Pretty in Pink

Last night I watched, with a surprising amount of enjoyment, the teen classic Pretty in Pink. I was a teenager when this film came out (1986) and it was huge - yet I never saw it (I'm not sure why). The soundtrack was great - New Order, The Smiths and the lovely "If you leave" by OMD at the end - and the cast strong.

It was everything you wanted your teenage years to be like - nice boys and dances and crazy clothes and first kisses. Really sweet. I said as much to my husband this morning over breakfast and I wondered if kids today ('kids today!') still enjoyed such comparative innocence, given what we're told by the media about the various horrors of the Internet. But as my husband reminded me, "It was hard at the time". And so it was! Looks like I was watching Pretty in Pink through rose-coloured glasses...! 

C'mon Get Happy

What's your surefire way to get happy? You know those days when you're feeling just a little blah (not majorly blah - that's another category altogether) or you've been stuck at your desk and you're feeling a mite stressed? What do you do to snap out of it? One of my methods (depending on the nature of the blah, as I said) is to dance like a complete looney around the living room to something loud and often absurdly upbeat. Now, a few things here. First, I can't dance to save myself. I dance like a complete twit, combining weird 60s-esque moves with a lot of hand waving. Second, I am 38 and would be, you would think, beyond dancing around the room like a nut-bar. Well, the beauty of it is, I close the curtains, crank up the volume and all that just doesn't seem to matter. Dance like there's no-one watching? Dance having made sure there's no-one watching is my take on it!

And my tracks of choice? There have been many over the years (yes, this is a long-term habit) but lately Suede's "Can't Get Enough" is a good one (I have only recently discovered Suede, despite the fact that I was into every other Britpoppish band in the mid-90s). They of course have the added bonus of the not-too-hard-on-the-eyes Brett Anderson as their lead singer. Ahem. "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode is also good value as is that band's "Enjoy the Silence". On the Britpop trail again, I go for Pulp's "Common People" or "Disco 2000". I have been waving my hands in the air to New Order since I was at school in 19*cough* and of course, there's always room for some Smiths (though I choose carefully - "Asleep" is not exactly an endorphin creator).

What about you? Do you "dance your legs down to the knees" as the divine Mr Morrissey would have it when you need a little happy rush? Or do you have other methods?

Every time I think of you

A little bit of music to finish the week. I loved this song, "Bizarre Love Triangle", when it was released first by New Order in the 80s. My friends and I would go to each others' houses with our favourite music clips on VHS tapes (ahem) and inflict our (often vastly different) musical tastes on each other. I played the New Order version of this so often that everyone else eventually refused to watch it.

Yesterday, you-tubing while I did some translations for an article I'm writing, I discovered this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful version of the song by Frente, an Australian band of the 90s who have sort of disappeared now. I loved New Order's dance version in the 80s but this gentle acoustic rendition now speaks to me much more.

Have a lovely weekend.