Need you now by Cut  Copy

And Midnight City by M83 because it is an epic swoonfest, possibly my song of the year. And yeah it has sexyphone break. Listening to this while looking at Christchurch quake damage is quite overwhelming, especially when they say “The city is my church”

For my sisterbella xxx

James Reyne. I’ve picked Fall of Rome as opposed to more well known Aussie Crawl number ‘Reckless’ for the nice guitar and vocal grind.

On re-watching the vid, I realise I had no idea he was wearing a white skivvy and a vest, visible white socks and boat shoes – and a mullet. 1987 ow.

Of course, us gals would prefer the tennis-shorted Reyney from Return to Eden – more snaky and lizard-like – the real Gordon Gekko.

A lunchtime quickie for the Sister Jukebox.
Midge Ure and his lovely sideburns  and that cool pin thing. I had this on 45.

1. “knee highs” wodka whisky lyrics
2. biggi bardot in black stockings
3. “mark e. smith” + “tights” + elena
4. smockmybitch,com
5. “peter plumley-walker” & “murray mexted”
6. dirk bogarde in leather pants
7. adam ant hussars jackets for sale
8. aotearoa uber alles
9. morbid furniture
10. sexy finding nemo

Birthday party

On Saturday it was my daughter’s 2nd birthday, we had a quiet day and my Mum and Dad came round to visit and gave her a baby doll.

Sunday we had a party out the back in the sun with friends and family and her wee playmate and cousins. And a rainbow cake made by my genius colleague Katie.

Monday – back to work. The exciting news late of a new nephew: my brother and his wife had a baby on Monday night, he delivered the baby in the carpark of the hospital.

On Tuesday, I got up and showered and dressed for work. Realised I was feeling a nasty cold or flu ache, so decided to stay home. The whanau piled into a car and went to go shopping and have a drive to Sumner or Lyttelton. I changed out of work clothes into velour trackies and crappy old maternity bra and put my glasses on.

Started to cook some spuds for lunch when the earthquake came. The noise was inutterably loud and forceful. Stuff flew at me from the cupboards, and the walls. I stood in the kitchen doorframe.  I said my prayers aloud – this it it – the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory be – all compressed into a superfast urgent plea.

The fridge came down beside me. I had to get out of the house, all around me it was divesting itself of substance, breaking into constituent parts that didn’t rain down on me, but came at me on a 90 degree angle. I had tunnel vision – myself, the door, the fastest way to it.

Then I stood in the doorway, horrified, calling out to my neighbour in the front flat beside ours. She was home, and had an air of calm and decision, even though she couldn’t get out as her door was stuck closed. She smashed a window, and got out with her laptop.

Where was everybody? How was everybody? And especially my baby, is my baby ok, every atom of me begged to know if she was ok. The most awful sinking hole of pain. My neighbour calmed me down and tried to get a call through.

Our other neighbour came home, she was wonderful and by the two using their phones I found out my baby and my man were ok. All of the neighbours on the street came out and we talked, noted each other’s damage and we saw people coming down our street from the CBD, trying to make their way out of town and the tragedy.

The washing line

Somewhere in here was a wonderful moment when I saw Mum and Dad come down the street.  We grabbed a few clothes off the washing line, luckily the birthday girl had got some new clothes that I had washed. Undies for him. Floral leggings for me. There were a pair of old sneakers on the doorstep I grabbed, so had some footwear at least. Helpful with all the broken glass.

My guy rescued a few things from the house -  baby stuff, a laptop and a phone.

We went to the burbs to stay with family, all sleeping in one bed, staying close and tight.

But I’ve been watching Saxondale with Steve Coogan. His partner Magz does these amazing kitsch provocative paintings of iconic females like the Brontes and Mary Queen of Scots, boobs bared, or in lingerie. Fantastic, but nowhere on the internet alas.

Somehow this made me think of Shakespeare (train of thought – iconic female, Joan of Arc, Bigmouth strikes again – The Smiths, Shakespeare’s Sister – The Smiths. And to this - Shakespear’s Sister: Siobhan Fahey and the corking Marcella Detroit:

Wikipedia here

Their song Stay was sent up nicely by French and Saunders. Gotta love the sparkly jumpsuit:

My first introduction to Martika was on RTR or some other regular music show where they said (in overexcited tones):

• Who’s name is 8 letters starting with M and ending with an A?
• But it isn’t Madonna!
• She’s going to be huge.

A bit of  a weird sales pitch. But I do remember thinking she had fantastic hair, all dark, glossy, short and swingy.

‘My feet are freezing’, she said. ‘We’ve both got jackets on. If I spread my nice woolly duffel over our feet, you could put our limousine driver’s jacket over our tops. Note that this is a major concession on my part,’ she said before he could move. ‘Because my duffel is very, very warm, and your leather jacket won’t be nearly as warm, not to mention that it’s really been lent to both of us. So I could be within my rights to keep my duffel just for me, but insist that your leather jacket goes over my feet. But I’m magnanimous, ‘ she said in a truly magnanimous voice.

He chuckled.

They spent a convivial couple of minutes arranging their bed. Two blankets. The duffel spread-eagled over the bottom half. The leather jacket over the top …

An excerpt from A royal marriage of convenience by Marion Lennox.

The wonderful Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club gave me the idea of looking at Mills and Boon.

I remember one year in the school chapel, our form and the one above us each picked a song to some up Christmas.

They picked It must be love by Madness. Loveliness.

Our class picked The power of love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Besides being a brilliant song, it has this Christmas story themed video.

Merry Christmas to whanau, friends and everyone. Take it easy.

From being a kid I’d had a checklist – form a great rock’n'roll band in Manchester – tick, done that; make a really great forty-five with a navy blue label like the Rolling Stones – tick, done that; wear sunglasses indoors at all times – tick, done that; crash a big car without a licence – tick, done that; make a classic album and drink loads of brandy – tick, tick, done, done.

Document and eyewitness – an intimate history of Rough Trade (p. 290)
by Neil Taylor