Could it be black magic for Robbie?
AS OCCULT FAN JIMMY PAGE INVITES HIS POPSTAR NEIGHBOUR OVER FOR TEA ...
There is still no resolution to one of the most protracted disputes of our time. I refer, of course, to the argument between Jimmy Page, the 75-yearold guitarist with Led Zeppelin and robbie Williams, the 45-year- old singer and self-styled ‘entertainer’.
The issues are as hotly contested as Brexit and barely less complex.
Briefly: the two men are neighbours in West London. Both own vast houses next door to one another. Although Williams’s £17.5 million house has 46 rooms, the pop singer finds it too small. he wants to add on a 3,600sq ft underground sports complex, with a 30ft swimming pool, a car park, a recording studio and gym.
Page is determined to stop him. he thinks vibrations from the building work could irreparably damage his own house, a grade I- listed masterpiece of the Victorian era, designed by William Burges. Accordingly, he has been contesting Williams’s building applications every step of the way.
So far, the dispute has dragged on for five years and shows no signs of abating. By this time next year, it will have lasted longer than World War II. At the moment, Williams has planning permission, but is not allowed to use mechanical diggers, just spades.
Like medieval monarchs, the two men employ delegates to conduct their negotiations, and spokesmen to announce their different versions of events.
The latest from the battlefront is that Page is accusing Williams of refusing his invitations to drop round. ‘We’re waiting for him to come round for a cup of tea,’ said Page’s spokesman at the weekend. ‘It’s disappointing. Jimmy is hoping to meet robbie and extend the hand of friendship, but he has been continualy rebuffed. We are still bemused why he won’t come round for a fireside chat.’
Meanwhile, Williams’s team argues that he is preparing for a residency in Las Vegas.
But it occurs to me that robbie may be scared stiff of venturing next door. And with good reason. Jimmy Page is famous for his fascination with black magic. According to his biographer, by the tender age of 15 he had already read Magick In Theory And Practise by Aleister Crowley, once described as ‘the wickedest man on earth’.
Crowley had three wives, all of whom went mad. One of them stabbed him with a carving knife and then committed suicide. Another was sent to an asylum.
Crowley abandoned his first wife, rose, and their baby daughter, who was known by the unusual name of Nuit Ma Ahathoor hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith. There were even rumours that Crowley indulged in human sacrifice.
Page is acknowledged as one of the world’s most serious collectors of Crowley memorabilia. In the Seventies, he owned an occult bookshop, equinox, named after a magazine that Crowley used to edit. he has books, hats, robes, paintings and canes belonging to Crowley. Until quite recently, he even owned Crowley’s old house on the shores of Loch Ness.
A friend who stayed there in the Seventies reported ‘ strange rumblings’ in the night, rather like the bouncing of a heavy ball. In the morning, he was informed by locals that it was the head of Lord Lovat, who had been beheaded in the Tower of London some 223 years before.
The same guest later experienced ‘ the most terrifying night of my life’, when he was awoken by sounds of a wild animal ‘snorting, snuffling and banging,’ outside his bedroom door. ‘ Whatever was there was pure evil,’ he reported.
With all this in mind, who could blame Williams from shying away from a ‘fire-side chat’ and a ‘cup of tea’ with Jimmy Page?
WILLIAMSwould be particularly prone to other- worldly terrors. he once spent £7 million buying a country house just because it was in an area of Wiltshire famous for its crop circles. he remains a strong believer in ghosts and UFOs. ‘I’ve seen a few strange things,’ he said two years ago. They included a UFO, ‘right above me . . . I could have hit it with a tennis ball’.
Might I offer a friendly word of advice to Mr Page? One moonlit night, drape yourself in a white sheet and dance crazily around robbie Williams’s garden rattling a few chains. You won’t see him for dust.