Just as when my father passed away, when Malcolm died it was appropriately enough my mother who rang to tell me. For, in a sense, as Julie Burchill once rightly acknowledged, we are all his children; he was the man who spawned an entire generation.
I miss him. And it has taken me almost three years to finally find the heart to make the trip to Highgate Cemetery in order to pay my respects at the graveside of a man who ordered the first champagne I ever tasted, encouraged me to smash a window in L'Escargot, taught me the importance of narrative in interpersonal relations, and once suggested that I should move to Paris in order to seduce the novelist Amélie Nothomb.
When Serge Gainsbourg died, flags in France were flown at half-mast and President Mitterand gave a eulogy in which he described the singer as a poet who elevated the pop song to the level of art. Perhaps the same or something similar could be said of Malcolm; he transformed the ugly into something beautiful and base matter into gold.
But there was no state recognition for McLaren, who died, like his hero Oscar Wilde, in exile and, in a sense, in the failure he always celebrated over and above any benign success. Instead, there was a rather crass and vulgar funeral in which his life was reduced to a few slogans and several of those who genuinely loved him were either not invited, or told to stay away.
And now there's just a grave without flowers, a contested will, and Dame Vivienne selling her story to The Mail on Sunday ...
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