My Mum used to work at the Reading University Students' Union and part of her responsibilities included dealing with bands and their "amusing" requests. She has done all the "Large bowl of Smarties (no red ones)" stuff. Depending on who was doing the asking she would be happy, bored or irritated. PiL, fine, PWEI less so.
I think the Morrissey rider is interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly the scale of the Morrissey, Inc. brand. It's nice to think these pop stars we admire - or not as the case may be - turn up and do their turns and that's it. I once saw the Rolling Stones backstage crew taking down the equipment from a show the previous night at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg. A small army wouldn't quite cover it. Big, big business, and no wonder so many bands end up in court. Morrissey is in effect the CEO of a small business empire, part of whose schtick, interestingly, is attacking the CEOs of other business empires while pretending he himself is just a normal bloke.
The second point is that if the Queen's appearance requirements were made public does anyone think it would be anywhere near as specifically demanding? I once read she insists on taking her personal toilet seat with her everywhere she goes, but somehow I doubt it is anywhere near the demands made by senior political leaders or Mancunian pop stars: "Turn up, wave, smile (optional), bottle of Dubonnet, two cans of lemonade, keep the Daimler running." Offski.
The next time he has a pop at her we can remind him that on the basis of this document he appears to think himself to be far, far more regal.
