Molly Parkin: 'Cunts' at Harpers & Queen and her London Olympics movie

Molly & Sophie Parkin

I'm not entirely certain that I have returned to blogging but while I'm here, an opportune moment to catch up on the doings of permanent fiancee Molly Parkin.

Today is launched Julien Temple's collage-documentary movie London: The Modern Babylon (or, 'BabyLon/Don', my preferred title, still on Imdb), pegged to the Olympics. One of its stars is Molly who sheds aesthetic light on the filthy capital and its sulphur glamour. The film is Time Out's flick of the week so it must be good. Certainly the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw thinks it's brilliant, so hopefully it will get national distribution beyond the limited number of London flea pits, and help counter the insidious influence of the latest Batman movie, starring a certifiable psycho who hates his mother and was rude to his grandmother.

I would link the film but some jobsworth has decided the trailer can only be viewed on YouTube, so you can find it yourself if you can't shift up to the metropolis.

Molly is also to be viewed in the delightful movie linked below, in conversation at the Soho Theatre the other night with daughter, writer Sophie Parkin, currently working on a book about the infamous, seminal Soho Colony Room, out in December. What both have to say about Soho is almost as fascinating as the edgy interplay between mother and daughter. Remind me not to fall out with either of them. Moll reports that in the 50s, when she was a virgin and an art teacher, it was not uncommon, as she made her way along Soho thoroughfares, for her to be taken for a French tart, and 'a Degas ballet French tart' at that, by lowlife doorway club urchins.

We learn more about Colony queen Muriel Belcher, too, who was only a bit lesbian apparently. 'Come here, cunty,' she'd say to Moll. Apropos of Moll's glittery employment history, 'I did have an awful gruelling time on Harpers (& Queen), what a bunch of cunts there....'

To view the encounter, click here
.