If You Want to Change the World, Start By Making Your Own Fucking Bed!

Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Maria de Soledade Alves 

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (25 March 1969)

Photo by Charles Ley 

 

 

I. 

 

Although there are things that one might admire about John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, I can't say I'm a fan. Indeed, if pushed, I would have to admit that any trace of affection is blotted out by a good deal of animosity and suspicion. 

 

Mostly, that's due to Malcolm Mclaren having taught my generation to never trust a hippie - particularly those who are working in the arts and music business. For when you look beneath the long hair and countercultural bullshit, you soon uncover a crucial (and hypocritical) disconnect betweeen the utopian vision we are asked to imagine and their own lavish lifestyles, often involving enormous wealth and celebrity.

 

 

II. 

 

That was certainly the case with John & Yoko [1] and, for me, no photo brings this home better than the one reproduced above showing the honeymooning couple waiting for a housekeeper to change the sheets on their bed at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, so that they can continue with their Bed-in for Peace protest [2] against the evils of war, injustice, and capitalist exploitation.      

 

The photo, by Charles Ley, was originally published in the Daily Mirror (26 Mar 1969) with the headline 'Beatle John and Yoko are forced out of their £20-a-day bed by Maria, the hotel maid', and went on (in mocking tones) to explain how a Portuguese maid, named Maria de Soledade Alves, had interrupted Day Two of the revolutionary happening held in a flower-scented presidential suite, in order to change the bed linen [3].

 

After watching her complete her duties - and without lifting a finger to help - the 28-year-old Beatle and his 34-year-old wife hopped happily back into bed and continued their protest. 

 

 

III. 

 

When Johnny Rotten was asked why he didn't want to accompany the Sex Pistols to Brazil and perform with the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs [4], he explained that he disliked the romanticised narrative surrounding the whole affair and particularly objected to the fact that the train driver, 57-year-old Jack Mills, was seriously injured during the robbery: That could have been my father.

 

And that's pretty much how I feel when I look at this photo: That could have been my mother [5] - obliged to make the bed in front of two long-haired, hippie layabouts and laughing members of the press.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] By the time of Lennon's death in 1980, his estate was valued at approximately $200 million (that's closer to $800 million in today's money). This fortune was largely amassed from music royalties, but Yoko - who came from a wealthy Japanese banking family - had also made some astute investments in NYC real estate and modern art.   

 

[2] In 1969, John & Yoko staged a unique form of protest called the Bed-ins for Peace, which, as the name indicates, involved staying in bed all day, growing your hair, and giving interviews to the world's media. 

      They held two week-long protests; the first at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and the second at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, during which they invited several famous friends to drop by, including the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and psychedelic psychologist Timothy Leary. It was here, on 1 June 1969, that they also recorded the song 'Give Peace a Chance'.   

      The events were filmed, of course, and readers who wish to learn more might like to watch the documentary Bed Peace (1969), starring John Lennon & Yoko Ono, and shared on YouTube: click here. 

 

[3] Readers who wish to read the article in the Daily Mirror in full, can find it reproduced on the website Vintage Everyday: click here. 

      When asked later whether he and Yoko were irritated by the fact that the press, for the most part, didn't take the Bed-in seriously, Lennon replied that he wasn't; that in fact he and Yoko didn't want to be taken seriously. Fifty years after the event, Yoko Ono stood by the central message being preached, but conceded that it was naive to think you could change the world from the comfort of one's bed. 

 

[4] See the post 'And God Save Ronald Biggs' (5 Jan 2026): click here.  

 

[5] My mother wasn't Portuguese, but she did work, briefly and part-time, at a Trust House Forte hotel, where she had the exhausting job of making the beds in the morning.   

 

 

Reflections on the Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones 

Photo by Gina Eric (2014)

I.

The Georgia Guidestones is, arguably, the world's ugliest monument.

Erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, it is best described as stupidity in stone, with prehistoric pretensions of grandeur and intellectual pretensions of philosophical profundity. It's the sort of thing that only idiots would find impressive. Yoko Ono, for example, praised it as a stirring call to rational thinking.

The monument consists of a central slab with four others arranged around it in, apparently, astronomical alignment and a capstone to top things off. A set of guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight different languages, including English, Spanish, Swahili, and Chinese. There's also a brief message inscribed at the top of the structure in more ancient scripts, including Classical Greek and Sanskrit.     

The anonymity of those responsible for the Guidestones - as well as the content of their message for mankind - has ensured the monument attracts controversy and gives rise to all kinds of crazy conspiracy theory (I want the Guidestones smashed, but not because I believe them to be of a deep Satanic origin).

In the summer of 1979, an individual using the pseudonym of Robert C. Christian commissioned the work on behalf of a small group of loyal Americans. Serving as a compass, calendar and clock, the monument is intended to withstand even catastrophic future events. But I'm hopeful that it will one day simply be bulldozed or blown up - much like the Buddhas of Bamiyan - without any undue fuss.

It's already been defaced with paint and had various pieces of graffiti written over it. Whether this was by art critics, iconoclasts, or individuals objecting to the New World Order, I don't know.         

II.

So what, then, are the ten great politico-moral principles of the Georgia Guidestones ...

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth - leave room for nature.

Without wanting to sound too much like PC Plod, what is there to say other than move along - nothing to see here. For it's essentially the same old utopian bullshit, combining ideas of population control, eugenics, eco-fascism, world government, and Platonic Ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. We've been experimenting along these same lines - with mixed results at best - for the past 250 years or so.

And so we really don't need the explanatory tablet (complete with punctuation errors and spelling mistakes) set alongside the stones to tell us what's being affirmed here: an Age of Reason founded upon genocide; for in order to maintain humanity under 500,000,000 we would need to first exterminate around seven billion people presently living.

The only real mystery here is this: why do so many idealists - acting in the name of Love, Nature and Reason - always fantasise about killing people?*

* To be fair, many commentators argue that the Guidestones are intended as a blue-print for a post-apocalyptic world and that they envision the best way to rebuild a devastated civilization. In other words, the suggestion to keep humanity's number below half-a-billion was made on the assumption that a nuclear war had already reduced mankind below this figure.