It is indeed! Helpfully, Nancy Banks-Smith quotes that line in her review.

Lonely Hearts, Thames 1977

Vinyl all seems so long ago but I do also remember fiddling with the counterweight so as not to have *too much* pressure on the needle... I suppose other mechanisms (springs?) could work just as well.

Yes, I had a vague memory of B&O ones.

I think the idea was they were better because the needle would always be at orientated at right angles to the groove, so reducing the distortion inherent in having it on a pivoting arm.
Although if that were the case, how come none of the super expensive hi fi turntables do it?

Check this one out... brixtonredevelopment.weebly.com/report.html

Same. I think it would have been right up my street in '78 but it completely passed me by.

It did however prompt me to read The Mabinogion.

I only saw it when C4 showed it in 1987, at which time it seemed good but glacially slow. 1969 a tad early for me, and I had no idea it had been shown in '78 too. 5:45 on a Sunday wouldn't have been prime viewing time for our family, which may also be why I have no idea what "Katy" was on BBC1.

In the absence of anything more to go on, I will suggest John Renbourn's Reflections(1) - the theme tune to Break in the Sun - because why not?
youtu.be/uA6bBD1q--U?...

AAAAH! THANK YOU! That one's been bugging me for months. Could run the whole thing through in my head hut never knew what it was called.

*case study, ffs

Further study: Larson's article about it is a castle study in "Strategy and structure : short readings for composition" (1996 - archive.org/details/stra... is the 2nd edition)

I think the whole episode is indicative of the place newspapers, and their letters pages, had in the culture of the time. The po-faced articles are just as much tongue-in-cheek as some of the letters. The same impulse to whimsical complaint exists now, in social media comments and memes.