After nearly three months of an Israeli blockade, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a UN World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday. Initial reports from the WFP indicated that two people had died and several others had been hurt during the incident.
Legendary The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who wrote the 1960s rock anthem I Hope I Die Before I Get Old, has just turned 80 – but says he feels like a new man.
Or at least part of him does. “That song wasn’t a state of mind – it was a threat!” he laughs. “I don’t feel old – I just got a new knee.” And Townshend reveals that although he’s not planning to retire just yet, he admits that The Who’s days of going on the road are numbered.
One of the best and loudest bands in rock history, The Song Is Over, has announced its farewell US tour this summer, appropriately titled, The Song Is Over, after 58 years of being the first to tour America. “Whether it’s the end of The Who…”? Townsend pauses before saying, “It’s undoubtedly the end of our American tour. I inquired to Roger if his tour of Europe was over, and he responded, “No.” We’ll have to wait and see'”.
Townsend, a journalist for Radio 4’s My Cultural Life, discusses the dark years of his life that gave him his wild man of the rock persona, which included playing guitars on stage and destroying hotel rooms, but claims even at the age of 80 has an edge.
“I feel like a diamond with a flaw. He reveals that he is a dangerous f***er. I favored rock and roll as a philosophy. But when I started exploring my inner darkness on stage, my stage persona – smashing guitars and turning it all up – I was very detached and I didn’t enjoy doing it”.
He also acknowledges that Roger Daltry, his 81-year-old bandmate, and he now realize that their relationship has changed. The “need has changed,” he claims, noting that “Roger has previously said that we would continue touring until we drop dead.” “It was always me who said that, ‘ I reserve the right to stop, ‘ and I have stopped twice – once for 11 years when I worked with Faber and Faber as a book editor.
So I always assumed Roger was in charge of the cards, but I believe Roger is now in charge. Townsend wrote the rock group’s massive teenage anthems My Generation, Substitute, and I Can See For Miles despite Daltry founding the band in 1964 when the pair met at Ealing Art College.
He admits his co-founder thinks he’s pretentious when he says The Who was an art project for him as much as a pop band”. The other three members didn’t (feel that way), “says the father-of-three,” which was challenging. He would spend the majority of his time laughing if he and I were sitting together and discussing My Cultural Life at the time.
Townsend intended to pursue an artistic career, but Daltry persuaded him to join The Detours, which later became The Who. Even today, Roger still thinks it was his band. He had been expelled and came back and asked me to be in his band.
“And that’s true, and I’m grateful,” according to the statement made by the composer of the song “I Can’t Explain.” Townsend kept his pastime a secret while the band played weddings and pubs.
“I wasn’t serious about being in a band”, he admits. Roger was the lead guitarist, but he wasn’t a particularly talented player. I strummed and had a big nose while being gawky.
” But we had a good looking lead singer who the girls liked and we became quite successful. Townsend, a young, confused musician, even predicted its demise because he was so sure he didn’t want to play a band.
The Who are a band who are chopping away at their own legs is a manifesto I wrote myself. Then one day I’m driving home in my mum’s yellow van and heard my song, I Can’t Explain, come on the radio, and I thought, “My manifesto! I’m not interested in playing in a rock band. No, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing this. But wow – people are listening to this'”.
By the time Daltry was lead vocalist, Keith Moon and John Entwistle had already joined the band, and Townsend and Townsend had just released their 1969 rock opera album Tommy, which received a lot of critical and commercial praise. However, Keith Moon passed away in 1978 at the age of 31 from an accidental overdose of the alcohol medication Hemineverin.
Then in 2002, bass player John Entwistle’s dodgy ticker gave out after the 57-year-old took cocaine in a Las Vegas hotel room. Because we’ve been missing two members for a long time, Townsend calls The Who a “clumsy machine.” “Roger and I depend a lot on one another.” We’re getting old and we have different needs.
I would be honored if Roger wanted to perform MY music, if I could put it this way. We’re just accepting our current circumstances, not that there’s going to be an argument.
And he adds, “We’ve never agreed on very much, but that’s not to suggest there’s a war on, because there isn’t”. Townsend claims that the negative aspects of his personality were brought on by the age that have finally cooled the previous animosity between him and Daltry.
In 1999, he claimed the website contained images of child abuse, which he claimed was his autobiography. He was immediately given a formal warning. Born into a musical family right at the end of the war, Townsend first went out on the road with his musician parents aged just 13 months old.
He recalls that they were very well-known swing dance bands. Beer bottles being distributed among band members on the tour bus is one of my favorite memories.
I had done it so many times with my dad when The Who first started playing in the UK. I knew where I went. However, when his mother went on a tour and sent him to live with his grandmother in Margate, his happy childhood abruptly came to an end.
” Why my mother sent me to my grandmother who had abandoned her when she was seven, I don’t know, but I left my friends and school behind in Acton, “he says sadly.
I kind of remember everything because it was just awful and I didn’t remember a lot of it. She constantly fought with me, and she was cruel, abusive, and surrounded by incredibly wealthy men who constantly hampered me. It was a really shitty time and in the end somebody reported my grandmother for abusive behaviour.
He describes returning to his Acton, West London, home and saying, “My parents saved me; they saved me; they eventually got back together; and I eventually had two brothers. That is when my childhood began, as far as I remember.
Despite his father being a musician, Townsend says he didn’t encourage his son to join a band at school. He admits that “my father didn’t believe I had any musicality.” “My mother was very encouraging,” she said. When our band started, she lugged our kit around, helped us get gigs”.
The rock legend has been sober for 40 years, despite having battled depression and substance abuse his entire life. He ponders whether my parents were aware that I had been damaged because I’ve committed all kinds of wrongdoing and addiction.
And explains how his 1965 hit My Generation was about him pushing back against his dad. He explains, “I drew the line with My Generation.” After the war, Dad’s music was his generation’s love and romance. We didn’t have that reason for being – we needed to reinvent ourselves. Our generation was rock and roll. My dad’s big band generation was being overtaken by me.
The Who created some of the most powerful moments in rock and roll history especially when they performed at Woodstock in 1969 – and the hair-raising refrain of Tommy’s Feel Me See Me Touch Me played out across the half a million festival goers as the sun rose in the sky.
They went on to sell-out stadiums around the world, but Townsend felt that by the late 1970s, they’d begun to lose themselves. “The band had turned into a prog rock outfit. I felt we have to reconnect with our roots – and I wrote Quadrophenia about the Marquee and Shepherd’s Bush – where we’d grown up.”
Townsend’s bandmates were left out when they attempted to explain the story of a young mod Jimmy set in 1965 on the 1979 rock concept album. “The other guys didn’t identify themselves with Jimmy at all. The manifesto that was buried in the middle of it was irrelevant to them.
Although Townsend had complete control over his debut album, tensions between him and Daltry boiled over. “It led to the only incident in which Roger and I have actually had a physical fight”, he admits. I had been working on stage tapes all night, and when we got into a fight, he knocked me out and I had a bad behavior.
But when I finished it, I thought, “Wow, you know, they’ve let me do this.” “Like Tommy, Quadrophenia was adapted for film, and recently has been staged as a mod ballet. According to Townsend, Jimmy’s vulnerability demonstrated how common a spectrum teen boys appear to go through. Therefore, it has fresh relevance.
The 80-year-old has as much creative energy today as he did 60 years ago, but he says it’s time to do new things”. I’m proud that The Who were able to produce music that endured, and I’m not blatantly ashamed of my past, but I’m driven by the need to be creative. It seems like a waste of time for me to retire, sail, and stop writing.
JoJo Siwa was visibly emotional as she broke down in tears during her performance in London on Tuesday evening. The 22 year old Dance Moms star took to the stage at Colours Hoxton for her second show in the capital, and as her set came to a close, she was seen with her head in her hands, overcome by emotion.
She confessed to the crowd that despite once feeling like “one of the most hated people in the world”, she now feels “so special and so loved”. During the same show, JoJo confirmed her romance with fellow Celebrity Big Brother star Chris Hughes, following weeks of intense speculation about their relationship status. Once she regained control of her emotions, she addressed the crowd: “London can I just say, as Joelle a very serious thank you I’m going to take my last two minutes to get a little deep with you all.”
It’s crazy what I’m about to say out loud because I’ve gone through a lot of transitions in my life. I’ve lived through times in my life where I have been one of the most despised people in the world since I was nine.
She continued, “I’ve been hanging onto things that are beyond my control, and that’s okay. When I was 14 years old, things were really bad. But I’m feeling incredibly loved right now, both personally and professionally.”
“And I just feel so grateful because I feel so loved and special in this particular room and at home.” I want to take a moment and remind everyone that if you’re going through a difficult time, you can always count on it. “Just keep pushing the troops,” I say.
Later in the show, JoJo seemed to confirm her budding romance with Chris, 32, despite having been rather elusive about their relationship status in past interviews.
The star once again performed her rendition of Bette Davies’ Eyes, but tweaked the song’s ending to sing ‘Chris Hughes’ Eyes.’
She admitted to changing the song’s ending because it made her feel happy, adding, “I’ll tell you this much, if it’s not obvious, that ending lyric is very much true,” which received a lot of applause from the audience.
Chris had been at JoJo’s first London show the night before, but she revealed he couldn’t make it to Tuesday’s performance.
Instead, the dancer made it known that she had brought the orange beanie she had received from him while she was sleeping and that Christopher had overheard her singing one of her songs.
She explained to the audience that when I woke up this morning, all I could hear was a singing he was doing, so she decided to take a moment to sing along.
As JoJo dedicated her on-stage tribute to him, Chris was caught on camera kissing him and smiling at him the following evening.
The Dance Moms star then unveiled a rhinestone-covered Sunderland football shirt. After his team’s promotion to the Premier League on Saturday, Chris dedicated a message to a ‘special someone’ present at the event.
After the pair were seen leaving the venue together, Chris later shared a cozy photo of him and JoJo snuggling up in bed while watching Dumb and Dumber.
When a boat overcrowded with migrants sank in a Canary Islands dock, four women and three girls perished. When their own small boat tipped them into the water while they were attempting to transfer to a Spanish Coast Guard vessel.
As Emmerdale legend Ryan Hawley returns to the Dales tonight, ready to disrupt the 119th wedding of the soap.
Will he arrive home in time to catch his ex, Aaron Dingle, before knotting the knot with John Sugden, who is widely known for killing Nate Robinson? Ryan’s lips are sealed. You must watch to find out, I say! he makes fun of.
Persuaded to reprise the role he quit in 2019, after five years, by his co-star Danny Miller, who plays Aaron, rumours have abounded that Ryan was returning for a guest appearance.
READ MORE: Emmerdale star ‘lets slip’ another death in the Dales in live interview as episode withheld
But, after Danny messaged him in Brazil, where he was living with his wife Daisy Prestes de Oliveira and their two children, to see if he’d consider coming back, Ryan, 39, tells The Mirror: “The secret is out today! My character is returning permanently and not just for Aaron and John’s wedding. I am back for good, and I am so excited to be playing Robert again.
” I have had a few calls over the past six years to see how I would feel about reprising the role, but it never felt quite right. Danny texted me recently to see how I would feel while I was living in Brazil with my family, which we had been visiting for the previous year. We’ve always kept in touch, and I finally told him, “Yes, I’m up for it.” I then got a call swiftly from the producers, and it went from there.
“The timing felt right for us to not only move back to Britain, but also for me to come back to Emmerdale. Enough time has passed, and with this big wedding storyline, it is the right time for Robert to cause chaos and huge drama!”
Even by Emmerdale’s standards, the lengths that producers went to to keep his character’s return tonight a secret was impressive. His lines were given the codename “Marco” in honor of a man Aaron briefly dated as part of a cloak and dagger operation.
And Ryan even used a secret entrance to come into the studios, when he arrived from his Yorkshire home. He continues, “It has made me feel very special and important, the way people have treated me since I decided to return.”
We’ve wanted to keep it a secret that I’ll be returning permanently. My scripts have had Marco on them, rather than Robert, and so much effort has been put into it. It has been very hush, hush because I entered through a hidden entrance to make sure no one could see me. One of our very trusted esteemed transportation seniors drove me in, to make sure it stayed a secret, and it involved a lot of logistical work.
Other than Danny, the entire cast was shocked to learn that Marco was actually Robert. I was back, they couldn’t believe it! “he laughs”. Everyone was so lovely, and it was a surprise.
Ryan’s return is a huge success for Emmerdale’s producers, who are developing a number of complex plots centered on him in the upcoming year. Tonight, Robert will make his debut, having served six years of his 14-year sentence, imposed in 2019 after the manslaughter of Lee Posner, who had raped his sister, Victoria. The rapist was killed in the subsequent fight after Victoria’s assault, and Robert confronted Posner.
But Robert has now been granted leave to attend the wedding of his half-brother, John, to Aaron. And he arrives just as the grooms are seated at the altar, in true soap fashion. In 2018, Aaron and Robert tied the knot.
But when Robert was jailed a year later, it led to them splitting up, leaving Aaron devastated, as he had always regarded him as the love of his life”. According to Ryan, Robert has been released from prison because he won an appeal to attend the wedding. The audience is aware that John has no business being in trouble, and they want to stop the wedding.
“I can’t say too much, but Robert will walk in on the wedding during Thursday’s episode. He causes disasters wherever he goes, but this time, he wants to end the wedding. While there will be chaos, it’s also the right thing to do because we all know John isn’t Aaron’s type.
Looking shifty, he adds: “But can Robert stop it in time?! You must watch to learn”! What are Robert’s romantic goals, though?
“Definitely, he harbours feelings for Aaron”, replies Ryan. Because Aaron is the man’s true love, and the other way around, he is returning to stop a wedding that he doesn’t believe should take place.
“Robert is a different person now that a lot of time has passed.” He is hiding a lot of secrets, and there is a back story, which will come out in time, and that is another of the reasons why I am back – because it is so nice to play someone who is different, yet also familiar. “
Robert’s future release and when he will be able to move back to the Emmerdale village are another mysteries.
The drama for Ryan in the build up to coming back has been almost as intense as the storylines on screen – causing some understandable nerves, especially as his character had been such a hit before. He states, “There is a standard you have to live up to, and I was concerned about that and what it would be like.
“You do have anxiety, but thanks to everyone who was so kind and welcoming on set, I got over it.” Working alongside Danny and so many of his old Emmerdale friends, after several years away from the Dales, has been brilliant.
He acknowledges that there have also been difficult times in his TV shows, including All Creatures Great and Small.
“I have been able to do some cool stuff while I have been away”, he says. “I have to perform things like Miss Scarlet, Casualty, Silent Witness, and All Creatures Great and Small.” I wasn’t as busy as I would have liked, but having a lot of my children with them made me very lucky.
Moving to live in Brazil for a year was also amazing”. He claims that it was a great experience and that it was a great life experience, adding that he doesn’t feel too cold after moving to Yorkshire in the summer.
He continues, “One benefit of not being in the show is that you get to concentrate on your own life,” on the positive side of being away from the public eye. That’s been lovely. But I’m prepared to return to the show. I can return to that commitment now that my kids are older than them.
And loyal fans, nicknamed Robron, will be delighted to see him return. “Every time I did another show, I would promote it on my Instagram, but everyone just kept saying ‘oh great, but we would like to see you back in Emmerdale!’” says Ryan.
I hope everyone is looking forward to today, especially given the drama he creates at the wedding. Robert is such a fascinating character to play because he frequently plots, plots, and backstabbing.
“He is going to create a lot of drama in the village and rub people up the wrong way.
There will be many conflicts and enjoyable scenes, he declared. There will be a lot of chaos in the upcoming year, which is very exciting.
But will the path to true love run smoothly for Robert and Aaron?
Ryan says, “I am so proud of the way Robert and Aaron are. People really liked it, which is a huge plus for us. It is enormous people supported it so warmly, and we are excited where it could move forward.
However, “There are a lot of obstacles in the way… Lots of things are going to happen”!
Emmerdale airs every weekday on ITV1 and STV1 at 7.30pm. enthralled by this tale Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and .net/@dailymirror” target=”_blank” aria-label=”[object Object]Link opens in a new tab.” tabindex=”0″>Threads for more latest news and gossip.
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Singer Bob Dylan’s life may be shrouded in mystery but a secret love of his has come to light – Jaffa Cakes.
The star was “hooked” on the McVitie’s treat, according to Brit Danny Clifford, who was the musician’s official photographer during his US tour in 1978.
Danny claimed to have found a US store that sold them and had them met with Bob and his publicist, Paul Wasserman, to show them his photos from the previous night.
Danny, who was 20 years old, recalls Bob and Paul’s reaction when they received my small box of Jaffa cakes. Bob chuckled and asked, “Why is this cake?” It’s a cookie, right?
I only wanted to tell him not to eat all of them, so I asked him. There was only one packet I had. Bob and his PR professional quickly gulped the results. Bob kept trying to annoy me by pressing on me to hold up the color transparencies (slides), while he silently ate yet another Jaffa Cake. I was aware of his actions. He was the boss, though, and it made both him and Wasserman laugh.
READ MORE: Freddie Mercury’s secret daughter in bombshell DNA update
Danny, who went on to photograph some of the world’s biggest stars including The Who, opened up about Bob’s sweet tooth ahead of the singer’s 84th birthday last weekend.
He told his substack, Danny Clifford, My Life as a Music Photographer: “In 1988, Bob started his never-ending tour, and he hasn’t stopped (other than during Covid) since then. I don’t think he has a concert today on his birthday, so I guess he will celebrate his big day privately in sunny California. I thought sending him a few boxes of Jaffa Cakes for his big day, his 84th birthday, was a nice touch.”
Jaffa Cakes were introduced by McVitie’s in 1927. They were initially described as McVitie’s Jaffa Oranges before being shortened to Jaffa Cakes.
They “are made of a straightforward combination of sugar and tangerine oil to form the sealed layer of jam,” according to McVitie’s. The cakes are named after the Jaffa oranges that adorn the cake’s zesty center, according to the article.
In a 1991 legal dispute, McVitie’s and HMRC fought whether Jaffa Cakes were taxable as cakes or biscuits.