(posted by Aunt Cyn)

That young Quarsan fellow has quite enlivened my musical listening in recent days. I've thrown my walking stick to the side as I've fair pogo-ed round the Parker Knoll to the sounds of the Buzzsocks, Joyful Division and The Runts. How did I miss these golden oldies in the 70s, when I was a comparatively spritely young lady in my early 40s?

But I do feel it's time that I did a little musical education of my own. And I like nothing better than spending a sedate Saturday afternoon pulling the heads off flowers while listening to my Flanders & Swann collection (on vinyl, of course). Rich Tea biccie, anyone?

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

Thanks to Mike for alerting me to the problem, detailed below.

Well, Opie, I think it's a sign from Cupid that you and your wife are destined to be together, and you should stop dipping your wick with these other bits on the side immediately. They obviously don't share the same (whirl)Wind of romance as you and your darling lady wife do. Although these other young nymphettes may flatulate - sorry, flatter - your wilting male ego, only Mrs Opie knows the true pleasure of your passionate trumping, and the breath of (un)fresh air you bring to your romantic liaisons. Return to the marital bed invigorated, and promise her your undying farting - sorry, I meant love.

Failing that, lay off the All Bran.

lots of love,
Cyn

(posted by Mike)

I see from one of the comments boxes that my Aunt Cyn has finally been given a personal problem to solve. The problem in question is, I think, worthy of being plucked from its box and placed on full display.Whatever can he do, Auntie? Whatever can he do?

(posted by quarsan)

Number Eleven Nobody's Scared - Subway Sect (wav file)

One of the first punk bands and one of the most iconoclastic. Subway Sect, and especially Vic Goddard, stood out from the crowd. From their debut, and their long awaited follow up - Ambition, they were street smart but had their sights set higher than the others. Indeed, they were the thinking spikey's punk band.

When many people jumped on the bandwaggon and the image of punks became one of loud yobs, it was people like the Sect that represented what it was all about. They were, shock, horror.... literate. Their second single was a perfect piece of post-punk, a song that remains as fresh and as enigmatic as the day it was released

Vic's first LP, What's The Matter Boy (photo) struck me as being full of ideas and tunes. It charmed and intrigued me, and I spent many hours playing it as a backdrop to my life.

And then he did Songs For Sale a selection of songs in a swing style - including the divine Hey Now I'm In Love.

Vic Goddard had such a clear and interesting talent as a songwriter it is nothing short of criminal that he has underachieved by so much. In fact, this towering genius is, according to this interview working as a postman.

That's a national disgrace.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Ten In A Rut - The Ruts (mp3)

Some records just hit you between the eyes. When I first heard this I wondered if my record player could handle the deep dub bass that drives this track. One aspect of punk was it's appreciation of reggae, indeed the punk explosion brought reggae into the public eye.

Sure, the Clash played around with it, but it was The Ruts who merged the two to make something new and fresh. This heavy dub bass and screeching punk guitar is topped with the blistering vocals of Malcolm Owen.

Sadly it is another smack track. Malcolm often sang about his struggle with heroin, a battle he lost in the summer of 1980. That was a great loss to us all, for Malcolm wasn't filled with self pity or posing as the punk Keith Richards. He desperately wanted to stop, he knew he had his precious music, but it wasn't enough.

After a short carreer of some of the finest singles to come out of the era, and believe me choosing which one to feature was difficult. So, I went for their debut. It could so easily have been any of the others. But it also showed what was to come, as did the B-Side, H Eyes.

I remember interviews with the other Ruts after his death (and here's one) where they described their efforts to help him as he slowly dissapeared into himself. Heroin isolates you untill, even you, are just not there anymore.

And Malcolm isn't here anymore and that's just so damn sad.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Nine You Say You Don't Love Me - Buzzcocks (Audio) (Lyrics)

The Pride of Manchester. In the early days, punk was a Northern thing, and more specifically, a Manchester thing. We used to go down there, or to Liverpool almost every week. We'd save money by hitching and sleeping in train stations or anywhere we could doss down for a couple of hours.

We saw the Buzzcocks so many times, and they never failed to provide a great night out. They were different to the other bands, in that they had great catchy melodies (I nearly chose the wonderous Walking Distance) and a nice line in self depreciating lyrics. They were one of the few groups who weren't to cool to sing about failed love affairs. To be honest, that was pretty much all they sang about.

One word describes their music: bittersweet. The genius of Pete Shelly was that he could wrap a sad tale of unrequited love in the honey of a tune that stayed in your head. These guys made songs you could whistle. Most people smile when they think of the Buzzcocks.

But there was an aura about them also. You just liked them, they were not aloof or arrogant. They were ordinary, down to earth guys who treated their fans with kindness and courtesy. I tried to start a school magazine so I wrote off a list of questions to New Hormones and got a handwritten reply from Steve Diggle, with long answers. He'd clearly taken an hour or so to do this. That impressed a very young quarsan.

To this day, they remain a group I feel a great deal of affection for. If the world was fair they would be millionaires and they would sing happy love songs. But the world, they and we lived in wasn't fair, and our love lives weren't working out. and they sang about that, and they sang about it in a way that helped us get through heartbreak and have the optimism to risk it all over again.

Posted by Fantastic Amazing John

Yo niggers!

Michael of the Midlands (the troubled diva in question) has been sniping at me for not posting. Well here it is. Why is he of the Midlands you cry? Because all the middle-aged homo-gays live in Blandshire. I'm sure I will when I'm 50 too. Anyway, enough compliments for one day - I've got proper stuff to do!

I'm making excuses for not posting more frequently - I've been busy. Good things come to those who wait anyway...

Since you're either somone whose job is so yawnsome you read blogs all day, sat in your office, or you're somone whose entire life is so boring you read about other people's boring lives all day long, my narrative should buck you up a little. God has smiled on one of us at least.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in hospital, healing the sick. Really, someone should beatify me...the old men and women on the wards LOVE me!!! The fact that I posess excellent inter-personal skills are a test to my perfect upbringing and pedigree parentage. Mummy and Daddy always taught me to be nice to the poor, elderly and the stupid. Combine these qualities with the fact that I'm a walking Oxford Textbook of Clinical Medicine and Integrated Surgery, and you have an excellent doctor-to-be. Only 4 years and I'm let-loose! They'll probably turn it into a saint's day or something.

I saw a fantastic case of pulsatile hepatomegaly (enlarged liver with a pulse) - a sure sign of left ventricular failure. It's a sign you don't encounter very often as it develops fairly late on in cardiac failure and the patient has usually died by this time. This old dude didn't have long left bless him... He couldn't lift his legs onto the bed from sitting so we helped him and as I took my hands from underneath his legs, they were covered in smelly goo. His legs were so oedematous (swollen from fluid build-up) that the interstitial fluid (tissue fluid) was actually being forced out of his skin and dripping off. I couldn't wait to Ayeleffe my hands... I felt dirty all day. Not in a good dirty way - like you've given a hot guy a blow job in a train station toilet; but in a bad dirty way like the toilet guy wanted to piss on you and now you smell. You see what I mean?

Today I was meant to go and visit my eldery patient but I couldn't go. We're doing a community health study on patient's over 65 yrs, who are taking 4 or more medications. We see him every few weeks and just have a chat and ask some questions about his drugs. Called up to arrange a time to visit but his siter had just died so he was a bit up in the air. I gave him my sympathy 'cos he's a nice old guy.

But, every cloud has a silver lining (for me anyway). It meant I could go to the matinee performance of Whistle Down The Wind at the Liverpool Empire. I saw it with friend Emmeline - my crazy drunken friend, and we loved it. We do love our musical theatre. We're going to a mutual friend's house party tomorrow night and I'll be drunk and so will she. When we're drunk, we resembled Jack and Karen of Will and Grace TV show fame. Except I'm hotter and she has smaller titties. We're a fab team. I love us!

John's Tip Of The Day: Take life with a pinch of salt.

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

HELLOOOO MY DARRRRLINGSHHHH!!! DO COME ON IN!!!

Oopsy-daisy. Hic. Auntie Cyn has a confesssshion to make.

Auntie Cyn ish an ickle bit tipshy.

You shee, I was cooking a nice meal for that nice German handyman I mentioned before - he's had a verrrrry hard day being handy, you shee - and I was adding some cooking sherry to the sauce. An ickle drop for the sauce. A glass for Cyn. An ickle drop for the sauce. A big glass for Cyn. Oh dear, bottle's nearly finished. Better finish bottle. Ooh my dear, I do feel slightly odd.

My German handyman wasn't impressshed when I came in to sherve the meal, tripped and landed in his lap, spilling the sauce all over his shirt. Oops. I even offered to lick it off. Yesh, ooh dear my head.

BUT BUT BUT - Auntie Cyn has good news too.

I have my first internet crush. Oh yes. Come to me, big boy. I was reading shome of the commentsh on this here weblog earlier, and a rather wonderful chap called PETER said, "I'm almost a hundred". My kind of age. Then I went to visit his site and it turns out that he's naked!!! I almost passssshed out at this point, but had a nice strong cup of Breakfast Tea and felt much calmer. But really, Peter, if you fancy shome of this mid-60s auntie who's seen the world and isn't shocked by anything (well, almost) then do get in touch . . . mmmm. Be still Cynthia's beating heart, be still!

Ooh, I've jusht dishcovered that I have another bottle of sherry in the larder ...

(posted by quarsan)

Number Eight : Theme - The Banana Splits (mp3 file)

James Brown is, unquestionably the Godfather of Soul, but who is the Godfather of Punk? Lou Reed? Iggy Pop? Alice Cooper?

Nope. It is the Banana Splits. This wild and untamed theme song is one of the finest punk tracks ever recorded. It is the sound of joyous anarchy. It is a myth that punk was miserable and apathetic, it was the opposite. The punk spirit was saying you can do this too. Sniffing Glue's famous page showing an E, A and G chord with the instruction "Now form a band" said more about it than any number of learned articles or sullen poses.

The Banana Splits have something with real energy, and something more valuable. You just want to jump about and join in whenever you hear it.

So, listening to Mac's suggestion that we form a band, let's try our first track. Listen to the mp3 file above really loudly and sing along:

The Troubled Divas Theme

One Diva, two Diva, three Diva, four
Troubled Divas make a bunch and so do many more.
Over hill and highway the four bloggers go
Comin' to bring you the Troubled Diva show
Makin' up a mess of fun, makin' up a mess of fun
Lots of fun for everyone

Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la

Four Divas, three Divas, two Divas, one
Troubled Divas playin' in the bright warm sun.
Flippin' like a pancake, popping like a cork
Auntie, John, quarsan an' Mac

Chorus

Two Divas, four Divas, one Diva, three
Postin' like a bunch on monkeys, commentin' for free.
Hey there, ev'rybody, won't you come along and see
How much like Troubled Divas ev'ryone can be

Chorus

Makin up a mess of fun
Makin up a mess of fun
Happiness for ev'ryone
Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la

[posted by Mac]

With all Quarsan's talk of music and bands, it got me thinking. The Troubled Diva guest poster's for week two need to start their own band.

We could be one of those awful Vegas lounge acts and name ourselves The Troubled Divas. We could wear a lot of velvet and say things like "You're beautiful, people! Don't ever change!"

Of course, I don't really know the other guest posters. I can only take a guess at what their roles might be in such an endeavor. I am talentless when it comes to music, so my only options are groupie or the hack who plays the triangle.

Everyone else around here seems much more talented than I. I think Aunt Cyn would be the lead singer and song writer. She's lived life. She's seen stuff. She knows things. I imagine her lyrics would be gritty, but her voice would be buttery smooth, much like her excellent jam.

And John, well....John is the young buck among us. The reckless one. The idealist. I see him as the wild drummer type. He would be the guy who destroy the show with his scorching drum solos and then go to his hotel room and trash it due to his unexpressed angst.

That leaves Quarsan. I see him as the guitarist. He's the guy who holds the band together and carries us all through with his exhaustive devotion to the band. He's the one with common sense.

Am I wrong?

I have no idea where that came from...I am loopy this morning.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Seven : 12XU - Wire (mp3 file)

Lyrics: Saw you in a mag, kissing a man, I've got you in a corner (cottage)

It's got to be said that Wire were smash and grab artistes. They did what they wanted and got out of there asap. Their monumental debut LP Pink Flag has 21 tracks in under 40 mins. But this was no artifice, they gave you the trimmed down essentials and not one second more. Like Hemmingway, there is not one wasted word, nothing that wasn't vital.

Wire were the band that made us want to form a band. And we did. Often derided as being arty, at that time the ultimate put down from the dizzy hights of NME, I just couldn't see it. I thought they were smart not art.

When we did get our band together, it wasn't this track but Surgeon's Girl that we put in the set. Listen to all of Pink Flag and Chairs missing and enjoy.

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

One thing Mike never prepared me for when we discussed taking my first nervous steps onto the internet was how wonderfully joyous a thing email is. I now have my hotmail account - to which none of you, I hasten to add, have chosen to email me with any of your highly amusing deeply sensitive personal problems for my Agony Aunt column - and already I have about twenty emails. I never knew you could buy so much on the net! I was bewildered by the vast array of Viagra on offer, but have bought £150 worth from an address in Germany, because - well, because I'd like to try it on my new German handyman, if I'm honest. Seems like a nice boy, and he believes that I'm 43 when I tell him too. Which makes him a very nice boy indeed.

Order made, I suddenly had a message pop up on my screen. Seems that a man on the East Coast of the USA wanted to 'chat' to me about having a 'good time'. I was about to describe to you some of the immensely colourful words he used, but I'm just checking Mike's instructions again and apparently I'm not supposed to use words like that in case the site gets 'Googled'.

Googled?

He was very nice anyway, this chap. We were getting on so well, chatting away about my gardening habits and how I need a new pair of rubber gloves. Then he went and spoiled it all by telling me that he wanted to **** my ******* **** off. (I censored that, because I have a feeling some of the Liechtenstein Ladies' Circle might be looking in for a read - I told them that I'm now 'online' and 'surfing' and 'chatting' and they were very impressed. I've even got some search requests to do for them tonight, although I'm not sure whether surgical stockings are available in leather. Oh well).

Don't forget: auntiecyn@hotmail.com if you need to get in touch and share your woes, ills and peculiar perversions with me and the rest of the internet community.

I must go feed the squirrels. Night night.

Cynthia (Cyn to my friends, which I'm not convinced you are).

(posted by quarsan)

Is anyone interested in what I'm posting? I only ask because I'm busy as hell this week, and if it's not buttering anyone's toast, I'll go off and do the other stuff I really, really need to do. I won't be offended. Honest.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Six : Thief of Fire - The Pop Group (lyrics) (Wav file)

The Pop Group were one of the most original sounds to come from the punk explosion. A mixture of wild jazz, deep funk and a raw, burning anger. This band were out there on the edge. They stood for revolutionary political values whereas The Clash just adopted a posture.

I remember seeing the album cover and just wanting to hear what was inside. I got home as fast as I could and put it on the stereo, lit the blue touchpaper and stood well back.

From the first howl, I was entranced. This was something overpowering. I sat open mouthed in front of the speakers, my mind running in a hundred different directions as I tried to work out just what on earth was going on here. The influences came from a mtriad of sources brought together into something almost unlistenable, so wild it seemed that the band would lose control of what they were creating.

I later found this was the case, there having been a bumper crop of magic mushrooms in the Bristol area at the time of recording. Mark Stewart once told me he had no recollection whatsoever of making the album, or indeed which studio they used.

But this was the start of their assault on capitalism. Not for them the misery of Crass, but a wild joyful and cachophonous anger. Their single 'We Are All Prostitutes' had on the B-side the catchy titled 'Amnesty International Reoprt into the Torture of Irish Prisoners by the British Army'.

The single was relresed in a plain sleeve adorned by the lyrics.

On stage they were chaotic, putting everything they had into each moment of every performance. The Pop Group burned with a fire and a passion that just isn't seen today.

[posted by Mac]

You know how Disneyland is often described as The Happiest Place on Earth? If the neighborhood in which I live were to be made into a theme park, it would be described as The Freakiest Place on Earth...and it would be named Mulletland.

I live in a small neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania called Fishtown [at least until the end of the month, when we shall flee for the comfort of our own home in a better neighborhood]. Such a pretty name. In historical context, it's called Fishtown because in the early 20th Century the main street that runs through was lined with fish markets and all the dock workers and fishermen lived in the neighborhood. Now it's filled with cretins sporting the mullet haircut and assorted mouthbreathers.

Mr. Fish and I moved in three years ago to take advantage of the dirt cheap rents, amid adamant warnings from all our friends. We would be killed, they said. They don't like strangers, they told us. There have been no torch bearing mobs storming the house yet, but we have certainly been regarded with suspicion by the locals since the day we moved in. In fact, no one would even speak to us until late last year. I consider that a blessing.

Next to our house is a bar called the Starboard Side Tavern. We are treated to bar clearing streetfights at least once every week. It's not uncommon to leave the house in the morning to find blood and teeth on my doorstep. It's also not uncommon to be rudely awakened in the middle of the night by some bar patron who has staggered outside and is now violently vomiting on the side of our house.

Last night the bar closed at 2am [as usual], and a passel of drunk women decided to perch on our stoop and serenade the neighborhood with a slurred rendition of a Britney Spears medley. It just doesn't get any worse than that.

Or so I thought.

Fifteen minutes into the whole thing, they suddenly stop and start discussing sexual technique. The very thought of a woman with three teeth in her head giving pointers on fellatio was enough to give me the shakes.

I didn't sleep a wink.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Five: Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones (lyrics)

Probably the finest heroin song of all time. Yes, I know the Velvet's got there years before, as did many others, but there is something about this song that get's to somewhere the others don't.

What is it about heroin that inspires such a dogged determination. It's not just the fact that it is addictive - cigarettes are a harder vice to give up - but heroin answers a need, and it is this need that is the core of this track. junk is another girl, another all consuming passion, the most demanding lover in the world and it does put you on another planet.

A planet where pain, of the physical, and metaphysical kind is far, far away.

The music epitomises the junk experience better than anything. The hypnotic, trance inducing melody, the dizzy little guitar riffs. for if it wasn't so appealing, why would so many fall under it's spell, for this is one commodity that doesn't need to advertise.

And it was central to the Scottish experience in the early eighties. Suddenly it was everywhere and a generation discovered a hunger. It gave people an identity, a club they could join. A way of waving two big fat fingers at the whole world.

And then people started dying. Not just of overdoses, but of strange diseases. Hello HIV. And nobody cared. Long after people were being lectured about condoms there was a complete antipathy to needle exchanges. No, the poor junkies were the expendable minority group. They had no celebrity spokesmen, no charity galas. Nobody cared.

After a safe interlude, a film appeared. Trainspotting. It took place a good decade later - indeed it showed my old flat and made a reference to an earlier generation. This did show a picture of addiction close to what I saw, but it was sanitised. I remember watching it with a friend, one of only a handful that survived the eighties, we looked at each other in the darkened room and he just sighed and said "lightweights".

This beautiful song is the saddest by far of the ones I will chose, but it is the one I find hardest to talk about. For me it is about poor forgotten and despised people, sitting in squalid flats, waiting to die. Waiting for an agonising, painful and squalid death.

And nobody cared.

Posted by John

Bloody hell, what with apparently demented old aunties, some Q Magazine wannabe and a fallen cheerleader (the worst kind), I can see that my debut around here is most timely... Better late than never, I say! It's time for John to bring some o' the ole' razzle dazzle to Trub Div's site! I expect you've had a little trouble containing your excitement at seeing my first guest post, so I'll give you a little chance to go get a new Tena Lady pad to replace your now urine-sodden one....

.....


.....


Better now? I thought so!

I have a friend visiting from Holland so spare time has been short on the ground. She's leaving tomorrow though, so posting will increase in frequency from then on.

Until that exciting hour, I'll leave you a link to a favourite site of mine. It's where I take my coolness lead from.

In all seriousness, I'm loving the other guest bloggers. I feel weirdly young and silly in the light of their not inconsiderate blog experience. Hopefully I can learn from them.

See y'all tomorrow!
-J-

(posted by quarsan)

Number Four: Help Me Somebody - David Byrne Brian Eno (lyrics)

Well, where do we begin with this one? As in all my other selections, the actual track isn't always significant. The album it comes from, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a coherent whole, and should be taken as such.

There are few recordings that are as truly groundbreaking and ahead of their time as this. It was one of the first to use world music, to synthesise cultures to produce something new, something that couldn't be placed in a geographic context.

It also presaged the house/techno sound and all of those young pop music people, with names that look like SMS messages owe so much to this recording. If only one of them could match it.......

The title comes from a story about a young boy wandering through the African bush, where the real and spiritual world are indivisible and the album's soundscape is something that evokes this. Trust me I've heard this album sitting in the bush at night with hyenas howling in the near distance.

There is an interesting tale of Jung visiting a tribe of bushmen in the Kalahari. During his extended stay he was invited to join a magical ceremony, where the music and dancing went on all night. At some point Jung fell under the spell of the music and went into a semi trance. As he was going under he saw the bush filled with ghosts and he had some kind of major freak out.

That's what this sounds like. after you've spent time in the bush, in a strange and unknowable environment, listening to this can push you over a psychic edge.

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

Hello, my dears. Oh, what a day it's been! There was a serious jam explosion in my exquisite Laura Ashley kitchen earlier today, and there are the remains of what can only be described as 'splattered' loganberry simply everywhere. Fortunately, Tuesday is the day my lovely French cleaner, Jean-Paul, comes in to whip round the place with a duster, some J-cloths and Fairy Liquid Power. He's a lovely boy. If I were twenty years younger ... I'd still be too old for him.

Anyway, it turns out that young Michael - who's no doubt chasing those lovely young French women in gay Paree as we speak - wanted me to do more during my week taking care of his website than just ramble on about my colourful, vibrant life. You may remember that I am the resident agony aunt on the Liechtenstein Mail & Herald - and we thought it would be a lovely idea to syndicate my advice column this week. I've dispensed my words of wisdom, pearls of advice and jolly homespun philosophies to Michael a number of times, and he's always said to me, with pride, "Auntie Cyn, you're full of it!" By which he means, of course, I'm full of problem-solving wisdom. He's such a dear!

So for this week, and this week only, email me with your problems and I'll attempt to solve them during my residency on Troubled Diva.

You can contact me at: auntiecyn@hotmail.com, whereupon I will discuss your problems with all my friends at the Liechtenstein Whist Club, before returning here with a response.

As I always say to my loyal readers - "If you can't trust your Auntie, who can you trust?"

[Posted by Mac]

Mike seems vaguely fascinated by the fact that I used to be a cheerleader. Who can blame him? It's a weird thing to do. Being a former crack addict is more respectable than being a former cheerleader.

I have cheerleading shame.

Really, it's hard to be a former cheerleader. To own up to willingly putting on a brief polyester outfit and making a complete ass out of yourself in front of large crowds of drunken sports fans is to admit that you're a freakin' idiot. It's embarrassing to know that I have picked a wedgie thousands of times in public. There's nothing dignified about being a cheerleader.

Least dignifying of all is the memory of the horrible cheerleading episodes gone awry. Like the time I was cheering at a crowded basketball game, lost my balance, and fell backwards through the swinging doors into the boys locker room. Oh, the grace and beauty of such a move! As if the act of being a cheerleader isn't bad enough, I have to be a big klutz.

You also lose your street cred when you become a cheerleader. There's just no way to be cool anymore. When once I was a green haired, combat boot wearing, Ministry loving freak, I could not shake the image of the big haired, gum chewing, vacant eyed bimbo.

There is only one thing that cheerleading has prepared me for. Even though I may be a seething bag of hate on the inside, I can fake being happy and behind the team very, very well. I owe all of my employment success to this very useful tool.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Three: Eine Symphonie Des Grauens - Monochrome Set (lyrics)

One of the funniest bands ever, the Monochrome Set epitomised the word quirky, and had a lovely sense of self-depreciation. Here's a quote from their title song:

I fascinate, infatuate
Emphatically
You're dreary, you're base, deary
But your face is weary for me

I'm heaven sent, so eloquent
And curiously
I entertain your tiny brain
So spuriously

The Monochrome Set, Monochrome Set, Monochrome Set

Now, who could fail to be charmed by lyrics like that. I got into the set in my first flat in Edinburgh,one I shared with members of the Scars and Another Pretty Face. We had an almost nocturnal existance, sleeping during the day and speeding every night. We'd come home around 10 am from partying and put on a couple of discs to come down to.

There was something about the Set that gave me something good and strangely innocent to hang my psyche onto whilst my mind slowly crumbled into a daze that passed for sleep in those days. Eine symphonie seemed to fit into the mood with it's comically dark lyrics, and it's eccentric melody just made it a good track to wrap your psyche around.

Time has been kind to this most English of bands, their jollity is as lively as ever, their humour hasn't faded and their charm is as infectious as ever. They managed the trick of being clever enough you admired them without being self important or pretentious.

Take your sense of fun for a walk and listen to their debut LP Strange Boutique.

(posted by quarsan)

Number Two: Shadowplay - Joy Division (lyrics)

One of the delights of Kazaa-Lite is that I have been able to track down a lot of the songs from my youth that have long since vanished from my collection. I belong to the punk and post-punk era. To be honest, I largely stopped listening to music in 1982, since then I have been largely been listening by proxy - listening to stuff pointed out by friends and the occasional chance discovery.

I haven't missed much. But 20 years later I can see where the new-fangled young person's music came from. I much prefer the originals. Who needs artists that re-invent themselves with every release? whatever happened to music that didn't have to hide behind artifice? Who are those singing out with passion, with anger?

I remember seeing Joy Division for the first time in an underground club. From the first bars of 'Dead Souls' to the last beat of 'The Atrocity Exhibition' I knew I was hearing something different, something just overpowering. They were the first band that actually scared me.

I recall feeling rather intimidated as I interviewed them afterwards, but their answers to my naive questions were polite, if curt. It was a strange feeling sitting with them, as though a burly bouncer was standing behind me, just out of vision. I left with a feeling of relief and a strong sense that my teenage angst was paper thin comapred to their vision.

Although their finest moment is probably the haunting and unforgettable Atmosphere, I have chosen Shadowplay, with it's brutally insistant bass building up to crechendoes with a wildly discordant and cutting guitar. As an instrumental it would be challenging and disturbing, but when the vocals are added, full of power and angry questioning, it becomes something deeper, something that has a substance beyond the sum of it's parts.

As I write this I am picturing the first time I saw them, the first time I was transfixed by their strangeness, their confidence and their sense of mission. As a naive young boy, I felt as though I was on the edge of something I just didn't understand, but I knew it was something that captured the essence of the times, an essense that was going to take music somewhere different.

I have often wondered if, that night, I caught a glimpse of what was to come. Transfixed by Ian Curtis's strange convulsions, his unblinking penetrating stare (photo), I did ask myself, just what was I watching. These guys weren't faking and Ian was a very troubled young man.

I can't recall how I felt when I heard of his suicide. It was a shock, but not unexpected. Perhaps that was one of the days when I realised that the world was a serious place and life was, sometimes, a great burden. I never since criticised anyone for killing themselves, because I discovered, that for some, the world is simply too much to bear.

(posted by Mike)

I arrived home last Thursday evening - stressed up, fed up, all used up - to find my darling K in an even worse state than myself. He seemed, flat, drained, morose, devoid of life. When I asked him about it, he mumbled something vague about how the work pressures of the last few weeks had finally caught up with him. Normally, he has no problem in articulating his emotional state, with considerable precision. This was different, and unnerving. I wasn't used to seeing him like this.

He was still down on Friday, though nothing like as bad as the night before. On Saturday, he seemed much improved. On Sunday morning, over the breakfast table, he looked up at me and said:

"I've just realised something quite significant. This morning, I woke up early and felt back to normal again - like I had recovered from an illness. Then I started thinking back over the last few days, and I started to be able to think clearly at last. Why hadn't I been myself? I couldn't think of a good reason for it. Then I thought back to Wednesday night, when I went out drinking with Buni, and ended up down at the club. OK, so I'd had a few beers - but I hadn't been drinking stupid amounts. And yet - right at the end of the night, I remember suddenly feeling really, really out of it. I mean, really out of it. I had trouble walking; I couldn't form sentences properly. I hardly slept at all, and woke up feeling like absolute shit. I was in a terrible state - awful, awful thoughts - horrible, bleak depression, almost hysterical. It got so bad later on that I actually thought I was going crazy - that I was cracking up. I even started feeling suicidal - and I never feel like that. I very nearly rang the doctor up."

"You know what I think happened in NG1? I think someone spiked my drink - I don't know what with, but I do have a vague recollection in the back of my mind about my last pint being cloudy. I don't like the beer in there anyway, so I didn't think about it any further at the time. But I've just remembered what A in the office told me the other day. She said that when her teenage daughter goes out clubbing in town, she will only drink from a bottle these days - and she will never put it down, and even when she's drinking from it, she'll hold her thumb over the top of the bottle. She says it's because it's so common these days for women to get their drinks spiked. Do you think that's what happened to me? It would explain everything."

K never did the whole full-on clubbing thing - he never related to it, always kept it to a safe distance. My experience is, um, somewhat different, shall we say. I quizzed him further about the precise nature of the effects. He talked about fuzziness of vision, and of an orange glow around everything when he got home. After a while, we came to a fairly firm conclusion: some trashy queen had popped an ecstacy tablet into his lager. In Nottingham these days, you can pick up an E for a fiver, easy - even for as little as three quid if you know the right people. It's a cheap prank to play. Or maybe he simply came back from the toilet and picked up the wrong pint? Happens all the time down there.

With five pints consumed, the effects of the E would have been considerably blurred. Without the knowledge that he'd even had one, it's no wonder that he fell into a panic. Add this to the enormous work-related pressures that he has been enduring over the past few weeks, and our worries about still not being able to sell the house, and the fact that I had been away from home for three nights - something he's not used to, and is having difficulties with - and his subsequent deep depression started to make more and more sense. E comedowns are generally spread over three days, gradually improving until you feel recovered by the fourth day. What else could it be? Not speed, not coke, not acid, not rohypnol - nope, it was E all right.

I'll repeat: some evil little toerag, some irresponsible low-life arsewipe, some piece of f***ing SHIT, had spiked K's drink, without his consent, against his will, with a powerful and potentially dangerous drug, which had caused him to feel suicidally depressed and given him three days of hell. Meanwhile, he still had to go out into the world and deal with some particularly crucial issues at work, which have a significant bearing upon his long term future. K's primary emotion was now one of huge relief - that he hadn't been cracking up after all. My primary emotion was a horrified sense of outrage, developing into a slow-burning anger.

I don't have a violent bone in me. I abhor violence as a solution to anything. And yet I was left nurturing a deep desire to punch whoever was responsible for this hard in the face.

(It's a good job that will never happen, what with me and my puny amount of physical strength. It would have amounted to nothing more than a limp bitch-slap. But still. I don't relish this emotion, by the way. I'm not especially proud of it.)

A cautionary tale. Let's be very, very careful out there, people.

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

Oh, I DO love jam! I love it! I do! I do!

Jam has been very kind to me, seeing my through my twilight years here in not terribly sunny Liechtenstein. It's difficult getting by on just a meagre pension, and jam has been my saviour in that respect - ever since I had to stop travelling the highways and byways here in central Europe, selling my 'special rock cakes' from the back of my Morris Minor Traveller. Illegal, you see. Nobody told me though, did they?

That's one reason why I'm not really on speaking terms with the rest of the Troubled Diva clan - my criminal record was frowned upon. But I suppose I should tell you a little more about my tumultuous life history, shouldn't I?

My full name is Lady Cynthia Gotterdammerung. It's a bit of a mouthful, I know! I'm not really German, but in the run-up to the Second World War my father - Daddy - who was something big in industrial lawnmowers and had a lot of rich society friends, regrettably rather admired that awfully short and awfully loud Mister Hitler. Two days before war broke out in 1939, he decided to demonstrate his admiration by having his surname changed from the perfectly respectable Murgatroyd to - well, what you see above. Gotterdammerung. He even wrote to the royal family to tell them that Saxe-Coburg Gotha was a much more aristocratic-sounding name than Windsor. They never replied. Daddy's family name change didn't go down terribly well in suburban Woking, but our neighbours put up with it - or at least they did until he started wearing a German officer's uniform and goose-stepping round the garden. We were forced to leave dear old Blighty and hotfoot it to Borneo, where we lived on the edge of the jungle for the next twenty years, whittling wood into supposedly erotic shapes that we then sold as tribal trinkets. (I did meet a nice boy from the tribe, though - and we spent many happy hours whittling in our jungle clearing).

The worst part was that Daddy never told us that war was actually over. He lied to us. For two decades, we lived in the belief that Mister Hitler had succeeded in invading the United Kingdom and was ruling over it with a rod of iron from a large Gothic castle on the outskirts of Redditch. It was only when I saw the young Beatles and their extremely long hair on the jungle community's first television that I realised how awful Daddy had been. I confronted him with the truth, and he dropped down dead, there and then, on the spot. He didn't even finish whittling the rather too curvacious statue of a jungle girl that he was working on at the time. He shuffled off this mortal coil while he was mid-thigh, which was especially tragic as Daddy always took particular pride in whittling thighs.

I was devastated, and mourned Daddy's passing for twelve, thirteen, maybe even fourteen minutes. But I also realised that I was a healthy young woman who had barely ever seen beyond the four walls of my tropical jungle home, so I waved goodbye to the rest of the family (whatever did happen to them, I wonder?) and caught the first BEA flight back to Swinging London. Ah! London! Carnaby Street! Kings Road! What wonderful years! Of course, I would so love to tell you more about my wild times with Mick, Keef, John, Paul, Ringo and Herman's Hermits - but as all the books say, if you can remember the 60s, you weren't there! Gosh! I do dimly recall playing tambourine on the amazing All You Need Is Love worldwide broadcast, but they didn't give me a microphone because Ringo said I couldn't keep the beat. And they hid me behind a large palm tree.

Then in '69, of course, there was the famous drugs bust at the home of Tarquin Etherington. I was pictured on the front page of the Didcot Advertiser, being led away in handcuffs accompanied by the bass player from The Pigeons. What, you've never heard of this famous case? You've never heard of The Pigeons? Shocking. I'll admit that this brush with the law wasn't as huge as others, but it could have ruined my career as a face about town. Fortunately, it all went well for me, because standing in the dock I looked across the courtroom and saw the man who was to become the love of my life. The judge.

Lord Cecil McTavish and I were married in THE society wedding of 1971 - and I became a Lady! Gosh! Shortly after, Cecil gave up his everso dull High Court work and we set up the charity which was to occupy the next ten years of our lives - Save The Tree. The '70s and the early '80s were a positive blur, as we travelled around the world putting stickers on endangered trees. You probably remember the unforgettable catchphrase - "This tree saved by Cecil and Cynthia". We would cover trees with our bright yellow stickers and KNOW that we'd done something worthwhile for the future of the planet, for our children, for the human race. And then we would watch the trees being cut down. Ah, heady days!

We thought of ourselves very much as the John and Yoko of the tree movement, you know - although I wasn't Japanese and Cecil didn't have peculiar facial hair. Our 'tree-in' atop a large diseased elm made headlines throughout Oxfordshire in the summer of 1976. One of my proudest moments. There were many times that the police were forced to drag us away from our protests, and I probably would have had a criminal record as long as your arm if the magistrate hadn't been Cecil's brother.

Of course, the danger with hanging round all those trees is that you might catch something. And so it was that my dearest, darling Cecil went to sleep for the last time in 1983, having succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. I was traumatised, since he'd never told me that one of his legs was wooden (we never slept together, you see, due to my peculiar lifelong phobia of being in close proximity to other people's knees; ours was a purely intellectual marriage). Distraught that the very things I'd sought to save had taken my beloved, I vowed never to save another tree and, since then, I've fought a one-woman campaign to cut down and burn as many of the branchy little bastards (sorry! I get quite emotional about this!) as possible.

Calm yourself, Cyn. Calm yourself.

Shortly after Cecil's death, the scandal broke. The News of the World discovered Daddy's past, and the headline LADY CYN'S DOTTY DADDY WAS GOOSE-STEPPING KRAUT DUMMKOPF hit the news-stands. For a while, people naturally thought that I must share his views, and I had to stop going to see German operas and even threw out my Wagner collection.

Fortunately, the chance soon came my way to prove that I was really a peace-loving, well-off aristocrat from the Home Counties - as I became one of the camp of women protesting against the nuclear presence at Greenham Common. I'm proud to say that I was arrested 157 times during my time there, although I've never quite forgiven my so-called 'sisters' for leaving without telling me that the US military threat had gone. Three more years I was there, sitting in a leaky tent pitched up against the wire fence, eating nothing but soup. So much for solidarity.

In the '90s I found myself rather alone. My wonderful Cecil was gone, half my family were probably living as cannibals in the jungle, and I found it hard to live down my drug-taking, tree-saving, nuclear-protesting past - not forgetting Daddy's penchant for listening to Hitler's speeches for relaxation. I tried getting in touch with young Michael and the rest of the Diva family, but they didn't want to know - although Mike always sends Christmas cards, bless him. And then this opportunity in Liechtenstein came up - writing the weekly agony aunt column for the Liechtenstein Mail & Herald. Well, of course, I have no experience of solving people's emotional problems, but I've had a lively old life and can turn my hand to anything. And the newspaper has been very good to me, deciding not to sack me when they discovered the 'special rock cakes' incident I mentioned way back at the start.

What a life I've had, readers! Did I mention that I make jam too?

[posted by Mac]

It is a strange road that we take from childhood to adulthood. Me, I think I'm right in the middle. At age 31, I still haven't quite made it to full-fledged adulthood yet. Oh, sure, I'm married and I pay my bills and I even just bought my first house. I just don't feel like an adult.

More importantly, I haven't accepted my fate.

As a kid, remember thinking that you would grow up to be an astronaut or a ballerina? Remember planning out your life, thinking that by [insert age here], I will be this and will have accomplished this? I was a chick with a plan.

From the time I learned how to form letters with my pudgy little kid hands, I knew I wanted to be a writer. And over the years I formulated this imagined view of my future. By now I planned to be a newspaper reporter, famous for breaking political scams wide open. I would be single and successful with no children, while still hanging on to some sort of cool bohemian style. I would be wildly beautiful and have many hot men in my harem. I would live in a gorgeous loft in Manhattan.

Who wants to guess which of these things actually came to pass?

Well....I don't have any children and don't plan to, and I'd like to think I'm kinda cool in my own spastic way. Everything else sort of went, well, sssfpht!

The funny thing is that I'm not sad that I'm not all those things I thought I would be. Oh, sure it would be nice to be super hot with a nice Manhattan loft and I'd love to get paid to write [although I no longer want to be a newspaper reporter]. But I kind of like the way my life has turned out.

Of course, I'm convinced that this is not where I will end up when I finally become an adult. While I intend to stay married and happy, I really just get the feeling that my life has some big twist waiting for me right around the corner.

Maybe it's a harem of hot men.

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

I haven't actually posted anything. What? Oh, apparently it's called 'posting'. Nothing to do with letters. Oh, I see. Thank you, dear.

Young Michael was very specific with his instructions, wasn't he?

Please start your postings with the following text:

(posted by your-name-here)

Or, if you want to plug the blog:

(posted by <a href="http://your-blog-URL">your-name-here</a>)

Plug a blog? I don't even understand what he's talking about. Sounds a bit like unblocking a sink.

I can see that there's going to be a lot to learn about 'logging on' to the 'web' this week.

I'm sorry my dears, I would write more now, but my recipe for Damson and Artichoke Jam is about to come to fruition. And the jam residue on my fingers is making it a little difficult to type. More soon, promise!

lots of love,
Cynthia

Didn't they do well?

Massive props to Lyle, Mr.D., qB & Robin, for collectively providing an absolutely storming start to Troubled Diva Guest Month. Blimey, just look at the height of that bar already!

My only regret thus far is that I have been unable to participate as much as I would have liked. The dear, deluded Parisians seem to think that I am some sort of tireless toil machine, and have consequently been working me into the ground over the past week or so. OK, so I'm talking comparatively here, but really. The sheer impudence of it all. Why, I even had to go into the office for over five hours yesterday, just to get everything done before flying back over tomorrow afternoon.

Added to this, a woefully embarrassing episode with a mis-configured laptop on the first afternoon made me look like an utter chump from the off - after which, I couldn't shake off the idea that I was starring in Mr. Bean Goes To Paris. It was one of those weeks where everything I said or did felt mis-judged, or doomed to failure, or amusingly inept, or just plain wrong - from being desperate for a slash at the top of the Eiffel Tower, to ordering escargots for dinner and not having a clue how to eat them (were you supposed to smash the shells first, or what? I even tried to phone K for emergency culinary advice, but he wasn't picking up), to finding that the Atelier Brancusi was shut, to getting hopelessly lost in the middle of the Marais...oh, it was pitiful.

Then, there was the alienation to contend with. In the office, I was nothing more than a Human Labour Unit, whilst at night I dined and drank alone, with only the new Robert Harris novel for company. With fourteen years' experience of overseas business travel behind him, K is entirely acclimatised to this kind of situation - indeed, he has frequently commented that sitting on his own in a restaurant with a good book is one of his great pleasures in life. As for me: after more than one night of it, I just feel lonely, miserable, increasingly invisible and insignificant.

(On the other hand: with fourteen years' experience of being home alone in Nottingham, while K gads about the globe, I am more than happy with my own company under my own roof - hey, I can play nasty loud pop music all night without fear of censure! As for K: after more than one night of it, he begins to go a bit stir crazy. There's something of a hair-raising story to tell here, but no time (as yet) to do it justice. Just you wait, though.)

Anyway: this week, things will be different. Remember the slightly apologetic shout-out I made for Sarah in Paris, just over a week ago? Well, she's been in touch and we'll be meeting for a drink in the next couple of days. Ah, the sweet balm of social contact...

Also, now that I know where the Net Caffs are, I'll be trying to fulfil last week's thwarted aim of leaving a comment on every single one of the coming week's guest posts. (I was able to complete a short flush of these towards the end of last week, but quickly ran out of time.)

Which brings us back round to the subject of this week's guests. Who are, in alphabetic order:

Aunt Cyn. Yes: for the first time, a real life relative of mine takes to blogging! Cynthia, whom I haven't seen in person for over a decade, stumbled across TD quite by accident, earlier in the year. She's a lady who's had a lively old time during her sixty-plus years - so lively in fact that she now lives in disgraced exile from the rest of the Troubled Diva family (i.e. they don't talk about her) in a small country chalet in Liechtenstein, where she spends her days making home-produced jams and writing the Dear Cyn agony aunt column for the Liechtenstein Mail & Herald. You're gonna love her.

John of Rainbow Villa. Originally from Cardiff, and now studying medicine in Liverpool, John is the youngest of my sixteen guests - and quite possibly the gayest, in every sense of the word. OK, in both senses. Tsk. Pedants. "I'm too young, hot and smart to be a twink", he claims, impishly. Which is a slight shame, as I think that this place could benefit from a little twinking up from time to time.

Mac of go fish. Well now, this is exciting. Until Mac got in touch to volunteer her services, I had never knowingly visited her popular and much linked-to blog - making her one of the "unknown quantities" that I was hoping to attract over the course of the month. Mac is married to Mr. Fish, lives in Philadelphia, and - oh my God, how fantastic is this? - used to be a cheerleader. Pom-poms ahoy! Go Mac! Go Mac! Go Mac!

quarsan of my life in the bush of ghosts. Look everybody, it's the Twat! Yes: the founder member of the mighty blogging dynasty which now includes My Boyfriend Is A Twat and Quickos Daily News takes a break from all that Bush-n-Blair-bashing on his own blog to join us here at Troubled Diva, where he has promised (amongst other things) to tell us a bit about his punk rock past. In fact, he's started already (see below). Just Don't Mention The War, OK?

Guests, it's over to you. Week Two of Troubled Diva Guest Month starts...NOW.

(posted by quarsan)

Number One: Can't Stand My Baby - The Rezillos

There have been some constant pleasures in life and the Rezillos are one of them. Ever since I heard the opening chords of 'Can't Stand My Baby' I've been hooked. It is hard to describe the sound, the nearest is putting every crazed early sixties track in a blender, then applying enough volts to awaken Frankenstein.

Never has a guitar sounded so electric.

Helping my enjoyment was Fay Fife - the Mary Quant of punk - and their comic book image brought a sense of fun and excitement to the late 70's. I got involved in their circle when I was doing some minor stuff with Fast Product, which was run by the Rezillos manager, Bob Last. I really liked Jo Callis, Angel and Simon.

Eugene and Fay were a bit standoffish, but I don't blame them - I was as uncool then as I am now. nobody could compete with them as they drove around the city in a Messerschmit bubble car. They were a group that lived a concept full on, full time.

They were a fantastic band to watch, running around the stage like demons whilst a roadie climbed into a dalek and roamed around the stage exterminating everything that moved. They had some classic songs, such as flying Saucer Attack, Good Sculptures and Top of the Pops. Listen to them and feel the excitement of being young.

Check out their debut LP - Can't Stand The Rezillos

Jo was the only person I have known who kept a dalek in his cupboard. Unfortunately when the band split he was left with massive debts and had been in a deep hole for a long time. He then did something suprising. He joined the Human League, who has also split in two.

The League were looking, unashamedly, for chart success and Jo's sense of melody and deep knowlege of the history of pop gave him the chance to write some great pop songs. It was also rumoured that the League were also looking for someone to teach them how to play. The first song to show Jo's writing was 'Don't You Want Me Baby' where a simple synth riff bacame a hook that launched an instant classic.

The last time I saw Jo was sitting in his Edinburgh flat drinking coffee and pawing over dalek plans. He told me that he had just had his first royalty cheque for the single. 200k for six months of sales. He was able to pay off all his debts and sort out his parents. Nothing had changed about him, fame just wasn't what he was after, he just wanted to write great pop songs.

None of this explains why he later wrote songs for Samantha Fox though.

Posted by Robin. (Last time.)

Public thanks to Mike for the chance to help fill his blank pages and to my fellow guests who have entertained and broadened me.

There were many things I nearly wrote but the world will still turn without them.

And thanks to anyone who read anything I did write.

(qB's boys' toys again)