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haq

haq@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 1 year, 2 months ago

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Pete Brown: Clubland (2023, HarperCollins Publishers) 5 stars

Non-fiction social history

Eartha Kitt, Batley Market, 1969: "Stunningly beautiful, fully made-up and wearing furs and an elaborate headscarf, she soon attracted an audience of less elaborately head-scarved housewives, and young men who had clearly left their shops and offices to gawp at her. She visited a tripe stall, because - understandably again - the American megastar whom Orson Welles once called 'the most exciting woman on earth' had never encountered tripe before. In the video, Eartha Kitt fails to completely hide her disgust at both the tripe itself, and the serving suggestion of smothering it in industrial quantities of salt and vinegar. She eats a small piece and retches just about visibly, looks as if she's about to vomit, and finally swallows. Then - unbelievably - she reaches for the salt and vinegar, hammers both, and goes in again. Somehow she recovers, says she's been singing all week, and asks her rapt audience what they like to sing themselves. A minute later, the multi-award-winning TV, movie and Broadway icon is leading the whole of Batley market in a hearty rendition of On Ilkley Moor 'Baht 'At."

Clubland by  (Page 168)