Punk - handbags @ the embassy

[Tiger]

Punk punch-up!
Handbags at dawn between Jimmy Pursey and John Lydon
24 Aug 05 - Punk legends John Lydon and Jimmy Pursey came to blows
outside the US embassy as they queued for visas.

There has been bad blood between the pair since the Seventies - and
things came to a head this week as they waited outside the embassy at
7.30 in the morning.

Former $ex Pistol Lydon ignored Pursey's offer to shake hands and threw
coffee over him, while the Sham 69 singer responded by kicking his punk
rival. Bizarrely, The Proclaimers were also there and witnessed the
whole thing before armed policeman intervened to calm the situation.

Pursey was waiting for a visa so he could travel to New York for a
benefit gig in aid of the CBGBs club. He told 6 Music the scrap was like
being back at school.

He said: "It would be like someone standing in the dinner queue with
someone that you don't really get on with when you're at school.
Suddenly, it just turned into him and his mate throwing coffee at me,
then it just went from bad to worse with the armed guards luckily
interpersing the whole thing. One of them thank god know knew who we
both were."

He continued: "It's not every day you get a guy with a submachine gun
round your head telling you he's a Sham 69 fan."

Lydon meanwhile dismissed Pursey's claims.

He told The Sun: "All the usual low-rent and lies. He's not fit to be in
the same sentence as me. What do you expect from a low-rent fake mockney
two-bob runt?"