The week started badly when Mitch Ryder, visiting to distract us from deadline, opined over his beer that James Brown had created disco years ago. Now, I can take bad news as well as anybody; when I'd picked the last particle of glass out of his face I begged to differ.

James Brown may attempt disco, I replied calmly ; he may assemble disco musicians to play disco for the benefit of disco dancers but he is incapable of disco becaused he is James Brown. So he recorded a song where he chanted "Jam" over and over with a lot of hihatting, thumping and small animal abuse in the background. He did the same thing ten years before disco, singing "Popcorn" instead.

It seems there's never been more of a cultural war going on, dance-wise. Half the nation are pogoing themselves senseless, and the other half are wearing their polyester suits out years ahead of schedule, following in the Neanderthal footsteps of their hoofing herb, John Travolta. Is there any sight more awe-inspiring than that of a 35-year-old dipping and swirling oblivious to the laughter of his children, a legend in his own mind, stayin' alive in the suburbs?