Vivian Stanshall was the strikingly eccentric ringleader of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, often described as the UK’s version of the Mothers of Invention. Affecting the manner of an aristocrat, Viv actually hailed from London’s East End, and his kindred spirits were Keith Moon and Paul McCartney, who produced the closest thing the Bonzos had to a hit single. Gary Lucas, former manager of Captain Beefheart and member of his Magic Band, had some memorable encounters with Vivian Stanshall, whom he compares favorably with Don Van Vliet. He tells the tale for PKM.
Stop me if you think I’m getting too melodramatic about the death of the iPod: a crash on a lonely road, the emergency services have managed to cut me free but too late, it seems, and the paramedic, while searching for the possibility of a kidney donor card, finds the jukebox in my pocket, one of 450 million sold, brilliant engineering, gorgeous design.
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Prime Minister Boris Johnson should sack any civil servants refusing to return to the office and replace them with highly educated people in Mumbai.