On a sunny afternoon, in the rolling grounds of Kenwood House, picnickers amass. It's all terribly civilised – there's probably been a run on Hampstead's houmous stocks – but as my friend mutters as we pick our way through the hampers, "CBGBs it ain't".

How the wheel of television has turned. Twentynine years ago an exciting new channel called MTV was launched in New York, aimed specifically at young music fans. And later this year an exciting new channel called Vintage TV will begin broadcasting in Britain, designed to appeal specifically to the tastes of the over-50s.

It is the generation that has had it all: five decades of peace and prosperity, technological and social revolution bringing longer and more fulfilled lives, followed by fat pensions. Now, when they are tired of roaring about on their new motorbikes, working out at the gym or renovating their Umbrian farmhouses, the baby-boomer generation will be able to relax with its own television channel.

Blondie performing for picnickers in the Cotswolds might seem unlikely, but somehow it works

On completing his trilogy about modern masculinity, the novelist and amateur pugilist Tony Parsons opens up about marriage, parenthood and failing to live up to his father

The Plastiscines had created that sense of anticipation that use to follow me in my youth; the excitement before a gig. So there I was, surrounded by youngsters, with glow sticks, hot pants with bare legs unafraid of the cold, and drinking cider and giggling.

Rummaging through a bag of old cassettes, singer/guitarist Cypress Grove came across one mysteriously marked "JLP Songs".

A "tribute" album of sorts, to the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club; except that in place of individual artists doing new interpretations of JLP songs, a coterie of friends combine to finish a batch of tunes demoed roughly by Pierce with one Cypress Grove.

These never-before-seen photographs of Blondie's Debbie Harry reveal the "Heart of Glass" singer perched on her friend, the cult designer Stephen Sprouse, who helped create her pop-punk image.

If you had your portrait taken by Rankin, would you turn round and destroy it? Didn't think so. And yet, that's exactly what 73 musicians have done for Destroy Rankin, part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for Youth Music Charity. Alex James has given an old Dazed & Confused cover a lavender and thyme hairdo and beard; Alanis Morissette has burned a hole in hers, and Alex Zane has used his medical-school training to turn half his face into a colourful skin and bones zombie.

Brooklyn's latest hip exports would not have taken long to feel at home on this leg of their current tour. They were playing a part of town full of diners displaying that squirty Yank mustard on every table and offering extravagant brunches.

A trip to the park just isn't enough any more – a good father must now spend 'quality time' with his kids. So which activities make the grade? And how many hours should he put in? Phil Hilton tries advanced parenting

The drag-queen extraordinaire talks to Stina Backer about why she still doesn't care what people think

Style icons rarely make good pop stars, but pop stars can make magnificent style icons.