Warning: Mr. Roger Waters sometimes uses strong language in the underneath article.

When I opened the Anchor this morning I thought I saw a beggar leaning against the door post. I took a broom to wipe the scruffy looking scum-bag away, but I discovered just in time it was none other than... Roger Waters.

“Come in here, Roger”, I said, “long time no see”, which is practically a blatant lie as I had never seen him in my entire life. “Thanks, Sylvester”, he replied, which was weird as well, as Sylvester isn't my name but the name of the dude who used to have The Anchor in the early sixties. By the looks of it Roger Waters was on an Alzheimer-induced trip through memory lane.

Roger sat in front of me while I tried starting a conversation: “Hello...you wanna cup of coffee?”
He just sat there with wild staring eyes, so I repeated: “I'm sorry, would you like a cup of coffee?”
This time he nodded and for a moment I thought this bloke was even more bonkers than Syd Barrett who used to lick the chalk at the snooker table if you didn't stop him in time: “Ok, you take cream and sugar?”

Waters took a sip of his coffee and he looked as if he really didn't want to be there, wherever that might be. It is a good rule for a bartender to leave a client in peace, if he wants so, or to have a vivid conversation, if he wants so too. I decided, against my intuition, to have another go: “What a show, hey, yesterday night.”

“Yeah, thanks”, he murmured. Waters had probably misunderstood me and thought I had asked him about one of his Wall shows that he has been performing for the fifth consecutive year now.

“No, that is not what I mean, Mister Waters. I meant the Olympics opening show with all that you touch and all that you see and things...”

“It's called Eclipse!”, he snapped, pointing a finger at me: “That whole Olympic opening show was a rip-off of my work, you hear me. Didn't you see the James Bond sequence where the helicopter flies over Battersea Power Station. What did you see, boy, tell me, what did you see?”

“Did I have to see something?”, I asked. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. I had watched the show with one eye, finding it a load of pretentious crap, and I switched it off when Mike Oldfield and his band started playing Tubular Bells, sounding as if it came out of a tin box.

“I'll show you.”, he said and pressed an iPhone under my nose, “It's on YouTube. Here. You see this helicopter fly over Battersea that has a Pink Floyd pig between its chimneys and then it passes next to Big Ben with the ticking clocks from my brilliant master-work Time.” All I could see was a black screen with a warning:

“As a matter of fact, it's all dark to me.”, I answered. Roger Waters turned the iPhone around and screamed one of his screams that make his solo albums such a blazing success. He pushed the screen as if it was fabricated by Play-Doh.

“Andre!”, he shouted, “Get me the top buffoon of the Olympics, that crazy hand-clapping Belgian who was standing next to the old bat! ...Where I am, doesn't matter where I am, just get me that wimp!”

Suddenly he remembered that I was still standing behind the bar as well. “How dare they, a fucking copyright claim by the fucking International Olympic Committee. It is my fucking pig, I tell you, and my fucking clocks!”

He pressed the phone again and had his personal secretary in a matter of seconds: “Andre! Check our lawyer if that creepy Danny Boyle person has asked permission to use my pig and my clocks... What do you mean... an academy award winner? Isn't it already bad enough that McDonald's forces the visitors of the games to eat their crap at gunpoint?” I always thought it was physically impossible to smash down an iPhone but Roger Waters apparently succeeded in doing just that.

“Did you know,”, Roger said to me, “that the Olympic show has been co-produced by Mark Fisher. The same Mark Fisher who would still be selling fish and chips if I wouldn't have hired him to supervise the inflatables during the Animals tour? Seems that he has being borrowing from my impressive portfolio as well.”

I opened my mouth, but before a first syllable could escape, Roger's phone rang.

“Yeah Andre... mmh... mmh... mmh.” Waters listened attentively to what was said at the other side. Suddenly his voice turn into a soft grumbling. “The International Olympic Committee didn't ask Roger Waters Ltd for an authorisation to use the pig. Fine, let's close down their circus then... that will learn them...”

From where I was standing I could hear his secretary trying to get a message through to his boss. Suddenly Roger's eyes went very dark: “They have asked Pink Floyd (1987) Ltd for an authorisation... what... do... they... have... to... do... with... my... pig...”

I have once read in a magazine that just before a tornado hits your chicken shack it gets awfully quiet. Roger Waters was awfully quiet now. A good bartender knows what he has to do to prevent a row, so I tried to divert from the subject: “Now that you mention it, those rows of beds in the stadium made me think of Pink Floyd as well.”

“What the fuck a bed has got to do with my work of genius?”, he snorted, “As far as I know no bed has ever been used on a Pink Floyd album. Silly Storm tried once, but he couldn't stand up against my pig. Nobody can stand up against my pig.”

He smiled a big smile, so my trick did work apparently.

“But you are right, the bed thing that was supposedly about the National Health Service stole most of its imagery from me. Suddenly the stadium, with its pyramidal Dark Side of the Moon light towers, was surrounded by a pulsating heart-beat like the Hipgnosis artwork that has been done under my intelligent guidance. Some minutes later giant inflatable marionettes, not unlike my teacher from my Wall, descended from the sky. Poor Gerald Scarfe, he would still be cutting onion rings in a Soho Chop Soy dump if I hadn't employed him on the Wish You Were Here tour.”

He sighed a heavy sigh: “It's awfully difficult to be a genius, Sylvester, but I cope with it rather well.”

Suddenly three men, dressed in white, jumped in the pub. They immediately froze when they saw the man sitting in front of me and slowly walked to him. “Come in here, dear boy.”, one of them smoothly said, “We have to fly you back for your show in Santiago de Chile tonight.”

“Daddy, I wanna go home...”, Roger cried and for a nanosecond I pitied him. “Hush now baby, don't you cry”, said nurse #1, nodding to nurse #2 who had prepared an injectant. “Just a little pinprick, Roger, to keep you going for the show.” Two of them grabbed Roger Waters under his shoulders and dragged him out of the pub, his feet sliding over the Anchor's polished floor.

I could swear I heard a copter leaving off a few minutes later, but perhaps this was my imagination. But what I do know with certainty is that nobody bothered to pay me for the coffee.

(The above article is not entirely based upon facts and some situations have been enlarged for satirical purposes.)

Many thanks to: 2braindamage, Bloco do Pink Floyd, Matt, NPF.

Articles:
Neptune Pink Floyd was the first website to publish a 23 seconds excerpt of the Olympics 2012 - James Bond - Battersea movie. In true Olympic spirit it was promptly deleted by YouTube on demand of the IOC.
Pink Floyd feature in London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony @ Brain Damage.

Videos:
Vimeo: Flying Pig above Battersea & clocks from Time at the Olympics (Bloco do Pink Floyd): Pink Floyd na abertura das Olimpíadas de Londres.
Vimeo: Eclipse (Dark Side Of The Moon) at the Olympics (Bloco do Pink Floyd): "Eclipse" (Pink Floyd) no acendimento da Pira Olímpica.
YouTube: Eclipse from within the stadium (2braindamage): pink floyd eclipse

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