I’ve just been filling in the 1973 Creem Rock V Roll Poll, which is at least more entertaining than the ones NME and MM serve up. Most pathetic of the year? David Bedford’ in the Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres. Comeback of the year? Alvin Stardust (alias Shane Fenton, minor star of the 60s British bandwagon) — three months in the hit parade with “My Coo-Ca-Choo.” With categories like these who cares about the world’s best drummer? (I only know the names of three anyway.) But even CREEM missed out on two categories which even more than the year’s big rip-off (Edward Heath’s closing the telly down at 10:30) would reveal the angst and geist of our times: Sex Object of the Year; Turn Off of the Year. Or getting it up and knocking it down.

Sex and rock ’n’ roll and all that is obvious enough but as rock changes so do sexual ploys and that ain’t so obvious at all. Three themes from 1973: first, the return of the English pop girl. Our teenage years were titillated by droopy blondes and bare-feet, by punchy little ladies with stubby legs. Twinkle and Marianne Faithfull and Sandie Shaw and the early Lulu. These girls weren’t classy like Dusty Springfield and they weren’t exactly funky but they flounced through Top of the Pops and they were young and they eventually drifted off into marriage and mental homes and the Val Doonican Show and for the last few years there’s been a eap in pop’s purpose. Lots of lovely 'rock ladies, lots of sexy souls and friendly folk, lots of big-boobed balladeers from Luxembourg, but none of those dumb, clean youngsters.