Oh Bondage Up Yours

I'd better write something here, if only as a farewell before I'm carried off by swine flu. I can feel it heading towards me right now. These germs are lurking out there, just waiting for Millar to make an appearance before leaping on board. I'm doomed, and there's nothing to be done about it.

Am plunged into nostalgia again, first by a programme on BBC4 about 70's music. It was great. I mean the music. Well, the programme was good as well. The video of the Sex Pistols playing Pretty Vacant is a high point in Western Culture and I will listen to no arguments against. And yes I remember watching it on Top of the Pops the first time round.

After that I was hunting in a box of stuff when this badge popped out. I'd long forgotten I had it. I don't think I've even seen it for about 30 years. I bought it at a stall in the King's Road, in the far-off days when there was a cheap market there.

It says 'Bondage Up Yours, a reference to X-Ray Spex's song Oh Bondage Up Yours. I saw X-Ray Spex in small pub in Wandsworth, right back in their original incarnation when Laura Logic was still in the band. That was such a great gig. The tiny stage was no more than a foot high, and standing right next to Poly Styrene as she sang was quite an experience. But I'm fairly sure I wrote about this gig in my blog before, so will not drone on about it again.

Hmm. I seem to be in danger of disappearing into the past, and indeed might already have done so were it not for the collection of glamorous young fetish models who visit regularly and, in-between unspeakable perversions and regular cups of tea, do keep me somewhat up to date with the modern world.

Les Petites Fées de New York

I've been too dull and uninspired to write anything interesting in my blog for a while.

Here are two books, due out soon. There's a French edition of The Good Fairies of New York - Les Petites Fées de New York - coming out on the 18th April, from Editions Intervalles. It's taken a long time for this book to be published in France and I'm glad it's made it eventually. And Soft Skull in the USA will publish a new edition of Lux the Poet in May. I'm pleased to have Lux back in print.

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Other than that, not much happening. A mysterious insect bite on my foot left me limping around for a few days. Stupid wildlife. However, it did give me an excuse to do nothing except lie on the couch reading manga, and Buffy comics. I always like an excuse to lie on the couch, doing nothing. OK, I don't really need an excuse.

Apart from working on the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl, I've been writing with my friend Doon MacKichan. We wrote a play together some years ago, a version of Jane Austin's Emma. That was quite successful. Now she's planning a one-woman show, hopefully for later this year.