Despite the all the threats against his life, Paul McCartney and his 5,000 bodyguards finally played their long-awaited peace concert in Israel last night, with no disruption whatsoever from fanatical snipers or would-be suicide bombers or whatnot. Paul McCartney lives to fight another day!

Of course, Paul McCartney’s masterstroke was to address both sides of the Middle East conflict in their own language right at the start of the concert. First McCartney opened with “Shalom, Tel Aviv, shana tova, ahlan!” giving the crowd the traditional Hebrew greeting ahead of Monday’s Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Then he added “Ramadan kareem” which, as we all know, is Arabic for “Not the face! Not the face!”

When you’ve been around for as long as Paul McCartney, you don’t worry about little things like fanatical death threats. That’s because, when you reach an age where death could come just as easily from a fall on an icy street, a sudden loud noise behind you or a faulty walk-in bath, Islamic extremists just seem noisy and a little attention-seeking in comparison.

That’s why, although threats were made against his life when he announced last night’s concert in Israel, Paul McCartney vowed to play on regardless, with his only defence being his music and the 5,000 bodyguards he hired to protect him from everything.

And play on he did. In photos taken a few hours before the concert, you can see no sign of anxiety on Paul McCartney’s face at all. Although, actually, it might have been there – Paul McCartney’s face now resembles a 3D representation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream sculpted from a bucket of week-old porridge so perfectly these days that we haven’t got a clue what’s going on with it – but we’ll guess there wasn’t.

And Paul McCartney was right not to worry either, because in the end the concert came off without a single assassination attempt. E! Online reports:

McCartney then unleashed a string of hits from both his Beatles and Wings days, among them “I’ll Follow the Sun,” “Live and Let Die,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Yesterday,” “Jet,” “Drive My Car,” “All My Loving,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and, of course, his signature sing-along “Hey Jude.” The concert, which boasted two encores and many, many wild standing ovations, lasted about two and a half hours.

No wonder Paul McCartney got such a wild reception – as well as songs by The Beatles and Wings, Paul also managed to spin some brand-new material into the show, like the just-written Don’t Blow Me Up, along with others like Please Don’t Blow Me Up, Think Of My Children (I Beg of You) and the fan favourite in-waiting Don’t Bloody Blow Me Up I’m Paul McFuckingCartney.

So we can all agree that Paul McCartney’s Israel concert was as epic and statesmanlike as it could have possibly been, and all because he thought to address both the Jewish and Arab sides of the argument in their native languages. It’ll backfire for sure when the Greek Orthodox gang realise they they didn’t get a shout-out and send over a suicide squad to finish Paul McCartney off once and for all, but hey ho.

And because of this, Paul McCartney’s concert tonight in Israel is shrouded with danger. Islamic extremists are apparently so determined to kill Paul McCartney tonight that nobody is taking any chances – which is why 5,000 bodyguards have been hired to surround Paul McCartney at all times during his visit. That’s even more that George Bush needed.

The message of this is clear – although he takes the death threats incredibly seriously, Paul McCartney will not deprive the Israeli people of his music. The other message, of course, is that Paul McCartney’s got so many bouncers around him at the moment that there won’t be anyone working the door of your local nightclub tonight, so you could probably get away with jeans and trainers if you wanted.

Paul McCartney has played some important concerts in his life – Shea Stadium, The Super Bowl, Red Square – but none have been quite as important as tonight’s concert in Tel Aviv. That’s because religious extremists didn’t decide to promote any of the other concerts by promising that Paul McCartney would get blown up by the middle of the second half.

Islamic fanatics have threatened to kill Paul McCartney if his concert tonight in Israel goes ahead. You see, to them Paul McCartney is the ultimate icon of western opulence and his death would be as heavily symbolic to the world as the events of 911. Also, they’re totally pissed off that Paul McCartney never responded to their letter asking if they could use Wonderful Christmastime as their theme tune.

But Paul McCartney has refused to cancel tonight’s concert, believing that not singing C Moon to a load of middle-aged Jewish people would literally be as bad as dying anyway. So McCartney’s decided to do the next best thing instead – he’s hired 5,000 bodyguards. The Mirror reports:

The vast security for Sir Paul McCartney’s Tel Aviv concert tonight even dwarfs the protection given to President Bush when he visited Israel. A 5,000-strong security team will ensure Macca, 66, is watched around the clock in the wake of death threats from Islamic fanatics. A massive security army guarding Macca includes 20 agents from Israel’s elite Mossad intelligence organisation as well as officers from Britain’s MI6.

He’s just playing it safe, of course – Paul McCartney doesn’t need all that security. He has his own ways of stopping the terrorists, like launching into a 20-minute version of Hey Jude so utterly tedious that it’ll knock any religious extremist into a deep slumber for up to a week. He could achieve a similar effect by playing any song from his last three albums, but the risk is just too high – these fanatics aren’t people you’d want to anger, remember.

And anyway, we’re only assuming that Paul McCartney will be playing the concert tonight. For all we know he could be sending on a stand-in in his place. For all we know that could be your nan up on stage tonight. Don’t pretend you could tell the difference.

No, instead, the concert in Israel could be Paul McCartney’s last because a gang of Islamic extremists are running around telling everyone that they’re going to kill him if he follows through with his plan to play there.

However, Paul McCartney has shown admirable strength of character by refusing to bow to these religious fanatics. In fact, if anything this death threat has just strengthened Paul McCartney’s resolve – not only will he play the concert in Israel, but he’s even going to turn it into a live album, entitled Paul McCartney Live Behind Six Inches Of Reinforced Plexiglass Inside A Sealed Lead Box Surrounded By Several Bodyguards And At Least A Couple Of Tanks.

You know what offends Islamic fundamentalists the most about the west? No, it’s not our consumerist lifestyles, our swaggering cultural dominance or our free and easy attitudes to sex and stimulants – it’s the bloody Frog Song.

Seriously, al Qaeda didn’t even exist until Paul McCartney wrote The Frog Song. There they were, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Hamza, all sitting round the kitchen table discussing the Pauly Shore movie Biodome when – bam! – all of a sudden The Frog Song by Paul McCartney came on the radio and everyone more or less instantly decided to bring western civilisation to its knees. True story.

Since then, the terrorists have been determined to finish Paul McCartney off, and now it looks like they might have their chance. Next Thursday Paul McCartney is going to play a concert in Tel Aviv, which would be fine except for all the Islamic extremists carping on about killing him if he does. But, as The New York Times reports, McCartney is unbowed:

Paul McCartney has refused to cancel his concert in Israel, despite threats from Islamic militants, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The response follows comments made by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a militant Lebanese Islamic activist, in an interview. Mr. Bakri said, “If he values his life, Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel… He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him.”

Oh God, this is worse than we thought. Paul McCartney is relevant again. Ugh.

Anyway, it’s absolutely right that Paul McCartney should play on in Israel despite the death threats. If he can see off threats from Gordon Ramsay he can definitely see off threats from organised terrorist groups. You know what they say – if Israelis aren’t being charged through the nose to listen to an old man with a face like a ruptured hot water bottle sing a load of 40-year-old songs in a way that can’t even come close to replicating the original versions before being relentlessly hounded to buy an overpriced programme and tour T-shirt then the terrorists have won.

Actually, Paul McCartney should be safe, because terrorism experts have already dismissed the death threats as not credible. For some reason the Islamic activists sort of went off the idea of blowing up Paul McCartney’s car with a mortar as soon as they realised that he’d divorced Heather Mills and she wouldn’t be coming with him. Funny that.

Anyway, let’s just hope that Paul McCartney remains safe duing his time in Israel. Not because we care about him or anything, but with John Lennon already shot and George Harrison already stabbed, can you imagine what an obnoxious bighead Ringo Starr would turn into if Paul McCartney got blown up by a terrorist and he was the last one left? God, it’d be unbearable.

And this year the level of Apprentice awfulness seems to be higher than ever. So awful, in fact, that the first Apprentice reject Nicholas De Lacy-Brown claims to have received death threats from angry viewers.

Now, while we only have Nicholas De Lacy-Brown's word on this – and the man honestly seems like such a bimbling twat that he'd molest his own granny if it got him some headlines – we can't help but wish it was true. After all, if you're going to send death threats to someone, what better reason is there than because they briefly underestimated the wholesale price of lobster? We hear that that's how Salman Rushdie got his fatwa, too.

The Apprentice is the epitome of watercooler television, in that anyone with even the merest scrap of common sense would like nothing more than to burst into the boardroom with a full five-gallon bubbletop watercooler bottle strapped to each wrist so they can run around windwilling their arms about and indiscriminately bludgeoning every last gormless, self-satisfied face there into unconsciousness – except for Nick and Margaret, obviously. You'd need them to take notes on your performance.

This year's Apprentice is certainly no exception. In fact, this year's Apprentice candidates seem even more drastically unpleasant than their initial introductions suggested. Strutting, over-confident, given to making self-promotional statements so alarming that they make Tom Cruise look like the shivering dog from the Volkswagen Polo advert – the sort of people who'd look like dreadful failures if they only committed themselves 100% to a project rather than 110% or 150%.

And, since he was the first of this year's contestants to be fired from The Apprentice, that makes Nicholas De Lacy-Brown the biggest clown of the lot of them. On last week's The Apprentice Nicholas was ostensibly fired because he sold some lobsters cheaper than they should have been sold for. But that's probably not the real reason for his sacking, though.

No, in actual fact there were four real reasons why Nicholas De Lacy-Brown was fired from The Apprentice: 1) He's an unbearably overprivileged posho, and Alan Sugar hates them, 2) he doesn't like football and Alan Sugar does like football, 3) he has a shit little clump of facial hair perched under his bottom lip when Alan Sugar knows that a beard's only a beard when it covers two thirds of your face like an outbreak of grimy mildew and 4) people would generally rather an afternoon rolling around in herpes than talk to him. 

But although the first candidate to be fired from The Apprentice is usually forgotten about within minutes, Nicholas De Lacy-Brown seems to really caught the public's imagination. The public's imagination for sending terrifying death threats, that is. Digital Spy reports:

Apprentice star Nicholas De Lacy Brown has received death threats from fans of the show. "People have sent me messages saying they want to kill or injure me," Nicholas told the Daily Star Sunday. "One read something like: 'If I see you, I'll hurt you'." However, Nicholas has remained defiant and insisted that he will not be affected by the threatening messages. "The abuse I have had does not bother me," he said. "I have had some supportive emails too. I take it all as a compliment. They think they can push me down with this abuse but all it does is pump me up. I realised soon after the show started that it was not for me – it was just such hard work."

As scary as these alleged death threats are, Nicholas De Lacy-Brown probably shouldn't worry too much about them. After all, by Wednesday night everyone will be concentrating on whoever the next person to get fired from The Apprentice is and he can go back to being a thunderingly anonymous halfwit again.

But perhaps the death threat is the new way for Apprentice candidates to grade their worth. For instance, a few mealy-mouthed comments on the internet is OK, but not as good as actual face-to-face-death threats in the street. This way the winner of The Apprentice would be the person who had the most terrifying death threat made against them. The obvious problem with this is that Yoko Ono would win The Apprentice every year if that was the case, but we're sure there's a workaround.

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'Apprentice' reject receives death threats – Digital Spy