The thoughts hit me as I discovered this week, rather belatedly, that Malcolm McLaren had died.  He was 64. I never particularly liked the punk impressario and the music he was involved with after the Sex Pistols folded was slightly absurd. I seem to remember repetitive beats and fat people break dancing. But his influence on one of greatest bands the world has produced is undeniable. The Sex Pistols come from my era, the mid-70's onwards. I was a young, impressionable teenager at the time.

They came from nowhere and went nowhere, but boy did they light up the stage during their 15 minutes of fame. They were of the moment, but did we apreciate it? Probaly not.

I was listening to US west coast band The Doors at the time and I remember one of the lines on an album sleeve saying, "After The Doors it was never quite the same sitting down to dinner with your parents."

Bollocks.

That was the feeling after 'God Save the Queen" came out in 1977, upset everyone and got banned. It blew the status quo apart. Anyway that was all a long time ago.

For now though I have just heard about McLaren's death. I miss some news out in the mountains but I have head that his funeral has just taken place.

He died from cancer. It was a rare cancer, linked to asbestos and may have originated from when his shop SEX, which he opened in 1974 in the King's road with Vivienne Westwood, was renovated. So, there was a bit of work on his shop, he breathed in some articles of asbestos and almost 4 decades later he keels over. Weird.

How many other people has it happened to that we don't hear about?  Then there are people that die in road accidents. People that are diagnosed with terminal illnesses out of the blue. The hundreds of people each season that perish in avalanches.  Many people die without warning and don't reach the end of their natural time. Life is fragile and we only have it once.

Yet we are so busy that much of the time it passes us by and it strikes me that perhaps we spend far too much time worrying, arguing with each other and moaning about things that are not that important.

If someone told you that you would be dead within 5 years, how would you change your life?

For some reason time in the mountains makes people appreciate life.  Climbers often say that the constant threat of danger and death makes them appreciate and understand life.  If you are an off piste skier and have been in a hairy situation you may have had a similar feeling.  Gazing across a mountain landscape and pondering for a moment the size of it all and our rather miniscule and irrelevant place in it all is good for the soul. Getting away from the day to day routine and the mundanities of life is beneficial.

And yet life is all about the small things and if you concentrate on the big things too much then it probably won't do you much good.  Some people I have skied with who spend a lot of time on the mountains are not quite on the same planet as me.  They seem to have spent too much time in their own company thinking about things.  Then there are the ones that have fallen for their own PR and so-called dream life as a ski bum, instructor or guide.

McLaren should have had another 20 years maybe.

His family asked for a minute of madness rather than a minute's silence and requested people to put on some appropriate music and turn it up. I couldn't decide between '1969' by The Stooges or 'Pretty Vacant' by The Pistols so I put them both on and turned up the volume.

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