JAN MOIR: A wedding to celebrate? No, an absurd union that'll last as long as a ripe peach

By Jan Moir

PUBLISHED: 20:31 EST, 1 November 2012 | UPDATED: 06:33 EST, 2 November 2012

In tune: But is Sally destined to become Ronnie's carer?

Leaping the troublesome hurdles of age, experience and common sense like a crazed gazelle, Sally Humphreys is really going ahead with plans to wed Ronnie Wood, her knight in gently rusting armour.

Well, good luck to both of them, I say. Isn’t it tremendous when tru luv conquers all? Especially when it transcends an age difference that arch-pervert Jimmy Savile would have been proud to call his own.

One that disgusting lust-bucket Silvio Berlusconi would stand up and salute. And one that innocently endorses the rather disquieting notion that young women are the rightful sexual playthings of men who are older than their own fathers.

Of course, it is not the disparity in years that is as important as the actual ages of the couple involved — and whether or not the parties concerned are old enough to know better.

That must be why everyone is treating the forthcoming nuptials between 65-year-old Ronnie and 34-year-old Sally as a matter of tremendous celebration. In public at least.

In private, I wonder if quite so many associates don’t regard the union as utterly absurd, not to mention completely perishable — with the potential shelf-life of a ripe peach. 

Theatre producer Sally says that the age difference is ‘not a problem’ — and she is absolutely right. Just like it is ‘not a problem’ when you hitch a decrepit wagon to a filly — so long as you don’t expect to get past the next corner without the horse bolting, the wheels falling off and the undercarriage disintegrating.

Start me up? Someone’s got to tell Sal that soon it is going to take a crank shaft and a pair of defibrilators, at the very least.

Yet the giddy fiancée claims that she and Ronnie have a lot in common — they share a love of the arts, for a start.

Are you going to tell her, or will I?

Sally, many women share a love of fava beans with Hannibal Lecter — but it doesn’t mean they have to marry the brute.

Still, for any bride to be caught up in the first flush of romance, it is impossible to see the road blocks that lie ahead. Or the wreckage that litters the road already travelled.

Especially if she, like Sally, is a nice middle class girl from Birmingham, the daughter of music teachers and a keen marathon runner. Good. She’ll need all her strength for what is to come.

For isn’t it ominous that rocker Ronnie is the last Stone still Rolling; the only member of the band still scampering after girls, like a pathetic and desiccated version of Russell Brand?

Today, guitarist Keith Richards likes nothing better than making his own-recipe shepherd’s pies and plotting family holidays, touring in his beloved Winnebago.

After 48 years, drummer Charlie Watts is still with his wife Shirley  and they run a stud farm together  in Devon.

Even priapic Mick Jagger seems to have settled down, and appears to be happy with girlfriend of 11 years, L’Wren Scott.

Not so our Ron.

In 2008, the recovering alcoholic and drug-user left his second wife Jo to run off with an 18-year-old cocktail waitress. At one point, I seem to recall he was going to marry her, too.

And since leaving the dedicated care of Jo, Ronnie has been in and out of rehab in a battle to beat his addictions.

Despite the cushioning effect of his considerable fortune, none of this bodes well for a peaceful old age, nor makes him an attractive matrimonial prospect for any woman.

Yet Sally has got the big grin and whorl-eyed look of a gal who loves publicity more than perhaps she should, while Ronnie has the wolfish smirk of the serial skirt-chaser who can’t believe his luck.

Not only a woman who is 31 years younger than him — he’s managed to get his paws on a bit of posh, too.

Meanwhile, her parents are said to be ‘supportive’ of the marriage — I wonder if that is really true.

Still, rich men will always marry younger women — if they possibly can. And women will always let them, particularly if there is something special in it for them.

I’m not suggesting for a second that Sally Humphreys is a gold-digger — that’s clearly not what motivates her. However, Wood’s children, grandchildren and ex-wife would be wise to ensure that their proper inheritance is protected — from the whims of Wood at least.

Usually I feel sorry for the wives left behind, but Jo Wood must be glad she is rid of Ronnie as he sails into his nursemaid years. What a thankless task that is going to be for anyone, third wife or not. Once upon a time it was all Jumping Jack Flash, now wrecked Ron is dangerously near Gimme Shelter-ed Housing territory.

Once upon a time it might have been exciting to be a Rolling Stones wife, but does Sally really know what she is letting herself in for?

Unfortunately, age-gaps are not like arteries — they widen over time, they do not narrow.

The poor girl might end up as nothing more than a carer, a helpmeet, someone to bring him something eggy on a tray for lunch. Just like a young girl should.

What a couple of real horrors

Oh, baby! The Grammers at the party, complete with Halloween costumes

Kelsey Grammer is defending his decision to take his newborn daughter to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion for a Halloween party. What a monster!

The Frasier actor said that he and his wife Kayte couldn’t find a babysitter, so took they took four-month-old Faith with them in a car-seat instead and just plonked it down once they got there.

‘Kayte is breast-feeding, and we do not have a nanny or a trusted babysitter at this time, so Faith goes everywhere with us,’ he said, rather smugly. Grrrr. It makes one want to slap him around the chops with a wet nappy.

Clearly the thought of staying  at home instead never crossed  their minds. How incredibly selfish of them.

It is also not fair on the baby, not fair on the host or on the other guests — some of whom would have gone to the trouble of arranging their own childcare, thanks all the same.

And then groaned at the sight of the ghastly Grammers, toting their own mewling ball of baby trouble up the Playboy drive.

Yet neither Kelsey nor British-born Katye think they have done  anything wrong — even though it’s hard to think of anywhere more inappropriate to take a baby. Except maybe an orgy.

Look. Parents do not rule the world. And when you become a parent, you have to accept that some of life’s entertainments are off-limits for the time being.

A new AA survey reveals that twice as many women as men admit that they cannot park cars.

What rubbish. So long as there is an empty space the size of three juggernauts into which  I can gingerly edge in and out of/in and out of/in and out of over a 25-minute period, I’m doing just fine, thanks.

Kate Moss has revealed that posing topless when she was 16 led to a nervous breakdown. She did not want to strip off, but feared her career would be over if she did not. That was 20 years ago — but nothing has changed. The casual exploitation of the young and beautiful by the greedy fashion industry continues unabated.

Ugly's not in our make-up

Louise Redknapp and Heidi Klum have launched a campaign to encourage women to go without make-up for a day.

The BearFaced Day campaign will raise money for the BBC’s Children In Need.

Louise said: ‘It is a simple way to raise money for a great cause.’ Heidi said: ‘I am a firm believer in encouraging women’s empowerment, and what better way to do so than supporting such a fantastic charity.’

Honestly. What a lot of pious hogwash. Perhaps it’s curmudgeonly to criticise anyone doing anything for charity, but surely BearFaced Day is just another way for celebrities to say: ‘Look at me, I’m beautiful without mascara, I’m also a good person, I’m better than you.’

Haven’t we reached glutinous overload with such gratuitously self-serving campaigns?

If Louise and Heidi really want to do something for charity, why don’t they do something useful for once? Volunteer at a local hospice. Pick up all the litter in their local park. Or join the Movember campaign, which asks followers to grow a moustache in November to raise funds for men’s health issues?

We’d all donate good money to see that — rather than just another smug face without lippy.

Diana, you're the image of Princess Fiona

Spitting image: BBC TV presenter Fiona Bruce (left) and a Louis Tussauds waxwork supposedly depicting Princess Diana

The Louis Tussauds House of Wax in Great Yarmouth is facing closure because the elderly owners can’t find anyone to  take it on.

That’s so sad. Surely it is a tremendous opportunity for a smart young couple in the hospitality trade? Particularly after all the publicity the museum has garnered this week — on account of all the exhibits being so awful.

My theory is that it’s not that the waxworks are terrible — it’s just that they’ve got the wrong names on them.

Take another look. Michael Owen should be Jimmy Carr, Jason Donovan is Max Headroom and Princess Diana is clearly meant to be Fiona Bruce (see above).

With the right kind of marketing, the House of Wax could be the biggest attraction in Norfolk. One recent online reviewer said the only realistic waxworks were the ones of Mr Blobby and ‘the dead person in the dungeon’. Hilarious.

I've looked a sheer fright, too

German Shepherd Simba pictured in happier - and hairier -times (left) and with his owner Snieguole Ghuman after a traumatic visit to the grooming salon

Poor Simba the German Shepherd dog, given a ‘baldy’ by an over-enthusiastic assistant in a Bournemouth poodle parlour. Simba only went to the Starz Grooming Salon for a trim and brush up, but came out looking like a giant skinned rabbit.

Her owner Snieguole Ghuman says people now point and stare, making Simba so depressed she doesn’t want to go out.

We’ve all been there. You book an appointment in your local salon for a trim but come out looking like Woody Woodpecker — or worse. And because of the strange cloak of knock-kneed helplessness that overwhelms all of us in the hairdresser’s chair, the bigger the mess made by the stylist, the more you will gulp; ‘It’s lovely, thank you!’

Then sob all the way home.  

I still have nightmares about my Seventies-style ginger bubble perm. I wanted to be like Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born, but ended up like Ronald McDonald. Simba got off lightly.