A wealthy, middle-aged bachelor once told me, apropos of nothing, he was saving homosexuality for his dotage. 'I'm saving The Beatles for mine,' I quipped.
It was a steamy season in London and the two of us were seated in the rotunda at BBC TV centre, smoking cigarettes and staring skyward towards the golden sculpture of Helios. It was halfway through the 1990s, two decades beyond the moment in which the BBC and The Beatles came together to make history. In the seismic year of 1966 satellite technology made it possible for television stations across the world - with the exception of the USSR, naturally - to transmit as one. The world's first global broadcast occurred the following year: each country participating offered up something local and cultural. For Germany it was Lohengrin from the opera house that Wagner built in Bayreuth. There was a concerto from the Met in New York, and Franco Zeffire…