Meanwhile, two 13-year-old boys were caught stealing almost 200 Pokemon cards from their schoolmates’ backpacks and arrested at the Dodson Middle School in Rancho Palos Verdes, a well-to-do seaside community.The sheriff’s deputies extracted confessions and held them in custody while their bedrooms were searched.I asked my Pokemon-crazed six-year-old neighbour what he thought of this peculiarly harsh treatment. THERE’S BEEN just one word on the minds of Los Angeles’ six-to- 10-year-olds this week: Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon. The Japanese video- game turned card-swapping craze turned television series has made it to the big screen (in the ominously titled Pokemon: The First Movie; apparently a sequel is already on its way), and all the kids in southern California are flocking to see it. The film took more than $10m at the box office on its opening day last Wednesday, when its target audience should have been at school, and estimates for the first five days hover around $50m – putting it right up there in the Star Wars range.
The few adults who understand the arcane world of the Pokemon and their human trainers insist that this cartoon universe is a faithful rendering of deep-seated values in Japanese society, but to judge by the evidence around LA the only value emerging from the madness is pure, unadulterated, spoilt brattishness.For example, several dozen revolting little tykes had to be dragged kicking and screaming from various LA branches of Burger King because the fast- food chain had run out of Pokemon tie-in toys within hours of the movie being released, and hadn’t been able to restock fast enough. It is always helpful having someone theatrical out front.The only way you can tell if you’re good is to have someone out there who says, `That was good When you moved over, they lost you Don’t do that next time.’ He was a director That’s really what he was.. We would offer him some songs and he’d say, `I like that one best,’ and we’d usually go with it.

But it was theatrical management that we’d listen to Brian about.One of the biggest things he ever told us to do was bow, this sort of Beatle bow from the waist He said this would be very good. We’d go, `Oh,’ and we’d have a cup of coffee and discuss what had happened. He would just say, `You know people aren’t generally interested. You know it’s going to be a hard sell.’ If anyone was the fifth Beatle it was Brian.

People talked about George Martin as being the fifth Beatle because of his musical involvement but, particularly in the early days, Brian was very much part of the group.We generally wouldn’t listen to him musically unless it was down to choosing a single. We used to wait for Brian arriving back from London, and when he’d come off the train we’d take a look at his face to see if it was good news or bad, and it was bad It was always bad He’d be, like, `Sorry’. So when Brian suggested that we get suits – and even though the myth is that we all hated it and said we would rather stay with the leather – in actual fact we didn’t mind at all.It was just a change of image and, because none of us had suits before, it was quite cool.We went over to Birkenhead, `over the water’ as we say in Liverpool, to a place that had been recommended to us.We picked out some very groovy mohair suits, which were OK If we wanted to go leather, we could go leather If we wanted to do the mohair thing, we could do that It was a good thing It did open doors He was right. It meant people who wouldn’t accept the leather look could have us looking more seemly.John and I used to wait at Lime Street Station in a little coffee bar called Punch and Judy. A lot of the good-paying jobs were cabaret-type things.There was a place in Liverpool called the Cabaret Club, and they obviously wouldn’t take us with leather. I think Brian was actually attracted to that image, as it turned out later, but he said, `It might get in the way of you getting jobs.’ A different image would open the door for the good-paying jobs, which was what we were trying to get: fame and fortune There was no philanthropic edge to it at all, then.

But that wasn’t his interest.Brian suggested we get into suits. We’d come back from Hamburg and we’d bought leather jackets, being guys on the loose in Hamburg, with leather trousers, leather boots and hats and stuff We were four little Gene Vincents really. I think in the early days we wondered whether that was his interest in us. That’s just the way it was.We actually didn’t know anybody gay Well, we probably did, but we didn’t even talk about it. So it was, `Oh, he’s queer,’ just like, `Oh, she’s a prostitute.’ It was just sort of a strange term you used then. The word was out that Brian was gay.It didn’t really affect us in any way I think we suspected that he might hit on one of us. We really just had to argue about how much we would give him.

Do managers take 10 per cent or 15 or what? We had no idea.We were just Liverpool guys so the word was `queer’ not `gay’ We didn’t really have a problem with it It was just something you made fun of. We needed someone to manage that goodness and push and give us a few clues as to how we might go a bit further.Brian was that person He had a theatrical flair He knew a lot of people So it became clear that he would be very good for us. I had a Ford Classic, but Brian had a big Zodiac so that was obvious wealth there.We had been playing together a little while and we were starting to feel that we were getting good, but there comes a point in everybody’s career when you think you need a little bit more than just being good. You don’t get that.
The impressive thing about Brian was his car He had a bigger car than anyone we knew He had a big Zephyr Zodiac and we were really impressed We knew people in Ford Populars. He was completely different from anyone in the Liverpool music scene. Having gone to RADA, which we found out later, that’s quite unusual in Liverpool. So Livingstone will be allowed to stand, and then pilloried for his mild opposition to Blair.