At the beginning of December 1965, when he was 22, Mick Jagger approached a microphone in a Los Angeles recording studio and, assuming the persona of a woman hooked on tranquillisers, made an announcement: what a drag it is getting old. Ironic no more! His state pension is ready for collection next month and in December the elderly citizen Keith Richards will join him in some of the other benefits that retirement age has to offer: reduced-price admission to certain entertainments, infrequent respect from the young, uncertain employment opportunities, discriminatory insurance possibilities, lengthy healing periods after regular falls, a creeping feeling that they are now an embarrassing burden on society. The Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has been experiencing these things for a couple of years now and so far no grumbles. The spectre of the 65-year-old rock star, so alarming to us when 'Mother's Little Helper' was released in 1966, will soon become a familiar sight. The hundreds of thousands who saw the Stones' 'A Bigger Bang' tour last year were not embarrassed by Jagger's trousers or Keith's smoking on stage; rather, we were celebrating. The same with the Who; their generation is now the fastest-growing sector of the population and, unless we send our young to mass battlefields again, the trend is forecast to continue for 50 years. Caine had come straight from the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood where he made his bid for Hollywood legend status by placing his hands in the cement outside.