News reaches Redvers Towers that national hero Sir Paul McCartney has accused the Dalai Lama of cannibalism.
“I have a beef to pick with you, sir, in that you don’t eat meat,” the interviewer said to the leaf eating superstar. “Don’t you think if the animals had the opportunity, they would eat us?”
“In an emergency, perhaps the Dalai Lama would eat me,” McCartney responded.
In the interview on the satirical late night American television show, ‘The Colbert Report’, Paul also said that Ringo Starr is his favourite Beatle.
Sir Paul was on the show to promote ‘Electric Arguments’, the new album by his new group The Fireman.
U2 are apparently considering buying the iconic London Olympic Studios.
The studio in Barnes made famous by Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Oasis was also where the Irish rockers recorded part of their forthcoming album ‘No Line On The Horizon’.
EMI, the current owners said that the studios weren’t making enough money to justify their existence and thus put the building on the market in December.
U2 already have their own studio in Dublin, but apparently liked the Olympic so much they are considering putting in an offer, according to the ever reliable Sun - loadsamoney!!!
They would be in serious need of guidance if they had decided to resurrect original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, who died in 1986, for Guitar Hero: Metallica, even if it was in animated form.
Luckily, it has been decided as not a sound business decision: “I think I can definitely say no,” lead designer Alan Flores told MTV. “That was actually kind of a sensitive thing with the guys in Metallica. We asked them about that and they never said no. They just went, ‘Ehhh.’”
So despite the presence of his masterful bass playing on 13 of 28 tracks, the late bassist is suitably absent. Instead the current bassist, Robert Trujillo, takes the bass playing helm.
“They didn’t want to make [Trujillo] feel like he wasn’t as important a part of the band as he is,” Flores commented. “So there’s no Cliff Burton in the game, but there’s Cliff Burton in spirit. You get to play his basslines. We talk about him in the Metalli-facts [trivia] as well.”
Burton was tragically killed in Sweden when the band’s tour bus overturned.
British tennis player Andy Murray has revealed that he found solace after his knock out in the The Australian Open with an unlikely ensemble – The Prodigy.
Befitting anyone who is anyone, he chose his Twitter feed (Twitter.com/andy_murray), to tell us that he met the dance troupe in his Melbourne hotel after being knocked out of the tournament by Spain’s Fernando Verdasco in a thrilling five sets.
“Just bak from dinner. Bumpd in2 the guys from The Prodigy in hotel lobby. Tuf 2day. Fernando playd gr8 5th. (:” the poorly educated Scot noted on the website.
The Prodigy were in Australia to play at the Big Day Out.
Last week BBC news reported that the legendary cottage featured in cult classic ‘Withnail and I’ was for sale. In its current ramshackle state it features the same furniture as was used in the film - a quirky buy.
It now transpires from the NME that The Kills’ Jamie Hince and girlfriend Kate Moss are planning to buy the run-down cottage made famous in the film.
As you would expect, the couple are massive fans of the film - so much so that Hince refers to Moss as ‘Withnail’, while she refers to him as ‘And I’. The bloody nutters.
I am sure the locals are over the moon that they will bring their restrained London antics to the Cumbrian hills. They are intending to turn the dilapidated building into a countryside retreat.
“We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them now!” will no doubt be heard echoed across the valleys.
Britney Spears is releasing the naughtiest song from her new album ‘Circus’ as her next single.
The troubled star is no stranger to controversy, making the announcement on her website last night.
‘If U Seek Amy’ will be the third single from her comeback album. In the offensive line, the 27-year-old chants: “All of the boys and all of the girls are beggin’ to / If You Seek Amy.”
Although seeming harmless at first, the title breaks down as ‘F**K ME’.
The controversial lyrics will outrage parent groups across the world.
When the album was released last month (December 2008), an Australian mother’s group reacted with outrage.
Worried mum-of-two Leonie Barsenbach said: “I was astonished and totally taken aback when I heard my five and seven year old kids walking around the house singing, ‘f**k’. When I asked them what it was, they told me it was Britney Spears. I was horrified.”
She continued: “I got them the Circus album because little kids are Britney fans, but there was no warning on the album and none of the songs listed had ‘f**k’ in the title.”
For as little as one Euro per year, a new tax scheme allows Isle Of Man residents to legally download unlimited music.
The big four record labels are yet to give their backing but this is expected reluctantly.
Tim Craine, the Isle Of Man e-commerce minister said he wants the scheme to be used all over the world, telling The Register: “If you take a Euro a year from millions, then that’s a lot of revenue.”
But the music industry is not convinced. They say if it does progress to include the UK it won’t make enough money to offset the record industry’s current worth.
A spokesman for recording industry group IFPI said: “An experiment in a small territory such as the Isle Of Man might be quite interesting from an academic point of view, but applying a compulsory license in larger markets is not going to prove a workable solution.”
Craine responded: “The Euro a year is a suggestion, it’s a starting point.”
Despite no acts being announced yet, this year’s Glastonbury festival is close to selling out with 90% of the festival’s 137,500 tickets already gone, according farmer turned festival supremo Michael Eavis.
This must be quite a relief for the organisers as it was a different story last year. 2007’s event was marred by atrocious weather and 2008’s festival, with headlining performances by Jay-Z, the Verve and Kings of Leon, failed to sell out for the first time in ages. This year tickets were on sale in October which is six months earlier than usual.
Eavis boasted that four headliners had already been booked for the June event – one more than is usual: “We’ve got four headliners at the moment,” he said. “If they all confirm, then I’ve got two headliners for Saturday.”
Blur, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and the Kaiser Chiefs are the hot tips for this summer’s festival.
As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough merely being Geoff Hoon, the transport secretary has been barred from his favourite music festival, Latitude, after giving the green light to Heathrow’s third runway.
Hoon’s local festival in Suffolk (the politician has a holiday home nearby) has been attending the slightly hippy festival since it’s incarnation.
But now the Latitude director Melvin Benn has barred Hoon from the festival, explaining: “As we get a reputation as one of the greenest festivals on the circuit, it would be a bit strange to sell a ticket to a chap who’s just authorised a climate-wrecking new runway at Heathrow.”
Admittedly a great PR coup there - shrewdly spotting an opportunity to publicise his event by linking it to a topical news story and a popular campaign against an ugly bit of tarmac. Good on him. Here’s to Latitude 2009.
Amy Winehouse is starting a record label, it has been reported. Naturally her first signing is her God daughter – Dionne Bromfield. A sober idea no doubt.
As CEO of the newly formed Lioness Records, the News of the World tell us that Winehouse has ploughed £1m into her beloved god daughter, whilst utilising her contacts book so she can work with such luminaries as Lady GaGa, Lemar and errr, Irish chimp Eoghan Quigg off X Factor.
The 13 year old first came to prominence in a You Tube video recorded last year in May 2008 when she sang Alicia Keys’ ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ with everyone’s favourite father figure Pete Doherty and Winehouse on the guitar. The video has received 170,000 views since it was posted.
As well as creating a record label exclusively for her daughter, Winehouse has spent £15k on intensive singing lessons for Bromfield in LA as well as buying her a guitar, telling the Independent last year: “Dionne is young but she has more potential than any girl I’ve ever seen. I know she’s got an advantage by knowing me but I’d put her in a room against anyone and she’d do the business.”
Bromfield seemed eager to prove her credentials too, telling the News of the World: “I had a lot of record companies wanting to sign me but I didn’t know where to go.”
They are currently planning her next move in St Lucia, with Bromfield joining Winehouse on her quiet getaway to discuss future arrangements.
