Hope I Die 'fore I Get Old

It's the birthday of Pete Townshend, the lead guitarist of The Who, writer of operas, smasher of guitars, editor of books, born in 1945. He wasn't as handsome as bandmate Roger Daltrey or contemporaries Lennon and McCartney, or as sexually perplexing and magnetic as Mick Jagger. He was simply an angry working bloke with a mean guitar. Still is. Nowadays he is also an important fundraiser for the hard of hearing.

Rock stars are interesting to chronicle because their lives are one long battle against age. Loud Peter Pans who refuse to outgrow tight pants, criminals who write poetry, travel armed with guitars and banned substances.

Townshend broke his first guitar in concert at age 19. It was an accident, but the crowd loved it, so he made it part of the act. On his twentieth birthday, on a train between London and Southampton, he wrote the anthem of his generation, which featured the nihilistic line "Hope I die 'fore I get old."

But he didn't. Keith Moon and John Lennon and others did, becoming permanent youthful icons. At 31, Townshend suffered permanent hearing loss during a concert at Charlton Football Ground. At 35 he nearly died of a drug overdose at the Club For Heroes. At 38 he dissolved The Who and became an employee of the publishers Faber & Faber. Did he become a man of letters? Not really. Eventually he went back out on the road, as all rock stars do. Is that Townshend I sometimes see pitching Time Life Rock 'N Roll collections on late night TV? When you live that long and play that hard it becomes harder to surprise people.

Rock stars are my favorite subcategory in A Book of Ages. Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Lennon and McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Pete Townshend are our Keats and Shelley and Byron. Doing outrageous things, but somehow managing to remain poetic, funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting.

Father's Day

Is it too early to talk about Father's Day? I don't think so. Men buy their wives Mother's Day presents the afternoon of the day before; women are more organized and probably bought the father of their children a gift in the post-Christmas sales. So, I am counting on the kids.

Kids? Fathers love books. Biographies are great. Military biographies even better. Sports biographies, excellent choice. Political biography?

It's getting hard to choose isn't it? Which do you go for? The safest idea might be to spread your bets out a little. Cover the board. Buy Dad A BOOK OF AGES. It's got sports heroes, famous generals, film stars, chefs, cowboys and Indians, bank robbers, mountain climbers, spy novelists and real spies, rock stars, business tycoons, famous explorers, presidents, philosophers, inventors, scientists, heroes and arch-villains.

And A BOOK OF AGES is fun to read. Men love facts, and every page is jammed full of interesting facts, funny stories, amazing moments from over 700 amazing lives. Bite sized paragraphs. Dad will start reading them aloud to you: "Did you know that Ted Williams homered in his last time up?" "Did you know that George Washington didn't win a battle until he was 44?" "Did you know that Pete Townshend broke his first guitar onstage when he was 19?" (All true.)

And I know you will act as if you are interested when he does this because dads are at their most lovable when they are dispensing bite sized bits of wisdom. They are happiest when they are doing this. He will love this book. And you will refrain from rolling your eyes when he is reading from it, at least until you have left the room.

But seriously, it is a perfect gift. Suitable for grandfathers too.