Opinion: All Ringo needs is peace and love

‘The inspiration is love,’ he says, pronouncing it ‘luv’ as only a Liverpudlian can. ‘If you look at the titles of my songs, 80% have ‘love’ in them. . . . It’s where I’m at, promoting peace and love. . . . I hope the message is getting across. I always say it feels like my shows are a peace-and-love fest.’To that end, he’s mounting his answer to Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” efforts by inviting fans to flash the two-fingered peace sign and say the words ‘peace and love’ at noon today -- his 68th birthday.’Wherever you are in the world -- if you’re in the office, on the bus, shopping -- put your peace and love hands up,’ he said. ‘I’ll be doing it.’

Outside Chicago’s Hard Rock Hotel on Monday, ex-Beatles drummer Ringo Starr glanced at his watch and threw his hands in the air. ‘Twelve o’clock—peace and love!’ he yelled, flashing double peace signs with his fingers.

Applications had been made to save the house, which is in an area of mid-Victorian buildings singled out as important by the architectural writer Sir Nicholas Pevsner, but it is doomed. In contrast, Sir Paul McCartney’s childhood home was bought by the National Trust in 1997 after John Birt, then the director-general of the BBC and a Liverpudlian, argued for its purchase. John Lennon’s home, where he lived with his aunt Mimi, was given to the trust by his widow Yoko Ono in 2002 after she had bought it. Both houses are now seen by thousands of visitors a year. ... To add insult to injury for Starr, the home of Pete Best, the drummer the Beatles dumped in 1962, was listed by English Heritage in 2006.