Why Keith gave up cocaine!

While we are on the subject of death......

Known for his hedonistic past, rock legend Keith Richards is no stranger to controversy. But yesterday the Rolling Stones guitarist was forced to issue a statement denying that he once snorted his father's ashes after giving an interview in which he made the bizarre admission as an apparent joke.

Richards, 63, hit the headlines after telling music magazine NME that he had snorted the ashes mixed with cocaine after his father had been cremated.

(Keith Richards a few months after his own death!)

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he had said. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow," the original wild man of rock added.

But the Rolling Stones have now issued a statement insisting that the comments were "totally untrue" with Richards stressing that his words were somewhat "lost" in translation.

"The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak," said the star, in an equally confused attempt to explain what had become of the final remains of his father, Bert, who died in 2002 at the age of 84.

"I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it," added Richards in a statement posted on the Rolling Stones' website.

Your "why I gave up drugs" scribe;
Allan W Janssen