THE ROLLING STONES: Something happened to me yesterday

IT'S ROLLING STONES WEEK HERE AT GONZO DAILY

One of my favourite authors is the sadly under-rated Edmund Cooper, a science fiction writer who drank himself to death about thirty years ago. One of his books, Kronk, opens with the protagonist (an artist called Gabriel Chrome) staggering drunkenly about the Thames Embankment, trying to summon up the courage to kill himself.

He is slumped by the statue of Sir Michael Phillip Jagger, when he meets a beautiful naked woman and a strangely sentient corvid. Oh how we laughed!

We laughed, because of the amusing irony. How could Mick Jagger, the doyen of rock and roll revolution, the man who sang that he would "shout and sing, I'll kill the King, and rail against his servants", ever get into the good books of the British establishment far enough to get a knighthood. It was unthinkable. As unthinkable as Johnny Rotten advertising buter, ho ho ho.

But, somewhere along the line the unthinkable happened.

A couple of years ago, the heir to the throne published a book called Harmony. It is basically a vaguely hippy plea for peace and love and togetherness, and I quite enjoyed the bits that I read. The book, not unsurprisingly  had particularly lavish production values, but what is surprising is that 50, the new book credited to Jagger, Richards, Watts, and Wood, which covers half a century of Rolling Stones activity has far better ones!

This book is magnificent, and during the Gonzo Daily 'Rolling Stones Week', we are going to go through some bits almost at random (actually, using the pictures that their publicists said that we could) and showcase some of the magnificent parts of this remarkable tome.

For it is a tome. Unquestionably it is. This elevates the band to the status of high artists (no pun intended), and for me - someone who believes that rock and roll is still something vibrant, revolutionary, and important, I am not sure whether I approve. But forget about my stupid art-snobbery; it is irrelevant. This is both a fascinating and a beautifully put together book, and a snip at just under thirty quid!