"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards himself had yet another brush with death last year when he had a fall on holiday in Fiji. It had been overplayed, he said; he was not climbing a coconut tree but sitting on a "shrub". But he did not play down the subsequent treatment. "I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. I've got pictures of it, mate. They cut my head, brain, skull open, went in and pulled out the crap, and put some of it back again."

"I mean, shit, Keith Richards has got to do everything once."