http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-365756,00.html> Sir Paul and wife make tracks as Yoko joins Queen
> By Alan Hamilton
>
> THERE are many things that Sir Paul McCartney will do for his native
> Liverpool, but sharing a balcony appearance with Yoko Ono is clearly
> not one of them.
> The former Beatle, his new wife, Heather, and John Lennon's widow had
> been due to join the Queen and civic dignitaries on the balcony of
> Liverpool Town Hall yesterday to watch a parade marking the Queen's
> Golden Jubilee visit to the city.
>
> The official programme handed out at the beginning of the day listed
> both the McCartneys and Ono as balcony guests, but at the last minute
> Sir Paul and Lady McCartney jumped into their silver Jaguar and headed
> south, pleading a pressing recording session in London.
>
> Sir Paul further argued that he did not wish to upstage the Queen on
> her big day. He would not have done; outside the city's Walker Art
> Gallery she got a considerably bigger cheer from the crowd than he
> did.
>
> The rival Beatle camps, who have maintained years of frostiness,
> managed to side-step each other all day: Ono greeted the Queen at
> Liverpool airport, recently renamed John Lennon International, and
> joined the royal reception at the Town Hall, while barely 500 yards
> away the McCartneys conducted the Queen around an exhibition of Sir
> Paul's painting and sculpture, most of it rather too scatological for
> the royal taste.
>
> At the airport the Queen had already been upstaged by Cherie Blair,
> who re-opened it with Ono last March and unveiled a bronze statue of
> Lennon.
>
> Ono, in white trouser suit, tinted glasses and streaked hair, looked
> nervous yesterday as she stood with the sculptor, Tom Murphy, as the
> Queen approached and engaged both in conversation, gazing with
> interest at the statue. Ono bobbed and curtsied. "I think John would
> have been very honoured," she ventured.
>
> "You must have met him a few times," Mr Murphy said to the Queen. Yes,
> she had. "What great fun he was," Mr Murphy continued. Yes, he was,
> the Queen agreed, before unveiling a plaque to mark the opening of the
> airport's new terminal building.
>
> Across town, dressed in a smart dark suit and pale blue trainers, in
> sharp contrast to the Queen's cool peppermint green, Sir Paul denied
> any hint of nervousness as he awaited his visitor. "She's great, a
> lovely lady, jubilee year - rockin'," he said.
>
> As the Queen toured the exhibition, she walked quickly past canvasses
> bearing such titles as Bowie, Spewing, Bondage Girl and a number of
> other McCartney works big on genitalia. He diplomatically guided her
> to the relatively safe Big Face Mountain. The Queen laughed. "Your
> pictures are very colourful," she told him, non-commitally.
>
> Sir Paul has executed three paintings of the Queen, including one
> entitled The Queen After Her First Cigarette, but they were not
> included in the show. He gave the Queen a copy of his book of
> paintings, inscribed "Hope you enjoy it" on the flyleaf. "I hope she's
> got a quiet moment at the Palace to read it with her feet up," he said
> afterwards.
>
> The Queen, who last met Sir Paul at the Palace rock concert in June,
> was also steered quickly past a McCartney sculpture entitled Running
> Legs With Penis. "It's driftwood. Don't blame me, blame nature," Sir
> Paul said later. "Anyway, I don't think my paintings are risquй at
> all; the Queen has seen a lot."
>
> He was clearly flattered by the royal attention, and to be included in
> the jubilee. His wife said: "You can't accept a knighthood and then
> not turn up when the Queen asks you," a reference to Sir Paul's brief
> dithering over whether or not to appear at the Palace gathering of
> rock dinosaurs in June.
>
> It was a far cry from 1965, when all four Beatles were appointed MBE
> and several other holders returned their medals in disgust, dismissing
> the Fab Four as "vulgar nincompoops". Lennon handed his insignia back
> in 1969, but McCartney kept his and was eventually knighted in 1997.
> Yet the only Beatles representative standing beside the Queen on the
> Town Hall balcony yesterday was Lennon's widow.
