"Did you know I can run 100 metres in 19 seconds?"

Rod Stewart, Sir Rod Stewart, is boasting about his physical prowess. And why not?

At the age of 80, he's still cavorting around the world, playing sold out shows, recording new music and even writing a book about his beloved model train set.

This weekend, he'll play the coveted "legends" slot on Glastonbury's Pyramid stage... although the former headliner isn't 100% happy about his billing.

"I just wish they wouldn't call it the tea time slot," he complains.

"That sounds like pipe and slippers, doesn't it?"

He's also persuaded organisers to extend his set, securing an hour-and-a-half slot after initially being offered 75 minutes.

"Usually I do well over two hours so there's still a load of songs we won't be able to do," he says.

"But we've been working at it. I'm not gonna make any announcements between songs. I'll do one number, shout 'next', and go straight into the next one.

"I'm going to get in as many songs I can."

It's not like he's short of choice. Sir Rod has one of the all-time classic songbooks, from early hits with the Faces such as Stay With Me and Ooh La La, to his solo breakthrough with Maggie May, the slick pop of Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? and his reinvention as a crooner on songs like Downtown Train and Have I Told You Lately.

The last time he played Glastonbury, in 2002, he was viewed as an interloper – sitting awkwardly on the bill beside the likes of The White Stripes, Coldplay and Orbital.

At first, "the crowd was wary" of the musician, who "looked to be taking himself too seriously", said the BBC's Ian Youngs in a review of the show.

But a peerless setlist of singalongs won them over. By the end of the night, 100,000 people were swaying in time to Sailing as if they were genuinely adrift on the surging tides of the Atlantic.

Amazingly, Rod has no memory of it.

"I don't remember a thing," he confesses. "I do so many concerts, they all blend into one."

One particular show does stand out, though. On New Year's Eve 1994, Sir Rod played a free gig on Brazil's Copacabana Beach, drawing a crowd of more than three million people.

But it wasn't the record-breaking audience........

© BBC