Taking a break from politics for a moment. These opening grafs by India Knight in the Sunday Times had me chuckling in my morning coffee:

Mick Jagger turned 65 yesterday - thrust-out chest, strut, skinny jeans and all. In theory these defiantly virile rock dinosaurs, of whom Jagger is the grandaddy - the T Rex, if you will - ought to be horribly embarrassing in a "Put it away, gramps" kind of way. In practice they are rather marvellous, not least because chances are that if your dad in his sixties or seventies doesn't necessarily do the pipe and slippers thing, he has Mick and the slew of lesser dinosaurs to thank.

I don't know whether I say this because I am now middle-aged myself (I went to see the Stones at Wembley in 1982 and remember thinking they were quite sexy, for gnarled old people), but it certainly seems to be the case that leathery old rockers who would have been greeted with howls of derision 20 years ago are now an accepted part of the landscape, still thrusting away and putting it about and generally adding to the nation's gaiety.

I'm not quite sure of the proper translation for "putting it about," but you get the gist. My dad turns 64 this December, and the mind reels at the thought of him doing anything on stage remotely akin to Mick. Definitely "put it away, gramps."

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