It was the kind of statement one might expect from the spokesman for a stricken footballer whose dreams of World Cup glory have been dashed by injury. "He really wanted to be there to do something really special. He does feel terribly that he has let people down. He loves performing. He has not only just got out of hospital, he is not in a good way. At the moment we are all just very upset."
But these shellshocked words weren't uttered by Cristiano Ronaldo's, Wayne Rooney's or Lionel Messi's "people". They came from the various talking heads in and around the U2 camp when it was announced the Irish band was pulling out of its headlining slot at Glastonbury this month due to Bono's back injury.
It was all very sad - although the subsequent announcement that Gorillaz would replace them sugared the pill somewhat. But the real subtext was clear. Bad backs are, in the main, the preserve of the old.
Let's face it: there's little less edifying a prospect than watching the heroes of our youth trotting out the same old moves 30 or 40 years on - not least because it reminds us of our own mortality. Anyone who thinks the Rolling Stones have still "got it" because they're once again at No 1 in the charts should remember that the record outselling Keane and Faithless, Exile on Main Street, is 40 years old this year. Would an album of all new Rolling Stones songs do half as well? We very much doubt it.
That the fire has never gone out from Mick Jagger and company is not in doubt. But whether that means the rest of us should have to be impressed is a moot point. Take, for example, the news that the Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood is keen to reform the notorious 1960s bad boys the Faces for live shows. A reunion might have been interesting: Rod Stewart could return to the days when he was a throaty frontman rather than a smooth crooner. But he wasn't interested, so whom did Wood turn to? Of all the vocalists in the wide world of rock, he asked Simply Red's Mick Hucknall.
Sure, Hucknall might boast to all and sundry that he was at the infamous 1976 Sex Pistols gig in Manchester that kick-started punk, but a less rock 'n' roll frontman you couldn't hope to find. Perhaps money is indeed too tight to mention for all concerned. Still, he's younger than Bono. Just.
Rock stars enduring well past their sell-by date shouldn't be so much of a surprise: the nostalgia market is a lucrative beast, after all. Those who have survived the stumble into old age with reputations intact, though, are unquestionably the artists who haven't been afraid to diversify.
Bob Dylan's best work of the past decade hasn't been his music at all but his radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour. Neil Young has been as happy to play stripped-down sets in theatres as to rock out Glastonbury with his band - and was all the better for it. Kraftwerk may have been in cold storage, but when the pioneers of electronic music came back as sixty-somethings, Ralf Hutter played the song Tour de France live in a velodrome with the UK cycling team circling around the audience. The encore was in 3D - and how many gigs can you say that about?
So our proposed upper age limit for rock 'n' roll (let's say 50) comes with a caveat: anyone born before 1950 can of course continue to be involved in the music business, but only if their project is sufficiently innovative or interesting. Gil Scott-Heron, the 61-year-old famous in the 1970s for jazz-funk and soul, is allowed to continue thanks to the brilliance of I'm New Here, a fantastic new album melding electro, folk, hip-hop and dubstep. But sorry, Van Morrison, you're out. One farewell tour for anyone left on the planet who hasn't yet seen you, and that's it.
We're joking of course: the notion of pop music being solely a young person's game, full of squealing Lady Gaga clones or preppy bands in thrall to Vampire Weekend is almost as frightening a prospect as the Rolling Stones touring in their seventies (less than two years away for Charlie Watts, lest we forget). But next time you see an underwhelming performance by a rock "legend", and only give their new album a cursory listen, think on this: are you investing in their continuing career because you really want to, or because you think you should?
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Dirham Stretcher tips for having a baby in the UAE
Selma Abdelhamid, the group's moderator, offers her guide to guide the cost of having a young family:
• Buy second hand stuff
They grow so fast. Don't get a second hand car seat though, unless you 100 per cent know it's not expired and hasn't been in an accident.
• Get a health card and vaccinate your child for free at government health centres
Ms Ma says she discovered this after spending thousands on vaccinations at private clinics.
• Join mum and baby coffee mornings provided by clinics, babysitting companies or nurseries.
Before joining baby classes ask for a free trial session. This way you will know if it's for you or not. You'll be surprised how great some classes are and how bad others are.
• Once baby is ready for solids, cook at home
Take the food with you in reusable pouches or jars. You'll save a fortune and you'll know exactly what you're feeding your child.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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