Quotes

The Manics [Manic Street Preachers] are great because there are layers to them. There were no bands who liked Guns N' Roses who weren't bad metal. No bands who liked The Clash who weren't crappy punk bands. And no band who could read, with the late example of The Smiths, who were any good. And the Manic Street Preachers, ludicrous and daft as they were, meant it.

Once, frustrated by his refusal to answer any of my questions the way I wanted him to, I asked Tom Jones what it was like to be a sex symbol. He fixed me with a stern glare. "That to me," he said, "is like being asked by a cripple what it's like to walk." Hard to argue with that, really.

You see artists make the transition from sexy to cult. Adam Ant now resembles Jack Sparrow's uncle. Kate Bush favours huge jumpers and sings from underneath a slanket, possibly. David Bowie, still more attractive than some species of songbird, stays at home. Sexiness becomes a hindrance to the serious artist, which is why Bob Dylan now dresses like his own cheap waxwork and Joni Mitchell positions herself as the angriest headmistress in the world. Even Tom Jones, whose entire career has been based on demonstrating to the world what a sexy penis would sound like if it could sing, has entered the world of anti-sex. He no longer dyes his hair or wipes his brow with ladies' undergarments.

Has there ever been a more middle-of-the-road band than Bread? Songs like "Baby I'm A-Want You" and "Make It With You" make The Carpenters sound like Black Flag, while the sweetness and melancholy of "Diary" and "Everything I Own" suggest that the band's name was entirely apt in a soft, squidgy Mother's Pride kind of way.

He's an anachronistic retro-dandy legend with superhuman intelligence and alien emotions, humanised by a faithful companion; quite why Doctor Who (2005) guru Steven Moffat was attracted to Sherlock Holmes is itself a mystery. That said, this Sherlock is a decent reincarnation of the great detective; allowing his recreation the updatedness started in the Rathbone [Basil Rathbone] years works, though at times Benedict Cumberbatch is less Sherlock and more Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory (2007). This second series piles on the flashiness and contains just enough detective ingenuity for old-school fans.