Burlesque: Choose kinky name from Dulux chart

Dearest Madame,

As a camp follower to the burlesque scene in London and Manchester (one has been known to take one's clothes off to Loretta Lynn numbers if 50 quid and a few free drinks are on offer) can I suggest a much simpler way of finding one's burlesque name?

1. Go to B&Q / Homebase
2. Go to the paints section
3. Pick out a Dulux colour chart
4. Select your burlesque name from the choice of shades on offer (eg 'Sahara Kisses' 'Cherry Scarlet' 'Dirty Protest')

Why do they ALWAYS name themselves after sweets? A night of burlesque is apt to give one toothache of the soul.

With kindest regards as always.

C x

Darling C,

What a wonderful suggestion. Click here for some ideas from Dulux. See colour bar at the top and click and then roam over the louche shades of double entendre. I especially like Hibiscus Delight, Old Yella and my fave, Cumquat Cream.

Adele - let's party as her without her

Singer Adele is turning into quite the diva, cancelling TV/radio/press at the last-minute. Someone at her record company tells me: "We're having a fancy dress day here today and the whole office want to come as her. Means they can take the day off!" Chasing rainbows.

Dylan Jones - a penis in a woollen?

Press Gazette's Axegrinder reports that GQ editor Dylan Jones thinks all bloggers are "unemployed journalists" shouting at the top of their voices to get noticed. It then observes that his own boring blog has not been updated since about July 1 - plainly a moronic brand tart whose ego meshes with his catalogue has more interesting things to do than murmur quietly on his net stage. Well, that won't last forever.

At a dinner last night, another noted magazine editor said to me: "Dylan's known as the penis in a polo neck."

Lesley Douglas - in need of media advice

I am distressed that Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas has fallen on her nail file over the Ross/Brand/Sachs/Voluptua farrago - the biggest load of nonsense I ever heard and all over the real fact that no one but crazed studio auds can stand Ross and his £18m BBC contract.

Douglas rather annoyed me some time back when I asked her whether it was true Chris Evans was being hauled aboard the Radio 2 cruiseliner. "No. Absolutely not," she said. "We are not even talking to him". He became a presenter 4 weeks later.

Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand posting for Google ranking purposes

In the wake of the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs/Georgina Baillie mega-fuss (ie career- enhancing contretemps), I have decided to join Georgina’s sex ‘n’ violence burlesque Goth thing, Satanic Sluts.

To do so one must send “pictures of yourself looking gorgeous in black, racy in red, tempting in latex or just plain filthy in the flesh to us here at Salvation Films …You must include your chosen nom de plume or saintly moniker (ie St Sinista or whatever sacrilegious title appeals to your virtuous mind) and, if you have one, your website /webcam address and we'll include a direct link to it with your pictures. "

I’ve been wondering what to call myself. Current favourites include: Mme Arcunty, Gossipa, or St Penetrata. Any thoughts here? My “looking gorgeous” look will blend trews and silk tunic with leather belts criss-crossing my thorax from neck and crotch ties (bowed). My brown ruched turban will bear a priapic Hitler crucifix to signal my inner desires. I am assuming Satanic Sluts is open to still self-lubricating 80-somethings. I hope we’re not dealing with yet another ageist organisation here.

As to Madame Arcati’s view on The Fuss and whether Ross and Brand should be tortured to death for making Mr Sachs marketable again for panto bookings etc, I would like to make this public statement: “I couldn’t give a buggery.” Satanic Sluts

Shena Mackay: A touch of the Atmospherics

I’ve asked the master short story writer and novelist Shena Mackay to talk to Madame Arcati on the occasion of the publication of her new collection: The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories. It’s out on November 6, here’s the Amazon link. Fingers crossed.

Fans of her work know her to be a hard-wired original: poetical, mischievous, funny; supremely peculiar; a little sly and certainly dark. Shabbiness seems to do something to her. Dreams of Dead Women’s Handbags has to be one of the oddest fiction titles ever – if you know odder let me know. Many of her stories lyricise the otherwise mundane and domestic. “A utopia in Croyden?” asks a review of her novel Heligoland. One character is described as having “the face of a cruel spoon.” Almost Dali-esque.

She loves cats.

Quantum of Solace: A most dreadful, ghastly film

Saw Quantum of Solace today, the new Bond film. What a load of dreadful, action-derivative rubbish. All the style of your average borstal. And Dame Judi Dench should do something about her teeth. Here, read this Jude. And Bond and his latest tart Olga have filthy fingernails and grimy cuticles. I nearly threw up over a veteran old fart film reviewer from one of our ancient newspapers, but showed self-restraint. Bond has expired as a franchise in my view. Barbara Broccoli should be executed. Daniel Craig is fit only for nude photography: Ancient Roman Emperor still-lifes. I like the theme toon by Alicia Keys and Jack White though - you can just listen to that at home on your thingy.

Duncan Fallowell berates British Museum

Duncan Fallowell has a rant in The Times today, here's the link. It's all about the British Museum and how it's a load of crap nowadays. "I decided to pop in during normal opening hours," he writes. "What an awful shock. Tickets for the Hadrian exhibition had sold out, and when I tried to visit the Reading Room it was shut — because the Hadrian exhibition was in there. When I asked when the Reading Room would be open again I was told perhaps in 2012." As I've said in another posting on another topic, bring back the death penalty. It's the only answer.

Julie Burchill: A few hours with a Brighton goddess

An extraordinary lunch with Julie Burchill at a Brighton restaurant today. In attendance: her husband Daniel Raven (he could only stay an hour or so: such a sweetheart: looks about 25), the Guardian writer Zoe Williams (atheist, feminist), the novelist John Niven (Kill Your Friends), Julie's vicar The Rev'd Canon Dr Gavin Ashenden ("Gavin") and Julie's long-term friend whose pen name is Gina McKinnon (a Leo with Moon in Gemini) ....

I'm afraid to say Julie Burchill and Madame Arcati bonded on sight. She has a hyper-developed social personality that beguiles and intrigues and which (I sense) probably does not accurately signal what she may end up thinking or writing: but it is a personality designed to be inclusive or collaborative and collusive in the moment. She is a seducer. I became part of a group concern about the plastic air-pressured contraption on one of her feet (not for gout after all: there's a 5% chance of amputation!), I was drawn into (but not persuaded by) her world view on Islam and Christianity (and she thinks a black Archbish of Canterbury would carry greater weight internationally than Old Beardie), I was touched by her adoration of my septum and chin dimple (her septum is well developed too: a sign of a high sex drive, I think) and I loved the way she tenderly rested her hand on mine while engaged in vigorous conversation with John: she wanted me to know I was not forgotten.

But it so happened I was talking to Gavin who fascinated me with a lecture on how Hollywood has somehow got North Moroccan Sufism all wrong: it's all to do with repetitive romance syndrome: movies just can't get out of the romantic loop in human relationships. People fall in love and then ... fin. It's a kind of cultural infantilism. I intend to persuade an intelligent magazine to get him to write on this topic: his theme incorporates celebrity and glamour and spirituality: I mean, think of the cover lines, cunties. To read him click here. Or read this.

Julie is a sensitive and probably psychic; certainly she's highly intuitive: she accurately named the sun signs of the three guests who asked her. It should be said that she appears to have little time for astrology or clairvoyance, as a late-life Protestant. "You shouldn't talk to the dead," she said to me when I mentioned a wonderful medium I have just discovered. She did not ask me idiotic questions about the real me. She did not probe too much. She intuited that the mask is a psychological component, not something to be ripped away. To my surprise she did not really gossip at all. She has done so much yet travels light as a personality. Few anecdotes, no boasting, no name-dropping. "I've just made the most of myself," she said simply when I pointed out she's one of the very few genuine stars of journalism.

After the lunch we got cabs to her apartment in Hove. She has drawers full of her many books, and DVDs of Sugar Rush. Her bookshelves have a disproportionate number of titles by (Julie's sometime co-writer) Chas Newkey-Burden, such as his Paris Hilton bio, among works of greater weight. She has even a rather good library in one of her washrooms. She has two cats, but have they ever been petted? I would love to be their petter.

"What's your blog about?" asked Gavin. Julie replied for me: "It's about righteousness." Not my word, but I like it.

Julie Burchill and Madame Arcati and a Brighton venue

Lunch with Julie Burchill and her husband tomorrow and some other people down in Brighton. What to wear? Which persona to adorn? My psychic suggested I shouldn't meet her right now - it didn't feel right - but I exercise my right to independent action and will honour my RSVP. Remote attraction is an interesting thing: what does one imagine will embody the alluring attribute? An idea morphs into 3D flesh and .... Well, we'll see.

Molly Parkin: George Melly's deathbed advice

Extract from a letter from Molly Parkin to Madame Arcati today about my last visit to the Green Carnation club ...

.... As to fancying all on a mammoth scale, I prefer to think that you give a succulent slice of your heart to all you meet, and then it is returned in full measure. We are both tarts, darling, and delight in it.

I promised dearest George Melly on his recent deathbed that I would never change. "Stay as mad as you are, Moll," he mouthed. "And tell the rest of the cunts to fuck off!"

See ya Tuesday?

Mollxx

Duncan Fallowell to make Divine: The Movie!

I hear of an exciting rumour - me and my rumours! - that the acclaimed writer and movie actor Duncan Fallowell and actress Jenny Runacre are to make an avant garde film about Divine for the 21st anniversary of (Harris) Glenn Milstead's death next year (March 7) - Milstead was the lady herself. Apparently meetings have taken place and the film will be about 35 minutes long, very amusing but strange and dreamy, too.

The ghost of Divvie is plainly drawn to me. Regular readers of my blog will recall my visit to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore in June where I saw for the first time Andrew Logan's monster-sized statue of the silver screen's premier drag act, click here. In some ways it is more like Divine than Divine herself. She was a Libran (natch), just like Duncan, whom I owe a horoscope btw, and his (Divvie's) mummy is still alive as you'll see if you click the link.

I'm not quite sure how Duncan will deal with the shit-eating in Pink Flamingos so I'll ask him when I bump into him at the Groucho. But for Divvie, Hairspray would not have become the great franchise it's turning out to be (the sequel is in preparation); and John Travolta and the increasingly, er, "flamboyant" (doncha love the tabloid cunts?) Michael Ball would not now be celebrated Edna Turnblads of stage and screen (unrespectively).

Divvie owed everything to Dame Elizabeth Taylor whose beauty and incessant diva-dom tutored him-then-her in the dark arts of celebrity warfare and use of kohl.

Jonathan King and Vile Pervert: The Guardian Ad

I know Jonathan King excites all sorts of tabloidy views but I did enjoy his Vile Pervert: The Musical movie which he took to this year's Cannes, and do read my considered review, click here. The Guardian was happy enough to run the ad below last week, and what's good enough for the Guardian is good enough for me.

Oh, and I hear the Mail rejected the ad. Well, not quite its catchment innit.

Nicky Haslam: Gatsby parties in Roehampton, apparently (Oh, and see the film)

Awaiting my unpaid spy Fish to file her party report on Nicky Haslam's 69th birthday party at Parkstead House, I read Anne McElvoy's dispatch in the Standard: it doesn't sound as if she had the happiest of times. Normally a dry but shrewd political pundit, who says 'fesses up a lot to get down with the kids, all she can do here, below Warholy pics of Zhandra Rhodes, Paris Hilton, Bianca Jagger, Andrew Logan et al, is draw a comparison between the lavish decadence on display in Credit Crunched Roehampton and the Great Gatsby's West Egg party prequels, before the Great Depression.

I wonder if Anne wrote her piece (in her head) before or after she attended the do. I know what I think.

The only amusing thing she has culled from the bash is Nicky's response to her dull question about how he manages 800 personal friends. "Lists," he replied. And then, changing the subject, "Have you met Paris?"

On a final note for now, Madame Arcati is distressed that Nicky preferred the company of Norman Lamont - who "jitterbugged" (I hope he wore a chins bra) - to mine. I shall tackle him about this should I have the pleasure of encountering him at the Green Carnation.

See the Telegraph's film of the party .... click here. (See the Duchess of Ferg karate chopping Bob Geldof just after some nonsense talk about the children of the world not having a voice. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Gatsby)

Nicky Haslam's having his party today

Yes. Click here. The stuff about the Queen appeared on Arcati a good month before Londoner's Diary's scoop.

Tina Brown: Three bylines look like rampant egotism

Last year I so brutally trashed Tina Brown’s Diana cash-in book that Time Out delightfully made me blogger of the week. So sweet of them. As some of you know, Tina (or Anit as I prefer to call her) has now resurrected herself with her news grab-bag site, the Daily Beast. I suppose she envied Arianna’s great success with her Huffington Post and thought: I want one! Gimme gimme gimme. That’s my Anit!

It’s too early to pass judgement though my initial feeling is it lacks oomph even if it kicked off by upsetting Jennifer Lopez by publishing her withdrawn comments about a nervous breakdown. I believe legal action is threatened. I might have expected this stunt of her old Vanity Fair and her defunct talk, but of her sober news aggregator? She may need to think through the purpose of this new vehicle for herself, her dinner companions (hello Andrew Neil!) and those whom she probably adores for their contacts, personal hygiene and adoption of secular passing novelties (hello Tyler Brûlé!).

However, while I deliberate on the Daily Beast and its future, one small piece of advice to Anit. Please, please get rid of that sodding byline on your “blog” that goes up and down the page as you scroll. Just when you think you’re free of Anit’s name, here it descends slowly into view like some parachuting stalker or paparazzo with no underwear. Not only is it distracting it’s pointless. Like any normal reader I usually look to see who has written the piece I am about to read. It saves time, I find. Anit actually has three bylines on the one page. One sits monolithically and hugely in black, like a movie title, above the body text. She is part of the story, in other words. It’s a Tina Turn. This sits below the second byline right at the top of the page. Then there’s her elevator byline to the left.

This is too too, as a spoof Oscar might have said. Please Anit. Think that you are addressing intelligent people. Anit is plainly many things but not a nitwit. So stop behaving like one.

And in a spirit of friendliness, here’s the link to the Daily Beast.

Tony Curtis: Hard cock, limp website and live horses

Delightful to see Hollywood legend (ie he has got to age 83) Tony Curtis out and about in his wheelchair promoting his new bio American Prince in which he admits his cock hardened for some duration while kissing Monroe in the splendid Some Like It Hot. I do wish though that slebs would fill in the details. How did he conceal his erection? Or was it customary for male stars in the 50 and 60s to boast a great trouser bulge on set as a mark of heterosexuality after kissing scenes with buxom blondes? I feel another book has to be written that fills in these gaps in our carnal knowledge.

Curtis was a great sight in movies - with his "thick black hair and cerulean eyes" [copyright all hacks: do fuck off]. And his unreconstructed, truck driver's Lower East Side NY accent took nothing away from Spartacus as the sound of Crassus' sexy slave, or any movie much whatever the period. His voice was and is one of America's ownership imprints on celluloid time from Adam 'n' Eve onwards. It's a pity he now professes not to know of his successors like Leonardo DiCaprio or George Clooney. He thinks Robert Downey Jr may have "it" as heir to the big cocked glitter capes of Sinatra and Grant (Cary), as reported in a rather good Sunday Times interview today, click here. Bob's fucked about, done the drugs and repents of his weaknesses half-heartedly in movie promo interviews (a sad form of whorism). So all this may explain Curtis' belated recognition.

Did you know Bob's writing a Broadway musical? Well, you do now.

However three things I'd like to add. First, what's with the Tony Curtis website? Go to Art Gallery & Store and you get "Coming soon". Go to The Art of Tony Curtis and ... "Coming soon". Where You Can See Tony ... ditto. It's simply not good enough. Curtis is a living relic of Heavenly Hollywood: let's make a greater effort to keep the show on the road, guys. Unless of course "coming soon" was Tony's line to all his many, many glitzy sperm depositories, a sort of sneaky homage reference that cineastes love. Website.

Other thing: I greatly admire Tony's wife Jill's work to save horses from slaughter. She runs Shiloh (Horse Rescue & Sanctuary). To read up click here.

And in the absence of any art on Tony's website here's a rather good example. His work has been likened to that of Van Gogh or Matisse, but why don't we just say they're very Curtis. He once said: "I've been painting all my life. I'm not a celebrity fucking painter." Admirable.

Famous Manx Furniture - by Arcati Appointment

Madame Arcati is foremost among style spotters as is well known. So please appreciate the extraordinary artistry of Famous Manx Furniture, a company specialising in Celtic and Norse wood designs, run by Ron Hughes, click here. His colleague Ric Pisano presents a small selection of their beautiful and exquisite work in these pictures. Manx undertakes commissions of all kinds - chairs, mirror or picture frames, whatever you like.
For more info email:
Info@famousmanxfurniture.com

The Parkin Lot: Fucking fantastic night with Molly!

Boy, did I make a mistake. Fervent Arcatistes will recall my dyspeptic review of the Parkin Lot at the Green Carnation club in Greek Street a few weeks back. Why I do this sometimes I’m not sure; it must be hormonal or I'm mentally ill as some old cunt obituarist on The Times once suggested to me ...

Well, I returned last night to the club with a friend and had a splendiferous evening dancing with Molly and an assortment of females of a certain age as well as other types and vintages and male types and the odd Thalidomide shemale. I love Thalidomides, don't you?

Molly and I are now virtually lovers.

It was all I could to do not to undress the turbaned beauty on the dance floor. But I’m not given to hysterical effusion as I have a very vivid imagination. It’s most important to internalise such impulses in order to build a rich mulch of sublimated and creative energy for the purposes of novel writing and other hobbies. Mental restriction and frustration are crucial to make-believe and credible diary keeping.

Daughter Sophie played some very good dance music, not all of it from Cilla Black’s origin (have you noticed people write origin for original now?) era. Molly showed me around saying: “THIS is Madame Arcati.” People stood about awe-struck trying to reconcile the idea of a theatrical legend in her dotage with the sheer, vivid corporeal reality and stunning gorgeousness before them: I am sure people were wondering about me but at the Green Carnation just about anything goes, including frotteurism (look it up idlers!). At some point I delivered a speech to some wonderful laydeez while they fanned their steaming pudenda and they looked up at me as if I were giving head to a Barbie Doll. I may as well have done. But of course I don’t do that sort of thing.

I can’t rave about the Parkin Lot enough. It’s simply fucking fantastic (quote me on the posters if you like). You feel as if you could have sex anywhere there though you don’t, but the thought counts.

Tuesdays. Be there.

Frotteurism. It's the future.

Click here for club details. It's at 5 Greek St, Soho. Tel 020 7434 3323.

Vanity Fair - colour blind as ever

Lots of good things in Vanity Fair's 25th anniversary issue though the title turns 95 this year - you'll have to read editor Graydon Carter's letter for the explanation. Not so excellent is the magazine's anniversary picture sampling of its best covers of the past quarter-century: "A sampling [which] shows how many ways this choice bit of media real estate [the cover] reflects the world around it," as the publication puts it rather vulgarly and pompously.

Of the 239 (or so) celebrity and non-celebrity faces that appear in solo or group cover shots, just 14 are black. Even if my count is a little out by one or two, this suggests that the magazine's mind is not as broad as it makes out.

The Tudors: Best without Jonathan's Henry

The Tudors second series came to its bloody end in a remarkably good and arty episode. A pair of nonchalant mute swans held Henry VIII in thrall while croaking ravens serenaded Anne Boleyn in the Tower, in a reversal of the usual white/black moral symbolism. Then I realised why it was so good. Henry, as incarnated by the ludicrously cast Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, hardly appeared as we lived through Anne’s delayed death moves. I recall another episode that was equally as good in this series: the one where Henry lay concussed on a tressle for most of the time following a jousting accident; therefore out of critical harm's way.

A Henry VIII-free third series can only be hoped for as women in fine costume suddenly disappear into an unseen royal hell-hole. Henry as a rumour strikes me as sensible. Rhys-Meyers can only strike two types of pose: come-to-bed and go-to-block. The actual Henry was an iridiscent demon full of tricks: Kenneth Branagh might have pulled it off (on stilts).

We discovered why Henry was in thrall to the swans. Swan pie anyone?

Gone Fishing: One to watch for Oscar interest

I viewed a wonderful British short movie the other day, Gone Fishing. It stars Bill Paterson, Devon Murray (of Harry Potter fame) and Ruth Gemmell: James Wilson, the young boy who plays Simon, is quite remarkable and one to watch. The title belies a frankly more interesting theme of a mystical nature but I wouldn't want to say any more than that. It has already won the Best Short at the Rhode Island Film Festival 2008 and Best Short Film at the Kodak Awards 2008. Now before the Academy Awards jury for Oscar shortlist consideration, it's a beautifully shot and acted little number. Director/writer Chris Jones is currently at the Dinard Film Fest which Gone Fishing opened out of competition. His blog offers a fascinating insight into the whole world of filmmaking - the endless festivals, schmoozing, dreaming up of notice-me promo campaigns. Have a read, click here. More about the movie, click here.

James Wilson: Precocious actor and one to watch. Surely heading for a major franchise movie before long

Sarah Palin inspires a porn movie

Lisa Ann who'll be nailin' Palin

America's porn industry is awfully excited about a movie in pre-production titled Nailin' Palin. Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is the inspiration for what Hustler Video incorrectly terms a "spoof" in which lookalike ooo-ahhhh star Lisa Ann plays Palin. The film will feature five hardcore sex scenes. One includes a lot of rug munching with Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice - their thespian doppelgängers, (s)natch - and in another Palin "nails" the Russians, "who come knocking on her back-door (wink, wink).” (That's Hustler's wink-wink, btw)

A flashback scene will feature a young Palin’s creationist college professor explaining a big bang theory "even she can’t deny," to quote from a business report.

“As soon as Sarah Palin was put on the Republican ticket, we knew that we had to do a porn-parody on this super-hot MILF,” Hustler Video Group Creative Director Drew Rosenfeld says. “I couldn’t think of anyone better to play Palin than porn superstar Lisa Ann.”

Former dental assistant Lisa Ann is a Taurean from Pennsylvania who appears to have made about 90 porn movies since 1994. Her Waterworld 4: History of the Enema sounds like a more promising sequel to Kevin Costner's Waterworld while Hit That Ole Bitch could conceivably be a homage to Joan Crawford. Her vitals are: 38DD-20-34, according to Imdb.com.

One supposes that the turnaround on these productions is very fast and that Palin will be in the White House just as it's released. I look forward to a Barack Obama "spoof" in due time. John McCain, hopefully, will be excused.

Meantime, here's an actual Palin spoof ...

'I've always had a crush on Ian Hislop'

I am delighted to learn that Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has a fervent, hitherto secret admirer. Step forward Hollyoaks star Roxanne McKee who has a BA in politics. "I've always had a weird crush on him," she sighs, her bosom heaving perceptibly, eyelashes quivering, with a faint dew emergent upon her tender flesh. "It's because he's so funny." Just in case Ian is not a Hollyoaks fan, I am happy to reproduce a most comely pic of the darling which I can vouch has not been PhotoShopped one bit.