Good grief. Philip Norman strikes again. His career as a Beatle biographer for non-Beatles fans, summarized:

Shout!: "John Lennon was two thirds of the Beatles" is the most infamous claim and the one he had to walk back on most, but while the book is fluently written (that was never Norman's problem), it's the kind of biography where we're told ( Read more... )

Considering how every morning I read the news with dread because I know the Orange Menace and his ilk in all nations will have found a way to make a bad situation even worse, endanger and murder more people, I am glad for every reminder of the good things we as a species are capable of as well. Even in plague times. Every so often, that reminder ( Read more... )

So here I am, sitting in a train, idly reading the "Literary Review" from November, when lo and behold, I come across an article opening with the following lines:

"If Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were the Lennon and McCartney of the Inklings, then Charles Williams was the George Harrison. (And their Ringo? Possibly Owen Barfield. Another story.)"My ( Read more... )

A good new interview with Marianne Faithfull apropos an art exhibition at Tate Liverpool she's curating, together with her first husband, John Dunbar. (Some paintings from the exhibition.) I've been recently rereading some biographies in which Marianne, Dunbar and the Swinging London art scene show up a lot (Groovy Bob by Harriet Vyner about art ( Read more... )

Aka
( Read more... )

One drawback of this year's book fair: Roland Emmerich saw it fit to premiere his Oxfordian schlock "Anonymous" here, and to rant about the still lasting evil "conspiracy of silence" that ensures the poor Earl of Oxford still isn't celebrated while the yokel from Stratford is. Now I didn't attend either premiere or rant, because I'm not masochistic ( Read more... )

The heat (33 degrees Centigrade today - phew) is making me tetchy, I stop remembering that I'm not supposed to get on the net and comment when I'm tetchy, but you know, getting online was worth it anyway, because Martin Scorsese's upcoming George (Harrison) documentary has acquired this really cool trailer:

Click to view

Oh, and something else. Should you ( Read more... )

More leftover from my Brückenau days: book reviews. One of the books in question I’d browsed through before but hadn’t read it properly, the other two were new to me. What the three have in common is, aren’t you surprised, a Beatles connection; otherwise they’re widely different, though each struggling with the opening sentence ofDavid ( Read more... )

Daily annoyance for this long-suffering Beatles fan:

1) Coming across a fanboy who interprets the lyrics from Here Today as an attack on John. Quoth the fanboy: "Didn't understand a thing - Paul is saying John was daft". Head. Desk. (The verse in question goes - "What about the time we met? Well, I suppose that you could say that we were playing ( Read more... )

It's nine years this day since George Harrison died, so, in the spirit of celebrating his life, some clips to demonstrate his fabulousness. Hopefully also including stuff you're not so familiar with.

( I'd be quite prepared for that eventuality )