I've tried to be indifferent about their struggles: I've tried to metaphorically shrug my shoulders and just say "Fuck 'em', as if they were a total irrelevance to me. But they're not an irrelevance, they are my enemy. They've been my enemy since I was a mere schoolboy back in the heady days of the swinging 60's. When kids in my class were walking around with transistor radios glued to their ears, tuning into Radio London and listening to Spencer Davis, Procul Harum, Donovan etc, and being hip and cool, trendy and 'with-it', I was the weird, psycho-looking kid, sitting alone in the playground, brooding and wishing like fuck that Mike Doyle would suddenly flip out and kick the living shit out of the liver thief or the comb-over king. I wanted to see my sky-blue heroes destroy every last one of the bastards and grind them into the dirt.
Over the years my hatred for the rags has never abated: I'm a great deal older now, I'm fatter, balder, and not in the best of health. But inside I'm still that strange little boy at primary school with the bizarre haircut (Thanks mum. Yeah, you saved a few quid by doing my hair yourself, but you made me look like a pre-adolescent Friar Tuck in the process).
who was gladly accepting detention because he gleefully thumped classmate Andy Knewell for having a full sized glossy photo of Nobby Styles in his desk.