At long, long last – the needle in the Instagram haystack. There is finally something I want to look at on the photo-sharing site. You have to wade through a fair few million shots of people’s arses, unsuccessful stabs at insouciance, pools they’ve got a timeshare on, misguided sense of what constitutes a fantasy version of themselves, and an all-pervasive sense that nutrition is not just an acceptable but an electrifying topic of conversation. Then after all that, you find it: Rod Stewart apparently doing an Islamic State beheading while on tour in Abu Dhabi. Posted by his wife Penny Lancaster. I swore I’d never do it, but it’s happening – I’m breaking out the hashtag. #blessed #soblessed.
Admittedly, there are questions to be asked. Primarily: why did none of the media outlets that ran this footage headline it “First cut is the deepest”? I don’t know exactly why it was those subeditors got into the business, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to leave that one on the cutting-room floor. Shame on them.
Before we go on, though, let’s take a closer look at the footage. We set our scene in the Abu Dhabi desert, where Rod and the rod-tourage are dancing along the top of a sand dune. The rear is brought up by Penny, who captions it: “Rod Stewart (leader) band doing a Beatles sand dune crossing.” Not quite, Penny – they weren’t doing a conga across Abbey Road. Anyway, after that Penny peels off and descends the dune while behind her back, Rod seeks a volunteer from the line-up for a purpose as yet unknown. A woman appears to put herself forward but she’s rejected in favour of a bloke, because ultimately Rod Stewart is and always has been a ruddy gentleman. The bloke kneels down, Rod wields the imaginary knife; the deed is done. But still, nothing in the footage is as slashed-to-the-waist as Rod’s shirt. Then it’s down the dune for a bit of cuddle with Pen. As her next caption has it: #sandyafternoons. Every picture tells a story.
For long-term admirers of Rod, such as me, the incident is yet another amusing addition to the canon of a man whose spirit is permanently distilled in the 1978 album cover of Blondes Have More Fun, in which Rod is shown wrapped round a brunette. He is by all accounts a laugh who revels in his good fortune, and who – tellingly – has yet to find the wife who doesn’t want to spend a very jolly and amicable Christmas with all the ex-wives. I suppose this business in the desert may feel a little off-colour to some – but then, so did the hilarious telegram he sent to his mate Elton John’s eyebrow-raising wedding to Renate Blauel in 1984. “You may still be standing,” it read, “but we’re all on the fucking floor!”
Isn’t he majestic? I can’t think of anything more unbearably vulgar than demanding good taste from our rock stars. Mainly, then, Rod’s desert antics are to be welcomed for the bind in which they placed the Daily Mail. On Wednesday, after he’d been snapped travelling to his O2 gig on the London underground, the Mail ran an article headlined: “In praise of Rod Stewart and what luvvies can learn from him”. Barely 24 hours later … well, what the hell are they supposed to do with this? How many Hail Central Lines do you have to say to atone for this?
Alas, we know the timeworn path these things now have to take – and you can be sure it doesn’t count for anything that Rod sang the theme tune to the Falklands war. A line has been crossed. A line in the sand. Even since I have typed the above, Rod has felt moved to issue an apology for the “larking about”. Far from being a mock Isis execution, he clarifies somewhat hopefully, what they were doing was “spontaneously playing out Game of Thrones”.
Aha. Wrong John, guys! He was being Jon Snow, not Jihadi John. Clearly – clearly – the papers have gone and got themselves confused by an ecosystem. If Sir Rod had done it on snowy Ben Nevis in January, they could have headlined it “The KNIGHT’S watch”. As it is, he’s cocked up with the backdrop. Rod is consequently now several hours into a classic modern Wonderland scandal, in which people are calling for him to be stripped of his knighthood – presumably because they’re insufficiently gifted ironists to shout: “Off with his head!”
For the benefit of the last 300 earthlings not to have earned a media studies degree from the University of Life, I merely offer a reminder how this offence process typically works. Rod Stewart’s wife posts a silly video on Instagram. Then a reporter (or many reporters) rings up the family of someone who was genuinely beheaded by Isis – “Hello there! Sorry to bother you … ” – and asks them if they’ve seen it. They probably haven’t, so they are directed towards the clip. Then they are asked how distressed they are, and how much it has upset and offended them and shamed their dead beloved’s memory. I will leave you to decide who has behaved most offensively in this chain of events.
In the meantime, do remember that Rod is a chap who has added to the gaiety of various nations, which is infinitely more than can be said for the endless armies of halfwits taking offence on others’ behalf. I can only hope his desert storm blows over quickly. No one wants to see this get to the point where the PR solution is a sombre acoustic version of I Was Only Joking, performed in an undisclosed Levant location for hero Brit special forces. (Actually, what am I talking about? Would definitely watch.)
