Montagu Mews West: Nel unt Mal action.

The area around Montagu Square saw a great deal of the aforementioned "action", no more so than in the mid-60s, when Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans shared a terraced house in one of the mews behind said Square, at number 16.
Them Fabs were photographed here on 1st December 1965, supposedly "rehearsing" for their forthcoming (and final) British tour. A likely story.
Still, the house has seen no major renovation since then; note the fireplace:

John and George were captured on the other side of this room, beside the staircase:

Said staircase:

Heading up said staircase, one comes to what would have been Neil's bedroom (or Mal's):

And up another floor to what would have been Mal's bedroom (or Neil's):

They weren't here long, but while they were here, this is where they were. Or something.

Luggala: Tara Browne.

Twenty eight miles south-west of Dublin lies Luggala, site of the Guinness Estate, and last resting place of Tara Browne (about whom, readahs need no etc.). His grave is one of three situated on the shore of Lough Tay, next to a structure known as the Temple:

Tara's brother, Garech Browne, still lives on the estate, in the house which served as the venue for Tara's 21st birthday party, a bash apparently attended by Macca, amongst others.
Here 'tis, the house, the graves, Garech, another bash, and some magikal goings on:



Thanks to Julian Carr.

Errr...: Errr...

Halloween hoves into view once more, does it not, and thus, at this spookiest time o' the year, there is no better time to unveil the following jibber-jabber. So draw the curtains, put another (oh get on with it, for f*ck's sake)...
The Beatles, as any fule no, spawned (and occasionally did their best to encourage) a ludicrous amount of over-interpretation. In this regard, precisely what the proportion of accident to design was in their latter oeuvre remains a matter of conjecture; but there is little doubt that at least some of the time they chucked material in purely to see what sort of ridiculous response they'd get from lumpen "fannage"/critical mass. Ian Macdonald, one of the latter, regarded this as a very bad thing, tending to see it as tantamount to lighting fuses that trailed off into darkness with unforseeable consequences (viz, for example, certain alleged aspects of Mansonism, etc.).
Well, perhaps. That period of popular culture was, for many reasons, wide open to symbolism, real or imagined, and it's certain that whatever the Beatles did would have been scrutinised for "meaning". So they couldn't really win.
What's also certain is that the scamps were still up to their old tricks (if that they be) on Free As A Bird. Lizzie Bravo recently sent a link to a little seen interview with Macca, circa Anthology, in which, tongue firmly in cheek, he points out that the backwards message towards the end of "Burd" can be "interpreted" as John saying "Ha ha - made for John Lennon", and thus expressing post-mortem approval for the whole project. Palpable nonsense.
At which point, as chance would have it, an odd blue flare rises on camera:

The director stops proceedings, and Paul laughs, as you would, joking to the effect that this is John once again making his presence felt.
Yet should ye choose to freeze the interview, and zoom in on the bottom left hand corner, you might "see" something a little odd:

This, it doesn't need to be said, is akin to seeing Ringo's fizzog in a potato, and is drivel, though perhaps amusing, at a push slightly uncanny, but undoubtedly typical, in its way, of Beatle-ish accident... or design.
And I'm sure there are better things I could be doing with my evening.
(Should ye wish to see the interview, it can be viewed HERE. And thanks, as ever, to Lizzie for the original link.)

EMI Studios canteen: 24th June, 1967.

On June 24, 1967 (a Saturday, fact fans), ver lads assembled before the equally assembled press in order to proclaim the "message" du jour, via the medium of...errr...sandwich board: Love Is You Need (errr..someone clearly hasn't thought this through).
Thus manfully boarded did they strut, both in studio 1, where preparations for the following day's Our World broadcast continued apace, and just outside.
A Beatle eye view of the grunters:

At some point, they de-sandwiched and headed downstairs to the canteen; here are 3 lesser seen photos (lesser seen by me, at any rate):

  

Hard evidence of tea drinking:

 

 

This, possibly, the high water mark of their cultural reach and group gestalt (not the tea drinking in the canteen, but Our World), just post-Pepper, Brian still alive, and the four seeming very together, for the time being, at least:

 

 

 

To change the subject, the new Blogger interface is bloody awful. Anyone know how to get the old one back (or even how to manage the new one)?