Note to self: Never, ever say anything bad about people from Liverpool.
Because if you do end up saying something bad about people from Liverpool, people from Liverpool will literally cut your head off. It’s true – they’ve just cut Ringo Starr‘s head off.
Alright, at this point we should probably point out that it was only the topiary head of a topiary Ringo Starr that was chopped off, thanks to some vaguely anti-Liverpool comments Ringo made in January. But it’s still a shock, because the topiary Ringo Starr was about five or six times better at singing and drumming than the flesh and blood one.
Ringo Starr has always been the second-class Beatle – just look at the treatment he gets. John Lennon, for example, was shot in the back four times by a maniac, while George Harrison was stabbed in the chest several times by a maniac who believed he was on a mission from God. But Ringo Starr?
Ringo Starr has been aggressively pruned by what we can assume to be a fairly overenthusiastic horticulturalist. Hardly matches up, does it? The New York Times reports on the shock topiary Ringo Starr beheading:
A vandal chopped off the head of Ringo Starr from a life-size topiary of that former Beatle over the weekend in Liverpool, England, above, while leaving his band mates untouched, The Liverpool Daily Post reported. The attack occurred a few weeks after the topiary figures, created by the Italian sculptor Franco Covill, were unveiled at the South Parkway train station. “This is a huge disappointment for us,” said an unidentified spokesman for Merseytravel. “Public art is important, and the topiary was put there to bring a bit of life and soul to the public-transport network.”
It’s thought that the Ringo beheading was a direct result of some comments he made about the city back in January. You see, Liverpool is the European City Of Culture this year, and Ringo Starr was chosen to open the celebrations. After all, along with Dereck Acorah, Tom O’Connor from Crosswits and one of Atomic Kitten, Ringo Starr is probably one of history’s most famous Liverpudlians.
Not content with just opening a ceremony, Ringo Starr also wrote a special song for the occasion, entitled Liverpool 8. Probably the worst song that’s ever been written, Liverpool 8 was all about how Ringo Starr wanted to stay in Liverpool but he couldn’t because he was famous and Liverpool was a bit of a shithole but it doesn’t matter because he got famous so everyone should be proud of him. Thematically you could call it a bit confused.
So Ringo Starr went on TV and told everyone that he wouldn’t ever live in Liverpool again because there was nothing he missed about it at all, just to make it completely clear. And now he’s had his head cut off for it, French revolution-style.
If anything, this should serve as a warning to Ringo Starr to have more respect for his hometown, because the people there are easily upset by everything. First Richard And Judy left them, and now Ringo Starr too? How are they supposed to cope with such a succession of bodyblows?
So be warned, Ringo. This time they just got your topiary head, but next time it’ll be your hubcaps.
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