Rock stars’ posh feud only proves money can’t buy class

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

The only fly in the ointment is that the following story turned out to be fake – but, even if only for a moment, reports of a spat between rock stars and next-door-neighbours Jimmy Page and Robbie Williams just lit up a dull day.

One was a hero to an earlier generation as guitarist and driving force behind Led Zeppelin; the other was a cheeky pin-up for a cheesy boy band – but both made a lot of money and live cheek-by-jowl in West London mansions.

In more recent times, the pair have been involved in a stand-off for some time, ever since young Robbie unveiled plans for a swimming pool and basement development at his posh £17.5 million pad.

The Led Zeppelin guitarist had long been domiciled next door in his 1875 Grade 1 listed Tower House, where he has lived for the last 46 years and which, before that, was owned by poet John Betjeman.

One might assume in this part of London dominated by stockbrokers and rich Russians, Page has obviously left his hedonistic days of wild excess well behind him.

The feud across the garden fence began when Jimmy objected to the basement development, on the basis that it might undermine the foundation of his own multi-million-pound Kensington palace.

And it culminated in recent reports that Williams was so intent on wrecking the older man’s head that he had latterly taken to dressing up as Page’s one-time Led Zep collaborator Robert Plant to annoy him.

This allegedly involved Robbie ‘wearing a long-hair wig and stuffing a pillow under his shirt in an attempt to mock or imitate Plant’s beer belly that he has acquired in his older age’.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.