Programming note: Tomorrow, Sunday, I'll be here with Part Nineteen of the new audio serialisation of my highly prescient demographic bestseller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
~On this week's edition of Mark Steyn on the Town, we start in Hindustan and wind up with your fortune falling all over town. Plus: a cavalcade of unusually manly songs, a great guitarist, and the iconic album of the early LP era.
To listen to the programme, simply click here and log-in.
~Thank you for all your kind comments on last week's episode. Josh, a First Weekend Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club in Massachusetts, says of Brigitte Bardot's singing:
I could look at Bardot longer than I could listen to her. But that's saying something, as I could look at her forever.
As for Frank and Judy, his doing what he could for her speaks volumes. She was a woman worth doing everything for. And then some.
Fraser Sutherland, an English Steyn Clubber, is also a Bardot fan:
As an early adolescent, I loved Brigitte Bardot in Jean Luc Godard's Le Mépris. Can't think why as I sure didn't understand a word of that film. Happy, very happy days!
Nicola Timmerman, a Mark Steyn Club member in francophone eastern Ontario, appreciates Bardot for other reasons:
My family personally benefited from a Brigitte Bardot Foundation animal shelter as after my French father-in-law's funeral my husband had to return to Canada and didn't know what to do with five dogs. He learned of a nearby Bardot shelter, gave a hefty donation and was able to see the dogs left in good hands with other dogs, donkeys and cats. Bardot really did good work.
And one more from Jake, a Steyn Clubber in the English West Country:
Mark's comment during the Road to Mandalay segment about the popularity of the 'almond-skinned girl' pictures in British homes during the 60s and 70s had me in recovered-memory mode: Good lord - I do actually remember them! (Ye, gods...) Were they some lower middle-class equivalent of the three flying ducks?
Much as I loved the brilliance of early Judy Garland, her later twitchy, neurotic persona put me off as I was young and ignorant of what she had been through. Sinatra's The Gal That Got Away was clearly the definitive recording of the song until a BBC Two appreciation on Judy Garland showed years back. It finished with Judy singing The Man That Got Away and it hit like an emotional wrecking ball leaving me in bits. I had to go outside afterwards just to compose myself. It remains one of the most powerful performances I've ever seen.
Thank you all. On the Town is my weekly music show on Serenade Radio every Saturday at 5pm Greenwich Mean Time - that's 6pm in western and central Europe or 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere in the world by clicking the button at top right here. We also post On the Town at SteynOnline every weekend as a bonus for Mark Steyn Club members. You can find all our previous shows here.
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Mark Steyn on the Town can be heard on Serenade Radio at its regular times:
Saturday 5pm London time/12 noon New York
Sunday 5am London time/9pm Los Angeles