Welcome to this year's Christmas special in which we, the fearless investigative journalists that we are, refuse to be silenced and meet head-on the issue the mainstream media doesn't want us to: can Paul McCartney make mashed potatoes?

On 17 December 1998 Paul took part in a live webcast to promote Wide Prairie, a compilation album of Linda's songs, released six months after her death in April 1998. In it he fronted a cookery segment in which he made mashed potatoes as part of a promotion for her book: Linda McCartney on Tour: Over 200 Meat-free Dishes from Around the World. We ask: does his addition of raw onions into the dish represent a bold embrace of the avant garde, betraying the influence of Stockhausen? How significant is it that Paul chose the DIY ethic of a webcast whose content he could control when he was grieving for his wife? And how else did Paul and George Harrison interact with the early internet from the late nineties?

Merry Christmas and thanks as always for your support this year. We'll be back with season six in January.

• Watch the whole webcast (this link will also take you straight to the mashed potatoes segment): https://youtu.be/plrN81ISkh4?si=XM2FPqDxsQzdmxdv&t=3768
• Some info about The Fireman webcast from 2 October 1998, although no footage is available (unless you've got some?): https://lostmediawiki.com/The_Fireman_(lost_live_Youth_and_Paul_McCartney%27s_band_internet_webcast;_1998)
• Watch Grateful Dead: A Photofilm by Paul and Linda McCartney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7NkYfJCYc
• An example of The Big Breakfast, the 1990s UK TV show with a similar crew-participation ethic: https://youtu.be/LFqPHv7nh1A
• The clip from Sleepless in Seattle we mention: https://youtu.be/BHs6iLRvAQM

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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