As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …

 

… Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?

 

… and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy villains with real life versions in the Kremlin and White House?

 

… why a Jam reunion would never have worked.

 

… when did ‘cool’ change from meaning exotic and unconventional to being just like everyone else? And why do we picture the concept of ‘cool’ in black and white?

 

… in stout defence of the pilloried record reviewer!

 

… why the Olympics was payday for Justine Frischmann.

 

... when Johnny Cash was on the Muppet Show and was photographed with Richard Nixon.

 

… how come no-one complains about old online reviews but they do if they were physically printed?

 

… how Lonnie Donegan made a fortune from Nights In White Satin.

 

… hurrah for the silencing of the Pedicab boombox!

 

… newspaper sellers, milkmen, shifty ‘hot goods’ vendors: whatever happened to the street cries of London?

 

… plus birthday guest Paul Monaghan and rock stars who were architects – Art Garfunkel, Ice Cube, Pete Briquette, Chris Lowe, Ralf Hutter …– and teaching Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann.

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