in 2003, the six minute film is now playing at London's Tate Modern. Disney films may now have a saccharine-sickly reputation, but this is a peek back into a world where it was still thought perfectly possible that commercial animation and high art could successfully combine.
How I wish that Disney still had some of the same dark sensibilities that threatened to emerge back then. For now, I'll watch this on YouTube, and skip to the scary bits in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia.
Yes, I do believe I would. It would add glamour to my day to day living, as well as covering up that nasty patch of damp in the back room.
I just can't decide whether to go for the dreamy fairytale castle.....
Or the tiki-tastic sunset on a desert island.
Decisions... Buy yours here anyway...
This super short video of a chipmunk fixing the watcher with an evil glare makes me laugh. Perhaps it will cheer you, too.
I don't get the whole designer handbag thing. I'm just not the kind of girl who lusts after £2000 receptacles. But in the case of these va-va-voom totes I'll make a massive exception. Although actually, they don't even cost even half as much as your typical Dior monstrosity.
Designed "in honour of classic cars and the ladies that drive them" these bags are like those 1950s gas guzzlers - shiny, over the top, revved up and firing on all cylinders. The kind of bag that will repay its cost in drinks bought for you in expensive tiki bars. They're expensive (between $150 and $350) but, my oh my, every penny shows.
And there are shoes to match...
You'll find them in the VIP lounge at Revamp Productions.
I'm pretending that the weather isn't in a big wet and cold grump and making like it's summer hot. I realised today that those 'Mango Blast' crushed ice drinks from places like Starbucks are just overpriced versions of Mr Frosty's fabulous beverages.
If you don't remember, Frosty was the toy of choice during long hot childhood summers. You'd load him up with ice cubes, turn a handle, squirt some juice from his pal Percy Penguin onto the slush, and away you'd go.
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I've looked for a Mr Frosty, but he seems to have been given a disastrous down-with-the-kids makeover. He looks terribly smug. And that's not a quality you want in your drink dispenser. 
So I'll be getting this Peanuts version from Fred Flare instead. 
I was going to go and see The Who play this weekend. But now I'm not. Nor am I going to Glastonbury, where they're headlining. The Who are the kind of band you can come back to again again and always find something new and fresh and vital. I love their 70s rock opera pomp as much as their 60s young man's blues rock n roll sparkiness.
Here are some ace face Who videos I found on YouTube to console myself at missing their current crop of UK shows. Singalong now.
They're on sensational here. Old enough to be on top of their game, but still with fire in their bellies. I can never decide who my favourite member is. In order at the moment it has to go Townshend, Moon, Entwhistle, Daltrey. It'll change next week.
And here they are looking young and beautiful.
The first clip is from Tommy, which you should buy, and the second from the wor'ds greatest rock n roll documentary, The Kids Are Alright.
Lucky me. A spanking new copy of Mitch O'Connell's book of tattoo art just landed on my desk. Over 250 low brow, high colour pieces of flash art ready to rock on to your arm, back, or bum.
Mitch's hyper colourful style suits tattoo art so well. It's the kind of ink that you see on the coolest girl on the door at a seedy garage punk club. Tattoos that are super cool but have a spanking sense of humour.
I'm not sure that personally I would ask for the pink elephant wearing a hat with a flower and the motto "Don't forget to get drunk". But one of Mitch's tiki ladies or an angel toting a gun might look good tucked behind one of my other tattoos. Hmmm.
My dear friend Sarra sent me this t shirt (close up of design right). She says "this t-shirt design at threadless.com rules! Spoil all your friends with it!" Buy it at ace online shop, Threadless...
And she's right. Luckily, I think I've seen all the films ruined by it. I'm thinking of getting my own version printed up with "the policeman did it" and strolling past the queue of tourists outside long-running West End pensioners' show, The Mousetrap daily.
You should go and buy Black Monk Time by The Monks.
Formed in 1964 by a bunch of American GIs stationed in Germany, The Monks were the paranoid, dark, existential progenitors of punk.
While the Beatles were singing “She Loves You”, The Monks sang “I Hate You”. Their songs were pounding, drum-driven, with unconventional structures, cynical lyrics, scratchy banjo, and howling and scowling vocals.
Bass player Eddie Shaw described the day they discovered feedback, crucial to their sound, "Just imagine the sound of the Titanic scraping along an iceberg," he said. "It was like discovering fire."
The band wore nooses around their necks, and shaved their heads into monk-like tonsures. They sang about Vietnam “People go to their deaths for you,” and resentment, “You know why I hate you baby? It's because you make me hate you baby.” Their debut and only album, Black Monk Time was released in 1966 to a wall of indifference. They split up in 1967, shortly before a planned tour of Vietnam.
Since their split, however, they have become the cult band’s cult band of choice. ‘Complication’ appeared on seminal garage punk compilation, Nuggets. Jello Biafra, The Beastie Boys, Jon Spencer and The Fall have all acknowledged their debt to the band. Jack White said of them, “Their melodies were pop destructive and must be played to your younger brother.”.
The Fall have covered various Monk songs, one for the forthcoming Monks tribute album, Silver Monk Time, which also includes contributions from hot now bands the Gossip, Mouse On Mars, The 5.6.7.8s and Chicks on Speed.
The band reformed in 1999, to play the Cavestomp festival in http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifNew York. Roger, their drummer, died in 2004, but the band continue to play shows in Europe and the USA, with the same intensity and passion that fuelled them in the 1960s.
I'm in all girl Monks tribute band, The Nuns. Do come and see us play some time.
And here are the far out friars on German TV in 1966
