In which a Rolling Stone Gathers A Fan....

I grew up not that far from Glastonbury, you know. Well, all right, I mostly grew outwards, height is not one of the terrible crosses that I've had to bear,  long legs and lean muscles and all that. I've mostly made do with a bottom that is large enough to go to parties without me, on the 'physical attributes' scale.  But what I'm trying to say here is - I've spent a large portion of my life within a stone's throw of Glasto (no, I didn't throw stones at it. What are you trying to say - that I look like the sort of person who sits around flinging rocks at noteable places of interest? I did once project a pebble at the Forth Road Bridge, but that is irrelevant here...) and I've never been to the music festival.

It looks like this, apparently. Courtesy of the BBC, who are probably sitting around now groaning 'you don't know, man, you weren't there!'

There are many reasons for this. Actually, no there aren't, there are about three. One is sheer lack of arsedness, all that applying for tickets and then finding you've got them but, of the bands playing, most you have no interest in and the only one you do want to see is playing at three in the morning on the day of the heaviest rainstorm ever and they are invisible under the layer of mud and the electrics have cut out anyway so no one can hear them...bitter, me? The second is, of course, money. I no longer live within that convenient, stone-propelled vehicular transporting distance of Glastonbury, so added to the price of the ticket there would be petrol, food and all the concomitant expenses. And the third is - it's during term-time and, you know, day job and everything...  So, I've been watching on TV. Since the alternative entertainment would appear to be Wimbledon, and if it comes to skinny people running up and down and shouting 'uuuurrrgh!' I'll take Mick Jagger over Sharapininkova, or whatever their names are.

Or rather, I wouldn't have, until last night. I've never been much of a fan of the Rolling Stones. I'm not one of these people who maintains fervently that music was at its best when they were seventeen, and has never come anywhere near that pinnacle since. That all modern music is tuneless yelling and feedback and nobody knows how to play an instrument any more and that, in a musical competition they'd take The Kinks (look 'em up) over Two Door Cinema Club any day. That's not me. I mean, yes, music was good when I was young, in patches, and I can still do all the words to 'No More Heroes', but these days I don't so much pogo as weeble, but I do love a lot of new stuff. Having kids does that. It's physically impossible for me to travel anywhere by car without someone putting Vampire Weekend or Haim or Frank Turner in the CD drive (their music, I mean, not them personally. I don't think they'd fit,and if they did, the music would take second place to the shouting and muffled screaming). So, Rolling Stones - not so much.

But last night I was at a loose end - well, I was at several actually. I'd written the first chapter of the new book (yes, all right, settle down, I do write things occasionally, being a writer isn't all lounging about on the sofa eating Walnut Whips and dreaming of the day someone invents a giant caramel-filled HobNob, however much you might like to fantasise about my life). And the Rolling Stones came on TV, doing their Glastonbury set.  And, after two minutes of watching Mick Jagger waggle around like a stick that someone had wrapped in black and infected with St Vitus Dance (two minutes, incidentally, during which I repeatedly said "How old is he?") I was thinking 'wow'. Not about the music, no, you can still keep the music, although I do harbour a small place in my heart for 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', but for the fact that a bloke who is nearly seventy could look that good in black, and have that much energy.

The secret appear to be having as much body fat as a rotary washing line. So, I'm off to practice my wiggling (without putting my back out, giving grief to my stiff hip or making my wonky ankle get all enraged), on the grounds that if it's possible to look this good at seventy, I am damn well going to look that good at seventy!

I may have some work to do...