Life Is Not Forever. Love Is.

This is my dad on holiday with his parents and brother. I'm guessing it was Worthing, probably in the 30s?

Here he is as 'proud papa' in 1960. Yes, that is me!

It's always a bit of a 'sticky patch' this time of year.

The 30th was his birthday, but also, as it turned out, the day I went to register his death. He'd passed away on the 27th, a Friday, three days before his 75th birthday.

When the Registrar recorded the death it was hand-written in ink in a huge great ledger. She then realised she'd made a mistake with the dates. No easy way out other than to cross it out and put the right one in!

It is 30 years since he passed away.

I'll leave you with this huge picture he painted for my bedroom when I was about 8. He made me a little tree out of an old tree branch from our wood, and glued glitter onto it. It was when I started to buy my own deccies a lot of which I still use, a life-time later.

 Night night Daddy. Love you forever.

Zxx

Steve Strange - RIP

Happy memories.

People like this make me feel lucky I had my youth when I did.

Picture: Tim Whitby PA from The Telegraph

 Steve Strange - 28 May 1959-12 February 2015

Apparently, my birth day twinnie, but just a year older.
 

My favourite Visage song, Night Train.

 

 

 

Pantone Shade for 2015?

B'stard Pink.

 

Oh yes, I can see this colour really catching on, can't you?

I couldn't believe it when Mr B told me about it.

all photos, except this one, from Google

 It is the name used for a certain colour of lighting gel, which is like a heavier version of a cellophane sweet wrapper that you cut from a roll to fit in front of a stage lighting lamp. I thought they were just red, pink, yellow etc or possibly a number, as there is a huge choice of colours available.

 

But b'stard pink and its cousin b'stard amber are for real and do, in fact, cast a wonderful glow for human flesh.

the wonderful Mayall character of Alan B'stard MP
genius!

 Now, I had intended to just do this as a post 'cos I like the Pantone year shades, (here and here), but this, sadly, can  also link to the sad demise of Rik Mayall today at the too young age of 56.

 

I have 2 memories of Mayall.

The first time I met him in the flesh was when Fashion Aid was on at the Royal Albert Hall and I was working at London Festival Ballet; we had all the dancers and extras corralled in the dance studios and he was messing around with this fleshy-coloured T-shirt, (the Katherine Hamnett one from the show possibly?), rolling it up and sticking it through his open flies, so it looked like a penis!

As Rick from the brilliant 'The Young Ones'

The second time, I was at Chelsea Design and he came in with one of his 2(!) partners and a small toddler, dressed in Osh Kosh dungarees and tiny baseball boots. They said they wanted an outfit for the child to wear at a wedding. So I ushered them towards the pastel silk pageboy outfits...to be told that the child was a girl! Ooops!


oh my, hasn't she grown

(Though that faux pas was nothing next to the clanger I dropped with  Chantal Hanover - it still makes me cringe even now!)

If you have 6 minutes to spare do watch this snippet of film from Fashion Aid. I do believe there is a VHS video of it, (which I NEED to own NOW), that has Freddie Mercury and Jane Seymour getting married! It is beyond...anything I can think of!