We didn't get an invite to Friday's wedding because William and Harry hold us responsible for coining the term 'The Booze Brothers', not that we care anyway. Looked more like a funeral to us.
Sir Elton's husband, David Furnish, took our flippant request to send us a couple of pictures a little too seriously. Self-shot images of David with his arms around Ian Thorpe, David with his arms around the King of Tonga, David in peels of laughter with Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, close-ups of the china and David with his arms around Ian Thorpe again...and again clogged up our phones and made us miss seeing one of our AFL friends score two goals. We were getting a bit over David's, 'I'm middle aged but I'm up with technology' catharsis when things changed dramatically. An image came through of David nursing a weeping Sir Elton John. A concerned Ronan Keating can be seen hovering behind them. This was followed by a text from David going:
OMG! He's just finished rescuing Leon Russell.
Now he's heard about that Altiyan Childs.
Better clean out one of the spare rooms ;)
Leon Russell, dressed by Sir Elton John
The next thing the phone rings and it's David saying 'Sharon wants to speak to you,' and a sobbing Sir Elton gets on the line. 'That poor boy! The poor gypsy boy!' he cries into the receiver. 'He lives in a cave! Those animals. They let him fly. They let him fall! Have you got his number? David could call him for me....get him over here for some proper re-hab.' We tried to interject as we are don't think Altiyan's on drugs - if only it were that simple - he seems to have a host of psychological problems. We weren't sure that spending time in Sir Elton's compound would be in Altiyan's best interests, but Sir Elton was already on to renovating one of the spare rooms into a cave and was shouting out the numbers of slate companies to David and telling him to write them down. 'It's all about the cave,' said Sir Elton, 'He needs to get in touch with it again.' We finally just started talking over the top of him, informing him that Altiyan's was no romantic cave, but a miserable shelter on a suburban beach littered with empty V cans and McDonalds packaging. Sir Elton didn't seem to get it. He just paused then said 'I can get those things.'
Sir Elton wanted to leave the wedding (and the filthy power ballads playing there). He now had one purpose: Save Altiyan Childs. Frankly, we don't think it's worth it so to prevent them from jumping on their jet we said we knew Altiyan really well (which was a lie, but we felt confident that if pressed we could establish an intimate relationship with Altiyan in a very short space of time) and we'd have a chat to him. Using flattery, we convinced Sir Elton that Altiyan would need to be prepped before meeting The Most Famous Homosexual in the World.