When I got back from Scotland, Elvis Presley was dead and Elvis Costello was riding high in the album charts. There were new punks at play—the Adverts with the summer's teenybop groover, "Gary Gilmore's Eyes", the Boomtown Rats with the summer's Stones riff, "Lookin' After Number One." Eddie and the Hot Rods had changed their name to the Rods and become successful again. The joint was boppin' and Elvis P's death was an irritation more than anything else.

I'd missed the first media spree and arrived home in time for the secondary effects of death. Bleached, elderly actresses were boasting of Pelvis thrusts in dressing rooms on obscure film sets in 1962 (odd boasts these, in the light of last month's bodyguard revelations of Elvis' total lack of sexual discrimination). And there were trinkets everywhere on display—Presley tee shirts and mugs and posters and old, old singles. RCA was obliged to re-employ a whole bunch of workers they'd just made redundant (no doubt they'll sack 'em now just in time for Christmas).