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(from scrapbook 1, page 47)

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MY STYLE

VETERAN rockers Status Quo celebrate 25 years in rock this weekend with their headlining appearance at the 25th Reading Rock Festival. The three chord wonders have spent the summer playing to over 1,000,000 fans at festivals all over Europe.

Guitarist Francis Rossi, 38, who leads the band with Rick Parfitt, callling me from Helsinki to talk about his style:

HOME: A massive £700,000 house with four acres of land and a swimming pool in the stockbroker belt of Surrey. My aunt Agnes takes care of the housework and an ex-copper called Rusty Miller does the gardening.

LOVE: I met my current girlfriend, a 25-year-old model called Page, in Manchester three years ago. I had to sit opposite her in a cafe because it was the only seat available and because she ignored me, I chatted her up.

I was married once, but I doubt I'll do it again. I stopped mucking about with groupies years ago. In the Sixties we used to swap groupies with The Move and Amen Corner, which, looking back on it, I find rather disgusting now.

VICES: I don't do drugs anymore. You could say I've learned my lesson. Not so long ago I had a real bad cocaine habit, costing me £1,000-a-week. I didn't start taking drugs until I was 30, which was just as well as otherwise I'd be dead by now.

HOBBY: I collect exotic fish. I've spent a fortune over the years on koi carp, which cost anything from £2,000 to £30,000 each. I must have about 90 fish by now.

FAMILY: I've three children by my ex-wife. Simon, 20, is working as a stage hand at The Phantom Of The Opera and wants to be an actor, Nicholas, 15, lives with me along with Keiron, eight. I have another daughter, Bernadette, three, from a relationship with a girl called Elizabeth. They live in Canada.

WHEELS: I've had Porsches and Range Rovers, but they don't compare with BMWs. My latest is a BMW 735iASE with talking computers. I believe it can fry an egg.

FASHION: I used to go out and buy 20 pairs of jeans at a time, but now I'm into baggy pants. I wear suits a lot these days

WORST EXPERIENCE: Being thrown into prison in Vienna in 1979 for supposedly beating up some security men at the airport. They thought we were terrorists masquerading as a rock group and our old drummer Alan Lancaster pushed one of them. Next minute we were surrounded by machine guns. Alan got badly bashed around in the cells, but they let us out the next day when they found out who we were.