Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Gadjo’s Top Vampires

Noted vampire chaser and scholar No Good Boyo has recently raised the subject of vampires from its coffin. As I live in Transylvania, people - or the “un-undead”, as I’m required to call them - often ask me about vampires. “What are they really like?”, “Do you know any personally?”, “Can you get my friend Tina a date with one??” etc etc... Oh it really does get tiresome. So, to satisfied people's prurience - yes, alright, my own included - I've composed a top five list of vampires. The fact that they're all female and have no proven track record of vampirism is neither here nor there.

#5 Nigella Lawson

Gentleman Gyppo Byard recommended Ms Lawson’s book How To Be A Domestic Goddess so I bought it for Mrs Dilo for Christmas. Sadly, the cover picture is not of the raven-haired raver herself but of a fairy cake, but one could still imagine her as a vampire if one wanted to, and the recipes do look rather enticing. As the late Humph Lyttelton said: “Bakewell, tart!”.

#4 Spampyra

a.k.a. The Soup Dragon. A dinner lady we used to have at skool. She dished up the liver and onions, boiled cabbage, custard, “pink sauce” (eh, what was that?), toads (individual toad-in-the-holes), gravy and, yes, Spam fritters. Maybe she wasn’t a vampire at all but her hair was always a mess which is a sure sign that she couldn’t see her reflection in the mirror of a morning.

#3 Frøken X

X was a real woman I knew in Denmark, stunningly attractive as a fairytale princess, tall with high cheekbones and long blond hair. She was also several loaves short of a bread basket. She invited me to dinner once and after we’d eaten the soup she'd made and listened to Bowie records she started laughing manically about ways in which she could do away with her father. She then married an eminently unpleasant and expendable chap who died of unknown causes a few months later.

#2 Fennella Fielding

Frying Tonight!! Vampish actress and one of the few truly horny things in pre-Summer-of-Love Britain. I also have loving memories of her in The Poetry Society episode of Hancock’s Half Hour. She’s got actual Romanian blood in her, and “never married” – we all know what that means... I reckon No Good Boyo does, and it’s really only to leave Fennella for his own more expert consideration that she doesn’t quite make the #1 spot here.

#1 Kate Bush

Kate Bush is not a vampire, she is the woman I loved, but she has long dark hair and dances like a maniac so she’ll do as a vampire. As a teenager I used to lie feverishly awake at night listening to her songs on my portable cassette player, so everything I know about women (and therefore vampires) I learnt from Kate. It was also for her that I started going to expressionist mime classes – bless!

14 comments:

  1. Kate had the looks, but her voice was too high-pitched for a vampire. Fenella Fielding was perfect in appearance, although not wicked enough as Valeria Watt. She obviously never met the right man.

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  2. Today I look like a vampire. I have been up all night sucking the life out of a chocolate orange to get my vitamin C. I have also been watching videos of the clangers and have been practising my expressionist/impressionist mime. I am a vampire.
    SX

    P.S I am not Mrs P Gadj, but flattery will get you everywhere.

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  3. Spampyra?! Oh how I wish I'd thought of that!

    Have never heard of Femnella. Too close to fennel for my taste, however, which I'm sure will mean something to me once I've had a couple cups of coffee...

    Pearl

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  4. Mr Bananas, you are clearly much more an expert than I am. I've bluffed my way through this and I don't think I've convinced anybody that I know about vampires!

    Scarley, dearest, I can't believe that you look like a vampire, except in the nicest possible way. There's lots of goodness in a Terry's chocolate orange, and you could even eat the foil wrapper to boost your iron intake. (Somebody must be Mrs P. though...)

    Welcome again Miss Pearl. I have vague recollections of lady from your side of the pond called Vampyra who was in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, and on whom both Fennella Fielding and our dinner lady may have based their act!

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  5. Gadjo bor - in my defence, I did recommend HTBADG as a cookbook, not as a piece of soft porn.

    Oddly enough, Ms Bush is to feature in a forthcoming posting of mine...

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  6. I would kill for Ms Fielding, although one suspects that she's quite capable of doing the job herself.

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  7. Nigella Lawson - I'd like to be on the wrong end of that vamp's ire. If only she'd stop eating.

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  8. That is NOT a good photograph of Nigella. She looks quite anaemic, and her bosom should be more en valeur.

    As you have probably guessed, I am Fenella Fielding c. Carry On Screaming. We are identical in every specific, except that I have kept the Hendon rasp, whereas her vowels were tweaked by the Rank Charm School.

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  10. I'd loaned my parents a DVD of Morecambe and Wise whows. After watching a Battle of Trafalgar 'play' featuring La Fenella all my mother could say was; "that was a bloody good bra that she was wearing!"

    I'd entirely forgotten school dinner pink sauce. It was sweat and slimy and didn't taste of anything. But then, ours was a boys' school.

    (original comment deleted because I noticed that I'd written the last sentence entirely anagrammatically)

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  11. Point taken, Gyppobasci, and I've probably done Ms Lawson a gross diservice, but even I was surprised at my disappointment at not seeing her face on the cover!

    I feel such passion is to be applauded, Boyo, in this mimsy age in which we now live.

    Has she been eating a lot recently, MC? I haven't seen any tubster pictures of her, but I suppose there must be website for fat-vampire enthusiasts somewhere.

    She's supposed to look anaemic, Mrs P., otherwise she wouldn't be a vampire. Heck though, I can see now that you are she; the pieces have finally come together - and with exquisite timing, I might add :-)

    Mr Can Bass, I had forgotten Tracey Emin until now, you bastard!! But I'm sure she'll feature in a 5 Worst Vampires list that I'm planning.

    Kev, hurray, somebody else remembers pink sauce, so I wasn't dreaming then! (I'm hestitating to make the boy's school joke that you seem to have cued up here). All pictures of her bra or of her bosoms en valeur, as Mrs Pouncer has it, can be sent to me via the good offices of No Good Boyo.

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  12. I know from bitter experience that there's very little of Ms Fielding's most striking feature out there on the Net, but I admire your spirit.

    Here's a starter for your collection, and a snip at £59.99 for a 20x16" canvas print:

    http://www.moviemarket.co.uk/Photos/P204591_B79552.html

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  13. Phoaw, indeed. She looks a bit squinty here, but maybe she always did and it just added to her charm, like Marilyn Monroe's mole or Sofia Loren's big nose.

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