6 October

Two things happened yesterday. Ginger Baker, the drummer from Cream, died, and the refs apparently ruined the NRL grand final. Our response to these two events interests me. Firstly referees - I haven't seen a single major sporting fixture this year where people didn't whinge about the refs, it's relentless childish moaning and complaint. We don't like authority, we expect it to be perfect and without fault. We're utopians. At the same time we treat the death of rock stars as some great social tragedy, our cult of celebrity. We attack officials, who have hugely complex tasks to do, and worship celebrities, who have no real responsibility for anything, and are often deeply flawed humans to boot. We're all really Trumpians, the celebrity president, I think we just don't see it. All these behaviours are connected. I like music and musicians, but to be honest I'm at an age where if I'm more interested in them than in Brexit, for example, I'd seriously question if I actually grew up. Teenagers worship musicians.