It’s A Gas, Gas, Gas

THE golden rule when reporting on the Rolling Stones dictates that early in the piece the writer must mention the band members’ combined age.

And so it is that “with a combined age of 249” (and that’s human NOT dog years) the Rolling Stones are rocking like a confused geriatric at the bus stop.

Ronnie Wood, the band’s sprightly 59-year-old guitarist, says that his mates are boring. “They can’t f***ing take it,” says Ronnie in the Mirror. “They always have to go home to rest. Instead they leave all the f***ing partying up to me.”

Might it be that Ronnie is also getting old? Surely Ronnie means to celebrate the fact that with his mates tucked up in bed there is more wine, women and drugs for him. And here he is moaning like an old curmudgeon.

And Ronnie is put out that the rest of the Stones failed to appear at his all-night party on Sunday night. The paper says that the do at Ron’s house was “wild and raucous” and police were called at 4am.

While the rest of the lads were reading A Year In Provence and listening to Radio 4’s nightly show “Why Old People Need Less Sleep”, Ronnie was “inhaling laughing gas-filled balloons”. We who have seen the impressive dimensions of Ronnie’s hooter are nonetheless impressed that he can inhale an entire balloon filled with gas.

And while Ronnie does his party piece, the Star looks on as Mick Jagger gasps for air. It seems that there is method in allowing Keith Richards to sing two songs on the Stones’ current world tour.

As soon as Keith looks like he about to sing, fans nip out for a wee and a drink, and Mick straps on a gas cylinder and inhales sweet, life-giving oxygen.

A source tells the Star: “Although it can look alarming, there’s nothing in any way dodgy about it.”

Mick is no Frank Booth, the sadistic oxygen-inhaler in the movie Blue Velvet. He is just a man. An old man…

Posted: 25th, August 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink