SHORT: Happy Valentine's Day (2024)

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

Roses are red;

Violets are blue;

J.K. Rowling is an appalling, transphobic witch who misappropriates the tenets of Second-Wave Feminism in a bid to mask the hatred that lies within her cold, dead heart;

Fuck her.

C.C. 14/02/24

SHORT: The Pseudo-Ironic Sophie Ellis-Bextor Revival [2024]

THE PSEUDO-IRONIC SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR REVIVAL

Yes, it finally came to pass - just like we all knew, deep-down, that it ultimately would. Five years on from the pseudo-ironic Craig David revival (“Met her on a Monday, shagged her on a Tuesday, syphilis on the Wednesday – I’m Craig David”) comes the inevitable return of ol’ coat-hanger face herself.

It was always going to happen. As if summoned by that half-arsed joke that did the rounds a few years back about a death in the hotel room of a famous French footballer - “there’s a murder on Zidane’s floor” - up lifts the rock, and out crawls the deathless double-barrelled hyphenate that is Sophie Ellis-Bextor, fresh from a series of timely kitchen disco-dance videos on Youtube.

You can just see it all unfold now in gory slow-motion on New Year’s Eve, 1.4 million streams deep into the festivities, as Kevin from Hartford loosens his top bottom and starts to shimmy from room to room, just like him out of Saltburn. “Look at me!”, he says. “LOOK AT ME! I’m that Scouse guy, dancing with his cock out!” Yes, Kevin – yes, you are. That’s you, that is. The accumulated throng of Amazon Prime subscribers yelps with delight, watching in wild amusement as our hero heads outside to try and find a mound of dirt to hump.

There’s a killer line to be had here somewhere, just like at the climax of the film itself – something, anything that would make it all satire, instead of a dead-eyed knock-off of Kind Hearts & Coronets. But alas, it never comes. I’ll be honest – I’m not entirely sure what it should be, but then again I’m not pretending to be an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

As for our intrepid heroine, it’s surely only a few dainty steps between here and the inevitable West End musical. After all, why not her? There’s gold in them thar hills. It’s all happening nowadays in Retro Popland: Steps are still touring, so why shouldn’t she? There’s potentially even an opening on the S Club bus, after him who used to fuck that other one opted to cark it rather than live life as a grown man reduced to singing ‘Bring It All Back’ every night. At the very least, maybe she can help make up the numbers now that 5ive are down to just 2wo. After all: “When the rainy days are dyin’, gotta keep on, keep on tryin’ – ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhhhh…!”

* * * 

Six months later at a pseudo-ironic Disco-themed BBC Prom, things are all going swimmingly to plan. Bextor works her moment in the spotlight, gamely trotting out her repertoire of three songs while modelling a glittery skirt.  “If this ain’t lovvvve… - come on everybody, you know this one! – Why does it feel like, why does it feel so good…?” No more matinee performances on Hits Radio tours for her, eternally sandwiched between some sad-eyed TikToker pedalling a plaintive acoustic cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ and whoever the fuck it was that did “Bluuuuue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-daaaaiiii, da-ba-dee…”. It’ll be off to Glastonbury next, bringing a little sunshine and sparkle to The Other Stage at 2:15pm on the Saturday before Edith Bowman reports back to the nation how amazing the whole thing was. “If you think you’re getting’ away, IIIIIIIIII will prove you wrong…”

’Twas ever thus in the twilight of humanity’s brief reign of terror here on planet Earth. Just out of her eyeline on stage-right, Orson, Alphabeat and The Hoosiers wait hungrily in the wings, looking to sup merrily from her post-show bathwater in the hope of ingesting some of the magic elixir. Meanwhile, Old Mother Culture yawns in the corner, teetering on an upcycled vintage rocking chair while sporting a pseudo-ironic retro-contemporary haircut that’s part raspberry and part mullet. She clutches her bumbag and shellsuit combo close while perusing a back-issue of Ms. magazine and wondering how much she can get for a piece of old rope on Depop. Meanwhile, the last surviving major record label salivates in anticipation of next year’s great pseudo-ironic Noughties comeback: the Fast Food Rockers. McDonald’s. McDonald’s. Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a Pizza Hut.

Three members of the audience are members of theaudience, the short-lived indie band fronted by Ellis-Bextor during her bored teenage years in an attempt to escape the shadow of Mummy’s Blue Peter badge. Originally formed as a £100 bet back in the Britpop era, one of them now works at Bextor’s local branch of Waitrose, and is frequently forced to endure the ignominy of having to do a price-check for his former bandmate whenever she comes in to pick up her weekly supply of quinoa. The three of them are hoping to recoup the 37p in Spotify royalties she owes them for 20 years’ worth of streams on their song ‘Pessimist Is Never Disappointed’, which she promised she’d get her accountant to send over last summer but never seemed to get around to. “Sophie! Sophie! Remember me…?”, shouts the guitarist.  “I’m the one who plucked you from a life of Bourgeois drudgery studying English and Drama at Queen Mary Westfield by selling my record collection to fund our first demo…!” Alas, his cries are drowned out by the shrill shrieking of a 32-year-old spectrasexual ambivert wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a pair of shiny angel wings – just like a Disney butterfly.

As the clock ticks ever-closer towards 14:59, Bextor contemplates the long ride home to the million-pound mansion full of quirky vintage crap that she shares with hubby Richard Jones, formerly of Brit School-educated performing Alps ski-lodge outfit The Feeling - a band whose infinitely disingenuous moniker betrayed the fact that their music contained a grotesque, plastic surfeit of literally anything but. He’s had a busy evening challenging a court summons he’s been sent for vandalising a ULEZ camera in protest at not being able to gallivant round the city in the couple’s tricked-out SUV. Thankfully, there’s just enough time left for the woman of the hour to dispense with the pièce de résistance, a joyous ode to disco homicide accompanied by the least-convincing swear of all time: “There’s a murder on the dancefloor… but you better not kill the groove! DJ! GONNA BURN THIS GOD DAMN HOUSE RIGHT DOWN…!”

Needless to say, there are no calls for an encore – there is simply nowhere left to go, both literally and metaphorically. Leaving the stage to a volley of pseudo-ironic applause, she taps out the PIN-code on her complimentary iPhone and calls ahead to announce that she’s on her way back. Unfortunately, she gets the answering machine. It’s a track from The Feeling’s debut album Twelve Stops and Home, charmingly repurposed to suitably whimsical effect. “I love it when you call, I love it when you call… I love it when you call, but you never call at all. Whooooo…!”

- BEEEEEP!

“Darling, it’s me. The peasantry were suitably appalling, but just letting you know that I’ll be home shortly. Please make sure Juanita’s put all our private-school brats to bed so that I don’t have to. By the way, can you also have her stick a pot of Camomile on to brew for when I get in? I think I might be pregnant with our 57th child. Goodbye, darling.”

Pausing for a moment to snort two lines of gak off a newly-pressed vinyl reissue of her seminal 2001 debut Read My Lips (available now from all good HMV stores, priced £59.99), she hits the intercom button on the deluxe-model limo she’s chartered using License-Fee payers’ money. “Take me home. Take me ho-o-ome!”, she says to the driver – but not before insisting that he winds down the front window and feeds her an After Eight.

As they speed away into the night, a song comes on the radio that I think I remember from way back when. I think I remember it sounding different, though. I think it used to be so much better. I think… 

“So remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk;
City lights lay out before us,
And your arm felt nice wrapped round my shoulder…”

 

C.C. Jan 24