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 0730.

Former Sex 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 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?"

Jody Thompson