John Walsh: When Papa really was a Rolling Stone

BTW...

Thursday 02 June 2011 19:00 EDT
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After a lifetime of chemically fuelled excess, exhaustively documented in his best-selling autobiography Life, Keith Richards has been faced with a tough, drugs-related confrontation. His daughter Theodora, 26, an international model, was nicked in New York a month ago for possession of marijuana, after she was caught writing graffiti on a convent wall. Would he come down on her like a ton of bricks for disgracing the family? How would he go about recommending a drug-free life? "I told her to give up being arrested, and she agreed with me," the ingenious old rocker told his errant babe.

* It's early June and the silly season has arrived, with a discussion in the Daily Telegraph letters page about the best way to stop crows attacking your windows. also recommended. But the most effective solution, according to Maggie Pilcher of West Sussex, is to print out a recipe for crow pie and attach it to the glass. Crows can take a hint, apparently.

* My colleague Terence Blacker is known as a witty commentator on the passing carnival and, sometimes, a moralist about the kind of people we're becoming. He's less known as a clever songwriter, social satirist and bittersweet romantic somewhere between Jake Thackeray and Jacques Brel, His public displays have hitherto been confined to the London stage, but now he's on YouTube, hooray. You can admire "Sad Old Bastards With Guitars", his tribute to fifty-something axemen failing to appeal to young audiences on www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGIvND2TnFE.

* Bing-bong-bing-bang-bong bing bang BING. Bing BONG bing bong... Sad to report, not everyone loves listening to church bells. An act of sabotage was performed at St John the Divine's in Sharow, West Yorkshire, last week. After enduring two hours of bonging, an unnamed Quasimodo in a green checked shirt climbed to the belfry, screamed abuse at the six bellringers, then trapped them inside by jamming the door with a piece of wood. They were released later, when a passer-by heard them stamping on the floor. It's lucky she didn't take them for Morris dancers, or they'd be therestill.

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