I received a reply from the lovely Mr Lippman:

Hi!  Mike here! 

Mr. Ferry and I have some serious reservations about the content and tone of your little essay here.  First of all, in my most recent conversation with Bryan he assured me that I am “of the finest caliber.”  So perhaps, in fact, it is YOU who are making the typoes!  The only person who would doubt the validity of The Real Bryan Ferry is a doubter.  I can guarantee 100% iron clad that Mr. Ferry has no time for doubters.  Also, how DARE YOU insinuate that Mr. Ferry has lost his facilties simpley because of His Knowledge concerning The Golden Kingdom Of Dreams.  I am generally quite a cheerful person (hi!), but this saddens my heart greatly.  I’m afraid I’m going to have to assure you that a legal preperation is in the works for not one, but now TWO, slanderers. 

With Regret But Still A Smile,

Mike

How nice to hear from Mr Lippman- or Mike; I hope he doesn’t mind if I call him that. It’s not often that a prominent attorney from the US takes the time to reply to my Tumblr posts, so I feel extremely privileged that someone took the time in this case.

Read More

Here is a thing that is happening. I follow an obviously satirical blog called ‘The Successful Bryan Ferry’ that is clearly not written about Bryan Ferry, but more a fictional character with his likeness that is pieced together from some real facts but mostly impressions from the music, film clips and interviews and such over the years. Now a blog called ‘The Real Bryan Ferry’ has been started, supposedly by BF’s lawyer and they are attempting to sue the author of ‘The Successful Bryan Ferry’ and have been attempting to get that person to cease and desist their activities. 

Or so they say.

Read More

It seems to me like a lot of ‘journalism’ nowadays is actually just pop-culture shaming. I hate to use the word shaming; as –shaming, like –gate, is one of those labels that gets applied to just about anything to make something that may or may not be an actual trend sound more sinister and organised than it actually is. In any case, it seems like legitimate review and moral panics – the traditional forms of popular culture criticism in the media – have fallen by the wayside, leaving only indignant people decrying the state of the modern world if Kim Kardashian can get rich and dominate the media merely by having a nice ass, the face of a pretty horse and the wardrobe of shop mannequin.

In the interests of full disclosure, I shall admit at this point that I have been and am something of a culture snob myself. If you could be bothered reading the previous post, you would already know that I am a reformed romance snob and fully-fledged romance reader. I had always imagined growing up that they were created for those who were incapable of achieving rewarding emotional experiences in real life and needed simulations of ‘true love’ to have any romantic satisfaction. In actual fact, I was an emotionally retarded little girl with no real knowledge of the world or of human relationships. But I detected the scent of ignorant snobbery in the air where romance novels are concerned and I thought: that is what’s for dinner.

Read More

When one of my most beloved authors posted a link to this Huffington Post article on Facebook, her wording was neutral enough to make me dutifully stop and click the link, but the subject matter was what caught my attention.

Romance novels.

Yes, I read romance novels and you know what, I’m not ashamed of it. When I first started, I was 15 and I was ashamed. Even as someone who hadn’t completed a basic high school education, I thought I was better than those books and only miserable, sexless housewives and frigid old ladies would read them. And after a time of furtively combing the bookshelves at home for things that might have belonged to late grandmother (we don’t like to throw/give books away in my family), sneaking to the romance section of my local library and feigning disinterest or a prank when borrowing them, I began to not only like them but crave them.

Why?

Read More