Queen Discussion Thread

Brian May says: "That track begins with Edward doing fingerboard tap.... Edward has this thing that he can never stop playing.... Edward and I took a break from recording...."

Whilst in Montreux we would rent a huge house right on the lake, with the view on the MIH sleeve. The owner of the house had a thing about ducks cause they were everywhere, china, porcelain, wood, plastic, you name it and they were there, so needless to say the place was christened 'Duckingham Palace.' To get to DP from the road meant descending a very steep, winding staircase through a very well manicured jungle, not easy at the best of times in the middle of the night. Once inside DP there was a huge lounge to the left, and to the right up a couple of steps was a very long corridor where all the bedrooms were, RT's was at the very end. Dominique happened to be visiting on this occasion, and the three of us and Dave Richards went to dinner, Swiss wine is excellent and we drank a couple of vineyards, each. After the meal Dom went back to the house and the Taylors had to continue on their mission to become the two stupidest people on the planet, which I can proudly say we succeeded in doing.

By about 3am we decide it is impossible to drink Montreux completely dry, so we threw in the towel, but now I've got a huge problem, I would have trouble getting myself home but I had another idiot with me who was in a worst state than me. I managed to sober up briefly to get us back to the house but we've now got to negotiate the stairs. The pair of us are brainless with a major fit of the giggles, it's pitch black and Rogers got his dark glasses on. We get about ten steps down and I hear an almighty thud and when I turn around Roger has hit the deck and I said "Are you OK." He replies "Yeah, but the ground keeps coming up at me." I go over to help him up, and as I'm pulling him, down I go. By this time we're pissing ourselves laughing and rolling around the jungle. We finally get to our feet and continue onwards, with me leading and him leaning on me for support.

Phase one over and the door is insight, and we're singing, dancing and swaying in every possible direction. Once at the door I can't find the correct key let alone the lock, and while I'm groping away at the door Rog was propped up against the wall with his head down and his glasses fell off. Being fab I noticed this and picked them up, got the door open and in we went. Once inside he said he was going straight to bed and proceeded up the long corridor, bouncing off each of the walls like a ball in a pinball machine, needless to say I'm cracking up and when he got to the end I said "Rog, do you want your glasses?" He then turns around and does the same walk back again, when he reaches me I put out my hand which was holding his glasses and a big bunch of keys, and yeah you guessed it, he took the keys. Off he goes again playing pinball, but this time he's trying to put a bunch of keys on his nose. When he was just outside his room I yelled, "Do you want these glasses or not?" He yells back "Yeah, thanks CT." By this time I'm in dire need to find a toilet cause I thought it was so funny. He finally gets to me and puts his glasses on, has one more trip of pinball, flings open the bedroom door, turns on all the lights and bellows "Darling, I made it." I will leave it to your own imagination as to what Dom said.
Crystal

"Do you fancy going to the Monacco Grand Prix, all expenses paid?" That's the first thing I heard when Rick Parfitt phoned me, but I needed to know more so Roger and I met at Ricks house later that day to get the whole story. Looking back at it now we should have been suspicious 'cause he started, "I met a man in a pub who's a TV producer and he wanted to know if I would like to go to Monacco, and be filmed watching the Grand Prix. I said Yeah, but if my mate Rog comes along you'll get Queen and Quo, and we have to take Crystal who looks after us both." He then proceeded to tell us that we would have a Lear Jet, stocked with Champagne and Caviar, to fly us to Nice, a helicopter from Nice to Monacco then a limo to the hotel. So far so good. Once there we would have the correct passes to go everywhere and the use of a huge boat, once again stocked with the works, and all meals, hotels, drinks etc.paid for. Sounds great. RT and RP are both fast car freaks, so they were in seventh heaven, me, I couldn't give a toss, I just like going places and this had all the makings of a good time. How wrong can you be.

The big day arrives and the limo picks me up at home and I head off to get Rog, and then on to Ricks, then to Biggin Hill Airport. We're sitting around at the private sector and I'm looking for a Lear Jet but can't see one, so off I go to locate the pilot. "Where's the jet mate?" I ask. The first shock of the day comes when he tells me we don't have one, and points to some dodgy little plane with propellers. Oh well, "Is there any booze on it?" A big NO was his reply, so off I go on a mission to locate stacks of alcohol (We're all nervous flyers) Somebody tightened the elastic band and this excuse for a Lear Jet finally got off the ground. We're getting nicely tanked up as we wave goodbye to the White Cliffs of Dover, and greet Calais on our trip south, when the plane starts to descend. What now? We land in Dijon to get fuel and the airstrip won't take the pilots card, so Rick uses his Amex and it seemed to take forever, but we finally get back in the air and continue to calm our nerves. It was a long flight, but a few jokes and a few too many slurps kept it all lighthearted until the pilot turned and said, "Do you guys wanna see Marseilles by night, it's really pretty?" I replied with a stern no, but we still saw it. After a seven hour flight we finally land in Nice and we get to meet the man from the pub, who's name I can't remember, but he did have a incredibly defective haircut and instantly became known as the poodle.

Once the bad flight was out of the way, it all went down hill. "Where's the helicopter?" I ask. "We dont have one.""Where's the limo then?" "We don't have one.""Well how the f*** do we get to Monacco then"The poodle informs us that he has a car and he's gonna drive. When we get to his car, it's a Renault 5 and theres us three with luggage and the poodle. We cram in and set of, making a very long detour into the center of Nice to pick up Mrs Poodle, now were very uncomfortable and apart from not being used to driving on the right, he's also a terrible driver. I had quite a few visions of joining Grace Kelly. When we finally get to the hotel I go into tour mode, approach the desk, "Hi, you have three rooms for us, Mr. R Parfitt, Mr. R Taylor and Mr. C Taylor." Another slap in the face when he says, "No sir, we only have two, Mr. R Taylor and Mr C Taylor, and the hotel is full." Nice one Rick, you organise the trip and you don't have a room. I let RP have my room and the poodle and myself go off in search of another hotel. Check in, drop the bags and head straight to hotel 1 to get the other two and go to dinner, to a restaurant that Monsieur Poodle has booked. Of all the great eateries in France, he has to pick the worst, but it did have good wine, lots of good wine. Once dined he then lets me know he doesn't have any Francs and could I lend him some? I don't think so, so I pay for dinner. All expenses paid eh, It's costing each of us a lot of money so far. Next we go to a club that is recommended by our canine host, we wait outside for 30 mins. while he arranges everything for us, and guess what, they don't let us in, not wearing ties or something.

It's been a long day so it's time to knock it on the head, should of knocked the poodle on the head 'cause he knows another club around the corner. He did make it sound appealing with his description of female clientele. Once inside this huge complex we managed to loose poodle, and we're wandering around corridors looking for the entrance and we walk round a corner, and lo and behold there's blue flashing lights and about a dozen cops, all with their guns pointing straight at us. It's amazing how your instincts tell you you're well and truly in the shit. They frisk us and they must have known we were VIP's cause we each had our own car to take us straight to jail, no passing go and no collecting £200. Even though they threw us in the same cell, for some strange reason they left the door open, which is now a good cue for the drummer to make stupid comments. " C'mon CT, we've done nothing wrong, let's go, let's just walk out of here." My reply to that was something on the lines of, I don't think so. Then the two of them chirp up, "Tell them who we are." Once again I replied, I don't think so, you tell them who you are. We were free to walk at about 7am, and I must say that the cops were very nice to us. Bedtime at last. Day 2 and nothing else can go wrong, or can it?

We get the passes from the poodle, and needless to say we don't have the right ones, but years of dealing with passes I know just about every trick under the sun, and we're in the backstage area of the Grand Prix. We head to the boat which is laid on for us, but the motor racing people make us feel unwelcome, so we clear off. Roger is getting feed up with all this and kept saying we should go home. My theory was, we're here, let's make the most of it. While all this is going on we had a camera following us filming every little move, after all that's what we came for. Later that day Jim Beech flew in, not to bale anyone, just to hang out. Evening arrives and I book a really good restaurant and refuse to tell the poodle where it is. We have an amazing meal, even better wine, and Rog is once again happy. We all decide to have an early night, RT and RP to hotel 1, CT to hotel 2, and JB to where ever he was staying.

When I go to reception and ask for my key, the little chap said, "Ah, Monsieur Tayleeeeer, you 'ave shanged roams." No I have not. "Oui Monsieur, we 'ave taken your bags to you new roam.". What the hell, I'm too tired to argue, if my luggage is there, no problem. When I open the door, no huge bed like my last room, two single beds, and some strange bloke in one of them. "Oi, who the f*** are you?" I bellowed. The poor bloke woke from a deep sleep and shat himself. It turned out he was an Italian journalist who the poodle had flown in to do interviews with Rog and Rick. I hurled abuse at this guy for a while and then realised that he'd done nothing wrong, it was all to do with the poodle. I phoned hotel 1 and told Rog what was going on, and finally had to agree with him and get the hell outta here. He phoned and woke the poodle and, as I wasn't there, can only presume that he used some very colourful language. Day 3, and the first thing on the agenda is to get three 1st class airline tickets from Nice, and a helicopter from Monacco to Nice. Done. Race day, and I have to admit it was quite a buzz, 'cause by now I've wangled all sorts of passes and we're down in the pits with all drivers, and these guys have some great looking girls hanging around. Giddy up. When you're standing on the start line of a Grand Prix and all those cars rev up it is impossible to describe the noise and volume, it's quite amazing. We caught about half hour of the race before we had to leave, and even though we had only been gone three days, it was great to get back to Blighty and go straight to the pub and have a good laugh about the whole weekend. The strange thing is, the poodle actually made a TV show out of it, and it was quite good.
Crystal

Over a very nice meal and a couple of little drinkettes we agree that it's far to cold here and we'll clear off the next day, so into the bar we go with our earlier mission of trying all the scotch's. We were sitting at a table chatting away and cracking jokes with each other and end up talking to the couple on the next table, swapping skiing stories, needless to say mine were very short, and having a bit of a laugh, when the woman said, "What do you two do for a living?" God knows why, but I said; "We're Hoover salesmen." At first they didn't believe us but we both started going on about the difference between domestic and industrial cleaners, uprights, backpack types, ones you pull along the floor. We went on about the different wattage, suction power, the amount of pressure on Axminsters and Wilton carpets, even a couple of car expressions like overhead this and thats. What the hell do we know about vacuum cleaners? But boy are we good at this. After about 30 mins of utter bullshit the subject finally changed and they wished us all the best with our door to door salesmanship and off they went to bed. We then had to reassure each other what we actually did for a living, had some more drinks and tried to work out how we knew so much about cleaners as both of us have spent most of our lives trying to stay well away from them. We spent the drive back to London having a good laugh about the one day we spent in a Scottish ski resort.
Crystal

The city and hotel will remain nameless to protect the guilty. After a night of huge amounts of booze, Roger and me ended up back at the hotel with a couple of rather lovely looking ladies, and somewhere along the line we picked up a good looking journalist as well. I think she was only along for some fun and not to write a story because as far as I know she never wrote this one. A few more drinks were consumed, and as five people can’t play Scrabble, the journo had to go for obvious reasons. We put our thinking caps on to work out how to get rid of her when Roger came up with a game plan, “Let’s drown her.” It seemed like a good idea at the time so I said “OK, but how are we gonna do this?” The reply was, “I’ll get her in the pool and you tread on her head.” I agreed with this masterpiece, so the five of us set off to the roof where the pool was, only to be greeted by another minor setback, the two 8ft plate glass doors were locked. I gave them a tug and could see the lock itself, so now it was my turn to come up with a plan. “If we take a handle each and gently rock the doors back and forth, the lock will pop out and we’re in.” Brilliant. The pair of us start to rock the doors and after a couple of minutes some weird vibration thing must have happened in the glass, because the inevitable occurred, both the doors shattered in front of us and there was glass everywhere. Whoops. Forget plan A, plan B was a cock up, so at times like this always use plan C and get the hell away from the scene of the crime. This little episode had both a happy and sad ending, the journo finally got the hint and left, but sadly I can’t remember if either of us got lucky that night. Such is life.