麻豆社

After a 1968 麻豆社 audition he was branded "pretentious", "dull" and "rather weird"

One of Elton John's earliest brushes with the 麻豆社 came on 28 October 1968, when he auditioned to appear on the Stuart Henry Show on Radio 1. The 21-year-old singer, who would go on to sell over 300 million records, did not exactly get the thumbs up from the panel of producers, as these documents reveal. Although Aidan Day of the "Gramophone Programmes" department can be credited with giving him a first class pass and recognising that "although Elton John was suffering from a severe migraine during most of the session, he showed himself to be a highly original and inventive performer" his colleagues were less effusive.

"Pretentious material – self-written – sung in an extremely dull fashion, without any feeling and precious little musical ability. A dreary performance – trying unsuccessfully to follow the Beatles," said one.

Not to be outdone, another followed up saying, "thin, piercing voice with no emotional appeal. Not a tuneful voice. I don’t think this singer doing his own rather weird material is rather right for the radio at present."

The last producer is perhaps the most scathing of all: "The numbers all sound the same, same key, same range, same expression. Not versatile enough for us."

Elton gets beaten by Boom Bang a Bang

A year later, Elton then tried to write A Song for Europe. It was a song that would be chosen to be sung at the Eurovision Song Content. Six entries were sung by Lulu, the viewers were asked to vote for their favourite by postcard. Yep really. The address: 麻豆社 Television Centre, London, W12, by first post on Thursday 27 February.

Elton and his co-writer Bernie Taupin came in sixth of six. The winner got 56,000 postcard votes, Elton and Bernie got a measly 5,000. The winner, of course, was Boom Bang a Bang.

When Eurovision rolled round in Madrid, France, Spain and the United Kingdom were tied at the top with 18 points each. The judges decided that all three would be winners.

Watford chairman Elton John reaching the end of the (yellow brick) road

Watford FC take on Manchester City in the 2019 FA Cup Final and it's only the second time in the club's history that they will compete in the showcase event at Wembley.

The last time, when they lost 2-1 to Everton 35 years ago, Watford's chairman was none other than Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Boyhood fan Elton John took on the role in 1976 and was with the club through an unprecedented period of success. But by the time Elton was interviewed on Radio 2 in 1987 he sounds disillusioned by the whole of the game and desperate to sell up.

With an offer on the table from soon-to-be-disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell, Elton was disgusted to find the move blocked by football's powers that be due to Maxwell's financial interests in a number of other clubs. As you can hear, angry Elton is to the fore in this clip, as he rails against the decision: "The people that run the league are so stupid anyway, I mean half of them you wouldn't buy a used car off. If people like that ran my business, I'd be out of work tomorrow."