A gifted saxophonist whose ability to control her breath helped her survive the Marchioness disaster will describe to the High Court in London today how her career with top rock bands was wrecked when she was plunged into the Thames.

Tonight, what's left of The Who play `Quadrophenia' at Earls Court. It's enough to make you weep - or smile.

This particular box contains some of the most harrowing, incendiary music ever made; its reissue offers a pertinent reminder of how rock music managed to drag itself out of the mid-Seventies progressive-rock malaise. Both the Boo Radleys and Kula Shaker could learn a lot from these five CDs, the first of which alone scales pinnacles subsequently left unattempted.

Former shop owner Robert Orbach laments the demise of Carnaby Street

We are on a two-week family holiday in Sardinia - an island populated entirely by glossy-haired beauties whizzing by on Vespas and withered nuns on their way to Vespers. We stare at the coltish girls and try not to look at the nuns. "I don't like them," whispers Mum. "It's so dopey. Marrying Christ." Dad is racing way ahead of us - he always does - turning now and then to say "keep up". We can't. Mum recalls their wedding day. "He walked too fast for me then, too. I had to say, 'Excuse me, I can't find the registry office by myself.' "

The Who plus Bob plus Eric Clapton plus no booze in a bleak midsummer Hyde Park equals one damp squib. By Andy Gill

The pathetic beginning of the new Guinness commercial sets us up to guess Age Concern has scraped together enough for a tear-jerker. An old man makes his way home, in pyjamas and on a stick. In his cluttered flat, he does the things you'd expect: looks at photo albums of a family dead and dispersed; feeds the budgie and the fish; looks ready to nod off.

The plot of Tommy is absurdity itself. A young boy witnesses the murder of his mother's lover by his war-hero father. He subsequently loses the ability to see, hear and speak, and spends his days staring into the mirror. He becomes a teenage pinball champion, regains his senses, is worshipped as a messiah and rock 'n' roll idol, then gets disillusioned with the world and is rejected by his fans. As big-budget West End musicals about autistic Christ figures go, the Who's wild (and wildly pretentious) rock opera sounds about as appetising as one of Pete Townshend's solo albums. Yet Des McAnuff's gaudy production is breathtakingly imaginative and, for a show built around such a flimsy conceit, almost insanely rousing. It feels crisp and new - the only thing that's dated is the idiom, but then I don't suppose "Pinball Wizard" would have the same pizzazz if it ran: "That kid with learning difficulties / Sure plays a mean pinball."

A star is born: Unknown actor lands lead role in pounds 3m production of 'Tommy'

Towering Inferno are a multimedia musical combo with big ideas and a point to make.

One old crock, two old crocks, three old crocks rock. Jim White winces to the music

Not everyone wants to sign on with the Roadshow. So what other career paths are open to the ageing rocker?

'WHEN I got close up to him, I could see he was wearing my true face . . . the face I always wanted.' This, according to The Who's scrupulous biographer, Dave Marsh, is how hard-core fan 'Irish Jack' felt when he first saw Pete Townshend on stage at a Shepherd's Bush church hall in 1962. The epiphanous effect might seem to be undermined by Jack's qualifying statement - 'Everything would have been perfect if I had a nose like this geezer' - but it actually isn't. It was The Who's very distance from picture-book pop- star ideals that would make them so important to people.

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