Grammys and kids - Lennon and McCartney

Was awoken yesterday at the crack of dawn by sounds emanating from the TV room. My kids had tuned in to the live presentation of the Grammys. Time was when I could recognise most of the names in the show. Now that's restricted to the Lifetime Achievement Awards.

I missed U2 but I did catch Mariah Carey - no, not literally, more's the pity, she's quite a delicious armful - and an assortment of rap and hip-hop moguls who made me wish I'd stayed in bed. Paul McCartney was average at best, which is such a sad thing to have to say of as pivotal a genius as him. Bruce Springsteen was at his spare best: I do think he does "Nebraska" kind of music so much better than "Born To Run" kind.

The strangest show was a toss-up between a tribute to Sly and the Family Stone (Stoned, more like it) complete with Joss Stone (no relation, I think) who is unreasonably cute and Steve Tyler who is wonderfully wacked out, and a duet with Linkin Park (Lincoln, get it? duh!) and Jay-Z, who being American is Zee not Zed. (Zed's dead, baby.)

Jay-Z was rapping for all he was worth and I was mentally tuned out until I noticed that he was wearing a John Lennon t-shirt. Where did that come from? I wasn't aware that Lennon was an icon for rappers. Then, surprise, surprise! LP and JZ broke out into "Yesterday" only to be joined on stage by the man himself. So there they were, Paul McCartney, LP's main dude (whoever he be) and Jay-Z resplendent in a Lennon t-shirt. That must have been the first time in almost four decades that Lennon and McCartney shared a stage. Even if one was in the flesh and the other was on the flesh. Weird.