Welcome to the Older than Elvis Hall of Fame

Happy birthday Pete Wylie.
Pete has to qualify for the Older than Elvis Hall of Fame:

• for releasing his masterpiece after the age of 40.
• for being, in the words of Julian Cope, ‘the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met’.
• for a Kerouac-scale level of self-mythologising.
• for being older than Elvis... and still being himself.

Why Patti Smith matters

I’ve been to see a film with the 16-year-old heroine who says her favourite musicians are the Stooges, Patti Smith and the Runaways. I would love to believe that such 16-year-olds exist. I’m not sure whether I do. But it made me think back.

It’s hard to explain to a man why Patti Smith was so important. It’s hard to explain to someone who cares about guitar solos why punk rock mattered. Maybe it didn’t matter that the Sex Pistols sang God Save the Queen in Silver Jubilee year and were banned from being number one (the past really is a different country). Maybe it didn’t matter that English people finally started making records in English accents. Maybe it didn’t matter that people were making music, and writing about music, who had never been allowed to before.

You are what you eat

Seen at my local farmers’ market this morning: ‘Squirrels. £4. May contain nuts.’

I thought it was an early April fool’s joke, but the bloke said he shot them himself.

I was almost tempted to buy one. After all, according to Arena, squirrel is supposed to be one of the things Elvis ate when he was young and poor.

In praise of older women

Some wise words in the Guardian today from Manjinder Virk in praise of older women. Reckon her mum qualifies for the Older than Elvis hall of fame.

My mother also turned 60 this year and she celebrated this momentous occasion by spinning the decks - well, CDs, to be more precise. My mum, aka DJ Jasvir, is a writer by day and a radio presenter by night.

What's on TV, darling?

I leave the room for just one minute and when I get back, Clarkson is on the TV. Again. And Partner doesn’t even drive. ‘Top Gear isn’t really about cars,’ he tries to tell me. No, it’s about middle-aged men trying to prove something. At the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Women, the worst thing that ever happened to my living room was when a TV channel I’d never heard of rebranded itself as Dave and got on Freeview.