Letters To The Editor

Sir, Lemmy? Yeah, okay, but an arse-breath.

Angus, via email

Sir, got some nifty writers there, have you? I can appreciate how hard it must be to earn a living from recycling press releases so I’ve got an opportunity that some of your scribes may be interested in.

I’m putting together a book for which I need a certain amount of facts regarding the End of the world (notice the capital ‘E’ on End). If any of your writers (or readers) believe that now is the End of the world and you have solid facts to back it up, I will buy that info, paying separately for each fact.

I need a total of 200 solid, believable facts which, I don’t need to tell you, could add up to a pretty tidy sum if you know your Armageddon from your Apocalypse.

I should make clear that I am not looking for prescriptions for humanity. Please do not email me facts until we have come to an agreement.

Yours, Jon Derbyshire, Fife

Sir, ‘When Cheryl Cole Cries’… by Lorna Irvine

1… A hundred animated bluebirds sing.

2… It’s no surprise.

3… I want to kick my telly.

4… A new ballad comes out, purportedly NOT about Ashley.

5… Ashley curses the advent of the mobile phone.

6… The chattering classes drown her out.

7… A kitten dies.

8… L’Oreal question if that’s their mascara running.

9… Grown men masturbate.

10… The tabloids fete her “bravery”.

11… Piers Morgan gets a “special feeling”.

12… Hollywood considers a Geordie remake of Stepford Wives.

13… Nadine yells “pull yourself together! I was talent!”

14… Simon Cowell smiles, wryly.

15… Alice Cooper praises her look.

16… The words ‘nation’s sweetheart’ are bandied around. Again.

17… An angel gets its wings.

18… She never looks particularly convincing.

19… Fashion experts hail ‘victim chic’.

20… Kleenex looks on, rubbing their hands.

21… A million other people change their channel.

 

Sir, I was wondering if you could help clear up a healthy academic debate surrounding your ‘art director’.

While your (presumably ghost-written) leaders have hinted at various aspects of his character over the years — a toothless madman with a fondness for fried egg sandwiches and prison dramas — we really haven’t had much to go on. As such, those of us in the art world have been uncertain of the true intent behind his work — its sheer randomness undermines any pretence of a definitive vision.

There has been talk that Stool Pigeon 28, colloquially known as ‘The Salem issue’, was his last known recorded work; that he has been replaced by an imitator; that the recent design change marked his final gesture of guidance for mankind on the eve of a potentially permanent descent into madness — brought about, no doubt, by a quest to unearth the most obsolete font in the history of printing.

However, I see from a recent post on your Twitter account that he is still very much kicking about and functioning lucidly, allowing us readers to eagerly await your next issue, which will we squint through with caution.

Kelvin, London, EC1

Sir, picked up your Dec issue and noticed the ‘Ye History of Rock’ column. Now while someone needs to give mindless nostalgics a kick up the arse (specifically those who go to see nothing else but cover bands and pay silly prices for bootlegs of the same songs they already owned 30 years ago), John Robb has clearly missed the point here, for his criticism of the original punk explosion seems to boil down to mere chart success (or lack of it).

Yes, David Soul may have outsold major punk bands, but did he have to contend with an army of hostile DJs blacklisting his music? The music press too (apart from Sounds) treated punk like a contagious disease. So it really was some achievement that punk bands got near the Top 40 at all.

The reason punk was successful is not because of sales; it is the impact it has left decades on. It taught the listener to think for him/herself. If I’d never discovered punk, who knows? I could easily have been a Sun-reading sheep who believes that asylum seekers get given people carriers and flatscreen tellies, the disabled are all football referees, and that everyone on strike is a greedy, idle motherfucker who should be brought down to my level of minimum wage misery. But I’m not, because punk taught me THE ESTABLISHMENT WILL LIE TO YOU.

Don’t go equating success with money and fame. Think of it as John Lydon being stabbed for insulting the Queen, Crass appearing on MI5 files and the millions of ordinary people it left with a whole new outlook on life. There will never be another movement like it, and in case you’re wondering, I say all this as someone who is forever looking for good new bands — none of which I have found in the NME or HMV.

Trev Hagl, Negative Reaction fanzine, Co. Durham

Sir, I see that you are now putting new issues online. This is a good thing as I do not always manage to get hold of a paper copy. However, please do not stop printing hard copies of the paper… ever! Too many of my favourite fanzines are just webzines now, and it’s very difficult to read those while queuing at the doctors. Paper is still my medium of choice.

Keep up the good work.

Ed Menzies-Kitchin, Ipswich

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