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REVOLVER:You see them sloping around in the early evening, displaced figures who no longer belong, their old haunts boarded up or turned into lap dancing clubs. Nowhere to go and nobody to go there with. Back in their prime they were boulevardiers who flowed in and out of what passed for a scene. These are Men of a Certain Age – a cohort corralled off to wither on the vine.

It used to be so easy: you could hear, taste, feel and touch real music by real people. Not this nonsense you get today – angsty young men crying into their acoustic guitars; shouty females caterwauling their banal doggerel; music that calls itself r’n’b but is a disgrace to the genre; designer indie bands from the suburbs on a gap year before their international law degree. And where once the only ancillary service was the odd crappy fanzine or Fanning or Peel, now it’s the music bloggers with their vanity publishing – like indie taxi drivers with a broadband connection.