The Wedding DJ

I have just received an invitation to a wedding which contained the instruction: "Please suggest a song for the disco".

Big mistake. This is not a request that I can take lightly. Just one song? *One*? I'm not suggesting they hand over the entire disco to me - I'm not - well, I am - I totally am - but given that that's not going to happen, it's the work of an entire day to pick a song which encapsulates all of my musical taste, is enough of a crowd-pleaser to get everyone moving on the dancefloor, and isn't something that any passing DJ would have just picked anyway. I'm supposed to be writing my novel!

What's that? Taking this *too seriously*? Man, are you ever reading the wrong blog. Move along.

For the rest of us that are still here, shall we go to a vote?

I have decided that 1990s nostalgia is the way to go, given that's when we first were friends, and also it narrows the field considerably. Consider -



Call the cops! I can't find a youtube of the original (I didn't look that hard) but even those unfamiliar (can there be such people?) can get the gist from this live version. Advantages: we call get to dance like Bez. (Note also the excellent moves of Rowetta, the bonkers X Factor contestant in her early days as a Happy Mondays backing singer.)

Then there's -



Too slow? But they are the quintessential 1990s band and I bet loads of people wouldn't have heard this song for years. And think of the singalong potential of the chorus. Also, those of us who are single and thin get a great line towards the end.

And would people go mad for this?



Or would it clear the dancefloor now we're older and nobody's on any drugs except antibiotics? I am very tempted to suggest it. What's a wedding without a hint of heroin after all? Plus it would stand out nicely if everyone else has suggested ABBA.

Too bleak? OK. How about the least bleak song of the entire 1990s?



This blog post could go on and on, so I'm going to make myself end with this, maybe the most appropriate 1990s pre-nostalgia post-nostalgia reunion wedding song ever?



Right then. Let's take a vote.

poll by twiigs.com

If you happen to be reading this and it's your wedding, do feel free to vote twice.

I'll remind you of this nearer the time (probably)...

...but I'm giving a talk at the London Writers' Club, on how to write a novel. Something I have succeeded in doing once, and failed to do on any number of other occasions before and since. Hmmm. Anyway, if you are on Facebook, there are details here and you can sign up on the page and show the world just how brilliant and popular the talk is going to be. But if you are not on Facebook, I will show mercy and give you the details anyway:

Date: July 7
Time: 6.30-8.30pm Bar opens at 6.30 (it stays open 'til later)
Venue: Clerkenwell House, 23-27 Hatton Wall, Clerkenwell EC1
Tickets: £10 in advance, £15 on the door.
Website: www.londonwritersclub.com

Tickets go on sale June 9th. Be there or etc.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: Disquiet

Have returned from Hay to a To Do Mountain (like the European Butter mountain, but less slimy, and less tasty on toast), one of which I realise is: new bookclub book.

Because I have shaved a week off your reading time, I am going short beyond the call of duty. This month we're going to read Disquiet by Julia Leigh.

Short enough to be read in a couple of hours, Disquiet is - as the title suggests - a disturbing, unsettling novella, about a woman who returns to her family home with her two children, escaping a violent relationship. The day she arrives coincides with her brother's return home from hospital where his wife has just given birth to a stillborn child.

Having picked a series of crowd-pleasers, I expect this one to divide readers. The only reviews on Amazon are both 2-star, from people who found the book hard to engage with. It is an eerie and distant read. On the other hand I found the book utterly engrossing and read it in one sitting. It's dark and haunting and very unusual. But that'll make for a good discussion...

Meet back here on June 18th, literary guns blazing.

Out On A Limb

My leg is the the bottom left of this picture, in rolled-up jeans.

Name: Marie Phillips
Age: 33
Book Most Recently Read: The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson
(Was) Most Looking Forward To: Paddy Ashdown (and quite right too - he was brilliant.)

Making Hay

Off to the Hay-on-Wye festival for the bank holiday weekend. Weather forecast: both sun and rain! Hurrah! I can pack a ridiculous amount of clothing I won't wear, including (does quick mental calculation) at least three pairs of shoes. That's three pairs of shoes, in order to sit in tents for three days listening to people talk about books. *Happy sigh*. I am planning to take my laptop with me, but only if there is room in my suitcase once I have packed the shoes. So there may be updates; or there may not be. It'll be an exciting surprise for us all.

Pointless addition to my bag this time: hairdryer.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

Before we begin, I was in central London this morning and noticed a huge poster advertising Suzanne Shaw's perfume. How many people wake up in the morning and think: today, I want to smell like Suzanne Shaw? My guess: not many.

Moving on. Really enjoyed re-reading The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie this month, for one main reason: I had forgotten how funny it is. The appropriately-surnamed Muriel Spark has such a waspish way with her prose, each page glitters with vicious observations and sharp commentary. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book where the girls are pubescent children filled with beady curiosity, watching the adult world, and, while not entirely understanding it, somehow picking up the truth of it, so that they catch onto Miss Brodie's love triangle long before any of the adults do. The fake letter they write from Miss Brodie to her lover Gordon Lowther is typically priceless:

I was proud of giving myself to you when you came and took me in the bracken on Arthur's Seat while the storm raged about us. If I am in a certain condition I shall place the infant in the care of a worthy shepherd and his wife, and we can discuss it calmly as platonic acquaintances. I may permit misconduct to occur again from time to time as an outlet because I am in my Prime.

Miss Brodie herself is a fascinating, grotesque, as simultaneously attractive and monstrous as any fascist leader, which is of course what she is to her girls. Marrying the portrait of Miss Brodie to the story of fascism in 1930s Italy and Spain, Muriel Spark spins a brilliant satire, where the power struggles are no less momentous for taking place against the smaller backdrop of a school. The book skillfully intertwines its twin themes of female sexuality and female power dynamics, reading as a sort of female Lord of the Flies, except much, much funnier.

I'll announce next month's book, um, once I've decided on one...

Interstitial

There's going to be an unavoidable delay with the bookclub tomorrow because I'm out all morning and I'm too tired and snotty to write the post now. So until tomorrow afternoon, here's a little ditty from those lovely Conchords boys about their, ah, after-dinner mints.



Jemaine's dancing is a particular joy.

Fringe Party Party

Cold still going strong, and I've run out of tissues, so I'm delighted that a bunch of leaflets from bonkers fringe parties have just popped through my letterbox, giving me something to blow my nose on.

First up, the good old BNP, current slogan: "Because *we've* earned the right". Not you, you horrible brown-coloured lot. WE. So bugger off to your own crappy countries. (What gurkhas?) Anyway, I'm particularly enjoying the BNP evoking the spirit of the Blitz to garner votes. "The NEW Battle for Britain", it trumpets, next to a picture of a Spitfire. "Trafalgar, The Somme, Dunkirk, D-Day, The Falklands" - entirely fought by the white, don't you know. And what better way to evoke that wartime cameraderie than borrowing all your policies off the Nazis? You know where the Nazis went wrong? By being German. If only they'd been British, we wouldn't have had to kill them. Such a missed opportunity.

Next up, UKIP. Sad when all you have going for you is that you're less evil than the BNP. Their message: the EU sucks. And: nothing else. Their choice of illustration: Winston Churchill. Basically, nothing worthwhile has occurred in this country since 1945, so vote for us and it will be as if the last fifty years never happened. Hurrah!

Offering stiff competition to UKIP is the snappily-named 'No2EU: Yes to Democracy' party. Otherwise known as UKIP for lefties. No pictures of Churchill or any other WW2 icons, no nasty embarrassment of having to align yourself with Robert Kilroy-Silk, no racism, but lots of cheap black and white photocopying, several detailed paragraphs of policy and one small photograph of Bob Crow. It's quite charmingly old-fashioned but someone should probably have a chat with them about marketing. I find myself actually slightly convinced by their propaganda, which is a surprise, and instantly makes me suspicious.

Lastly: the grammatically confusing 'We Can Europe' (Verb! Verb!) which claims not to be a political party but "a movement which believes that political parties have become part of the problem", but is nevertheless fielding a bunch of candidates. Hmm. Images used: shaky building sites, splatty-looking pictures of politicians. First flick through the leaflet - hang on, it's not a leaflet, apparently it's a "multi-media experience", cunningly disguised as a leaflet - fails to reveal whether they are for Europe or against it (Verb! *Please*!) Closer reading leaves me no wiser. Very flashy, lots of new-speak ("WE CAN EUROPE is about starting the process of developing new forms of participation and communication in order to change politics"), lots of marketing, but content utterly baffling. Appears mainly to be advocating use of websites. Strongly feel that We Can Europe and No2EU : Yes To Democracy should consider doing some skill-sharing.

Meanwhile, it's two weeks to the election and I am yet to hear a word from anything that could be defined as a normal party. Either they have totally given up, or they have spent all their money on flatscreen TVs for their second homes and can no longer afford to pay for leaflets.

Cold

Have a proper, old skool cold, like the ones we got back in the day and called "flu" before being reminded that flu is actually something that can kill you and if you can get out of bed and blog about it, it really is just a cold. Even so, pity me. Yes, I am ill all the time. No, I don't know why, as have none of the risk factors: I don't commute, I don't have kids, I do wash my hands.

Anyway, I am about to get back into bed with some research (soldiering on), thus depriving you of an interesting blog to read. Fortunately, with incredible foresight, I scheduled this month's book club for Thursday, so while you are waiting for me to get better, you can all read The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. It's funnier than I am anyway, even on a good day. Chop chop.

This Week In Grazia

I have a(nother) stinking cold, which in my house means that I have permission to buy Grazia and read celebrity stories, such as the cover headline that sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are back together, although the actual story in the magazine only sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are not back together. I also get to find out what I'm supposed to be wearing this season, because really, I do not know. Right now I am wearing tracksuit bottoms, a jumper and some old cashmere socks. That's another thing having a cold means in my house.

Anyway, it turns out that I am supposed to be wearing this season is: jeggings. In other words, a cross between jeans and leggings. Skinny jeans are just too baggy, apparently. What you really want is denim that looks as though it has been spray-painted on. The piece comes with the following encouraging quote:

Denim guru Donna Ida says, "Jeggings flatter as they hug you in all the right places, and the high-waisted ones suck in the tummy."

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - *high-waisted* jeggings? Could anything promise more hideousness? Jeans that are equally tight on your belly button as on your ankles! Meanwhile, the jeggings (the word doesn't get any less stupid with repetition) themselves are photographed without actual human beings inside them, and still manage to be unflatteringly fattening when worn by air. That's right: even nothing's bum looks big in jeggings. That's because they hug you in all the right places - and all the wrong places as well. And what does denim need a guru for anyway? Ladies: just say no to jeggings.

Three pages later, Grazia, as it does, has moved on from ensuring our compliant grotesquitude, and runs a piece on a 12-year-old Indian girl who has made a stand against forced marriage. It's the thinking woman's weekly, lest we forget. Unencumbered by any apparent sense of doubt in its reporting, Grazia cheerfully tells us:

While Rekha's parents at first reacted angrily, even refusing her water and food for several days, they eventually relented and now couldn't be prouder of their campaigning daughter.

Heartwarming stuff.

I can't quite figure out whether I need to never read Grazia again or buy it obsessively every week.