Keith. Bugs not pictured. Image: Ian Gavan/Getty Images Europe.

During a live show that eventually ended up on his album, ‘Dangerous’, comedian Bill Hicks was riffing on the subject of healthy living when he made the following observation:

Keith Richards outlived Jim Fixx, the runner and health-nut dude. . . . The plot thickens. . . . Keith Richards is shooting heroin into his eyeballs and still touring, all right? I’m getting mixed signals. I picture nuclear war and two things surviving: Keith and bugs.

Twenty-two years on, nuclear stalemate has prevented Hick’s theory from being proven fully, although to be fair, Keith himself has given it a good old crack – surviving a heavy fall from a coconut tree whilst on holiday in Fiji and attempting to inhale his Dad. Yesterday he was onstage celebrating the Stone’s 50th anniversary.

Somewhere in this godforsaken sphere of consciousness, Bill Hicks is laughing his ass off, y’know. Between cigarettes.