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January 2006

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January 31, 2006 -- Daily Post

Sir Paul ponders city plea for key 2008 performance

Sir Paul McCartney last night admitted he had not decided if he would be performing in the city during the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations.

The former Beatle, who was tipped to open the Kings Dock arena, said he had been approached by the Culture Company.

But he confirmed no deal had so far been struck.

He said: "I haven't got any plans yet. I have just finished a tour in America and I normally lay low for a while afterwards.

"I have not got any plans. We will see, it is obviously very early days."

Sir Paul was in Liverpool with his wife Heather for a joint event celebrating the 10th anniversary of his fame school, the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) and the official launch of the Capital of Culture themed year for 2006, Liverpool Performs.

The couple, joined by the superstar's younger brother, Mike, watched a gala performance by students from the institute before joining them and city dignitaries including council chief executive Sir David Henshaw for drinks.

Sir Paul arrived at the celebration in the back of a Ford Fiesta. Apart from the driver, he was accompanied by two bodyguards. Heather drove ahead in a silver Mercedes CDI.

Later, Sir Paul told guests how proud he was of LIPA, which he founded along with principal Mark Featherstone-Witty, but said it was unlikely to ever produce a band like the Beatles or Coldplay.

He said: "We decided not to make that our aim. We have to give up on that, if it happens, great.

"If your going to be a member of Coldplay, or the Stones or U2 then that's a different ball game.

"When we started the school I was working with the Liverpool band The Christians on a charity record and they said to me that you couldn't teach what we did. I agree with that, a great band probably just comes about naturally.

"Liverpool to me is the city I was born in so obviously everything up to this point refers back to Liverpool.

"Whenever I come up here to LIPA I get a feeling of great pride. I am very proud of this school and what it did for me, it gave me a free education.

"Since we have been able to do LIPA we have managed to educate a lot of kids in performing arts who have then gone forward into the world.

"I get stopped on the street all around the world by people saying we have a LIPA student in our show and they are great.

"So for me Liverpool is a feeling of pride."

Among LIPA's graduates are MTV star Liam Lynch who had a Top Ten hit with United States of Whatever in 2002 and sound engineers Mike Crossey and James Lewis who worked with The Arctic Monkeys on their hit single I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

Sir Paul told how he first heard Liverpool had won the bid while he was in London but although he was thrilled, his wife Heather was not.

He added: "I heard it on the radio when I was driving through London and I was well-chuffed, it was something we had been looking for and hoping for.

"It was a race and quite tight. My wife comes from Newcastle and they were up there a bit, it was a family barney really."

January 31, 2006 - - The National Enquirer

Rock's hall of fame says farewell to Billy Preston

Rock's biggest stars have said their final, tearful farewells to legendary musician Billy Preston, who is fighting for his life at an Arizona hospital. Billy, 58, who had a kidney transplant in 2002, is said to be gravely ill.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, guitarist Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger have all been seen leaving Billy's bedside after spending time with their good friend.

Billy, a pianist who played with the Beatles and Aretha Franklin, was hospitalized in early January at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix suffering from a heart condition.

An inside source said: "All of Billy's friends looked so upset after visiting him for a while. They kept looking down and shook their heads in disbelief.

"It was clear they were afraid this would probably be the last time they saw Billy alive. It was breaking their hearts."

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January 30, 2006 -- Daily Express

Sir Paul 'great bands are natural'

Sir Paul McCartney has said he did not expect his "fame academy" to produce the next John Lennon or Bob Dylan.

The former Beatle was speaking at an event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts which he co-founded at his old school in 1996.

Great bands could not be taught but emerged naturally, he said.

"When we started the school I was working with the Liverpool band The Christians on a charity record and they said to me that you couldn't teach what we did. I agree with that, a great band probably just comes about naturally.

"You look at how things are these days, you look at every programme on the television and it takes someone three weeks to train a person and they become stars."

Sir Paul said he feared there were too many TV talent shows but that they gave people a good showcase for their talent.

He said: "I like stuff like that because it gives a showcase, a place to go and put talent. However, I think there is a danger of every television series becoming the same show.

"It's like Pop Idol, Strictly Come Dancing, strictly ice-skating, strictly walking. But it does give people a showcase, you have Will Young out of it and he's pretty good."

Sir Paul spoke at a press conference at the school following a special show by around 250 of his students at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Currently 1,250 people are taught each year at LIPA.

The event also heralded the official launch of Liverpool Performs 2006 - a 12-month celebration of the city's contribution to the arts, sport and business - the latest in a series of themed years leading up to European Capital of Culture 2008.

McCARTNEY REVISITS FAME SCHOOL

Rock legend Sir Paul McCartney heralded his fame school for educating British talent at the establishment's 10th anniversary today.

The former Beatle co-founded the Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts (LIPA) in England on the former grounds of his school in January 1996.

At the celebrations today, McCartney enthused, "The dream we had to save my old school and turn it into something really worthwhile has happened. I find it very moving.

"I always feel great pride in LIPA - sheer pride in the students and their talent."

PHOTOS 1 PHOTOS 2 VIDEO

Decade of success for Sir Paul's halls of fame

It was decade ago that Paul McCartney decided to save his boyhood school as a fame academy - and 200 students signed up.

Now, 10 years on, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) has more than 1,000 students passing through each year, and an international reputation for excellence.

Principal Mark Featherstone-Witty and Sir Paul both had very different reasons for becoming involved.

Sir Paul wanted to save his boyhood school, which had become little more than a derelict and dangerous shell.

Mr Featherstone-Witty, 59, whose business sense is as strong as his interest and participation in the arts world, watched 1980s hit film Fame, and realised he had discovered his new ambition in life.

The pair realised they could work together and create an internationally renowned arts institute for the city.

It is one that can now boast more than three-quarters of its students go on to work successfully in the industry and applicants are clamouring for a place.

Mr Featherstone-Witty said: "The highest point for me was when I was stood in the car park and one of the parents came up to me and said 'LIPA has changed my daughter's life'."

The building had been home to the Liverpool Institute grammar school where McCartney and George Harrison were pupils.

McCartney has pumped more than £3million ($5.3 million) of his own money into resurrecting the building, in a project which took £20million ($35 million) to get off the ground.

He approached his celebrity friends for help and contributions came from The Queen, stars such as Eddie Murphy, Jane Fonda, Ralph Lauren and David Hockney, and even Liverpool schoolchildren with their pocket money.

He added: "We could not have done this without Paul. His backing helped get everyone else on board.

"But also it helped when it came to recruiting students. When you have a new institute with no alumni and no track record, then the support from Paul was vital."

Inevitably, the ambitious scheme hit hurdles along the way and its long-awaited opening was delayed when building works ran over schedule.

But it eventually opened on January 30, 1996, and for the first time in the city students could learn core entertainment industry skills as well as specialising as performers, technicians or managers.

LIPA started out offering degree courses but now also runs a three-year scheme for unemployed young people and offers short courses for children.

Facilities include a 500-seat main auditorium, flexible staging, full lighting and sound facilities, dressing rooms, make-up studios, costume workshop and stagecraft technology workshop.

There is also a second 120-seat auditorium and a stage design studio. There are five fully-equipped recording studios, 30 sound-proof practice rooms, and rehearsal and teaching rooms.

But the whole ethos of the institute is to make every student as employable as possible by giving them skills in as many areas as possible.

It comes from the strong-held belief of Mr Featherstone-Witty that people in the arts have to embrace the commercial side of the industry as well.

He said: "We have the role of successful parents really. By their third year the students shouldn't need us and if they do then we have failed.

"We are here to equip them for life after LIPA.

"It is quite a middle-class view but the more skills someone has to offer, the more employable they are.

"The task I set myself was to find what kind of training could sustain a career in the performing arts.

"It is about sustained employment. We keep in touch with around 80% of our students and 75% are working in the profession.

"Some people tell me I'm only interested in people becoming commercially successful, but I believe you shouldn't spend three years in education using public money if you don't want that.

"Once you bring an audience into it, it becomes about business to an extent - there is promotion involved and all the other aspects."

The philosophy stems from his varied background, which includes stints as a tutor to Sir Laurence Olivier's son.

The father-of-one added: "My parents were appalled when I told them I wanted to be an actor and insisted I had a profession to fall back on so I ended up in accountancy, which was definitely not what I wanted.

"I did lots of jobs, a bit of writing for newspapers interviewing people like Ken Loach and Henry Moore.

"I also spent a couple of summers as the tutor to Laurence Olivier's son.

"I registered with an agency when I left university and I didn't believe it when I was told it would be for him but then when I heard this booming voice saying 'Mark, my dear boy' I knew it was true."

There are 140 permanent staff and around 200 temporary employees working for LIPA.

Now its future lies in global expansion and staff will be scouring the world for potential partners for new ventures.

Its impressive 10-year record will be celebrated by students past and present at a day-long event on Monday, which includes performances as well as a party.

How the dream of providing Liverpool with a school of excellence in the performing arts was created from humble beginnings by two men determined to make it reality

The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) was created in 1996 on the site of Sir Paul McCartney's former grammar school.

It was the brainchild of Sir Paul and Mark Featherstone-Witty, who were introduced by The Beatles' producer, Sir George Martin.

At the time, Sir Paul said: "I had always dreamt of being able to help my wonderful

home town of Liverpool in some way or other. When I discovered the 1825 building which had once been my old school was derelict, saving the building became urgent."

McCartney had entered the school in 1953, at the same time as George Harrison was a pupil.

The school, on Mount Street, was itself a Liverpool landmark, with an illustrious history dating back to 1825 when the original Liverpool Institute and School of Art was built.

The school closed in 1985 because there weren't enough pupils.

Sir Paul discovered the disused site while making a home movie about his school days in the mid-1980s.

As Sir Paul says: "As if by magic, Mark appeared."

Mr Featherstone-Witty had been inspired by Alan Parker's 1980 film, Fame, about the New York High School for Performing Arts. He also read a book about musicians who failed to understand they were entering a business, despite the phrase "show business", and created a blueprint for a new type of training.

By 1985, he had nearly 50 artists, directors, choreographers and entrepreneurs backing him.

He formed a charity called the Schools for Performing Arts Trust to start a secondary school in London, which he finally did with the help of Sir Richard Branson and the British record industry.

It was called the BRIT School in Croydon. George Martin was Featherstone-Witty's appeal chairman and introduced him to Sir Paul.

The pair began talks with the city council, which had by coincidence commissioned Pete Fulwell, then managing the Liverpool band The Christians, to look into building the city's music base.

The struggle to secure £20 million ($35 million) and create the facility took another seven years.

The former Beatle and his wife enjoyed a "relaxing" time with 14-month-old (sic) daughter Beatrice on the island off the Tanzanian coast.

WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Beatrice is 2 years and 3 months old.

The former model, who lost the lower part of her leg after a motorcycle accident in 1993, is due to have 'revision amputation' to re-attach muscle tissue onto her bone.

The operation will leave the animal rights campaigner on crutches for at least two months.

Her spokesperson says, "I can confirm that Lady Mills McCartney is due to have revision amputation and will have to spend several weeks on crutches.

"However, I am not able to give any details on when the operation will take place or what it will involve."

Desperately in pursuit of Paul - Arcadian has had lifelong crush on Beatle McCartney

Rosie Campos drives by a certain address once a week. She never stops. She never gets out. She does not want to intrude. She just wants a glimpse of the man she fell in love with 42 years ago.

When she was a fourth-grader at Longfellow Elementary, she was going to marry Paul McCartney.

There's nothing to see from the street except a large hedge, so her best chance is to catch him coming or going. Once, she pulled up alongside a jogger.

It wasn't him.

"I don't want to stalk the man," she said on a recent trip by the house. "I just want to see him."

At slumber parties she and her friends would tell "Beatle stories" - elaborate fantasies about meeting the Beatles and dating their favorite one. There were many variations, but Rosie always ended up with Paul.

"Paul was my man," she said. "He was the cutest."

They have since gone their separate ways. Paul has become the most successful song writer of all time, married twice (the first time, Rosie's 14-year-old heart broke) and been knighted.

Rosie, too, has married. She's had three children and three grandchildren, and divorced (happily, she says). She worked briefly as a hair stylist, and for the last decade, has handled paperwork for Team Chevrolet on East Colorado Boulevard.

The Beatles' breakup was a traumatic moment, and she didn't follow Paul much through his solo years. She stowed away all of her memorabilia - the photos, the John Lennon quilt and the Beatle trading cards.

The crush seemed like a dead artifact of adolescence. But in retrospect, it was only dormant. Last year, a friend invited her to the McCartney concert at Staples Center, and Rosie - now 51 years old - fell for him all over again.

This time, there was one important difference. He was rumored to have a house in Pasadena. This time, she could meet him.

"It's something that as a child I always wanted, but it was never available," she said. "Right now, there's a chance."

Rumors of McCartney's residency in Pasadena have been circulating for nearly a year. Some people say he had rehearsed for his tour here and liked it. Others say he needed to stay in a warm, dry climate, perhaps for his wife's health.

He's been seen in Old Pasadena, on South Lake Avenue, and at the Good Earth restaurant in Studio City. It was reported, falsely, that he had bought the Batman house on South San Rafael Avenue.

Most of the rumors now have McCartney spending at least part of the year in a mansion near the Ritz Carlton, Huntington Hotel, probably on Hillcrest Avenue. But property records do not confirm this (it's of course unlikely the house would be listed under McCartney's name) and some of his supposed neighbors have never even heard the rumor, much less seen the Beatle in the flesh.

In her search for McCartney, Campos drew on her contacts in the Pasadena area. A friend in San Marino who "knows everybody" made a call, and came up with an address. It was wrong, but a few more conversations - one with a landscaper who used to have the house's account - led her to a driveway. It twists behind a bush and out of view. She is certain McCartney is on the other end.

She lives in Arcadia now, so the drive to Oak Knoll takes her a little out of her way. It's worth it, though - a little weekly thrill.

"This is the kind of place where if you parked, they would call the police," she said. "I don't want to get in trouble. If people are walking up the driveway, that, to me, is crossing the line. I don't want to cross the line."

She can imagine the burden fame must bring. Her niece worked at a grocery store in Burbank, and said Bob Hope used to come in at 2 a.m. so he could shop in peace. For the Beatles, who made light of their crazed fans in "A Hard Day's Night" and referenced a transgressive incident in "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," the burden is tinged with legitimate fear. John Lennon was killed outside his home, and George Harrison was nearly killed by an intruder in his.

Still, she wants to thank McCartney for his music.

Why doesn't she write a fan letter?

"Who reads that?" she said. "The celebrity never sees 'em."

If she saw him, what does she think he would say?

"I think he would say that it's nice to have somebody who has enjoyed my music this many years," she said. "Whatever we do, it's nice to be praised."

Approaching the house, she sees a sports car duck into the driveway. She accelerates.

"Did you see it?" she asks. She's craning her neck, but it's darted away. "It was light blue."

She's disappointed, but undeterred.

"I'm on a mission," she says.

Mijares Mexican Restaurant on Pasadena Avenue is an unassuming place. That may be what attracted McCartney, who has been there twice.

"He had a really nice dinner with his wife," said Maria Guzman, the floor manager, speaking of McCartney's most recent visit, nearly a year ago. "He didn't even have a security guard."

The staff showed him to the back patio, where the mariachi trio played for him. A few customers came up and talked to him, and he was friendly, though he wasn't signing autographs.

"He's a great person, really fun to talk to," Guzman said. "I told him I really enjoy his music, and it's an honor to have him here."

He said thank you.

McCartney's first visit was about six months before that. He sat at the bar and drank a margarita. Someone found a Polaroid camera and snapped three shots, which are now on the restaurant wall.

Both visits were on a Thursday, so now every Thursday the staff sets aside a table for him, hopefully, as though he were the prophet Elijah. They also keep a good camera handy.

"We're waiting," Guzman said.

Rosie Campos is waiting, too. She has a spy at Mijares who is supposed to call her the minute McCartney walks in. She will change her clothes, put some makeup on and hustle over.

The McCartney crush affected her in several ways. It has made her a lifelong Anglophile - her nervous little dog is named Winston, for Winston Churchill. It prompted her to take guitar lessons. (She set that aside in high school and doesn't play now.) And it was her first experience with being starstruck - a condition that has repeated itself with lesser lights like Sylvester Stallone.

"If I had it to do over again, I probably would have studied acting," she said. "I should have been rich and famous."

She does not say this with sadness. Indeed, her pursuit of Paul McCartney is, to her, a sign of her fundamental contentment. Her job is going well, her children are grown and healthy, and she just got a new grandchild.

"I'm at a time in my life where things are basically OK," she said. "This is entertaining for me. It's not like I live my life around it."

Soon, she wants to travel with her kids to England. She has never been. The Beatles' childhood homes have been restored, and she wants to see them.

Heritage chiefs have accused property developers of threatening to destroy the character of Bute by "cynically cashing in" on popularity generated by the wedding of Stella McCartney.

The marriage in 2003 of the fashion designer to publisher Alasdhair Willis has been credited with generating a property boom on the island and attracting an influx of tourists.

Property prices have doubled and estate agents claim Bute has overtaken neighbouring Arran as Scotland's most desirable island destination for second home owners.

Now a proposed development of luxury apartments, each worth £400,000, has attracted vocal opposition from Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland (AHSS) and the Scottish Civic Trust (SCT), which claim they are out of keeping with the rest of the island and could destroy its picturesque image. There are also fears that the luxury homes will accelerate a trend in which locals are being priced out of the housing market.

McCartney's wedding at Mount Stuart house, ancestral home of the seventh Marquis of Bute -otherwise known as Johnny Dumfries, the former racing driver received worldwide media coverage. It transformed the former holiday destination for generations of working-class Glaswegians into a scene more reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard.

Among the guests spotted catching the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry from Wemyss Bay were the bride's father, former Beatle Paul McCartney, and his wife, Heather Mills, Madonna and her film director husband, Guy Ritchie; Gwyneth Paltrow, the star of Shakespeare in Love, and her boyfriend, Chris Martin, lead singer with the band Coldplay; the James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and Liv Tyler, the Lord of the Rings actress.

Guests from the world of music included Chrissie Hynde, the vocalist with the Pretenders, and Sharleen Spiteri, singer and songwriter with Texas. From the fashion arena came the supermodel Kate Moss and the designers Tom Ford and Sadie Frost.

The proposed development is for 10 three-, four-and five- bedroom homes, the largest of which would cover 3,500sqft.

Three of the homes, being built by the Glasgow-based 108 Group, have already been sold to clients from Scotland, the Midlands and London. However, heritage groups say they are a step too far.

"Celebrity works. An island, relatively unknown outside Scotland, receives UK media attention because of Sir Paul McCartney's daughter and it creates the novelty of a 'new' place that is now part of the 'scene'," said Audrey Gardner, of the AHSS.

"It changes the image, creating a short-term popularity that generates an opportunistic market. We are not against development if it is done properly.

"But these houses are off-the-peg executive-style mansions plumped down on Bute probably because they were popular elsewhere."

The 108 Group was given planning permission by Argyll & Bute council, despite a number of objections and opposition from the island's three councillors. The SCT described them as "highly insensitive" and recommended that the application be refused.

However, at a meeting of the Bute and Cowal area committee to discuss the decision the local members were defeated by four to three by councillors from off the island.

Robert Macintyre, one of the defeated Bute councillors, said: "An island is a balancing act of generating wealth and maintaining its character. Enough is enough. We have lost this one, but must be watchful to ensure we prevent further inappropriate developments."

Tony Thomas, Scottish director of planning and development for CB Richard Ellis, the Edinburgh-based property advisors, said: "We live in a convenience age. If it is convenient to fly from London or travel from Edinburgh or Glasgow, that's what people will do."

Mother inspired me, says Stella

Fashion designer Stella McCartney has revealed how her mother inspired her to become a vegetarian and environmentalist.

In a rare interview, the daughter of Sir Paul McCartney has told the Evening Standard how her views leave colleagues regarding her as "a right pain".

McCartney, 33, learned her principles from her mother, Linda, who died of cancer in 1998.

She tells ES magazine: "For me, vegetarianism is based on ethics. It's how I was brought up. My mum was very vocal and we were all educated to understand why we weren't eating meat. But actually, now I look at it from all different angles, I think it's very wrong to have the mass murder, every single day, of millions of animals.

"I find something wrong with that on a spiritual level, an environmental level and an ethical level."

Her views on the environment became more focused after baby Miller was born 10 months ago. His father is Alasdhair Willis, publisher of the magazine Wallpaper, whom McCartney married in 2003.

"I found that when you have a baby, they are so pure and untouched that a car goes past and you look at all the pollution and you really want to protect them," she says.

"As they get older and more robust you sort-of forget about it but you only want to put pure cotton next to their skin. And you worry.

"When I was young, I would think about the environment but I always assumed that my great-great-great-grandchildren would be fine. Now it looks like the next generation won't be." She is about to take delivery of a Lexus RX 400h, which runs on petrol and has an electric motor, and her flagship store in Bruton Street, Mayfair, is run on windpowered electricity.

"I can say that not one animal has suffered or died for one thing in there," McCartney says.

City fame school 'set to expand

A fame school set up by Sir Paul McCartney in his native Liverpool could be set to expand across the world.

Sir Paul co-founded the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) in the grounds of his old school in January 1996.

Future plans for the academy, which trains young people who want to work in entertainment, were revealed as it prepares to celebrate its anniversary.

Sites in Europe, the Far East, North and South America are being considered.

"People have approached us in Barcelona, Japan, Texas and Colombia to assist us in the creation of new performing arts institutes," said founding principal Mark Featherstone-Witty.

Independent actions

"These ideas are in the process of being created and are therefore ongoing. However, this encourages us to be pro-active over the next 10 years.

"Rather than passively wait for people to approach us, we will find partners and do it ourselves."

Mr Featherstone-Witty, who was inspired to create the institute after watching the New York stage school film Fame, said the decision was not Sir Paul's.

He added: "We hope that a mark of our maturity is that actions ascribed to Paul will cease. We are acting independently of him."

Although LIPA is independent of the former Beatle, he remains a patron and will be guest of honour at the 10th anniversary celebrations on Monday.

Sir Paul used £3 million ($5 million) of his fortune to get LIPA off the ground, while persuading friends to invest in the £20 million ($35 million) project.

MORE

January 27, 2006 -- Liverpool Echo

We're going global

How LIPA's fame is set to spread world-wide - thanks to a letter to the ECHO more than 10 years ago

DO you want fame? asked Sir Paul McCartney in an open letter in the ECHO to the people of Liverpool on February 24, 1989.

The answer was a resounding 'yes'.

And now, 17 years on, as the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts prepares to celebrate its 10th birthday on Monday, it seems the world wants it, too.

Because Sir Paul's fame school is about to go global.

Going global will make LIPA the first fame school to become an international brand.

The school will celebrate its 10th birthday on Monday with a gala performance featuring 250 students, some of their high-profile patrons, and of course Sir Paul McCartney.

Sir Paul says: "The dream we had to save my old school, the Liverpool Institute, and turn it into something really worthwhile has happened.

"We've already had great success stories, with graduates getting their own TV shows on MTV, winning lead roles on the West End stage and going out into the world making films, working in theatre and creating some very cool music.

"I'm hoping that LIPA will play its part in the continuation of Liverpool's rich culture in the coming years."

It's hard to believe that if the people of Liverpool had voted 'no' to Sir Paul's letter asking how we would feel about a 'fame' school all those years ago, LIPA may never have happened.

The ECHO's then marketing editor, Arthur Johnson, recalls: "The ECHO played a major part in the establishment of LIPA.

"At the time I had close links with Paul's organisation, and he said there was no way he would go ahead with the project if the people of Liverpool were not behind it.

"As far as he was concerned, ECHO readers were the 'people of Liverpool'.

"We opened special vote telephone lines and there was a massive yes vote. Paul would not have progressed with LIPA without this support."

But neither would he have progressed without a certain Mark Featherstone-Witty. From the outset, Mark proved himself to be the man who would help make Paul's dream come alive.

Mark had established the BRIT school in London in the early 1980s, so by the time he met Paul he already had a proven track record.

Paul had his own reasons for wanting to establish a performing arts school. He was desperate to save his former school which lay derelict and decayed.

So when legendary Beatles producer George Martin introduced the pair at a party, it was a meeting of minds. There was only ever to be one outcome. That outcome was LIPA.

Today, there is fierce competition among applicants for places. And with good reason: more than 75% of its graduates go on to work successfully in the industry.

Says Mark: "We always believed LIPA would be a success, but we didn't realise just how much the students would believe in it.

"LIPA alumni include Haley Doyle, who is currently a lead in Mamma Mia in the West End; Lindsay Inglesby, a dance graduate who decided to go into choreography and started her own school as well as teaching at LIPA and Geordie Michael Imerson who is to star in Billy Liar at the Playhouse next month."

Rightly proud of both LIPA's and his own personal achievements, Mark has produced a pictorial book to mark the occasion.

LIPA In Pictures: The First Ten Years, illustrated by Roger Huggett, is a beautifullypackaged account of how LIPA is now one of the great higher education success stories in the UK.

Says Mark, who lives in Toxteth with his wife Alison and son Thomas: "LIPA has actually taken 16 years to set up. But this is the start of the beginning. This book is where we are NOW - 10 years on being up and running.

"There's been a lot of luck - but isn't there everywhere in life? - and a lot of hard work.

"I really am living the dream."

Top of the premiere league

Liverpool will roll out the red carpet with world class premieres for the city's Year of Performance.

Premieres including shows on city centre building sites will form the cornerstone of the 2006 themed celebrations, backed by an arts budget of around £1.6million ($2.4 million).

In her first interview since returning to the UK, Culture Company artistic director Robyn Archer promised "the most culturally active year in the city's history".

More than 20 productions, including concerts and dance, are scheduled between May and November. They include two European premieres and one UK premiere from leading companies.

Some shows will be outdoors using city centre building sites, and all will be linked to architecture and regeneration under the title of City In Transition.

Speaking to the ECHO ahead of Monday's official programme announcement, Ms Archer said: "As we move nearer 2008, the city is experiencing tremendous change, and at high speed.

"This is both exhilarating and disruptive and the City In Transition programme will take that on board.

"Apart from international performances, there will be walks and exhibitions, talks and debates."

Some of the world's leading music and dance artists will work directly with Liverpool companies.

The year's official title is Liverpool Performs. Although the theme is arts-led, it also covers business and sport, and the city's performance in terms of prestige and efficiency.

This year's dry run for 2007/8 capability is seen as vital.

A Culture Company spokesman said: "The idea is for us to be able to test Liverpool's ability to work as a team, to deliver a specified programme, and to develop relationships between artists and venues.

"The idea is also to build audiences and to place Liverpool on the international radar."

Monday's announcement will be made at the Philharmonic Hall, tied into the 10th birthday celebrations of the Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts and attended by LIPA's lead patron, Sir Paul McCartney.

The ex-Beatle could also announce a personal involvement in the wider 2007/08 schedule, which includes Liverpool's 800th birthday.

* A Merseyside-wide sports strategy was also being launched today, believed to be the biggest multi-sports deal in the UK, and involving sponsorship deals for Tranmere Rovers and the Open Golf championship at Hoylake.

It will involve Liverpol hosting international sporting events for the first time.

The Culture Company will be creating a sports fund for community groups to bid for.

Exclusive Traveling Photo Exhibition Featuring Images Taken From Each One Believing, The Access-All-Areas Book Of Life On The Road With Paul McCartney

Exhibit Set To Hit Cities Across America In '06

Proud Galleries is delighted to announce the 2006 exhibition tour of a unique photographic show that faithfully captures Paul McCartney's life on the road. Based upon the book Each One Believing: Onstage, Off Stage and Backstage, published by Chronicle Books, the show is comprised of over 40 pictures taken by photographer Bill Bernstein over the course of the most successful tour of McCartney's post-Beatles career.

The tour is set to visit cities across the United States throughout 2006, beginning with the March 4th opening of Paul McCartney's Each One Believing: The Tour, at San Diego's Morrison Gallery. Each exhibit is slated to run from three weeks to two months in order to give fans the opportunity to view the show firsthand. Other locations include Inspire Fine Art in Chicago, Walnut Street Gallery outside of Denver and Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. The original exhibition opened to both public and critical acclaim last autumn at the Proud Galleries in London.

'Each One Believing: The Tour,' illustrates McCartney's first solo tour in nearly a decade and includes images taken onstage and backstage during a journey which saw sold-out concert performances in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Rome, Moscow and more. Poignant and candid, funny and illuminating, this is a road trip with Paul McCartney like no other.

Bernstein's lens captures the excitement evoked by the grand lighting of stage sets; the heightened energy of the band in mid-song; and the intimate shots of Paul alone playing at his 'Magic Piano" or onstage with his beloved Hofner guitar.

"The response that 'Each One Believing' has received has been overwhelming," said McCartney. "Everywhere we go people tell us how much they enjoy the unique balance between the engaging photographs and first-hand written accounts and events from the tour. It seemed a natural when we were approached to put the exhibit on the road and so we did."

Photographer Bill Bernstein had unprecedented on stage, off stage, and back stage access providing dynamic images both of Paul's public appearances and the quiet one-on-one moments. Exhibition and sale prints will be signed by both McCartney and Bernstein.

Paul McCartney: Each One Believing Tour

San Diego - Morrison Hotel Gallery - March 4th ­ April 7th
San Francisco - San Francisco Art Exchange - April/May
Portland - Photographic Image - June 1st-June 25th
Seattle - Benham Gallery - July
Los Angeles - Stephen Cohen Gallery - August
Denver - Walnut Street Gallery - September 7th ­ November 2nd
Chicago - Inspire Fine Art - November 17th ­ December 31st

Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) will celebrate its tenth anniversary next week, with a joint event that will also launch Liverpool Performs 2006 - the fourth Capital of Culture themed year.

On Monday, January 30 - ten years to the day since LIPA's inauguration - nearly 250 LIPA students and graduates will take part in a gala performance at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall.

The performance will also herald the official launch of Liverpool Performs 2006 - a twelve month celebration of Liverpool's outstanding track record in the arts, sport and business - the latest in a series of themed years leading up to European Capital of Culture in 2008.

LIPA itself is one of the city's best known success stories, committed to its aim of providing high-quality teaching to prepare students for sustained careers in the industry, either as performers or those who make performance possible. Currently, 1,250 people are taught at LIPA each year.

Sir Paul McCartney, co-founder of LIPA, will be taking part in a joint press conference to mark the event. He said: "I always feel great pride in LIPA - sheer pride in the students and their talent.

"The dream we had to save my old school and turn it into something really worthwhile has happened. I find it very moving."

Cllr Warren Bradley, leader of Liverpool City Council, said: "It is extremely fitting that we launch Liverpool Performs on the tenth birthday of LIPA - a national institution which is now a standard bearer for the way the new Liverpool invests in and trains talent to enable people to perform at the highest level.

"Liverpool Performs 2006 will be a year-long celebration of the city's tremendous achievements in the field of performance. The programme for the year includes the first artistic works to be produced by the Liverpool Culture Company which will appear under the theme of City in Transition (CiT), taking inspiration from the tremendous changes currently taking place in the city.

"It promises to be an action-packed twelve months."

Key events for 2006 include the launch of '08 businessconnect - a new Capital of Culture business
forum designed to help local companies get involved in the build-up to 2008; Liverpool's first Disability Sports Festival; the Open Golf Championship returning to Royal Liverpool for the first time in nearly forty years; and the fourth Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art.

Professor Drummond Bone, chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company said: "Liverpool Performs 2006 will be a chance to focus on how the city is developing in arts, sport and business.

"The regeneration of Liverpool is seeing a resurgence of activity in all three spheres - on the stage, the field and in the boardroom.

"LIPA's success over the last decade is testament to Liverpool's status as a centre of excellence for performing arts, and we are delighted to be launching our activity for 2006 with such a thriving member of the city's cultural community."

Mark Featherstone-Witty, LIPA's founding principal and chief executive, said: "For Paul McCartney and myself, this is a moment we could only but imagine ten years ago.

"We remember when we had to describe and enthuse people about a reality that didn't exist. Now ten years on we have one of the highest application rates of any UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). People come to us from some 38 countries and make up a third of our student body - the fourth highest percentage of any HEI in the country.

"For me though, it is the graduates' achievements that make me most proud. With three-quarters of any leaving year still traceable still working in the arts and entertainment economies three years after leaving.

"As Churchill once said, 'It's the end of the beginning'."

He was refused retrospective planning permission to keep the secluded timber lodge in the grounds of Woodlands Farm, Brede Lane, Peasmarsh.

Representatives for Sir Paul said he needed the lodge to maintain his privacy, but Rother District Council's planning committee threw out the bid.

The 63-year-old is expected to appeal against the decision.

Seclusion and security

If he fails in his appeal, he will have to remove the one-and-a-half storey lodge and return the land to its original state.

A statement on behalf of the ex-Beatle said: "The owner has a requirement for privacy, seclusion and security that the building at Woodlands Farm cannot provide."

It said the farmhouse lacked privacy because a public footpath passed close to the property and through the working farm.

The statement insisted the farmhouse would always be vacant when the lodge was occupied.

'Non-essential'

"The intention is not to increase the amount of residential property," it added.

But in refusing the application, the planning committee found: "No compelling justification for such a location has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Local Planning Authority.

"The proposal harms the intrinsic landscape quality and character of the High Weald.

"The dwelling is not essential to the running of an enterprise which must be in a countryside location."

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Sir Paul McCartney could be forced to pull down a log cabin on his English country estate, because he failed to secure planning permission before commissioning the lake-side retreat.

The rustic building is a favourite hang-out for the former Beatle's son James - but Rother District Council - which has jurisdiction over McCartney's Sussex farm - has rejected a belated application, claiming the cabin ruins the local landscape.

Councillor Grey Metcalfe says, "Planning laws are there for a reason."

McCartney has six months to launch an appeal against the ruling.

The "Comfortably Numb" hitmaker, who has just premiered his opera CA IRA "There Is Hope" in Italy, pretends the former Beatle has all the ideas in the studio so he can dismiss his producer's less-than-helpful suggestions politely.

The 62-year-old says, "We've developed what I think is a very good way of dealing with the politics of the control room.

"We pretend Paul is thinking of all the ideas - so when it's a bad idea, I'll wag my finger and say, 'That was Paul, wasn't it?'

"We have a laugh about it and it defuses the situation."

January 24, 2006

McCartney and Von Dutch Say 'No More Landmines'

"When was the last time your T-shirt mattered?" That's what clothing company Von Dutch and Adopt-A-Minefield want to know.

So to make sure you're making a statement that's not just for fashion, Von Dutch is selling "No More Landmines" T-shirts in an effort to raise awareness about landmines and a bit of cash for the cause.

According to a press release, "Adopt-A-Minefield is a campaign of the United Nations Association of the USA in partnership with Ted Turner's Better World Fund and the United Nations to clear minefields, provide assistance to landmine survivors, and raise awareness of the global landmine crisis."

If charity isn't enough of a reason to put on the red shirts, then maybe you'll be interested to know that the shirts are being sported by members of Nickelback. Adopt-A-Minefield's goodwill ambassador Heather Mills McCartney will be the first to model the shirts. Oh, and did I mention that her husband Sir Paul has also been wearing the shirts in concert?

Besides a Canadian rock band and a former Beatle, other celebrities are expected to sign on to sport the red shirts in an ad campaign shot by acclaimed portrait photographer Michael Collopy.

If you want to pick one up and help support the cause you can head on over to http://www.landmines.org/vondutch/. The shirts sell for $30 (US) and are available in women's and men's sizes.

With help from a piece of poster board, Jim Juno got a shout-out from a rock star.

The Omahan was among several superfans who brought signs to Paul McCartney's concert at the Qwest Center Omaha. But unlike many that went unnoticed, Juno's creation got the ex-Beatle's attention.

After playing "English Tea," McCartney told the audience about the word "peradventure," which is featured in a line from the song. He joked that the word - which means possibly or maybe - was "sweeping the nation" and that people were bringing signs that said: "Peradventure an autograph?

Moments later, McCartney noticed Juno's sign, read it out loud and gave him a thumbs-up.

The neon-green sign with black letters read: "Peradventure I'm Amazed!" (It's a reference to "Maybe I'm Amazed," Juno's wife's favorite McCartney song.)

"My wife said, 'No one's going to understand it.' I told her that only one person needs to understand it. To have him acknowledge it was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill," Juno said. "I thought it was awesome. That's putting it mildly."

In Omaha and across the country, spectators are seeking that same thrill, bringing increasingly creative and elaborate signs to concerts. They're as essential to some fans as tickets, earplugs and binoculars.

Juno made his 30-by-36-inch poster at a local office-supply company and had it laminated. Others take a simpler approach, using magic markers and cardboard.

Some, like Billy and Rachelle McGuigan, go all out.

The Omaha couple hauled a huge vinyl banner, made by Artistic Sign & Design of Omaha, to the McCartney concert.

"It was so slick looking. I figured he's got to look at it," McGuigan said.

Sure enough, the music legend spotted the black banner with white letters. At 3 feet by 2 feet, it was hard to miss.

McCartney noticed the sign after playing "Follow Me." He then read it out loud - "Named my daughter Cartney after Sir Paul" - and gave them a thumbs-up.

"Eye contact would have been enough," said McGuigan, who has been to 10 McCartney concerts but never brought a sign until the Omaha show. "It was one of the coolest moments in my life."

Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of the concert trade publication Pollstar, said people bring signs to concerts hoping that their heroes will read them and respond.

"Of course, unless the house lights are brought up, it's impossible to see more than a few feet in front of the stage with all the light in the artist's eyes," he said.

Juno, a die-hard McCartney fan and contributor to the fan Web site MaccaReport.com (read about the Omaha show), said the star is known for reading signs at concerts and enjoys incorporating them into his shows.

"It wasn't spectacular," Juno said of his sign, "but it was enough to get his attention."

The sign also drew attention from his fellow concertgoers.

"When he did read it and gave me a thumbs-up, other people around me turned around and gave me high-fives," Juno said.

Signs, though, aren't welcome at all concerts.

Spokeswoman Dana Dyksterhuis said not all artists allow signs, so if a tour prohibits them, arena officials do, too.

Other rules always apply. Signs can't be on sticks, and a sign can be confiscated if it blocks anyone's view.

Juno said he was respectful of others.

"I'd hold it up for a little while when he was looking toward my area. If he wasn't, I'd put it away," Juno said.

Not everyone is a fan of signs, including Bongiovanni, the Pollstar editor.

"Macca (McCartney) may like it, but I personally hate it. I almost got into a fight with a woman who insisted on holding up a sign at the Macca show I saw," he said. "She was oblivious to the fact that by holding it over her head, rather than in front of her face, she was blocking the view of everyone behind her."

McGuigan said his sign may have obstructed views, but it was "only for 20 seconds."

McGuigan, who has turned his local portrayal of Buddy Holly into a successful national career, told everyone he knew about McCartney's attention to his sign.

Apparently, it sparked a trend.

Last month, while McGuigan was starring in the '50s musical revue "Rave On" at the Omaha Community Playhouse, a man in the audience held up this sign:

"Named our dog Buddy after you!"

I guess the four words a club owner never wants to hear are "the fire marshal's here!". But I must say those are the four words that, upon hearing, made the band happy. The place was so crowded with you, our wonderful fans, that they threatened to close the club and had to turn people away at the door. When I walked on stage and felt the energy and saw the crowd, I lit up with a Cheshire cat smile.

We played every song on my new record, Mondo Magneto [available at my website www.brian-ray.com and also CD baby.com and Amazon.com.]. We added two songs never before played live, the ballads "If You're Leaving Me" and "All I Know", with Wix and Rusty joining the band on accordion and acoustic guitar. We closed with my cover of Smokey Robinson's Tears of a Clown" [available at iTunes]. We had people if all ages from all over the world, from the UK, from Eastern Europe, from Miami, San Antonio, Phoenix, Delaware, all making a special trip just to see our show, and I thank you all for being there from the bottom of my heart. It was awesome. For those of you who couldn't make it to the party, you were missed, one and all. We had a great time and we rocked as rockers should.

I'll be playing this Friday night live at Soho on State Street in Santa Barbara at 8.30pm, opening for the fabulous Dirty Knobs led by the great Mike Campbell [of the Heartbreakers]. I'll keep you all informed of all my future bookings so that as many of you as possible can come and party with us.

Thanks again for all of your electric energy and I'll see you around the campfire.

Love and rockets,
Brian

Brian, Wix and Rusty jam at the "Mint" in Los Angeles.

Surprise guests, Wix and Rusty Anderson joined Brian Ray onstage at packed "Mint" Saturday, January 21st to celebrate the release of Brian's debut album, "Mondo Magneto." Brian and his band Black Unicorn, performed songs from his album. Jake Labotz and the Mojo Monkeys opened and closed the show.

Cat and dog fur trade ban considered

A ban on the trade in cat and dog fur across Europe is being considered by the European Commission following a major campaign championed by Heather Mills-McCartney.

The move is part of a comprehensive five-year plan announced today to improve animal welfare.

EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: "The protection and welfare of animals is crucial, not least for ethical and moral reasons, but also to ensure animal health and the quality of food."

He said the contents of today's "action plan" were the result of months of feedback from consumers, scientists and international organisations.

Five targets have been set for the period 2006-2010:

:: Raise minimum legal requirements of animal welfare in Europe.

:: Boost research into alternatives to animal testing.

:: Introduce EU-wide harmonised animal welfare benchmarks.

:: Increase awareness of animal welfare requirements.

:: Support international initiatives for animal protection.

A ban on cat and dog fur imports is just one issue being pushed by animal rights lobbyists ­ but it has been boosted by the high-profile involvement of Sir Paul McCartney's wife, who has visited the European Parliament twice to protest about the slaughter of millions of animals a year in China to service the market in canine and feline fur.

On one occasion Lady McCartney broke down in tears in Brussels at the screening of a video showing cats and dogs being rounded up and their skins being stripped from them live ­ to avoid the cost of humane killing.

Now the problem is highlighted in the Commission's new plan, which states: "The Commission is looking into ways to ban the trade of cat and dog fur in the EU, for ethical reasons and in response to considerable public concerns on this issue.

"There are many legal issues to address before such a ban could be put in place, but the Commission is hopeful that a European solution can be found in the near future."

Tory MEP Struan Stevenson and the Humane Society International helped exposed the business, revealing evidence of a thriving cat and dog fur trade in many European countries including France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.

An estimated two million cats and dogs are being killed each year in China to fuel the trade, which is not illegal in the EU.

DNA tests have shown that many rugs, coats and figurines on sale in shops in European countries are made from real cat and dog fur but are usually marketed as being made of fake fur.

The cat's whiskers

Her journey from cardboard city to Lady McCartney won her as many enemies as admirers. Now, as she prepares to take on the fur trade by buying 100,000 dogs, Heather Mills-McCartney talks to Tim Adams about land mines, life with Paul and why she prefers Linda to the Beatles.

I spent the best part of two days with Heather Mills-McCartney before I managed to ask her a proper question. She is, according to her publicity, among the most sought-after speakers in the world. You quickly see why.

We met in a bar at a Brussels hotel. The following day she was due to present evidence to the European Union about the trade in dog and cat fur from China. She had just flown in from LA, where she had been accompanying Sir Paul on his sell-out American tour; he was now back home in Sussex looking after their daughter Beatrice. She was tired, she had said on the phone, and so cold that she thought she might 'lose her other leg to frostbite'. So she only fancied a quick chat. In the event, it was me who had to make my excuses.

Before I could, Lady Mills-McCartney did what she does best. She talked with an extraordinary, slightly unnerving compulsion about the cause that is currently closest to her heart. Two million dogs and cats were being skinned alive each year in China, she said, pretty much by way of greeting. It was happening in the Czech Republic, too, and even here in Belgium, where she had evidence that cats were being stolen to order: why did I think there were all those 'missing moggy' signs on street corners?

She had become involved in all of this, she explained with hardly a pause, nearly a year ago, and since then it had all been a bit mad, like her landmines campaign. She first saw the film of the Chinese animal skinning when it was given to her by Dennis Erdman, a director of Sex and the City. He had watched it for 45 seconds before he fainted. She had watched it over and over, and put some of it on her website. Eleven months on, she was hoping for a Europe-wide ban on fur from China. Her husband was doing his bit. He has refused to play in China until the practice is made illegal. 'I pull him in for specific events,' she said, 'just at the right moments.'

She had wanted to go undercover herself to film the cat farms in the Czech Republic, but she was in hospital in the end, sorting out problems with her leg. She had not been idle, though.

In New York she had heard Jennifer Lopez on TV being asked about the fur she was wearing and saying, 'Oh, I guess I need to be educated.' Mills-McCartney decided to educate her. She went to J-Lo's office with the video of cats and dogs being skinned. It was Fashion Week in New York and the office was just over the road, so she was like the Pied Piper with all these journalists in tow. In the scuffle that followed the papers said that security had knocked her over and she had lost her prosthetic leg, but that was not true; or that she was having trouble with her leg at the time and she just stumbled.

Which charity was she doing this work for? I started to ask.

Well, her special skill, she said, was to bring all the charities together. They all needed her, so she made them work with each other. The Humane Society, Peta and so on. ('Talks a lot about being needed,' I wrote in my notebook, not entirely fairly.)

As we were speaking, a woman walked into the bar wearing a full-length fur coat. 'The thing is,' Lady Mills-McCartney said loudly, 'people who wear fur are always so ugly. The coat just makes them even uglier.'

I was not sure the woman understood English. Mills-McCartney turned back towards me.

'Would you go out with someone dressed in an animal?'

Crikey, me?

She had tried to stop haranguing people in furs, she said. But sometimes in a shop she could not help herself going up behind someone and starting to stroke their coat, before asking them how many dead animals it was made from. That seemed to work.

One of the people whose coat she would no doubt like to stroke is Naomi Campbell: 'That stupid, superficial hypocrite', who has started modelling fur, having previously led Peta campaigns. Another is Anna - 'Cruella de' - Wintour, who, as editor of US Vogue, has championed fur, and who was at the very least 'in league' with the fur industry and its advertisers.

When she paused from this monologue briefly, her sister Fiona, who is her agent and right-hand woman, acted as a prompt: about cat-fur festivals in Germany, and about how the animals in China were skinned alive because a bullet or an injection was too expensive. They explained how they had plans to go to China and buy, say, 50,000 dogs in crates at a market for a dollar each, the going rate, and set up a sanctuary for them. Or 100,000 dogs. They would then educate the men who had skinned them in how to look after animals. (I had a brief image of the pair of them barking orders to Chinese dog minders in their impassioned Geordie.)

'The thing is,' Fiona said, 'with something like this you have to do it full time, six days a week.'

And how did the tour go?

'It was good, but I didn't sleep well,' Lady Mills-McCartney said. 'The screaming always goes on in my head.'

What, I began to say, the screaming of Paul's fans? Outside the hotel? Does that still happen ...?

'No,' she said, just a bit impatient, as if I had not been paying attention. 'The screaming of the dogs and cats I had seen on the videos. Little puppy dogs and pussy cats, their faces so trusting. Just before the noose comes.' And she was off again.

The following morning, bright and early, I watched Mills-McCartney explain a lot of this once more in a lecture hall at the European parliament, flanked by the Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson holding a piece of cat fur. The impact of her presentation was dampened a little by the fact that no one knew how to turn down the lights so we could see her film. But she was undaunted; in the corridors afterwards she railed against fur for the benefit of television stations from across the continent.

A few days later, back in London, I caught up with her again. She was spending the morning in Bond Street, giving out horribly graphic leaflets to Christmas shoppers in fur coats while another film crew followed her. ('Did you know,' she wondered, repeatedly, 'that two million cats and dogs in China ...? She has the kind of celebrity that makes people double take, but often not be quite able to place her. As she accosted hapless coat-wearers, passers-by asked each other, 'Who is it?' or noted, 'She's prettier than you imagine isn't she?' A paparazzo had picked up her presence. She gave him a leaflet ('Did he know that ...').

Some of her targets were robust. One woman in a stole informed her to 'keep your opinions to yourself young lady', which I knew, by now, was never really going to happen. 'If I had kept my opinions to myself I would never have done half of what I have done,' Lady Mills-McCartney shouted back. 'Everyone thinks I'm a nutter,' she said to me cheerfully. Some fur-flaunters scuttled away or pretended not to speak English. One woman in a hideous floor-length chinchilla hid in Pied a Terre until the coast was clear.

Mills-McCartney's other mission in the shops was to buy Chinese fur and take it away for DNA testing to see if it was cat or dog. By the end of a long morning, her sister was laden with bags of evidence. I wondered at one point if Heather had got Paul anything for Christmas yet. She'd just seen some brilliant crocheted shoes in a shop in Burlington Arcade, she explained, but they also sold fur scarves so she could not get them.

Crocheted shoes? I said.

To finish her morning's filming she decided to go to Stella McCartney's shop to prove that fur-free can be fashionable, and to pick up some clothes to wear for the Observer's photos. She called Stella, who was away in the Far East, on her mobile. After a brief chat it seemed that Stella had said it was fine, but she might want to check with head office.

At the shop she explained to security, 'I'm not sure what you'd call me. Her stepmother, I suppose.' They looked bemused, but let her in. Chrissie Hynde, fellow animal-rights activist, happened to be in the fitting rooms. They hugged and talked about the merits of Stella's vegan stilettoes. One of the shop assistants came across to tell her how the cats and dogs video on the website had made her cry. On the whole, it could not have gone better.

A couple of days before Christmas, she is in a studio in north London wearing Stella's dress, holding a cat, and smiling into the Observer's camera. The cat will not behave, quite, and the hours tick by, but nothing is too much trouble. Over lunch she informs everyone how much pus there is from infected cow teats in the average glass of milk. Most people decide to have their coffee black.

Afterwards she sits by a gas heater in the airy room, trying to coax a little circulation into her bad leg. For the first time, since I've seen her, I have a slight sense that she might be capable of relaxing. Of all the people I have met, I suggest to her, truthfully, I have never met anyone with quite her sense of self-belief.

She rubs her good foot. 'I have,' she says, 'a disbelief in the impossible.'

Where does it come from, her determination?

'I think seeing so much injustice when I was young made me very sensitive to what is unjust,' she says, referring to her abusive childhood. 'It's like the dogs and cats. You may not want to watch these things, but I think you have to.'

Does she ever let herself stop?

'When I am on I am full-on completely,' she says. I nod. 'But then I can switch off completely, too. On Tuesday I was working from 6 to 10.30 doing TV and radio and stuff. The next day it was my husband's office Christmas party. I always go along. So I played with my daughter all day, switched off the phones. I have to do that occasionally.'

Now aged 37, her sense of mission redoubled after she lost her leg in 1993 when she was run down by a police motorcycle, but she'd always had it really, she says. 'It's like a drug. Or at least it keeps me sane.' When she met Paul, or when he first saw her speak, she was giving an award to a young girl who had lost her arms and legs from meningitis. The girl had been studying to be a top pianist. She went on to help others and now she is a TV journalist. 'People can be in a black tunnel and you have to let some light in so everything looks a bit brighter and more colourful. Once you get out of it, if you start to help people, you'll find that you haven't got time for therapists and "woe is me".'

As she explains this philosophy she returns a few times to the well-trodden story of her childhood. 'It was survival when I was young,' she says. Or: 'I knew that I would never be frightened of anyone after my father.'

Her dad was violent towards her, her brother and sister throughout their childhood. When her mother left home with a Crossroads actor, and ran away to London, she left Heather to cope on her own. At 12 she was running the house, getting her sister off to school, occasionally stealing a bit of food for dinner. Her father would beat them if things were not right. He once threw Fiona through a plate-glass window. She must still feel tremendous anger towards him.

'I think he is mentally ill,' she says. 'My problem and my attribute is that I can always see the other person's side. My father had a hard life. He was adopted when he was seven, from care. God knows what happened to him before that. He had a great love for animals; he used to work for the RSPCA, but he obviously had a more troubled relationship with human beings.'

She hasn't been in touch with him since he phoned her in hospital after she had lost her leg and asked her if he could have money for a new TV and video. Before then she had always paid his debts. 'It was a realisation, really,' she says. 'It's like when you put your hand in a fire and you keep putting it back in. I was the last to give up. My brother and sister had given up on him years before. He had another child who is 20 now and she does not see him. A person only has so many chances I think. He never learned from his mistakes.'

Did it make her desperate to be looked after, that lack of love?

No, she says, with some conviction. 'Though certainly they were crap parents. My mother's dead now, but I can understand her wanting to run away. You've got three kids, abuse for 12 years and suddenly a man comes along who will take you away, but he won't take your kids. I know myself I could never do that. But I know, too, that if she took us my father would have come after her. Unfortunately, I didn't get on with her new partner either.' When the three children turned up at their mother's doorstep Heather was made so unwelcome she left, aged 14, to go and sleep rough on the streets. 'My stepfather did a story with Channel 4 recently and then wrote to me to apologise,' she says. 'He said he needed the money. He was a good actor. He played Henry Higgins.'

I ask if she sees her mother in herself at all.

'I think I am a bit like her as I get older in that she was a psychologist so she counselled people, she was a homeopath at the Royal Marsden. She had a PhD in psychology. When I got my honorary doctorate I wondered a bit what she would have thought. Her boyfriend had told me that I would never get anywhere in life.' She smiles broadly at this idea.

Obviously, she could never have quite imagined how her life would go, but did she have a sense then of where she wanted to be?

'What I wanted when I was 15,' she says, 'was just to get out of Washington, Tyne and Wear. I wanted to earn money so I could get my brother and sister through their education. And I never wanted to have to ask anyone for anything.'

In that desperation, she suggests, she was prepared to try anything. She stole. And she got married young, and wrongly, to a Lebanese businessman who wanted a trophy wife. He introduced her to glamour modelling. The relationship that perhaps kept her going through all of that was with her sister. I say I'm amazed that they can work so closely together.

'We have had one row in 37 years and that was because of the press,' she says. 'We had two libel cases going and something was supposed to go to the lawyers and I was in Rome and Paul was demanding attention: half a million people were turning up to see him and I said to her, "For God's sake, how could you have forgotten to do that?" Then we both burst into tears. We never would let that happen again.'

When she talks about her husband it is with the same matter-of-fact, chirpy normality that he has made his own defence against the strangeness of his world. 'I was devastated for two years when I first met Paul,' she says.

I laugh.

'No,' she insists. 'It was like, I love this man but I want out of this life completely. But then doors started opening. President Putin wanted to have a meeting about land mines. President Putin. And I knew suddenly that was the reason Paul and I had met. Obviously we were in love and there was our daughter and everything, but I knew that was the reason. Paul can open these doors, but he won't have time to do the work. He needs me because I do the work.'

Given her life, I suppose, it's hard not to believe in fate, or fairytales.

'Oh, everything in my life is fate,' she says. 'My mother almost loses a leg [in a car crash] then goes on to help others and then leaves us. I lose a leg at the same age, use it to help others. Then [Princess] Diana appears for eight months. She got involved with land mines around 1997, after I had been doing it for many years. Then we lost her, sadly. Then Paul came along and everyone wants to know about land mines again. How can it not be fate in some way?'

Does that sense translate into a religious faith?

'Nah,' she says. 'I don't have time to follow any religion. But I very much believe that things happen for a purpose.'

Given all her work, it is clearly a great shock to her that she generally gets so bad a press. A recent Sunday Times piece suggested that given her desire for publicity 'the best thing that ever happened to her' was the crash in which she lost her leg, broke her pelvis and punctured her lung. I turned on the TV the other night and heard a comedian I'd never seen before describe her as 'a two-bit Geordie with a wooden leg'. Both her husband and her sister have been moved to make public statements in her defence. Paul, 63, explained, among other things, that she did not make him dye his hair, he was doing that before he met her, and actually she got on pretty well with his kids. Fiona argued that she was just about the best sister anyone could have.

She is quite shaken by the hatred she evokes, though. 'It's jealousy, I suppose,' she says. 'One of the first things Paul did was to tell me to look through the cuttings of what was written about Linda, who had, by any standards, lived a pretty blameless life. I could not believe it. From 1993, when I lost my leg, to when I met Paul I literally never had a bad word written about me. But as soon as I met Paul that all changed overnight. I was totally floored.'

When she talks you often have the sense that she is prone to exaggeration. She claims to have investigated all of the journalists who had written badly about her.

'One of them is in prison now as a paedophile,' she says.

Who was that?

'I can't go into that. It's confidential,' she suggests quickly. 'But if someone writes lies then I will get myself into their lives and see how they feel about it. I am not used to having everything taken out of my control. And when I looked at these people they had done nothing with their lives. One was an alcoholic. One had been divorced three times and was refused access to her kids. So when I realised no one nice had written anything bad about me that was OK. I moved on.'

Does she divide her life into two - before and after the accident?

'Not really,' she says. 'Though I can still see my leg there with blood all round it and my training shoe still on my foot. It was a new trainer so I thought, "Blimey, that's going to take some cleaning up."'

Most of the time when her leg is not hurting she tends to forget and runs down the road like everyone else. She's due for a revision amputation because the muscle tissue has come away from the bone. She will have to spend eight weeks on crutches. 'I can't imagine being eight minutes on crutches with the world I have at the moment, carrying my baby on planes and trains,' she says.

She must be relieved as much as anything to have found Paul, I say. For a long time it looked like she was a sort of runaway bride. Three relationships ended after engagements.

'I'm just a romantic,' she says. 'I always thought, you know, this was the one. Ironically, it was not like that with Paul at all. It was the longest pursuit I have ever had. I'd been very much let down by the boyfriend previous to him - the director Chris Terrill - who was not what he said he was, and I was very much in love with him. In fact, every boyfriend I ever had asked me to marry them. And I was in love with all of them. I've only had seven boyfriends. I meant it each time I said yes.'

How hard was it to step into Linda's place?

She says she has never been a jealous person. 'All my boyfriends have said that. I've always thought that if they want to go off with someone else that's their choice. So all I can do is be the best I can be. When I met Paul and he had had this amazing love with Linda for like 30-odd years, I just thought if I was lucky enough to have any of that love it would be fantastic. Some people don't know how to do it. A lot of people are terrified of being that vulnerable.'

She doesn't feel that by doing her animal welfare work she is turning herself into a copy of her husband's first wife?

'She was a fantastic animal-rights campaigner. She was the kind of person I would admire much more than, say, a Beatle. Yes, they wrote some good songs and got rich, but even while they were doing it sometimes they would admit it was for a swimming pool or to build a bigger house. Linda was not afraid to speak out for what she believed in.'

In that way, she suggests, Paul thinks they are similar. In all other ways she believes they are completely different. One thing she has changed in her husband's life is to stop him smoking pot. 'Him and Linda,' she claims, 'had smoked it every day for the whole of their lives together. But I would not get married to him if he was taking drugs. I hate it. I counselled people on drugs. Fifty per cent of people can smoke joints their entire life and be fine. But the other 50 per cent, if there is a history of depression in their family or in their genes, then they can not smoke marijuana. If I had it I'm sure I would go wacky because we obviously have this history of mental instability in the family. And I could not have him lying to our child about not taking drugs and then going out for a sneaky puff.'

Did he find it hard to give up?

'He says he had a good incentive.'

I wonder if her desire to be clean, and in control, which is perhaps the dominant impression she gives, comes from her nights sleeping under Waterloo Bridge as a teenager. She must have seen a lot of addicts.

'In those days there were lots of camp fires and so on. There were winos and druggy people, I suppose, but even now I'm really crap at spotting anyone who is off their head. I've never taken drugs in my life. One time at Ascot two models ran into the toilets and sniffed some cocaine off the cistern and I was, like, totally shocked. I never drank either until I met Paul. I was drunk yesterday on two glasses of wine at the Christmas party. I'm a very cheap date.'

She laughs, says she has a train to catch: she has to get home to cook supper. 'The thing about me,' she says 'is that I didn't want to get to the end of my life and think I hadn't done all I could, used all my opportunities.'

I don't think there is any danger of that.

The former Beatle icon, 64, fears the award would make him appear a has-been, when he plans to carry on making music for years to come.

A Brits insider says, "We were absolutely stunned.

"Sir Paul felt that if he accepted the gong, people would assume it was the end of his career when he is feeling more creative than ever."

Cars Owned by Elvis, Paul McCartney, Van Halen and Alice Cooper Gather at Barrett-Jackson Auction

The 35th anniversary Barrett-Jackson "World's Greatest Classic Car Event" will auction at no reserve vehicles once or currently owned by some of the greatest rock and roll legends of all time. Each car, including Elvis' personal Lincoln limousine and a 1967 Shelby G.T.500 that was restored by Van Halen front man Sammy Hagar, is available at no reserve during the event from Jan. 14-22.

A special-edition Cadillac CTS Sport owned by Paul and Heather McCartney will also be displayed throughout the weeklong event at WestWorld as a preview for its sale in Palm Beach, Fla., later this year. In addition, a broad group of music superstars will attend the event, which will be televised on SPEED Channel over 33 hours of live coverage.

"We're hosting the greatest collection of music legends and their cars at Barrett-Jackson this year," commented Craig Jackson, president and CEO of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. "From the Bonspeed cars owned by Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar to a customized 1939 Lincoln Zephyr from Alice Cooper, there have never been so many great vehicles from renowned rock stars at a collector car auction. Rounding out this stellar lineup is Bob Seger, who plans to watch Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels perform at our opening night gala. For fans of both rock and cars, this will be a moment in history!"

On display will be a special Cadillac CTS Sport owned by former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather. The car, which will be sold during Barrett-Jackson's Palm Beach event in April 2006, was specifically designed for the McCartneys by GM. Their team had specific instructions that it could not contain any product made from an animal. All the proceeds of the car's sale in Palm Beach will go to Adopt-A-Minefield, which raises money for minefield clearance and survivor assistance in conjunction with the United Nations. Heather McCartney has long been a passionate supporter of the group. Additional information about this cause is available at ß

"We've been honored to host many celebrities over our 35 years and it's a privilege to welcome these fantastic entertainers to our anniversary event," added Jackson. "Having Seger, Cooper, Hagar and Anthony all in one place will be a rare treat, as well as cars from the king of rock and one of the Beatles. Whether it's Mr. McCartney's CTS Sport or Sammy Hagar's G.T.500, each of these vehicles is significant, not only because of its owner, but because of the creativity that inspired them. It will be a loud and fun time when these custom rides cross the block in Scottsdale."

"Onstage, Offstage and Backstage with Paul McCartney"

WHAT: The Photography of Bill Bernstein

WHERE: Morrison Hotel Gallery
1230 Prospect Street
La Jolla, CA
858-551-0835

WHEN: Opening night reception with Bill Bernstein
March 4, 2006 from 6 pm to 9 pm
Exhibit continues through April 2, 2006
11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily - Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

ADMISSION: FREE TO THE PUBLIC

The Morrison Hotel Gallery is proud to present the North American debut of the photography of Bill Bernstein. Bernstein's work documents life on tour with Paul McCartney over the past 15 years, both behind the scenes and during live performances. This premiere exhibit features photographs that are hand signed by both Bernstein and McCartney.

Bill Bernstein is a New York based photographer who has traveled the world for such clients as National Geographic TV, Time Magazine, Paul McCartney and U2, when he served as photographer for the Zoo TV Tour. His photographic career started in the 80's in New York City at the Village Voice. There he began shooting musicians, artists and actors for the arts and politics weekly newspaper. His first assignment was documenting Carlos Santana, backstage and onstage, at New York's Roseland Ballroom.

Bill Bernstein began working with Paul McCartney in 1989 with the Flowers in the Dirt World Tour and has continued photographing him over the years. It was on the 2002-2003 World Tour that he developed the body of work that is included in the book, "Each One Believing" (Chronicle Books November 2004). In the midst of this he was invited to Ireland by the McCartney's to be their personal wedding photographer.

Bill Bernstein says: "The opportunity to photograph McCartney's entire World Tour and to be given such astounding access has been a high point of my career. Rarely is a photographer given such trust and free reign. These photographs are the result of McCartney's generosity and his unique ability to encourage fertile ground for creativity."

Bill Bernstein will be present for the opening night reception on Saturday, March 4, between 6 pm and 9 pm. Admission to the exhibit is free, and the photographs are available for purchase.

January 12, 2005 -- The Sun

Fatboy: I made Macca dog sick

Fatboy Slim has made a shocking confession ­ he once accidentally fed meat sausages to Sir Paul McCartney's vegetarian dog.

The stars are neighbours in Hove near Brighton and Fatboy stretched the friendship when he dumped leftovers from his birthday bash on the nearby beach.

But when Macca's pampered pooch Ollie spotted them he scoffed the lot - then promptly threw up.

DJ Fatboy, who lives with TV star wife Zoe Ball and their son Woody, said: "The worst problem with having Paul as a neighbour is that we put our old food out on the beach for the foxes and he has a vegetarian dog.

"I had a birthday barbecue last year and threw all the old meat out - and his dog went and finished the lot. I felt really bad."

Fatboy also revealed how Macca was like a father to him when his marriage hit the rocks.

He said: "Paul gave me a shoulder to cry on. He told me to get out of the UK until the heat died down.

"That was a bad time as we messed up in public. But it turned out to be a two-month blip in a six-year marriage.

"We've now worked out how to keep ourselves to ourselves and get on with enjoying life."

The revelation that Macca's dog is on a vegetarian diet has raised eyebrows among vets. Animal expert Anthony O'Neill warned: "It's unusual for a dog to be a vegetarian as they are carnivores.

"A dog on a veggie diet could be prone to long-term health risks."

To cheer Ollie up, here are Macca's Top Ten dog songs:

1. Bark In The USSR.

2. Strawberry Fields For Rover.

3. Mutt Of Kintyre.

4. Norwegian Woof.

5. Hound On The Run.

6. With A Little Yelp From My Friends.

7. You've Got To Hide Your Bone Away.

8. Please Pat Me.

9. Hey Food.

10. The Ballad Of John And Fido.

Detroit digs its live music -- and still really loves its classic rock -- so the final concert-biz tallies of 2005 come with few surprises.

Area fans spent $4.73 million on tickets for Paul McCartney's October shows at the Palace of Auburn Hills, turning his two-night stand into Detroit's top-grossing concert event in 2005. Thanks to capacity crowds totaling 35,511, according to data from Pollstar - along with seats topping out at $252 -- the ex-Beatle bested a pair of British peers to grab the top spot.

U2's two-show stint at the Palace in late October rang in at No. 2, snaring $4 million. The Rolling Stones, whose 38-city run was the biggest money-maker in the history of the tour biz, were No. 3 in Detroit, grossing $3.9 million for August's sold-out show at Comerica Park. Hometown homeboy Eminem gets an honorable mention for his own sold-out August date at Comerica, which earned $2.9 million.

While local ticket price data is not available, U.S. concertgoers again endured a few more bucks tacked onto their tickets: Pollstar reports that a seat at the year's top 100 grossing tours averaged $56.88 - a jump of more than $3 from the previous year, even when adjusted for inflation.

Sir Paul McCartney is to launch the Capital of Culture's Liverpool Performs themed year, the Daily Post can reveal.

The singer is heading an exclusive list of star guests invited to the event, which will be held as part of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts' 10th anniversary celebrations at the end of this month.

Singer Joan Armatrading, chart songwriter Guy Chambers, and former OMD frontman and Atomic Kitten svengali Andy McCluskey are expected to attend.

They will be joined by former BBC director general Lord (John) Birt of Liverpool, and Conservative MP Stephen Norris, who attended the Institute with Sir Paul when it was still a school.

The guests will be treated to a gala performance at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, organised by LIPA, which includes footage of the Institute's history, and performances from the current intake of students as well as its alumni.

After recent criticism over the alleged secrecy of the culture team's planning, the event will finally reveal their programme for 2006, which will focus on the arts, sport and business.

Liverpool council leader Warren Bradley said: "We are looking forward to launching the fourth Capital of Culture themed year - Liverpool Performs - at a joint event to mark LIPA's tenth anniversary.

"We are particularly delighted that Sir Paul McCartney will be in attendance. It will be a fantastic way to start a 12-month celebration of the city's outstanding track record in the business, art and sporting worlds."

LIPA invited the culture company to reveal its intentions for Liverpool Performs at the event on January 30.

It was felt that a celebration of the institute's remarkable achievements was the ideal occasion for such a launch.

The fame school currently has more than 1,200 students and is one of the biggest and most respected in the country.

It cost £15.8 million ($28 million) to refurbish, which was raised from a wide variety of backers, including Sir Paul, who gave £1.2 million ($2.1 million) and includes a network of high-technology recording studios, control rooms, dance studios, rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, visual arts and graphic facilities, classrooms, and a learning resource centre.

Joan Armatrading held a concert to support the Institute and has made regular visits since it was opened.

Guy Chambers, an official LIPA companion, Andy McCluskey, Thelma Holt and Nickolas Grace have all held masterclasses in their specialist fields.

Mark Featherstone-Witty, founding principal and chief executive officer of LIPA, said: "There are two themes to the event. We want to show the sound achievements we and the students have made and we want to look at the journey the students take from the first day they arrive.

"The people we have invited back are not just the glittering names, they are the people who have helped us and the people who have become part of our history. This is all about the students."

Sir Paul is currently away on holiday and was last night unavailable for comment.

THE year of 2005 has become history. As is so often the case, the year seems to have rushed by us in a soft blur, leaving us a bit stunned, scratching our heads in collective wonder at how it had slipped through our hands so quickly.

As we stand poised on the crest the new year, we give pause to look back over these last 12 months and on those things that made us laugh, made us cry, put us on the edge of our collective seats, and that thrilled us.

In short, we remember those things that touched us, struck a chord in us, and made us happy. We recall those artists who left a lasting impression, as they entertained us.

When I look back on this year in entertainment, my mind's eye sees images of Paul McCartney threading their way through the projector in my brain. They are images that make me smile when I pull them up from that place where I keep my most treasured memories.

In September, I was a member of a sold-out audience in Boston that watched Paul McCartney take the stage, and effortlessly turn back the clock, if only for an all-too-brief period of time.

After four decades of standing in the harsh glare of the public spotlight, his mass appeal has not faded. The magic is still there in McCartney, and one could feel it in the air when he took the stage.

The atmosphere in Boston's Garden was charged, and it tingled with an excitement that was palpable as McCartney proved once again that he's still rock's most enduring superstar. He is also a tangible proof point of the fact that after all these many years, the Beatle flame still burns brightly.

In Boston, I watched him turn back the hands of time in a performance that left no doubt in anyone's mind that the passing of time has not eroded or diminished his skills and talents in any way, shape or form.

For the years have been kind to McCartney, as at 63 he looks and sounds great, and he still has the energy of a teenager on stage. Rock music's marathon man can still blow the roof off of the concert hall, and he clearly, still loves performing. He still tears into songs with that same intensity and passion as he did all those years ago.

For many among the Boston audience, there were surely a series of faded images of that long-ago night in 1964 when Ed Sullivan first introduced the Beatles to America that were winding their way through the projector in their mind's eye.

As I say, for a few hours he turned back the hands of time. The crowd saw what they paid the price of admission for.

They saw Paul, who is still the charmer. Paul, the "cute" Beatle, and Paul, the ultimate rocker who still has the power to grab an audience by its collective lapels, pull them right out of their seats and shake them up.

He can rock the building to its foundation as he belts out a rough and raw Helter Skelter, and then he can touch our tears with the sweeping beauty of The Long and Winding Road, the haunting allure of For No One, or the stunning visual imagery of Penny Lane.

He's Paul, the most successful singer/songwriter in history. Paul, half of the writing team that created a songbook that took rock music off the streets and out of the back alleys, brought it out into the sunlight and made it an art form.

The portfolio of timeless songs that Lennon and McCartney penned together became the soundtrack to the lives of the generation that was so touched by them.

A generation that still remembers how they followed the Beatles, from their days as a leather jacket-clad Liverpool street band, to command performances before the Queen, to Paul's massive concert in Moscow's Red Square as the guest of the President of Russia.

In the here and now, McCartney really delivered on stage in Boston. From his opening number Magical Mystery Tour, right through to his last song of the evening, he captivated his audience completely serving up a plate-full of wonderful memories.

His songs swept the audience up and took them on a musical odyssey through his long career.

Time and again he brought them to their feet when he sang classic songs from his Beatles days, tunes from his solo career in Wings, and a healthy dose of material from his new CD Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a collection of innovative and fresh new songs that is his best work in many years.

His stage presence and audience rapport are still very much in tact, as he joked with the crowd all night long, in addition to sharing some personal and touching remembrances of John Lennon and George Harrison, and their now fabled childhood in Liverpool.

In the era of an increasingly fickle public whose attention span is steadily shrinking, and where 20-something rock performers are only as good as the song they happen to have on the charts at the moment, few if any artists can boast of McCartney's mind-boggling longevity and staying power.

In the hearts and minds of a generation who, way back when, were searching desperately for a hero after losing their innocence forever in the wake of John Kennedy's assassination, the Beatles came along and filled that gap.

Paul, and his band mates, became heroes of a sort to a generation, and in the process, they also became the kings of their teenage rock 'n' roll dreams.

Perhaps this is what is at the core of why so many people are still drawn to McCartney like a moth to a flame so many years after they first saw him.

For when all is said and done, the reason that the fans are ready and willing to pay the obscene ticket prices is for the opportunity to have that once in a lifetime chance to see Paul sing the Beatles songs once again.

For his enduring presence and his music from that golden period in rock is, in the final analysis, for many, a vehicle back to the serene, uncomplicated long-ago dream world of lost youth.

He offers them a chance to relive those old days and to forget about life for a couple of hours. He can, and does, take them back to a time when life seemed so much easier, when the promises that tomorrow held were infinite, and where middle age was so far away that it didn't even exist in their minds.

To this end, he did not disappoint when he ripped into songs like Back in the USSR, Hey Jude, Band on the Run, and an absolute killer version of Live and Let Die. He took them back there to that place one last time.

As I say, it was a magical evening with a still fresh and viable Paul McCartney. A night that saw half-forgotten memories from long ago and far away dragged out of those dusty corners of the mind and into the sunlight of today.

As he has done throughout his long career, McCartney left his audience on their feet, smiling, happy, and screaming for more.

And as I sat there watching him close out, I was struck by a thought that kept drifting through my mind. Not only is Paul McCartney the most successful singer/songwriter in history, and an enduring musical legend, above all else, Paul remains the keeper of the Beatles flame.

The pain-racked wife of singer Paul McCartney is to have major surgery following complications caused by having a baby. Heather Mills McCartney, 37, has been in constant pain since becoming pregnant with daughter Beatrice, who was born in 2003. The former model lost a leg 12 years ago when she was hit by a police motorbike - and she also had to have a metal plate bolted to her shattered pelvis to hold it in place. It is thought the pregnancy caused the plate to move. Now doctors have told her it must be replaced as soon as she and Sir Paul return from their Christmas holidays on January 17.

Heather will check in to a top London hospital later this month to have state-of-the-art lightweight titanium replacements fitted.

A spokesman for Heather confirmed: "She is booked into hospital to have some remedial work because the baby put pressure on her pelvis when she was pregnant and it has been causing her discomfort ever since. She should not be in hospital for too long but she will need to take quite a few weeks off work after the operation, and Heather is not the sort of person who likes to take things easy."

Heather joined former Beatle Macca, 63, on a US tour last year.

An insider revealed: "She found all the travelling between cities very difficult.

"Paul was really worried about her but she refused to leave him, so they consulted doctors out in the States who advised her to have the surgery as soon as possible."

Charity worker Heather, who has a false leg, campaigns against landmines and the use of fur. She is expected to recuperate at the couple's house in Brighton.

The first public reading of "After Paul McCartney," a new play by Indianapolis playwright David Hoppe, will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Ruschman Art Gallery, 948 N. Alabama St, Indianapolis.

The one-man show, starring Rob Johansen and directed by John Green, is the story of two friends who take off on a picturesque journey to find Paul McCartney to thank him for changing their lives through his art. The event is free. Call (317) 634-3114.

Male Vocal Pop
"Fine Line"

Pop Vocal Album
"Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"

Producer of the Year
Nigel Godrich
for "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"

The 48th Annual GRAMMY Awards will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006 at Staples Center in Los Angeles and broadcast live on CBS from 8 ­ 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT)

Have Sir Paul McCartney and his missus Heather resolved to get back to Merseyside more often in 2006?

If so, they certainly got off to a good start, spending New Year's Day with their daughter Bea taking in some bracing air at Parkgate.

Our Insider spy's jaw dropped when a Mercedes purred to a halt on the front and Macca, Heather and their little girl stepped out.

They proceeded to chat to a visiting couple from Newcastle who Heather, a Geordie lass herself, was particularly pleased to bump into.

A sunny stroll later and they were back in the limo and off - for that hangover fry-up like a bleary-eyed Insider maybe?

This season on Great Performances (PBS - USA)

PAUL MCCARTNEY: CHAOS AND CREATION LIVE AT ABBEY ROAD

In this unique concert, the legendary Paul McCartney returns to Studio 2 at London's Abbey Road Studios, where most of the Beatles' recordings were made, for a fascinating journey through his songwriting career, from his very first Beatles song to the work for his new album, CHAOS AND CREATION IN THE BACKYARD.

Using a selection of vintage instruments from his own collection -- including the bass played by Bill Black on Elvis Presley's original recording of "Heartbreak Hotel" and the Mellotron and mixing console used by the Beatles -- McCartney revisits his back catalogue in new and revealing ways before an intimate studio audience.

McCartney reinterprets old songs and new songs, performs some terrific cover versions, and enlists the audience's help in a demonstration of "in the moment" songwriting and arranging. Among the songs performed are "Blackbird," "Band on the Run," "Lady Madonna," and many others.

The program premieres on Monday, February 27, 2006 (check local listings).

The new Beatles art book, "Beatles Art: Fantastic New Artwork of the Fab Four", is scheduled for release in 2006 by Boxigami Books.

The book is a wonderful compilation of art from artists from all regions of the globe all offering their unique interpretations on the Beatles and their music. Everything from traditional paintings and sculptures to digital work and caricatures makes the book a delight for any Beatle-fan.

The forward to the book is written by Jock Bartley from the US band Firefall, who shares his own thoughts on the Beatles in an open and honest way that genuinely sets the tone for the great art contained in the book. As an artist, musician, and a Beatle fan, Jock brings his own unique perspective to the topic.

The publisher is currently offering "Beatles Art" at a pre-publication rate of only $12.99 US, 50% off the suggested retail price of $24.99 US for a limited time only. All pre-publication orders for the book will be shipped in May 2006.

This book truly captures the spirit of the group from the serious to the silly. It also includes additional statements and comments from select artists on how the Beatles impacted their art, their lives, and the world, which takes the book to a whole different level.

For each book sold, Boxigami Books will donate $1 US to Adopt-A-Minefield, a favorite charity of Heather Mills McCartney and her husband, former-Beatle Paul McCartney.

The "Each One Believing" photo exhibit will travel through the US this year starting on March 4th at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in La Jolla, California. This is the same show that was at the Proud Gallery in London. Photos on exhibit are from the "Each One Believing" book (Chronicle Books).

Prints signed by Paul McCartney and Bill Bernstein will be available for purchase at the show. Bernstein will be on hand for the show's opening.

For more info contact:

Morrison Hotel Gallery
2270 Camino Vida Roble, Suite R
Carlsbad, CA 92011
760-607-1777 phone
760-607-1775 fax

http://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/

It all began on October 12, 1969, when Russ Gibb, a DJ for Detroit's underground station WKNR-FM, received a phone call by a man named "Tom," who claimed that some Beatles records contained hidden clues suggesting that Paul McCartney had actually died.

The evidence for a conspiracy revolved around the theory that Paul had been decapitated in an automobile wreck after he left Abbey Road studios in London, where the Beatles recorded their music. Paul had apparently left upset over an argument with the other Beades, took his Aston Martin sportscar, and perished in a horrible accident that killed him.

This accident supposedly took place at 5 A.M. on November 9, 1966, and was caused by a hitchhiker named Rita who Paul had picked up along the road.

With Paul's death, however, a big problem arose: the Beatles were at the peak of their career and the loss of one of their members would mean the end of the show for them and for the industry behind them. Thus, somebody had the idea of never revealing Paul's death and hiring an impostor in his place, somebody who looked like him and could play music. Some sources claimed that the imposter was an actor named William Campbell, the winner of a Paul McCartney lookalike contest and, conveniently, an orphan from Edinburgh. Of course, it didn't hurt to assume that Campbell could write the same type of songs as McCartney and just happened to have the same voice. John Lennon and Paul McCartney are shown on their arrival at Palam airport, near Delhi, India, on their way to meet with their guru. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Photo by UPPA/ZUMA Press. Copyright 1966 by UPPA [Photo via NewsCom] Abbey Road cover art contains many clues to Paul McCartney's (non)death.

The arrival of an impostor in November 1966, then, could have explained why the Beades stopped touring that same year (it would have been too easy to spot a fake McCartney performance on stage) and started to grow moustaches (the face was almost identical, but not perfect: it needed some disguise).

However, this terrible secret generated in the remaining Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, a strong sense of guilt and induced them to insert many hints and clues to the truth in their songs and album covers.

I Buried Paul

What had revealed the existence of a conspiracy to the mysterious "Tom" was the publication, two weeks before his telephone call, of the Beatles's latest album, titled Abbey Road. The album cover showed the four Beatles walking in a single file across the now-famous crosswalk at Abbey Road. This was thought to symbolize a funeral procession: John Lennon, dressed in white, represented the Church (and white is the traditional color of mourning in many Eastern cultures); Ringo, dressed in black, represented the undertaker. Paul was out of step with the other three Beatles, with his eyes closed and barefoot: in a number of societies, it appears that corpses are buried without their shoes; furthermore, Paul held a cigarette in his right hand, when everybody knew that the real McCartney was lefthanded! George Harrison, last in line, was dressed in work clothes and, to many, represented the gravedigger.

On the street there is also a parked Volkswagen Beetle whose license plate shows an eerie message: "LMW 28IF," interpreted to mean that Paul would have been twenty-eight if he had lived. The fact that Paul was actually twentyseven years old when Abbey Road was released doesn't seem to make much difference, for in far Eastern societies (the Beatles had quite a fascination with the Far East) an individual's birth included the time spent in the mother's womb. In that case, Paul would indeed have been twenty-eight.

These "revelations" quickly launched an unprecedented outbreak of hysteria in the pop world and in the media, as more and more "clues" were found in previous Beatles records.

First of all, the clue-diggers looked at Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the first album that the Beatles recorded after Paul's supposed demise. Released on June 1, 1967, the record was among the most influential in music history. The cover, another famous picture, showed the four Beatles dressed in band uniforms, gathered around a bass drum bearing the album title and with a crowd of cut-out people around them. It proved to be a goldmine for clue-diggers. Again, the spectators resembled the mourners at a funeral and the flowers in front of them not only spelled the word "Beatles," but also a set of yellow hyacinths formed the shape of a left-handed bass guitar, McCartney's instrument.

Paul had a right hand raised above his head: again, supposedly, in certain Far Eastern societies, this was a symbol of death. Also, while the other Beatles held bright, golden, band instruments, Paul held a black clarinet: another supposed symbol of mourning?

A doll wore a striped "Welcome the Rolling Stones" sweatshirt: on her leg there is a small model car, strongly resembling an Aston Martin that seems to be heading towards the word "Stones." Perhaps a hint of the accident?

If you then held a flat mirror perpendicular to the center of the words "Lonely Hearts" appearing on the bass drum this hidden message appeared: "I ONE IX HE O DIE". "I ONE IX" is a direct reference to the supposed fatal crash day (11/9/66), "HE" refers to Paul, as the diamond that points directly to McCartney confirms, "DIE".

In the open album jacket, the Beatles appear still in the Sgt. Pepper's uniforms and McCartney wore an arm patch that read "OPD": an abbreviation for "Officially Pronounced Dead"?

This was also the first album in history that included the lyrics to the songs appearing in the record, and they were published on the back cover, along with a picture of the four Beatles in their outfits. Strangely, Paul is the only one turning his back to the camera, and also strange is the fact that George's thumb points to the opening lines of "She's Leaving Home." The lyric states: "Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins," another reference to the day and time of Paul's fatal accident?

In another song of the album, "A Day in the Life," John sings "He blew his mind out in a car," and in another, "Good Morning, Good Morning," he starts by singing: "Nothing to do to save his life" (and was the title a play on the words "morning" and "mourning"?) And what about "Lovely Rita"? Was the song a reference to the girl that caused Paul's death? Could be, since in it McCartney (or the imposter) sings: "Took her home and nearly made it."

More clues were also found in subsequent albums. The Magical Mystery Tour cover showed the Beatles dressed in animal costumes. In the centre was a black walrus and, in certain Scandinavian countries, a walrus is considered a harbinger of death. Was the imposter dressed in the walrus skin? Apparently not, for John Lennon sings in the album the song titled "I Am the Walrus." But on the album cover, as if scribbled later, the complete title appears to be: "I am the Walrus ('No You're Not!' Said Little Nicola)." So who was the walrus?

In a later Beatles release (titled simply The Beatles, the record became better known as the White Album because the cover was plain white), in a song titled "Glass Onion," Lennon sings: "Well here's another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul"!

On the booklet included in Magical Mystery Tour, the clues abounded: Paul is shoeless in some pictures, is the only one to wear a black flower on his lapel while the others are red, has a hand above his head in various pictures, and he even sits behind a sign stating "I Was."

Near the end of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever," upon careful listening, a faint voice stated something like "I buried Paul."

You could also turn the Magical Mystery Tour album jacket upside-down and look at its reflection in the mirror: the title, detailed as stars, became the digits to a phone number. The rumor further explained that if the numbers were dialed, the listener would get the true details of Paul McCartney's death.

On the White Album, if you listened to a strange murmuring following the song "I'm So Tired," you couldn't make out what it said. But, should you decide to play the record backwards the words became something like: "Paul is dead now, miss him, miss him, miss him." Nothing compared to the chilling revelations of "Revolution No. 9," where, after reversing the song, you could hear a voice saying: "Turn me on dead man," and then the sound of a terrible collision, the sounds of crackling flames and a voice screaming "Let me out! Let me out!" A recreation of Paul's terrible accident?

"My Death? An Exaggeration"

It seems unimaginable that the American public would believe such an unfounded rumor. However, this same generation had been raised on the idea that there may have been a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy and that the Warren Commission had actually worked to hide this fact from the public. Would it be so impossible, then, to believe that Paul McCartney's death may have been hidden from the public?

The rumors became so noisy that Paul McCartney himself had to reassure his fans that he was still alive. In an exclusive interview with Life magazine (November 7, 1969) he stated, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. However, if I was dead, I'm sure I'd be the last to know." He also offered a number of explanations for the mysterious clues.

The OPD patch he wore on Sgt. Pepper's actually meant "Ontario Police Department"; he wore a black flower in Magical Mystery Tour because they had run out of red ones; it was John wearing the walrus outfit and, on Abbey Road, he was barefoot only because it was a hot day.

Other "clues" had similar simpler explanations: John did not say "I buried Paul" at the end of "Strawberry Fields" but, as can be clearly heard now on a clearer take of the song in Anthology 3, he says "cranberry sauce."

However, while it is true that most clues can be easily attributed to coincidence and wishful thinking, there are little things that must have been put there by the Beatles for some purpose, like the various "walrus" claims, the backward messages, and some other hints in the album covers. It may just be, as John Lennon said, that they only wanted to have a laugh at the expense of those critics reading cryptic messages in everything they did.

What is sadly true is the fact that Charles Manson and his "family" also believed that there were hidden messages in Beatles songs hinting at the Armageddon. He thought that the Fab Four were actually angels sent by God to reveal the secrets of the approaching apocalypse and that, in order to start the end of the world, they needed Manson's help. This is the tragically absurd reasoning he gave for the murder of Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski, and the guests she was hosting at their house in Hollywood.

According to R. Gary Patterson, author of the well-researched "The Walrus Was Paul" (New York: Fireside, 1996), "Perhaps the Beatles became concerned that if they admitted to planting clues they could very well be charged in some sort of conspiracy that would indirectly link them to the Manson murders. Perhaps it would be much safer to give up the hoax and deny it ever happened. This way, the Beatles would be safe from any lawsuit implicating the band members."

Perhaps. In a lighter vein, however, the rumor also helped to further boost the sale of the Beatles catalog and inspired a lot of cartoons and comedy skits, like one that was presented on The Ed Sullivan Show on Februrary 23, 1970, involving two angels in heaven:

Angel One: Is there any truth to the rumor that Paul McCartney is still alive?

Angel Two: I doubt it. Where do you think we get those groovy harp arrangements?

Polidoro discusses the myth which Paul McCartney never left the band because he died and then replaced by a lookalike. The evidence for a conspiracy revolved around the theory that McCartney had been decapitated in an automobile wreck after he left Abbey Road studios in London, where the Beatles recorded their music.

MORE CLUES

"Turn Me On Dead Man" (book) and Web page with 'Paul is dead' clues.

Macca Report Archived News Index

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