July 6, 2013 There had never been a rock concert like it. With up to half a million fans picnicking by London’s Serpentine, rumours circulating of a murder, an ad hoc security force of Hells Angels, and on stage three thousand dead or dying butterflies being crunched under foot by the lead singer, it had… Continue reading…
There’s nothing Hollywood gossips enjoy so much as a flop. Not a little or medium sized flop, the sort that happens when the audiences don’t turn up at the cinemas over the first weekend and the studio starts planning the DVD release on the Monday morning. That happens so regularly it hardly warrants a mention.… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, February, 2013 We’ve all said things we’ve immediately and eternally regretted, and a sudden, thoughtless, inexplicable quip made when 14 year Paul McCartney was told that his mother had died, has haunted the former Beatle ever since. “What will we do without her money?” the teenage Paul blurted, not knowing how to handle… Continue reading…
December 4, 2012 We all know about Fifty Shades Of Grey. Many people reading this article will have bought a copy: and many more will know a friend or relative who has. And, probably, even more will know someone else, who, having read at least one of the three book trilogy, will have described it… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, October 24, 2012 Following the letter that Michael Gove, the Minister of State For Education, wrote to a former teacher whom he had sorely aggravated during his school days, the Daily Mail asked me and three other writers if we had a letter of apology we would send to one of our teachers.… Continue reading…
October 6, 2012 “We goofed,” Paul McCartney said half-jokingly on the morning of December 27th, 1967, trying unsuccessfully to make light of the Beatles’ first disaster. His father, who was staying with him for Christmas, had just brought him the morning papers and the Beatle was sitting in bed reading venomous reviews of the group’s television… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, October 3, 2012 As dates go October 5, 1962, isn’t famous. They don’t mention it in schools, nobody very important was born or died then and no world changing events made the headlines. Perhaps the most newsworthy event of that day was the London premiere of the first James Bond film, Dr No.… Continue reading…
Daily Telegraph, August 24, 2012 With photographs of Prince Harry’s bottom now enlightening hundreds of millions of computer screens around the internet world, and when everybody with a smart phone has become a potential paparazzo, I wonder, has the time not arrived for a new social etiquette with regard to picture taking? I mean, it’s… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, 20.8.12 There are four virtually abandoned contraptions of plastic and metal gathering dust around our house. There’s one on my desk, another in the kitchen, a third in the sitting room and a fourth by our bed. We used to call them telephones, but now they are better known as landlines, and they… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, July 9, 2012 Why do they do it? Do they really think it makes them look younger, more virile and more attractive to women? Are they really so vain and deluded? Or, in this youth obsessed age, is there a darker reason? Are they just terrified of appearing old and being considered…well, past… Continue reading…
