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

Shout!: "John Lennon was two thirds of the Beatles" is the most infamous claim and the one he had to walk back on most, but while the book is fluently written (that was never Norman's problem), it's the kind of biography where we're told what exactly Brian Epstein felt when seeing John Lennon for the first time (not, you understand, based on Brian Epstein's own comments), and where the Paul bashing is only matched by the George ignoring-or-sneering. (Poor Ringo doesn't even rate a bashing.) And you can tell Norman has not much interest in the musical production side of things, which is, after all, what makes the Beatles important to begin with. It's positive about Yoko which at the time was still relatively rare, but otherwise, I'm struggling to find good things to say. The 2001 reedition preface includes more sneering at George and bashing of Paul, including the claim the only reason why people felt sorry when Linda McCartney died was that the British public had gotten into the habit of mourning blondes with Diana, I kid you not.

...and when George died, he wrote an incredibly mean spirited obituary. This is a plot point.

John Lennon: The Life: Note the "The" Life. Norman didn't make a secret out of the fact he considers all other Lennon biographers inferior to himself. That said, this particular biography included some genuine new material - Aunt Mimi's fling with her student subletter, and famously the passage where either Yoko or Norman-as-narrator (it's phrased a bit ambigiously) says John told her something that made he wonder whether he didn't have certain feelings for Paul. Also, and perhaps not unrelatedly to the fact that while he still refused to meet him, Paul did answer some of Norman's emails, Mr. Norman has changed his mind about the importance of Paul McCartney to the Beatles. Behold, now he's a worthy co-creator! Otoh, Norman still isn't really interested in the creative musical process, and ignores anything not fitting with his idea of John.

Norman's Paul biography: I haven't read it. The novelty of of Norman no longer being anti Paul has already been spent with the Lennon bio, so I was and am not very motivated. Also, I'm still resentful over that tasteless Linda remark.

And now he has written a George biography. And a lengthy article about writing the George biography, in wihch he's absolutely bewildered as to why Olivia Harrison, son Dhani and the fans would hold such a little thing as the absolutely mean spirited George obituary against him. Quoth Norman: I’d hoped that my sympathetic treatment of George in the Lennon, McCartney and Clapton books might persuade Olivia Harrison and their son, Dhani, to co-operate in it. However, the sample of my work drawn to her attention – by a previously friendly executive at the Beatles’ Apple company – was that ill-judged 2001 obituary, given seeming eternal life on the internet along with numerous posts from fans virtually endowing me with horns and a tail. Now there clearly was no possibility of access to Olivia or Dhani.

Firstly, what sympathetic treatment of George in the Lennon book? Secondly, gee, Philip N., why would a woman who has had to watch her husband die of cancer, then opens up a national newspaper and reads you calling said husband "a miserable git", not to mention a couple of other equally mean-spirited things, want to talk to you? Especially since the motivation for you writing a biography of her husband clearly isn't because you cared for his music, thoughts and person during his life time, but because writing abouto the Beatles is still your best paying gig. (Also: Olivia once saved George from a knife attack by attacking the attacker. Maybe Norman is lucky she won't receive him, is what I'm saying. Olivia is hardcore.)

Going from an older fandom to a newer one: this cracked me up to no end. And makes me wonder whether someone will ever be insane enough to write that fusion. (Don't look at me.) And you know, given that Frederick the Great wrote in his obituary (!) of Voltaire, of himself in the third person, "the King wished to possess this genius of such rarity and uniqueness", which is an Annie Wilkes thing to say if ever there was one, the comparison does have its merits. *veg*

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

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

My both Beatles and Inklings interested mind, it boggled. Also, considering their lifetimes overlapped, I wonder what Tolkien & Lewis would have made of the comparison. Anyway, the article writer, one Kevin Jackson, makes a good case for Charles Williams as George, not just because of the fame factor("Williams's considerable, highly ideosyncratic achievement have long since been overshadowed by those of his two world famous Oxford pals, and no doubt always will be", but also because of the minus and plus sides of Williams' character (on the minus side: neglectful husband, obsession with pretty muse figures, given to jealous; on the plus side, inspiring, sometimes even life changing teacher, ardent scholar, one of the great all round autodidacts, and no less a person than W.H. Auden raved about Williams "personal sanctity"; on the neutral side, he was famously a practicing occultist). But where I'm currently stuck is: between Tolkien and Lewis, who gets to be who? Jackson by the order of names seems to be casting Tolkien as John, but Tollers strikes me as not nearly aggressive and quarrelsome for that, not to mention that he loved to work and had endless patience, both very un-Lennonian traits. But on the other hand Lewis also was a workoholic, and certainly once the Narnia novels took off in rapid succession while Tolkien painstakingly labored and was annoyed by both Lewis' shoddy worldbuilding and commercial appeal, you can see some McCartney parallels there. Then again, Joy Gresham works better as Yoko than Edith Tolkien does.

Nah, I can't decide. Anyway, Jackson was probably just thinking of their standing in the group vis a vis that of Williams, I know, but it's still fun to wonder. If they'd been born two generations later and in very different social circumstances, how would Tolkien and Lewis have fared in a rock group?

Aka selenak finally got her hands on the Scorsese documentary. Now I had read (or viewed, given it's mostly a photo collection - a great one, I hasten to add!) the book getting published in tandem with the docu, and liked it, but the reviews for the film were mixed, some approving, some not, and the objections weren't all coming from people not that interested in George H. anyway, so I was filled with some trepidation. All in all? My own reaction, emotionally, was mostly positive, but critically I can see where the worse reviews are coming from.

To start with the most basic: I'm not sure what audience Scorsese was going for. If his aim was to show younger people who aren't even that aware of the Beatles anymore, let alone individual members and their post-Beatles career, who George Harrison was, then he failed in that the film takes a lot of background knowledge for granted. For example, while we're listening to George's first composition, Don't Bother Me, a blonde starts to show up on screen, and a little later Eric Clapton goes on about how "George and Pattie" were Camelot and he, Eric, was Lancelot. By which a hypothetical newbie to the saga may deduce the blonde could be someone named Pattie, but the film doesn't bother introducing the first Mrs. Harrison in any way. No mention of George marrying her, how they met, what she was doing, and not because Martin Scorsese didn't have Pattie Boyd available. He did, and she shows up - to be asked about Eric Clapton. In the second part of the film, once we're in the post Beatles era, Olivia, the second Mrs. Harrison who co produced the film, shows up similarly unintroduced - she's suddenly there in the footage with George, no explanation about how they got together, what her pre-George life consisted of, etc. (Though Olivia gets interviewed about her marriage later and this is a very good segment of the film, I'll get to it.) And while it's probably still realistic for an audience watching a George Harrison documentary to expect that they have at least a rough outline of how the whole Beatles thing went down in their memory, I'm not sure the utter absence of a timeline in the second part of the film (at one point you know it's now 1980 because there's footage of grieving fans in front of the Dakota, but that's it) can be similarly be justified.

(Speaking of what's taken for granted and what's not: I am amused that most people interviewed in this film get a name tag in their first scenes, including George's son Dhani and Eric Clapton - but not Paul and Ringo. Apparantly Scorsese think his audience will still be able to recognize them on sight. He's probably right, though a funny anecdote Eric Idle tells in the film would argue against it.)

If, on the other hand, Scorsese is going for an audience consisting of George and/or Beatles fans, who can be relied upon to have a lot of background knowledge already (i.e. knows who all the key players are, what happened when, etc.), he's not presenting enough new material, or enough critical analysis of the old one. Mind you: I'm all for fannish love declarations. Which this film definitely is. And what good old Marty really does well, and in depth, is delve into George's life long spirituality. Which is no mean feat in a visual medium without coming across as hokey, and he manages it. However, while we hear several friends and Olivia remark on George being a torn personality, between the spiritual and the material, between anger and forgiveness etc., there is all show on the one side and only tell on the other. Meaning: the George who wrote Taxman and to his death was rather resentful of the way the British state got much of his income does not show up. Nor does the George involved in lawsuits. The whole Eric/Pattie saga is told in a way to highlight George's forgiving nature, and he certainly was remarkably grudge-free there, but the only vague hint that George and Pattie had problems predating Eric C. casting himself as Lancelot is Paul making a typically circumventious Paulish statement about George being a red-blooded male and can we not go into that. When Olivia Harrison in the second part talks about her own marriage to George, she's a bit more direct, as in "he liked women, and women liked him, and I'm not the only person who had to deal with this", and while I certainly can understand Scorsese considering George's songs to be more important than George's inability to manage monogamy, I also think it's a bit unfair not to balance the whole Eric/Pattie tale with a) the fact George had been unfaithful to Pattie for years before that and b) this included an affair with Ringo's wife Maureen. (Not to mention c) George's complete emotional withdrawal post India.)

But then, Martin Scorsese is a firm believer of "de mortuis nihil nisi bonum" in this documentary in general, and never mind George/Pattie and George/Olivia, he obviously ships George/John. :) To the point where there isn't even a hint that these two ever had a single argumentative word between them. On the plus side, this shipperness of Scorsese's means we get some footage of a younger John in Buddy Holly glasses, which I don't think I've seen anywhere else before, hanging on a cliff (of course he does), which is rather endearing, and John playing mostly silent moral support when George gets grilled about his spiritual views on a tv show in later 1967 or so, which I also haven't seen before, and which contains George giving a great reply to a smug audience member, and the sweet and touching descriptions of Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voorman of how supportive George was to John when John was grieving for Stuart Sutcliffe. On the minus side, hearing Yoko tell how John supported Something being released as a single and was so supportive of George in general leaves you - or rather, me - feeling I've slipped into an alternate reality, because in the universe with those pesky books I've read come from, John couldn't be bothered to show up for recording While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the White Album (despite the fact George was there for him during Revolution Number 9 on the same album), John thought Only A Northern Song was such crap he refused to play or sing on it and wandered about the studio while Paul and George did take after take after take, John was openly scornful of I Me Mine in January 1969 when they recorded it the first time and couldn't be bothered to participate when they re-recorded it in January 1970 (the last time the other three recorded together as the Beatles before the group's official dissolution) because the sound quality of the original recording was too bad. Then there was John not showing up for the Bangladesh concert at all because George refused to let Yoko on the stage, and calling Bangladesh "ca-ca", John not showing up in Madison Square Garden in 1974 at George's concert despite an earlier promise to help (George's voice was shot at this point and he was getting the worst reviews of his career) by participating, to say nothing of such gems from the 1980 comeback interviews as "George wasn't in the same league as me and Paul" and "Paul and I always wrote both sides. That wasn't because we were keeping [George] out but simply because his material was not up to scratch", or "I think George still bears resentment toward me for being a daddy who left home". This evidentlly all did not happen in Scorsese land, which is why the depiction of the Harrison and Lennon relationship came across as far more dishonest than the depiction of the Harrison and McCartney one, because there we did get the open acknowledgment that yes, they argued. (Paul gives a description of their Hey Jude rehearsal argument, and later we get a clip from the Documentary Of Doom, aka Let it Be, where the "I can hear myself annoying you" (Paul) and "Look, I'll play whatever you want me to play, or I won't play it all, whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it!" (George) argument got on film, in balance of the affectionate stories that are there as well (for example one that was new to me, about George's contribution to Paul's And I love her, and the emphasis on how it was the four of them who made the Beatles). Whereas there is only one hint in Scorsese's film that maybe it wasn't all sunshine and roses between George and John all the time, and that's only if you pay close attention: when Eric Clapton gets asked whether he heard about John's reaction when George walked out of the Let it Be sessions, which was that if George doesn't come back, "we'll get Clapton", and whether if they actually had offered, he'd have said yes. This, btw, is something I've been very curious about, too, so thanks for asking, Marty. Eric C., as it turns out, has heard about John's reaction but does not give a direct reply; instead, he goes into musings about what it means to play in a group versus what it means to play as a solo artist. (Given he's commendably honest in the same documentary in other interview segments about envying George the whole Camelotian Beatles status, not just the Pattie part of it, and admits he longed to have all that George did, I rather doubt he'd have been loyal and declared he'd never take George's place. Mind you, given that Paul's reaction to John's reaction was no, no way, and also, no, only the Beatles are the Beatles, it was never up to debate.)

(Footnote: I should add in fairness that John was supportive of George's songwriting in its very early stages, helping him with his first songs up to Taxman, and that I always found it telling that when George had his mid-70s meltdown as described by May Pang in which he yelled at John "I always did everything you wanted, but when were you ever there for me?", John held still and didn't argue back, instead hearing George out, which was atypical to John's usual reactions when someone was angry at him. But his behaviour in the later stages of the Beatles and the year immediately afterwards, and then the turnaround after Bangladesh was such that it's hard not to conclude in those years he primarily saw George as a divorce weapon and dropped him when George made it clear that siding with dad against mum didn't mean he liked stepmum one bit.)

Something else from Beatles years that gets left out to avoid unpleasantness despite the fact it had a really huge impact on George's subsequent solo career is the vexed manager question. To recapitulate, because you won't find it in Scorsese's film: the argument that drove the nail into the coffin as far as the Beatles as a group was concerned was about who should manage them, given that the attempt to manage themselves (see also: Apple) had gone horribly wrong and was rapidly making them broke, world's most popular group or not. The candidates were Lee Eastman (and his son John) on the one hand, who were (and John Eastman still is) lawyers specializing in the music publishing industry, and were suggested by, you guessed it, Paul who was dating and then marrying Linda Eastman at the time. Which was what doomed them as candidates in the eyes of the other three (alas for the other three, the Eastmans turned out to be very good indeed, proceeding to make Paul McCartney one of the richest men in the music industry - John Eastman still manages him). On the other hand, there was Allen Klein, who was at that point also highly successful (he'd managed to get the Rolling Stones a legendary deal with Capitol; he'd also managed to get the entire 60s catalogue of the Rolling Stones' song rights, but that didn't come up until later, and remained that way until his death), really good at selling himself as a man of the street versus Eastman the establishment embodiment (never mind that they were both self-made men who had done the proverbial rags to riches American success story) and was backed by first John, then also George and Ringo. Choosing Allen Klein as his manager (which he remained post-Beatles) turned out to have fatal consequences for George in particular, because not only did Klein handle the profits of the Bangladesh Concert, the world's first charity event of that type, dishonestly, but after the subsequent fallout with George (which resulted in George sueing him) he also secretly aquired the rights of The Chiffon's hit "He's So Fine", which was the very song George was involved in a lawsuit about; he was accused of having plagiarized it for his own song My Sweet Lord. He then became the chief claimant against George. The Bright Tunes Music versus Harrisongs Music lawsuit lasted a decade. In 1976, a U.S. district court decision found that George had "subconsciously" copied the earlier song. In 1981, the court decided the damages amounted to $1,599,987 but that due to Klein's duplicity in the case, Harrison would only have to pay Klein $587,000 for the rights to "He's So Fine"—the amount Klein had paid Bright Tunes for the song.

Now given that My Sweet Lord is one of George's biggest solo hits, Scorsese's film understandably features it extensively, and the whole lawsuit inspired another (hilarious) George song named This Song (alas, the satire side of George isn't heavily featured in this film, either), you'd think Martin Scorsese would have to mention the suit, and Allen Klein, at some point. But no. This, too, apparantly did not happen in the Scorseseverse.

On the other hand, Phil Spector happened. Every time he got interviewed I got distracted by thinking "aren't you supposed to be in prison for murdering a woman?" (He's filmed in front of a white piano and wearing a suit; maybe they got him out for a weekend and/or decorated the visitation room.) Considering he produced George's early 70s successes, I can see why he's important, but still: Spector gives me the creeps, and I wish he wasn't in this film.

On to praise again. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam telling the tale of how George came to finance Life of Brian wasn't new to me, but it never gets old, and it came with a short clip of the John Cleese and Michael Palin versus Malcom Muggeridge tv debate recently re-inacted in Holy Flying Circus, and I must say, it was eerie how well the reinactment had been compared to this look at the original. Also Terry Gilliam adding that George only once came to a Monty Python meaning, heard them all arguing, no holds bared, about the cut, turned pale, had deja vu and never came to a meeting again ("George always said that the spirit of the Beatles had passed to Monty Python, but I don't think he meant for us to get the divisive part of the spirit as well") was priceless, as was Eric Idle's story of how when they were shooting the Rutles at Abbey Road they were pursued by eager Beatles fans who wanted autographs and were completely ignoring actual Beatle George, who was "standing by and laughing his ass off"). Given that Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa was one of the films Handmade Film produced, I wish Scorsese had interviewed him as well, but you can't have everything, and Monty Python were certainly the most important of the people George produced.

Another old story that nonetheless is fun to hear again (and a bit messed up) : Ringo mentioning that during the touring years when their world was reduced to hotel rooms and limousines anyway all four of them, when having a suite in the New York plaza at their disposal, ended up in the bathroom together for comfort and because they were the only reality left. (Ringo in general is in terrific form through the film for quotes and stories. Another case in point is a later remark. "Paul is the reason why we made as many records as we did. The rest of us had moved out to Surrey at that point and were just sitting out in the sunshine, you know, relaxing, and then the phone rang and it was always him, wanting to work!" It's the tone that makes the remark, affectionate rather than scolding about the group workoholic.) And in a bizarre makes-me-want-to-slap-him-yet-is-amazingly-revealing-and-brutally-honest-with-himself way, anything Eric Clapton says, but especially the statement about how other than a passion for music, he and George "shared a taste for clothes, cars and women, obviously"; the order tells you all about the sexism and the status of Pattie (after the clothes and cars) as an object, at least for Eric and arguably also for George.

Letting Dhani Harrison read excerpts from his father's letters was eerie, because they look and sound very much alike, but the accent isn't the same. Olivia Harrison came across as gracious throughout, and her description of the incident where a crazy fan broke into their home, stabbed George and was knocked out by her was harrowing. (Scorsese shows a photo of the intruder afterwards, showing a black eye and a bloody skull; go, Olivia!) As far as her own marriage to George was concerned, I felt she said all that was necessary (about her marriage), making it clear that they had their ups and downs and yes, he cheated on her (aka "he liked women and women liked him"), but that their bond to each other survived it. (Aka "You know what the secret of a successful marriage is? Don't get divorced.") The description of how they went to travel after the crazy knife stabber incident, aware of George's cancer diagnosis and hence approaching death and talking about what they had been to each other was very touching. The undisputed winner for greatest tear jerker moment, however, is Ringo with his description of his last visit to George which happened while his daughter Lee simultanously had a brain tumor, and how George who was dying offered to come with him for support. Scorsese, knowing he couldn't offer anything to top this, wisely ends the film there, and if you're not gulping and at least mentally reaching for your kleenex at that point, all hope is lost.

In conclusion: it's an open love letter and as such endearing; as a documentary, it could be better.

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



Oh, and something else. Should you happen to be in Los Angeles in the midst of September and by any chance interested in a) the emigrés and exiles of the 30s and 40s, b) German-Jewish writers, c) historical novelists or all of the above, check out this conference. A lot of the presentations are in English as well as in German, so even if you don't know any German, you could come to some that intrigue you. Also? The Feuchtwanger library is my favourite library in the world. And not just because one of the librarians there told me about the possibility of getting a scholarship to stay in Pacific Palisades at Feuchtwanger's old house for three months, which I subsequently did, but because of all the manuscripts and letters they have there. Once you discover such gems as a letter from Chaplin after he got barred from returning to the US to Feuchtwanger, or were allowed to open an unread letter to Heinrich Mann by his youngest brother Victor (unread because poor Heinrich died first) for the first time, finding in it old Mann family photgraphers Vicco wanted to share, you're just spoiled for all the other libraries. :)

Daily annoyance for this long-suffering Beatles fan:

1) Coming across a fanboy who interprets the lyrics from Here Today as an attack on John. Quoth the fanboy: "Didn't understand a thing - Paul is saying John was daft". Head. Desk. (The verse in question goes - "What about the time we met? Well, I suppose that you could say that we were playing hard to get. Didn't understand a thing, but we could always sing." You don't have to be a literature major to notice the "we" in that sentence. And you have to be really, really dumb not to feel the searing grief and love in that particular song.)

2) Reading Philipp Norman's obituary for George Harrison. And here I thought Robert Christgau is the winner for the most tasteless obituary for a former Beatle. (Because of the "why is it always Kennedy and John Lennon, why never Nixon or Paul McCartney!" statement.) But Philipp N. tries to compete. How he ever became known as a Beatles expert is beyond me, because he's never made a secret of being interested in only one of the four, John. (Which is why of all of Norman's Beatle-related writings I prefer his John biography - it doesn't pretend to be about anyone else, and paradoxically he's far more fair and even-minded towards the others in that one than he is in Shout!.) And whoever gave him the job of writing George's obituary hopefully was fired, because it's incredibly spiteful. Which was a bit of a surprise - I was aware that until the John bio Norman was anti-Paul - Shout! is dripping with contempt and bile in that regard, which makes his disingenious "how could people ever assume I hate Paul?" in the afterword to "Lennon: The Life" quaintly amusing - but I hadn't known he also had it in for George to that degree, though I knew he wasn't exactly a fan. But really, imagine: George just died from lung cancer, you open the paper, and you read stuff like this: "I first saw Harrison backstage at a Beatles concert in Newcastle upon Tyne at the height of Beatlemania, back in 1965. Lennon, McCartney and Ringo Starr were immediately friendly and forthcoming, McCartney even handing his violin bass guitar to me to try. Only Harrison stayed in the background, his pale face cupped in a black polo-neck. I thought at the time that he looked a bit of a miserable git, but I did not dream how right I was. Harrison's misanthropy was as well hidden as McCartney's two-facedness and Lennon's general disgust with the whole Beatlemania experience." Which sets the tone.
He's not keen on George's solo music ("He began to alienate concert audiences by his self-importance and heavy-handed attempts at lecturing and preaching"), and while you could argue that fine, this is all Norman's personal impression and opinion of George as a man and a musician, though calling a man who organized the first big charity concert and who specialized in discovering and producing other artists a misanthrope really demands a new definition of the word), he then goes beneath the belt even when forced to write something positive about George's second marriage: His greatest asset proved to be his marriage to Olivia, not a rock star’s cipher wife but a woman of character and compassion who became deeply involved in charity work to help orphans in Romania. The marriage, clearly, was not all roses. A few years back a Los Angeles prostitute known only as Tiffany identified Harrison as one of her clients, alleging that while a sexual service was performed for him he was playing his ukulele and singing a George Formby song. Because that's really what you need to include in a Sunday Times obituary most likely read by the "woman of character and compassion" and her son. (Note: in a George biography, I can see the point of mentioning marital infidelities. But not in an obituary published as soon as the man breathed his last breath, and definitely not in such detail. No wonder Olivia has such a low opinion on Beatle biographers.)

So does he have any use for the deceased at all, during Beatles times or later? It's not like our Philipp N. has any preferences there, no. "He was as essential to the Fab Four formula as John Lennon's rebellious smile or Paul McCartney's great cow eyes. Beatles fans who screamed for George were a curious but dedicated minority, like those who pick the green ones in packets of wine gums." (Inability to resist taking another swipe at the cow-eyed one at the same time is noted, Norman.) How about the Concert for Bangladesh and that stunning debut triple album, All Things Must Pass? "One tribute last week called him "a great humanitarian"; if that was putting it rather strong, the Concert for Bangladesh undoubtedly gave rock its first inkling of social conscience, paving the way for Live Aid and similar events in the 1980s. Passing time, however, revealed the awful truth. All Things Must Pass consisted of songs that Harrison had written while still in the Beatles and for which there had never been room on their albums. Without Lennon and McCartney to stimulate as well as frustrate him, he would never produce such quality material again."

Actually I agree that if you'd do a best of Harrison list, his written during Beatles times but released in the early 70s songs would come out on top. But he wrote some good songs afterwards, too, and I loved what he did with the Travelling Wilburies. Still, it's the overall context that makes this musical judgment of Philipp Norman's just one more attack. As for the view of George as non-stop bitter man, that's not one you get when reading Michael Palin's diaries, who knew George as a generous patron, nor is it verified by something that Norman himself mentions though curiously without seeing how that contradicts his earlier assessment - his lack of vengefulness and complete acceptance of the Eric Clapton and Pattie situation. Norman is also very selective with his quotes when presenting George as unrelentingly hostile towards Paul post-break up. (Something that also gives him the opportunity to call Paul a hypocrite for the "he was my baby brother and I loved him" statement.) Yes, he took some shots over the years, and they could be nasty. ("Music for 14 years olds" and "Paul ruined me as a guitarist" come to mind, and of course the playing lead guitar in "How do you sleep?" . But he also was there in times of distress (after the pot bust in Japan plus nine days in prison disaster, and when one of the surviving Beatles had to testify at a hearing involving the Star Club tapes, George went because this was directly after Linda McCartney's death and Paul was in no condition to), and they shared times of joy as well; just as Paul went to some of George's concerts, George went to some of Paul's. He was the only one of the other three to acknowledge in public that Paul had been right about Allen Klein (and the original lawsuit) even though all of the other three sued Klein in the 70s. Though his own contract with Northern Songs ended in 1967 and his later songs were not published there anymore, he nonetheless went on the mat for John and Paul at the very height of his resentment against them, in the spring of 1969. (They were both on their honeymoon and thus abroad when Dick James let it slip that he had sold Northern Songs, i.e. the entire Lennon/McCartney catalogue plus any songs John and Paul would write until 1973, which was when their own contract would run out, and George, again despite the fact this was the very moment in the Beatles saga where his hostility against them brimmed over in public arguments, went to James to try and stop this, replying to James' attempts that did didn't matter with "it matters a great deal to John and Paul!")

And in his 2001 chat he shoots attempts to bait him down with these lovely replies:

a_t_m98 asks: Mr. Harrison.. what is the opening chord you used for "A Hard Days Night"?
george_harrison_live: It is F with a G on top (on the 12-string)
george_harrison_live: But you'll have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper story.
spongeweed70508 asks: Does Paul still piss you off (tell us the truth)
george_harrison_live: Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass -- You know his faults -- Then let his foibles pass.
george_harrison_live: Old Victorian Proverb.
george_harrison_live: I'm sure there's enough about me that pisses him off, but I think we have now grown old enough to realize
george_harrison_live: that we're both pretty damn cute!

That was a Yahoo chat; he then did an MSN one where the moderator actually asked him "is it true that you got into the Beatles because you could play the whole of Twenty Flight Rock?" (Head. Desk.) To which George, unfazed, replied: "Actually, that was Paul, but I can play it, too."

In the Anthology which was made in the mid-90s, you can see both the occasional tense moment and shared laughter, plus George remembers how to play a song Paul started to write as a teenager and didn't even finish ("Thinking of Linking"), which btw also proves remarkable musical memory (presumably he last played that little unfinished ditty in the 50s!). It always struck me as a very sibling-esque relationship, with the very thing that annoyed George (being regarded as the little brother) also the thing that kept them returning to each other (because the "brother" part was as true as the "little"). Because of George's long illness, as opposed to John's sudden death, they had plenty of time to say goodbye; in fact George died in a house that used to belong to Paul, and they saw each other two weeks before George's death, when, according to the doctor, "Paul sat down next to him and, taking hold of George's hands, started rubbing them gently", and stayed the entire day, with George in a good mood, talking about Hamburg, losing his virginity, all the old times. So for Norman to claim George died bitterly feuding with Paul simply isn't true.

Not that Philipp Norman is that firm with the facts in this obituary anyway. After chastizing George for his immediate reaction to John's death (" like McCartney he was unable to comment on it at the time with more than inappropriate 1960s flipness"), he then goes on to write grudgingly "Of the surviving Beatles he was the only one to record a tribute song, All Those Years Ago, sung at the anomalously cheerful tempo of a Scouts' campfire chorus". Err, Philipp N., first of all, can't see the similarity between All Those Years Ago and "a Scout's campfire chorus", and secondly, how was George the only Beatle to record a John tribute song? Whom do you think Paul's "Here Today" is about, some other guy whom Paul wrote songs with and who died? (As for Ringo, he plays on George's song and on Paul's entire Tug of War album from which Here Today hails.)

You know, I reallly, really hope they won't let Philipp Norman write the Paul and Ringo obituaries as well. But given the practice of newspapers to order obituaries years ahead of time, I'm afraid they might have already.

...you know what helps to get over annoyance with stupid fanboys (be they journalists or not) ? Other than ranting which is what I just did now. :) Re-read old Beatles press conferences in which they pwn stupid journalists.

13th August 1965 in New York City

Q: Is matrimony in the immediate future for the two unmarried members of the group?
Paul: Uh, matrimony is not in the immediate future.
George: Paul won't have me.
Q: I noticed the two married men are sitting together, and the two single boys are sitting together.
John: That's 'cause we're queer.
Ringo: But don't tell anybody, will you? It's a secret.


29th August 1965 in Los Angeles:

Q: This is a double-barreled question directed at both George and Paul, who are the two remaining...
George: We're not getting married, no. He still refuses to say yes.
Q: You're both the only bachelors, and you're not gonna give us any indication of what your matrimonial plans might be?
George: Well, soon we're gonna just get an answering service for that question.
Paul: We're both queer anyway, you know. How often do we have to tell you? Write that one in your magazines!

(Yes, the "we're gay" thing is repetitive, but so is the "are you getting married?" question.) Also fun to sweep annoyance away: cover versions by other legends. Paul always said the biggest compliment the Beatles ever received by a fellow musician was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band being released on a Friday and Jimi Hendrix, on tour in London, opening with the title song the same Sunday. Here's Jimi Hendrix covering the Beatles (observe that warning at the start!), and below Paul telling his Jimi story, guest-starring Eric Clapton: