“Listen very carefully, 007. This pill is standard issue. It makes you very well disposed to everyone around you, and turns any tune into a total banger. Only drop it when you seriously need to be completely loved up…”

I bought it for the price of a single back in 1989 and it acted as my introduction to the band. It's one of the most battered sleeves I own now purely because I used to take it round people's houses all the time (and also its cheapness made me less careful with it).

A great compilation with a sickly, misleading sleeve that seemingly covers all the facets of his career apart from the coked-up, pissed-up in-jokes nobody else found funny. It's not everything you'll ever need, but it's a great tracklisting.

It's impossible not to be fond of them, really. Their story has one of the weirdest arcs of the eighties and they just laughed their way right through it all (in public, at least).

Looks as if it's The Independent clickbaiting, but still - If reading on a train is "performative", I can say it's only scored me points once in the last 30 years, when I was reading something about Pink Floyd and a fan wanted to bore me about them. I've had more random compliments about my shoes.

One of the truly frightening things about Reform is that they would get rid of so many British public institutions if they got into power - aping Trump's approach, essentially. Won't matter whether they've been neutral, hostile to him or on his side, all public money = bad to him.

You can imagine, can't you? Their kid came home from school with a calculator: "Dad! Did you know about this?"

Of course, the main problem with the Corporation is that news thinks it's the reason the BBC exists. It isn't. In the formative years of the Corporation, news was a part of it, but it wasn't the main event. The BBC's reputation was only partially made by news. The other stuff matters more.

That was bloody always in the Camden Music and Video Exchange for £3 whenever I went in, as well as this total atrocity of a cover from The Hollies. I wonder if both were designed by the same person...

My mum used to have a deep suspicion of second hand stuff, which probably made it seem more alluring to me ("Well, if you want to buy someone else's stinky clothes/ scratched records...")
I'd probably be horrified by how much I spend on drink and food, but the second hand stuff balances it out!

In the official charts or the indies? Nobody apart from Crass or Conflict spring to mind. Both did incredibly well in the indies.

I like James Ray's voice on his own records, but on "Giving Ground" something about it seems misplaced somehow.