Moranthology (23 page)

11:05
AM
, and the country's patriotism was peaking. This wedding looked
brilliant.
China must be
so jealous.
In your FACE, France.
No one
could do this better. America might have a funnier leader—Obama's takedown of Donald Trump involved clips from
The Lion King
and adroit political sideswipes; David Cameron does an impression of Michael Winner in a car insurance ad—but when it comes to doing the best-ever gigantic ceremony full of princesses, and people wearing uniforms, this wins. It's even better than the last scene in
Star Wars.

William and a bedheaded Harry were joshing around at the altar like Luke and Han. The chief bridesmaid—Pippa Middleton—had a smokin' ass. The Archbishop of Canterbury's eyebrows were voluminous enough for him to be Chewie, and David Cameron and Nick Clegg could be C3PO and R2D2, if they wanted. This was amazing.

As if to confirm everyone's thoughts, Wayne Rooney [@WayneRooney] tweeted, “Congrats to prince William and Kate. Wow what a turnout.” Rooney could appreciate the box office here as much as the next man.

As William pushed the ring onto Kate's finger, accompanied by an odd, squeaky sound—I think it was his shoes—and the couple tried not to giggle, one thing became pleasingly clear: this wasn't that much-touted thing, “a fairytale wedding,” at all, thank God. It was just . . . human.

Because it's not just the public who have changed their view of the royals since the last wedding of an heir—the Royal Family itself has changed, too. Charles and Diana's wedding felt like something arranged by the elders and their advisers, into which Charles and Diana were parachuted, as the token meat in a vast machine. On that day, Diana—in her too-big dress—and Charles—with his heart somewhere else—looked like they were being eaten alive by St. Paul's Cathedral. In some ways, it's like they never came back out of there.

This wedding, however, feels like it's been imagined by a much younger and more confident generation: these glossy-haired girls and flush-cheeked, slightly awkward boys; this confederacy of tight-knit brothers and sisters and cousins. There is a sense of freedom, simplicity, camaraderie and fun here that one imagines Prince Charles watching from the pews in a slightly bittersweet way. These young royals seem to have a much better handle on being royal than their parents ever did.

Who would not enjoy this day?

Unexpectedly, the answer was: “Stephen Fry.” Halfway through the ceremony—around the time of that hymn that sounded like the song the teapot sings on
Beauty and the Beast—
Fry [@stephenfry] incongruously tweets: “Ding's let Trump in. This twelfth frame is beginning to look huge. Nerve-wracking times.”

At first, everyone presumed it was a joke—but when Fry followed it up with, “Mid-session interval and they go in 7-5 in Judd Trump's favor. No one yet pulling out in front, both these semis could go to the wire . . .” it became clear: Stephen Fry—friend of Prince Charles—really
was
tweeting the snooker during a Royal Wedding.

Someone needed to do something about this—and that someone was 1980s magician Paul Daniels: “WHO CARES?” Daniels [@ThePaulDaniels] asked Fry, as Twitter held its breath. Was Daniels about to take Jeeves into the Bunco Booth?

Daniels had been very passionate about this Royal Wedding: he had already castigated all the “snidey shits for coming out of the woodwork” who had dared criticize the day, definitively stated “WOW. That is what a Princess SHOULD look like” at Kate Middleton's arrival, and informed us that his wife, Debbie McGee, was “sobbing” from 10
AM
onwards. And in his Musketeer-like defense of the Royals, Daniels found an unlikely ally: legendary 1980s puppet Roland Rat.

“I can't believe this English guy is so cynical!” Rat [@rolandrat] tweeted Daniels; presumably while wearing shades and a pink blouson bomber jacket.

“Off with his head!” Daniels agrees. The world's most unlikely Cavalier online militia had started to form.

Indeed, sorry to relate, in the interregnum between the ceremony and the kiss on the balcony, the mood had started to sour right across Twitter. A slightly boozy barroom belligerence had taken hold. One sensed that, across the country, there were a series of street parties at which celebrities were grudging participants—having been forced to “get out of the house and stop being such a miserable git” by non-famous spouses; only to spend the rest of the afternoon at a half-empty trestle-table, grimly downing multi-pack can after multi-pack can of Foster's and tweeting their distress to the world as their neighbors began a conga.

Pulp front-man—and recently divorced—Jarvis Cocker [@reallyjcocker] tweeted, rather dolorously, “10% of marriages end in divorce. Trust me—I know what I'm talking about.”

George Michael [@GeorgeMichael] seemed a bit . . . hazy: “The greatest tragedy was Alexander McQueen not being around to make a fabulous creation for Kate,” he tweeted—only to have to hastily clarify, minutes later, and presumably after some fairly irate replies, “Of course Diana's absence is the greatest tragedy—but it really goes without saying.”

Things, however, had clearly degenerated most rapidly in the day of philosophical essayist Alain de Botton [@alaindebotton]. Having remained silent on Twitter all day, at 4
PM
, de Botton suddenly weighed in with, “Women tend to miss the distinction between women who are beautiful, and women one would want to sleep with.”

Ten seconds later, the follow-up tweet clarified what was on de Botton's mind: “Kate vs. Pippa.”

As the world got its head around de Botton choosing to issue his Middleton Family Shag Order list on the day of the Royal Wedding, Jade Goody's widower, Jack Tweed [@JackTweed], finally issued his statement on this global event: “Not botherd about this wedding in the slightest everyone tweeting like they care is lying!!!”

He was wrong, of course—just like he was wrong that time he attacked that sixteen-year-old boy with a golf-club, and got sentenced to eighteen months in jail. People had cared a great deal. They cared about the idea of an event as big as the Olympics, or the inauguration of a President—and also about love, rather than sport or power. They cared about this rather serious young couple making their vows, in the way we care about all young people making vows. And they cared about the rather slash-fiction-ish idea of Pippa Middleton and Prince Harry getting it on. By 1:30
PM
, the nation was roaring “Come on! KISS! KISS! You KNOW YOU WANT TO” at Pippa and Harry on the balcony as if this were
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,
but with a much shorter cast list. And no beards.

As the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge drove off in their Aston Martin to the reception—where they apparently danced to “
You're the One That I Want”
from
Grease,
and Prince Harry began his best man's speech with “Pippa—call me,” before stage-diving off a windowsill into the crowd—you were given pause to reflect that—audience of two billion aside—they had given themselves just the wedding that they wanted.

And they had given us the wedding we wanted, too: heartfelt, worthy of a global audience, with David Beckham in it, and over early enough for everyone to get to the pub by 2
PM
.

 

One of the reasons I'm too busy to get pregnant by a panda is because I spent the day with Paul McCartney. I SPENT THE DAY WITH PAUL M
C
CARTNEY!

M
Y
D
AY WITH
P
AUL
M
C
C
ARTNEY.
F
ROM THE
B
EATLES.

I
didn't know I was going to start crying until I started crying.

We're standing side of stage of the Mediolanum Forum in Milan. Outside, a fog as thick as snow has reduced visibility to fifteen feet. The hardcore McCartney fans—here, despite the earliness of the afternoon—stand in long queues at each of the Medioforum's twenty-five gates. The fog merges them into single, huge, lumpen entities.

Approaching the arena in a taxi, the Mediolanum Forum looks like it's under siege by a series of dragons, or slow-moving brontosauri. They are singing “She Loves You,” damply, into the whiteout.

One particularly large, looming one is nearly fifty feet long. We drive past it, on our way to the backstage entrance.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” the Loch Ness Monster sings, mournfully, as it recedes in our rear-view mirror. “Yeah yeah yeah.”

Inside the Medioforum, and the whole building is also doing what the queues outside were doing: waiting. Waiting for Paul McCartney to arrive. He was expected at 4:30
PM
, but it is now 6:30
PM
—radios crackle with updates as to his location. His name is never really mentioned: it is just “He.” Like when the animals talk of Aslan in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:
“He's going to be another half-hour.” “He's doing a radio interview.” “He is on the move, towards Cair Paravel.”

It is understood McCartney is the subject of all conversations. He is the purpose of everyone's presence here.

To while away the time while we wait for Him, John Hammel—McCartney's guitar tech for the last thirty-six years—takes me side of stage, to show me McCartney's guitars. Racked up at eye level, in a line, it feels less like looking at some musical instruments, and more like being introduced to dignitaries, or royalty. They have a quiet presence. They have life stories better than most human beings.

“This is the ‘Yesterday' guitar,” John says, taking a slightly battered-looking acoustic off the rack. There's some scratching, and chips, by the fingerboard. “This is the one Paul played ‘Yesterday' for the first time on, on
The
Ed Sullivan
show.”

There's a Wings sticker on it, I note. “Yeah. Been there since 1973.”

It's a remarkably pristine sticker for one that's been there since 1973. McCartney is clearly no nervous picker.

“That's the Casino—Paul bought it while they were recording
Revolver,”
John continues, taking the next one off the rack with the air of a sommelier bringing out impossibly precious vintages from the cellar. “He played the solo to ‘Taxman' on that. And wrote ‘Paperback Writer' on it. That ukelele's from George. That Les Paul is from Linda—that's probably around £400,000. And this—is the Hofner bass.”

We both fall momentarily silent as we look at it. This is one that looks like a gum-chewing, back-combing violin—the one that Paul got for the 1963 Royal Variety: “Rattle your jewellery,” and neat bows to the Queen. The bass that started off making mono rock'n'pop'n'roll, and ended up on the roof at Apple. The McCartney Hofner bass.

“That is irreplaceable,” John says, needlessly. “There was only one other like it and it was stolen to order—it'll be sitting in a private collection somewhere. It would never have been stolen on my watch,” John says, with the quiet certainty of a man who would leave any potential thief crawling around on his hands and knees, looking for his severed legs under a chair. “I sleep with the Hofner in my bedroom. I put it in the wardrobe. I carry that, personally, with me everywhere.”

“Paul uses them because they're the best,” John says, simply. “He wants that sound on stage. He's not precious about them. He likes to throw them at me, headstock first, like an arrow. I've never dropped one yet.” He pauses. “Yet.”

I touch the Hofner bass with my forefinger. I imagine it left, carelessly, on the floor of Abbey Road as Paul and John sit next to it—smoking ciggies over it, scribbling the lyrics on a sheet of notebook paper. That's when I start crying.

In a way, I'm not really surprised I'm crying. As a godless hippy, The Beatles are the grid by which I understand the universe. When I was ten and I heard my nanna had died, I ate a whole Soreen malt loaf, in misery, and then vomited it out of the landing window, on the shed roof, while singing “Yesterday” in a mournful manner. Paul's words were the only thing I could turn to in that moment of childish sorrow.

In the next half hour, I could now, finally, be in a position where I could tell Paul McCartney this fact.

I must not tell Paul McCartney this fact.

I palm the tears off my face with my sleeve.

“He's coming. Stage left.”

The radios crackle into action. A couple of phones beep. The attention of the entire arena is pulled to the access entrance, stage left, where a huge pair of double doors are opened up, and fog swirls up the ramp.

As this is lit up gold by car headlights, a half-joyful, half-mournful cry of “PAUL! PAUL!” comes from the serried Diplodoci outside. A car comes up the ramp, security opens the doors, and, there, now, here: McCartney emerges. McCartney. Straight-backed, swagged in a beautiful, long, mid-blue coat.

He looks like a straight line—a straight line that always moves in a straight line, unimpeded in his intended trajectory for decades. He walks into the arena. He greets his crew. He comes to me.

“What's your name?” he asks me. I tell him.

“I'm Paul,” he says. He tells it like a joke. The idea of no one knowing who he is is absurd. Paul hasn't needed to give the actual information “I am Paul” since 1963.

“Being backstage at a McCartney gig is amazing,” Stuart Bell, his PR, had been saying, earlier. “Because you'll find, say, Bill Clinton sitting in the corridor. Waiting! Waiting for Paul. They'll all wait for Paul.”

Taking his coat off as he walks, McCartney walks straight onstage, where the band is waiting. Handed his guitar, he goes straight into soundchecking Carl Perkins's “Honey Don't.”

For the next half hour, he plays to an audience of thirty Italian competition winners with a set that most people would pull out to headline a festival. “Something.” “Penny Lane.” “Things We Said Today
.
”

Halfway through “Penny Lane” I think about how genuinely upset the world will be when Paul dies, and start crying again. We all want to believe in something we can regard with the awe and trust of a child. A Beatle is a man-made thing you can regard with the same astonishment you would the Moon.

“Oh, Paul!” I think, mournfully, as a perfectly hale and hearty McCartney bounds offstage, bidding the Italian competition winners “Ciao!” with a cheery wave, and exuding the energy of a man in his late-twenties. “Paul! I will vigil
hard
for you when you die.”

A
nd, so, to Paul's dressing room. Here is his wardrobe, including six handmade, collarless Nehru jackets—the classic Beatle-suit—and six pairs of jet black, handmade Beatle boots. A brand new pair of Giorgio Armani socks sit next to them. A Beatle does
not
go on stage in pre-used socks. This is what we have learned today.

The room is in no way lavish—the walls are swagged with a few bright, Indian throws, a Diptyque Oyedo candle burns on the coffee-table. Four bamboo trees, in pots, add what I'm sure interior designers refer to as “room veg.” A Pilates mat and ball sit under the gigantic TV, which is showing the Grand Prix. And that's it. The general vibe is “London middle-class comfort.” We're basically in Islington.

“Hello!” Paul says, shaking my hand, and ushering us onto the sofa. He eats handfuls of chocolate-covered raisins, and occasionally glances up at the Grand Prix—“Who's winning?”—as I settle in to ask him the main thing that puzzles me. After playing over 3,000 gigs in your life (2,523 with the Beatles, 140 with Wings, 325 solo): What's still in this for you, Paul McCartney?

“I like . . . displaying the stuff,” McCartney says, eating another chocolate-covered raisin. “I want to give people a good night out. I heard this story about Bob Dylan once—one of the guys in his band told me they were in the dressing room, going, ‘That version of “Tambourine Man”
—
we're doing great, Bob!' and Bob said, ‘Right, we're changing it tomorrow night.' Well I can see that, and that's cool, but I'm not like that.

“If I go to see Prince—I mean, I love his guitar playing, but I want him to play ‘Purple Rain
.
' I'm probably going to be disappointed if he doesn't do it. If I went to see the Stones, I'd want them to do ‘Ruby Tuesday,' ‘Honky Tonk Woman' and ‘Satisfaction
.
' So I'm basically talking hits. Why are hits hits? It's because we like them. They're the best ones.”

McCartney explains that his soundchecks—attended only by competition winners—are where “I get to play the more obscure stuff; jam a bit. But I try to think about how I'd feel if I'd
paid
to see me jamming away. I think I'd think, ‘You miserable sod,' and wouldn't want to see me again.”

Paul then goes onto tell three stories that suggest—in marked contrast to the disconcerting, alpha, tribal elder of Earth vibe he emits—that he is still insecure, after all these years.

The first about how he only announces the first two dates of any tour, “to see how they sell,” so that—when they sell out in six minutes, as happened with this week's 02 gig—he can sigh and say, “Well, people
do
still want to see me, after all.” He pauses, then adds, in the interest of balance, “Although some of those would be to touts [scalpers], obviously.”

The second is how he's only recently started playing a lot of lead guitar, “Because the first time we ever played—pre-Beatles—I totally screwed up on the first night. The Co-op Reform, Liverpool Broadway,” he clarifies. “Above a shop. I totally blew it—the nerves got the better of me. So I never played lead guitar again.”

“It's taken you this long to get your nerve back?” I ask, incredulously.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I mean, I'm not really nervous now, but it was a big thing: when the Beatles did Wembley for the first time, I remember sitting on the Town Hall steps feeling physically sick. I thought, ‘I've got to give this up.' ”

He then goes to talk about how even Paul McCartney gets the occasional “tough gig.”

“Occasionally there will be a corporate gig you have to play. We did a corporate gig for Lexus, and we thought, ‘Oh my god, they're just standing there. They're so reserved.' So I turned to everyone and said, ‘Hold your nerve! It's okay! Don't worry! We're good!' And we've learned to hold our nerve for the first few numbers because we get them. We always get them in the end. They always come back.”

People need to go to the toilet, I say. They might have just been going to the toilet. Paul looks horrified.

“My recurring nightmare is that people are leaving. It always has been. I still dream I'm with the Beatles, and we're going [sings]: ‘If there's anything that you want,' it's going great—and then people start getting up and leaving. And I turn to the others, and go, ‘Oh God! “Long Tall Sally”! I always call out that one, in my dreams. ‘Long Tall Sally'—that'll get them back.”

Having established that Paul is still quite a nervous performer, I decide that this is the time to give him some friendly advice for his forthcoming UK dates. He's recently added “The Word” and “Give Peace a Chance” to his setlist, but there is still a glaring omission in a two-hour show that takes in “Maybe I'm Amazed,” “Blackbird,” “A Day In The Life,” “Let It Be,” “Live And Let Die,” “Jet,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be,” “Day Tripper,” “Get Back,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Penny Lane,” “Yesterday,” “Helter Skelter” and “Golden Slumbers
.
”

“Paul,” I say. “Do you know what I think people would go apeshit for now? The Frog Chorus. ‘We All Stand Together' by the Frog Chorus.”

He looks at me suspiciously.

“Seriously,” I say. “There is a whole generation that will have a massive Proustian rush when they hear it.”

“Oh my God,” McCartney says, looking thoughtful. “Wow. I hadn't thought of that.”

“Go frog! Go frog!” I encourage him. “Imagine when everyone starts singing ‘Boom boom boom/Biya!' ”

I am singing the Frog Chorus's “We All Stand Together” at Paul McCartney, in case he has forgotten it.

“You've planted a very dangerous idea there,” he says, still looking unsure as to how serious I am. But I am in deadly earnest.

From the Frog Chorus we move on to McCartney's recent wedding, to businesswoman Nancy Shevell. The newspapers widely reported that McCartney had played at the wedding-reception at his house—“I didn't”—and that neighbors had complained to the police about the noise.

“Well our immediate neighbors were
at
the party,” McCartney says, “and they loved it. But we did go on until 3
AM
; it was Mark Ronson DJing loud rock 'n' roll music, and, if I'd been someone further down the street,
I
probably would have complained. Three in the morning? I would have been Aggrieved of Ealing.”

I've only got three minutes left with McCartney, from my allotted twenty—I wasted five minutes trying to get his position on the current economic situtation (“When the banks go bust, and we bail them out—okay, I can see that. But here's the bit I feel is missing—they didn't pay us back. I think everyone is like, ‘Wait a minute—did I miss something?' I am with all those people [protestors] in that respect. Pay it back.”) and whether the rumors of a forthcoming McCartney autobiography, or autobiographical documentary, are true (“Britney Spears has written hers aged, what, three? I've had Hewlett Packard digitize and index my entire collection of film and photographs, so I can find anything in seconds. Maybe I should, before I forget.”)