Is Wilko the new Woolies?

I love Wilkos, me. Need a fuse and a ball of string? Go to Wilkinsons. Need cut-price brand-name soap and shampoo? Go to Wilkinsons. Need a new shed and a three piece suite? Get thee to Wilkos. Wilkinsons, it's the new Woolies.

Bit of a blogging break

Regular readers (hello mum) will have noticed I'm not posting as much as I normally, and indeed, like to do. However, for yours truly this is a Good Thing.

I am currently writing my fingers to the bone on a project about which I'll blog as soon as I can. It's unconnected to my (just finished) novel but came in just a few days after I'd finished writing it. Synchronicity, or what? Anyway, back to the hot and steamy keyboard. When I can tell you what it is, I will. Promise.

Grace Jones at Royal Festival Hall

To one of my favourite London buildings this week to see Grace Jones. In true diva style she came on stage very late but was more than worth the wait.

It was an amazing show. When she sang Pull Up To The Bumper and invited dozens of audience members up on stage to dance with her, the whole lot of them showered in silver rain from above, well, I don't know if I'll ever see anything as wonderful, as camp or as fantastic again.

Picture from Flickr.

Cover to cover

Fellow blogger Old Cheeser has tagged me (ouch!) to reveal my top 10 top albums. I'm assuming CDs are allowed aswell as the vinyl and in order not to bore the gentle readers who have stumbled onto me blog, I'm listing only my top 5 and they're in no particular order. And yes, they're all true. Yes, really. Yes, even Half a Bloody Sixpence, all right? Click on the link under each picture to listen to my favourite track from each album via the magic of YouTube.

Blondie: Plastic Letters - favourite track
David Bowie: Hunky Dory - favourite track

Alison Moyet: Hoodoo - favourite track

Half a Sixpence: Soundtrack - favourite track

Everything But The Girl: Eden - favourite track

French Cheese

Just back from a week long jolly, can you guess where? It's not half pretty when it twinkles at night.

Anyway, ooh-la-la notwithstanding, wine expert Jilly Goolden was staying in our hotel. We couldn't decide if she was slumming it or we were staying somewhere really posh.

And then, zut alors!, spotted having breakfast in the same place as us one morning and then spotted another day walking along the street was fab Scottish novellist Iain Banks. Surely not, we thought, for didn't Iain Banks famously and publicly announce that he'd destroyed his passport, in anger at Blair's support of the war in Iraq? Well, mes amis, it was him all right. He went through Eurostar passport control ahead of us at the Gare du Nord on the way back.