Ruminations of a Sequined Relic: a new poem by Molly Parkin

I LOST MY LOOKS AT 82
AND TURNED INTO A CRONE
REFLECTED IN MY MIRROR
WAS A FACE I'D NEVER KNOWN

I SHAVED MY HEAD AT 82
SOWING THERE BRIGHT SILVER HAIR
I DUMPED MASCARA, LIPSTICK-PAINT
THE END RESULT WAS QUAINT RESTRAINT

HARSH ARTIFICE, MASKED-GLAMOUR GONE
REPLACED BY SMILING EYES THAT SHONE
WITH KIND CONCERN, AND NOW PRONOUNCE
 A FRIENDLY, GENEROUS COUNTENANCE

I'D NEVER REALISED BEFORE
THAT THERE ARE DIFFERENT TREATS IN STORE
LIFE BRINGS US GIFTS, THE SPIRIT LIFTS
US HIGH ABOVE WHAT WE'VE ONCE BEEN
WHILST OFFERING A SWEETER DREAM

molly parkin 2014

Jackie Onassis - and she didn't just polish cock!

All this stuff about Jackie Kennedy-Onassis shagging le tout Hollywood. Not just the other Kennedy brothers (Bobby and Teddy) but William Holden, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck (er?), Rock Hudson (OK I made up that up), Warren Beatty, Rudolf Nureyev and sooo many others! Thank goodness, that's what I say. I always hated to think of her sulking about the White House all neglected and sad while JFK dogged about. Now it turns out she quite boldly pursued cock; celebrity cock, mind. Not just your average cock. She didn't do nonentity cock. 

Cock's on my mind because of something I read in this week's excellent Popbitch. It reports that Nick Clegg has a 'polished' cock. Can you imagine? Does he use Brasso to go with his neck (a laboured joke but think about it). And polished things arise in a lovely anecdote that's fallen my way about Jackie. I can't wait to tell you...

In the very late 1980s, my source had a job as a shop assistant at Paragon, the huge sporting goods dept store near Union Square in Manhattan. He tells me:

"Jackie came in one day and asked me a lot of questions about exercises and various equipment and asked what I could do for her butt (as if she had one). I recommended equipment where she should lie on the floor and raise her midsection while clenching her buttocks. Anyway she was puzzled so I dropped down and demonstrated.

"Later when she went to pay, I was nearly blinded by her change purse - like the coins were seriously dazzling. I said, 'What the fuck, does someone polish your money?' And she looked down, looked back at me and said, 'Um, yes.'"

"Um, yes." So Jackie!

Imelda Marcos musical to party at Vout-O-Reenee's!

Molly Parkin cuts Vout's umbilical cord with 'birth-mother' Sophie Parkin (in fuschia, darling) to our right

Even the suits among you know the truth. That I know better. So, trust me. I sense your sexual excitement.

I am therefore delighted to welcome a new club of joy and culture to the London biosphere, launched on May 15. It is called Vout-O-Reenee's and thank God it's in London's Shoreditch and not adjacent to the media whorehouses of Soho and their parasite bar mirror gawpers. Its mother is Sophie Parkin, a Gemini woman of nonpareil good taste and unforgiving insult - and frankly the kind of robust soul required to found and steer such an establishment, dedicated to the artist, the iconoclast, the maverick - in short, to someone who is fresh of flesh yet able to settle her or his bar bill. The Chelsea Arts Club (aka The Old Cunties' Convalescent Home - commodes available on request) must be spitting. They missed a trick when they passed on Sophie.

Muriel Sophie Parkin invites you to party

But don't just believe me. I learn that the very best are flocking to Vout to celebrate the lucrative expressions of their life force. In September, for instance, it is the chosen venue of the after-party for the Fatboy Slim/David Byrne Imelda Marcos disco musical, Here Lies Love. Dubbed a 'poperetta', it opened to rave reviews in New York in 2013. It is the London theatre event of 2014 - and I am delighted that its creatives will celebrate inevitable glory at Vout's. Only the best shoes will be admitted.

I understand that Here Lies Love - created by Talking Heads' icon Byrne and superstar DJ Slim - opens the National Theatre's newly named Dorfman Theatre in the autumn.

See you there, dearies.

For Vout membership details, email: info@vout-o-reenees.co.uk. 07753702910. 30 Prescot St, London E1 8AZ

Burchill, Fallowell (and others) in my new Lifesurfing tome

Such a joy to be back among you, especially given the egregious state of blogging these days. I can but do my best, permitting you a glimpse of Arcati's ancient soul which bubbles with spite and acuity and long memory, though I dress it all up in a sage's garb and vocabulary of daunting endowment.

Yes, I shall be publishing a naked Prince Harry artwork - by a former mayor (only the best on Arcati). But before that exciting controversy, I wish to do what we all do these days - and offer you my ass.

Step forward Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2015. You know the drill. Monthly forecasts of uncanny precision. It's rather early to be thinking of next year; I know that. There are, however, other things to read in my gorgeous tome as you while away the rest of 2014 in anticipation of 2015.

This year I have included a number of in-depth astro-profiles of certain people I find intriguing and entrancing. Julie Burchill, for instance. Yes, I have peered into her horoscopic bowels and found...well, why spoil it? I have included non-astro personal insights and revelations which can only add flesh to the planetary bones of Britain's most revered media opinionist. Duncan Fallowell, too, has been conscripted: the temperature of his heart is a question of some longevity - whip out your thermostats with Madame as we watch the mercury shoot up (or down).

I could go on...but I know you have things to do, such as peruse the latest porn uploads. So I shan't try your patience. I'll try it later.

FREE sample read: E-Book. For classier acts there's always the Paperback.