Paul mccartney

Thursday

Marcus Berkmann

Why I’m stepping down after 28 years as The Spectator pop critic

This is my 345th and last monthly column about pop music for The Spectator. I believe I might be the third-longest continuously serving columnist here, after Taki and Peter Phillips. Others have been writing for the magazine for longer, but have occasionally been given time off for good behaviour. You may be astounded to learn that I have not been fired. I, certainly, am astounded. I have been waiting for the tap on the shoulder, or maybe the firm but regretful email, since my first column in May 1987. Eventually I came to realise that the less the editor of the time was interested in my subject, the safer I

Thursday

James Woodall

Starr quality

‘He was the most influential Beatle,’ Yoko Ono recently claimed. When Paul and John first spotted him out in Hamburg, in his suit and beard, sitting ‘drinking bourbon and seven’, they were amazed. ‘This was, like, a grown-up musician,’ thought Paul. One night Ringo sat in for their drummer Pete Best. ‘I remember the moment,’ said Paul, ‘standing there and looking at John and then looking at George, and the look on our faces was like …what is this? And that was the moment, that was the beginning, really, of the Beatles.’ I think Ringo Starr was a genius. The world seems to be coming around to the idea. Two

Thursday

Alexander Chancellor

Do your patriotic duty and shoot wild boar

It’s 15 years since I first wrote an article about the threat to the nation of the wild boar; but only now, following the death of a driver in a collision with one of these fearsome beasts on the M4 in Wiltshire, is anyone taking any notice (and not very much notice at that). The government is planning to introduce the same kind of road warning signs for wild boar as those that already exist for deer, horses, toads and ducks. ‘Road safety in the context of wild boars is an emerging issue that needs to be addressed,’ says roads minister John Hayes. ‘The addition of a warning sign for

Tuesday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do I use my newly raised profile to meet celebrities?

From Mr N.M. Gwynne Q. Have you any suggestions on how I could milk my newly raised profile (as a bestselling author on English grammar and Latin, and a regular BBC Radio 5 broadcaster on how to speak and write English, and that sort of thing) to make the acquaintance of the kind of people whom, perhaps a little to my shame, I sometimes find myself rather longing to meet — such as Miss Kate Moss, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Mick Jagger, and, as of the past few weeks, Mrs George Clooney? A. As a bestselling author you should have no difficulty getting a contract to write a biography of

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Why do we care about the mutts from Manchester and not the chickens from KFC?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_25_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Melissa Kite, Camilla Swift (and Charlie the dog) discuss animal welfare” startat=630] Listen [/audioplayer]We love animals more than we love people. Of course we do. Following the recent fire at a Manchester dogs’ home, people donated £1 million and blocked the M6 with their cars as they arrived in their multitudes to adopt the displaced animals. It would have been heartwarming, it really would, if we hadn’t also demanded the death of the teenaged boy named on Twitter as the suspect in the arson attack. All over the internet apparently normal people, including ‘friends’ of mine on Facebook, called for a 15-year-old boy to be burned alive. I

Thursday

Digby Warde-Aldam

Paul McCartney telling me to vote No makes me want to vote Yes

‘Scotland, stay with us!’ David Bowie declared back in February. And what Bowie says (or doesn’t, quite – attentive readers will remember that he got Kate Moss to say it for him) others parrot. A few days ago, Sir Paul ‘Macca’ McCartney added his name to an open letter urging the people of Scotland to join the Bowie bandwagon. He was late to the party – the other signatories make up a bizarre (and almost entirely English) cross-section of the British entertainment establishment, from Simon Cowell to David Starkey to Cliff Richard. An impressive love-in, then. But it begs the question: will it actually swing any votes? As a young-ish

Thursday

Steerpike

Sir Paul McCartney’s media manipulation

Having been whole-heartedly hacked off during the phone hacking scandal, one assumes that Sir Paul McCartney has always been an advocate of high standards in journalism. Not so. While collecting a gong for songwriting at the NME Awards last night, the former Beatle admitted trying to slip fake stories past the music magazine: ‘One of the things we used to like to try and do was to plant a false story in the NME,’ he said. ‘We actually got in with ‘George was Billy Fury’s cousin’, which he wasn’t. Living on the edge, man, you know what I’m saying?’ Someone send for Leveson.

Thursday

Michael Henderson

And the prize for most fatuous awards ceremony goes to…

‘Prizes are for boys,’ said Charles Ives, the American composer, upon receiving the Pulitzer in 1947, ‘and I’ve grown up now.’ He was using humour to make a serious point, but it would be lost on many people today. Never has there been a lusher time for self-congratulation; when all, as in Alice in Wonderland, must have prizes. Not all prizes are bad. Nathan Filer, who collected the Costa last month for his first novel, The Shock of the Fall, was granted the kind of recognition that evades most first-time authors. The Costa, formerly the Whitbread, has a reputable tradition that values quality of writing above commercial considerations. Good for

Thursday

Marcus Berkmann

All I want next Christmas is new Christmas songs 

Three months until spring. Four months until the start of the cricket season. And only nine months until the radio starts playing ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ again. Or have you heard enough of Christmas songs by now? Many of us had heard enough of them by Christmas 1988. Every October they return. The first strains of Shakin’ Stevens emerging tentatively from high street shops. Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl, still bickering. Greg Lake, possibly alone now in believing in Father Christmas. Roy Wood’s enormous beard, wishing it could be Christmas every day. And for three months of every year his wish is granted. Millions of Britons suffer the consequences. (The only

Tuesday

Steerpike

Help! | 15 October 2013

When did Sir Paul McCartney become so shifty? The ‘National Treasure’ has been on Sky News promoting his latest album. There were more than a few awkward, if not downright embarrassing, moments. Take when he was talking about young talent today. ‘I think these bands are great. I like One Direction,’ the former Beatle said. ‘They’re young beautiful boys and that’s the big attraction, but they can sing and they make good records.’ Leaning in, he added: ‘so that’s what I would see in common [with the Beatles], you know, that girls love them and you can fantasise that you’re going to marry them…or whatever.’ Macca’s trademark cheeky look worked when he was a

Friday

J P O'Malley

Roger McGough interview

As Roger McGough approaches 75, his latest collection of poems As Far As I Know shows him writing with the same blend of mischievous word play, subversion of cliché and distinctive sense of humor that makes him one of Britain’s most popular poets. McGough became a prominent force in the late 1960s when his poems were included in ‘The Mersey Sound’: a Penguin anthology that has since sold over a million copies. To date, McGough has published over fifty collections of poetry for both adults and children. His work has always reached a wide audience due to its incredible accessibility. Along with Mike McGear and John Gorman, McGough, was a