We got a call from a local promoter saying ‘Please come and play it’s
“We got a call from a local promoter saying, ‘Please come and play, it’s really kicking off over here.’ The fans seem to like the fact that the B-side of ‘Strumpet’ is called ‘Welcome to My Archipelago’. ” ‘No jacket required’ – that can be the title for your piece.”
Sartorial mishaps aside, My Life Story are enjoying Greece. To their evident surprise, the gig in Thessaloniki was very well attended, and the ubiquity of the bill-posters advertising tonight’s performance at the Rodon Club in Athens augurs well. Though the tastes of European pop fans are notoriously difficult to predict, it seems strange that such a quintessentially English band are selling records in a country where traditional bouzouki music still rules the airwaves.
“It is bizarre,” agrees the loquacious and amiable Shillingford. “It’s part of a special Elvis ‘68 come-back- type suit that my tailor Mr Gammon made for me, and it went missing after the gig in Thessaloniki last night Still, never mind,” he adds, brightening a little. Dining al fresco at a restaurant in Athens, 10-piece orchestral pop outfit My Life Story commandeer attention through simple weight of numbers. Despite the banquet of stuffed vine leaves, swordfish kebabs, and all kinds of Greek delicacies, the band’s front-man and songwriter Jake Shillingford seems less than chipper, however “I’ve lost my black leather jacket,” he explains. She plans to speak there again soon, and this time her Hindi will be less halting Madam is coming into her own n.
The Indian press calls her “The Sphinx” and “Mona Lisa”.On the stump beside her daughter Priyanka in Amethi, the Gandhis’ stronghold in Uttar Pradesh state, it was shy Sonia Gandhi who captured the sympathy vote that let Congress squeak through to win in 1991. For now, however, all the moves are up to her mother, who generally keeps mum. She has spoken just twice to the press in 20 years, once in 1992 to The Independent. Most have written off the playboy son, Rahul, for his lack of interest in politics.
Priyanka is lean and tall, with an uncanny resemblance to her grandmother Indira, who is remembered not only as the Cruella de Vil of the Indian Emergency but as the provider of long years of stability. Furthermore, if the BJP were eventually to gain power, Sonia Gandhi fears that their government might take over the six public trusts she manages in the name of the fallen Gandhis.Her critics allege that by working on two books about her husband’s life, Sonia Gandhi has energetically whitewashed his reputation. But what really interest pragmatic politicians are the bank passbooks in Sonia’s possession. “Why else would all these politicos be kowtowing to her over the years? She has the evidence which could make or break them,” a political analyst suggests.Sonia’s daughter Priyanka, now 25 and old enough to run for public office, might be the best Gandhi to galvanise party loyalty. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is expected to file its long-delayed report this week.
She clung to the armrests of her chair during the applause and could not be coaxed up to the speaker’s platform, where she would have been flanked by giant cardboard cut-outs of her dead family.Cynics point out that the timing of Sonia Gandhi’s announcement may not be out of concern for the future of Congress, but in hopes of scuttling a 10-year investigation into a pounds 11 million kickback scandal involving the Swedish arms firm Bofors, in which her husband was implicated. As premier, Rajiv Gandhi stalled an official probe despite knowing that pay- offs had been received, according to senior government sources. She first showed up at a Congress Party conference two years ago and drew a tumultuous response. When Hillary Clinton visited India two years ago, protocol demanded that the American First Lady visit the Gandhi residence at 10 Jan Path before the two women could meet officially elsewhere.After consistently snubbing her husband’s old cronies in public and being protected for years by a coterie of influential friends in the capital, Sonia Gandhi, at 49, has either honed her political instincts, or perhaps has developed a taste for adulation.