busker

Pre-sale Stones tickets

I've got mine - at least I've got my *invitation* to accompany a frisky young thang to Key Arena, and I fully intend to keep in her good books at least until the concert is over.

In fact, I'll also buy my own tickets and either use them if we have a bust-up, or tout them on the day.

This having to dance careful attendance on FYT is turning me uncharacteristically solicitous and respectful and is already putting an intolerable strain on our quirky 'relationship'.

All of which reminds me of a foul-mouthed bullying distant relation with whom I used to have loud shouting matches in my arrogant teens and from whose dinner table I was constantly being dismissed by my embarrassed father to finish dessert in my freezing room. I could never understand why everyone was so wimpish and accommodating around him - it wasn't *that* much of a pleasure to be invited for those dour country weekends at the Sturrock Hall.

Anyway, the old curmudgeon finally kicked the bucket and - surprise - left me rather a hefty packet in his 12-page Will.

Turned out the old scrooge was worth a fortune from clever rubber plantation investments before the war and buying up half of bombed-out London in the early fifties.

Seems I was the only one who didn't know this, my parents not having thought it worth telling me since I was too far down the food chain to be a likely beneficiary.

Anyway, he actually referred to my "intolerable insouciance" and lack of manners in the presence of my elders and betters, wagering that I'd come to no good and had better have some pocket money to bail myself out of the inevitable tight corners I'd find myself in.

His nearest and dearest did get *something*, of course, for their "years of craven arse-licking and mincing imitations of a herd of Cotswold ewes", but not nearly what I suspect they hoped for. To the fury of his "prancing coxcomb" of a grandson, he left the Rolls and his hunters to his devoted manservant, his Chinnerys to Mrs Bidwell (his equally crotchety housekeeper), and the Hall and its fittings (plus £s for its upkeep) to the National Trust with the stern proviso it be not allowed to fall into the hands of "some upstart American".

They don't make 'em - and they certainly don't write Wills - like that any more.