No sooner had The End completed its successful 1997 World Tour (taking them as far as Portugal, France, Holland, Slovenia, Ireland, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco and Berlin) that they decided they needed a more exotic location. They finally settled on Old Blighty and embarked on The Electric Ladyland Tour 1998, hitting 12 venues across the UK.

Question. Who wrote "Wild Thing"? Was it? a) Jimi Hendrix? b) Graham Nash? c) The Troggs?

Reasons for Sean Hughes to be miserable: one, two, three. One: "your parents lie to you when you're 10. They say you're gonna get married, have kids... and I, like an idiot, believed it all". Two: "the bubbly people in the bar on TFI Friday who are so delighted to be part of that inaneness". Three: New Labour's vision of shiny, happy morons watching television - a medium watched by "stupid people". Dissing marriage, Evans sycophants and Blairism is fair enough - if somewhat obligatory - these days, but isn't it a mite hypocritical to bite the hand that feeds you? After all it was the telly - or "opium of the masses" as Hughes puts it - that brought his maudlin humour, puppy-dog expression and come-to-bed eyes to national attention. That was the springboard to more meaningful pursuits like poetry, novel-writing and acting. That allowed him "a brilliant opportunity to focus in on ideas and talk about stuff I'd never been able to talk about before".

In a peak week for great Elgarians, Nigel Kennedy had first go on the South Bank Show (Sun, ITV). That he played Jimi Hendrix fantasies rather than Elgar this time was all to the good. By presenting himself with a creative dimension that classical virtuosi usually hide, he was able to show explicitly how he gets under the skin of the musicians he empathises with.

1968. THE YEAR before the counterculture became commercial. Rock'n'roll heroes were still playing gigs up and down the country and crashing their Trannies on the way back down the M1. You could pull a musician from the front of house in 1968; he was so close he could actually look into your eyes. The watering-holes were few and you could cover them all. At the Macrobiotic Restaurant, the Chelsea antiques market, the Speakeasy, the Fillmores East and West and Max's Kansas City you saw everybody, sooner or later. Everybody had hair and lots of it, floating round their heads like smoke. Damsels with dulcimers were everywhere. The tits were real then and heterosex was still exciting, even without poppers.

GOLDIE Saturnzreturn (London 828990 2)

The Music of DC Heath

Tim Rose is famous for missing the boat: for writing the song that made Jimi Hendrix; for turning down one by Bob Dylan. But, writes Glyn Brown, he's by no means finished yet.

The Hard Rock Cafe deserves a chorus of boos for starting, way back in 1971, the trend that would become theme restaurants.

Johnny Hallyday made his confession earlier this month in a sprawling two-page interview, incorporating something else rare in Le Monde - a photograph.

On 29 April 1967, The Fourteen Hour Technicolour Dream Free Speech Benefit took place at Alexandra Palace to raise funds for the underground newspaper International Times, which had been closed down by the government. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the event, the ICA is hosting what promises to be a day (and night) of hippie heaven, featuring 13 hours of speakers, performances, films, DJs and live bands spanning 1960s psychedelic rock to Detroit techno, from New Delhi ragas to trip-hop and freaked out acid garage. Highlights include legendary filmmaker Peter Whitehead, Jimi Hendrix biographer Charles Shaar Murray and Pete Brown from Cream. There will be fruit, water, milk and honey for sustenance as psychedelia takes on a nineties spin. Cool.

"There is actually a hi-fi buying season," says Brandon, an assistant at The Cornflake Shop as he wrestles with some speaker cables like Captain Nemo overpowering a giant squid. "From about October to April, the days get shorter and people think about new hi-fi."

COLLECT TO INVEST

An electric guitar which once belonged to rock legend Jimi Hendrix failed to sell at an auction yesterday. The Fender Stratocaster had been expected to fetch about pounds 180,000 at Sotheby's Rock `n' Roll Memorabilia auction in London.