It's always pleasing when someone not only conforms to their stereotype, but exceeds it in a manner you could never have predicted. Keith Richard's claims that he snorted the ashes of his own father, Bert, made for some wonderful headlines. The only disappointment, on reading the NME scoop, was that the Stones guitarist hadn't hoovered up his pot'n'pan by mistake, in some farcical hedonist frenzy, but had done so in a more sober manner, cutting him with cocaine.

Too good to be true, apparently - Richards has come out and denied it all; what he really did was plant his dad with an oak tree. He doesn't snort anything these days, anyway. The NME stand by their story.

Keef was probably just pissing about. But if it is true, he shouldn't be ashamed - and we shouldn't dismiss his act as mindless rock'n'rollery. In sucking his maker into his septum and allowing his remains to permeate his mucus membrane, Richards would have paid his author the ultimate tribute. His father would literally flow in his bloodstream. See, it's pleasing, too, when metaphor - blood ties, his spirit lives on, etc - becomes physical reality. It would have been an act almost as beautiful as the intro to Gimme Shelter.