It’s like magnolia paint, beige suits and mild cheddar – not relevant in 2008.

Please Mr Radio Bloke, can you not play ‘Movie Star’, Cliff Richard or Brotherhood of Man ever again? Or their German equivalents?

It just encourages the taxi drivers to play this stuff too loudly for sanity or good taste!

Make the claim, but don’t titter like an idiot. And don’t follow it up by declaring ‘La Vida Loca’ as ‘one of the greatest records of all time’. Now she’s dissing Ugly Kid Joe about 17 seconds after declaring herself as a grebo in the 1980′s.

Thank the Lord for Goldie …..

Again they were brilliant. They played a different selection of songs so avoided that ‘same again’ feeling.

They are maturing as a band and played a really energetic set.

Ally Pally is a great venue – beautiful building, free parking and not really that far from home. Getting to park 5 mins walk away from the door and being told it was free made a great change from the NEC!

Support was a bit hit and miss though.

The Horrors provided the main attraction which was fun. I just don’t think that Arctic Monkeys audience is necessarily the same as the (ab)normal Horrors crowd.

Personally, they were interesting without making me want to buy the recordings yet at the same time it reminded me of a cheap version of The Damned.

Lots of affectations, decent sounds if you like that kind of thing but hardly the future of RnR.

Unlike the Arctic Monkeys who are the present and future and very good they are as well!

The thing that struck me, after I’d noticed and confirmed that I wasn’t shopping in Tesco, was that the vast majority of the songs were British. Mud anyone? Wizard? What about a little Jonah Lewis? Amazing to hear in Germany, and with no sound of ‘Oh Tannenbaum’ or anything else.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Two great showmen having a great time. Very professional, very polished but so full of originality and yet tradition. Great rock and roll from the Foos, with Serj delivering a strange mix of Fagin and Ozzy Osbourne.

No airs and graces just straightforward rock and roll with an edge.

If you get the chance, catch them.

You won’t be disappointed!

Not content with playing cover versions of songs from Roxy Music and Wings (c1974) they then go and feature an evening with Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy, that bastion of all good things for the teenager/ early 20′s folk.

Telling tales about The Beatles/ stealing cars/ eating bats and all from the time before they were born!

These programmes are fine, but honestly try to stick with your demographic unless you want to bring back Simon Bates and DLT!

You can tell who the listeners are when they refer to Paul Weller as ‘The Mod Father’ rather than ‘The Git from the Jam’. They’ll be offering favours to Kevin Rowland and Dexy’s next …..

Great fun, especially the Golden Hour with Chris Moyles.

It’s been a delight listening to tunes from the past which I remember from my younger days. Shame, then, that the target demographic is the 16 – 24 year old rather than doddery old blokes like me.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but the music they are picking is average and the cover versions they are doing are hardly innovative (McFly doing a Jam song note for note with a rotten vocal).

Why not get Arctic Monkeys to do Crazy Horses? Or Killers to perform Miss You?

There’s loads of stuff they could do, but it’s probably best to stick with the demographic rather than get us old folk listening again!

Supported by The Parrots (missed them), Amy Winehouse (would have been far better after dark in a small, grubby venue and with a better mix), The Coral (superb), Supergrass (why oh why do bands fall out of fashion when they are clearly still good enough to cut the mustard) and finally the Sheffield Quartet.

Musically it was a really good event. The venue isn’t ideal – football grounds ‘hold’ sound so much better and the natural focal points for the stadium is one end or the other. Cricket grounds always guide the watcher to the middle of the field, which works with a circular stage but not with a normal one.

Anyway, the Monkeys were excellent. Tight, funny (in a shy way) and the strength of their albums was clear in a live show, which was good to hear. If you get a chance, see them.

Very impressive if a little dated in the presentation style.

Echo and the Bunnymen doing Cutter is worth a lot though. As was seeing Paula flirt with Michael.

Those were the days ….

Loved by Koreans, hated by me.

But then I was in an Irish bar last night and pre-Karaoke they had The Dubliners on the sound system.

They sounded like a somewhat ernest version of The Pogues with somewhat less singing ability.