Michael Jackson has died

So D and I couldn't quite go to bed last night; the news that Michael Jackson died turned us both into news buffs: channel surfing and web watching (twitter went down, that's how you know there's real news).

Kinda reminded me of when Diana died, except there wasn't that everyone cares thing, more of a everyone from the seventies and eighties cares - like, do my friends teenage children care? I'm guessing not.

Aside: D and I were reminiscing that when Diana died twelve years ago, we didn't know each other, but we were across the Kilburn High Road from each other, little knowing what the future held.

I have Thriller and Off the Wall as real, old-fashioned albums, tucked away in my parents house, probably turntable-less, reminding me of a previous technical era, as much as the music. And they were probably among the first albums I bought - I might even have been in junior school.

When I was a kid, all the cool kids could do the (early) Michael Jackson dance with the slidey feet.

And the music. Was mesmeric. I remember bat mitzvah discos where they played Don't Stop Till You Get Enough and Thriller and everyone danced, even the people who didn't want to.

Maybe Wacko Jacko is like Woody Allen - it's the early works that count. I mean, the skin thing, and the alleged kid thing, and letting all the money go to his head, and hanging one of his kids out of a balcony, and just, well, the ... weirdness made him less interesting. Of course now there's a lot of weird celebrities who let the money go to their head (you always read about contracts stating how huge the entourage is and how they only drink freshly squeezed organic guava juice) but most of them don't have any huge talent.

Jackson, on the other hand, for all his (later) weirdness, really knew how to make music and dance: an old fashioned entertainer. Put all the other crap to one side. RIP, Michael, and like half the planet, I'll be looking out my albums for one last listen.

Jason Bruges Studio

I don't yet know entirely what Jason Bruges Studio does, but I just like it.

On Tanya Gold and her hatred of wedding lists and dinner parties (and her writing in general)

I have loved Tanya Gold's writing since at least 2004 but I worry about her.

On the one hand, she's smart and funny. And although she seems not to like it when people say this, writes in a kinda-Jewish way which I like.

On the other hand, she let's it all hang out. She wrote that piece in the Guardian saturday magazine a year or so ago about getting back in touch with all her ex-boyfriends and details of their (then) sex life. Fascinating, in a car crash kinda way. But, too...

Too much. Too personal. Too honest. It moves beyond what's in a personal blog in the early nineties that no-one probably reads, to being in a major newspaper and everyone knows who you (and your friends and family) are.

There's always that delicate line when you're a writer. Being honest, un-nuanced, is considered a good thing. But how much of yourself do you share?

Like, if I'd just invited Tanya to my wedding, I probably wouldn't be that happy about this piece. (And no, I didn't have a wedding list: I agree. Wedding lists are for people who don't have two tea-towels to rub together because they're nineteen and live in Stamford Hill. We, on the other hand, were rather Noah's Ark: two of everything (and then some)).