No Rock And Roll Fun

PITY IT WASN'T PAXMAN, MIND: At least Pete Doherty went into his Newsnight interview knowing he wasn't going to be the most mashed rock star to appear on the programme this year: there wouldn't be enough drugs in the world to turn Doherty/Wark into a rematch of Esler/E. Smith from the day Peel died; and it seems like he kept it together pretty well (we're not in a place where we're able to watch the footage right now; we're hoping it's going to be working its way through bittorrent for when we get back to Broadband). It sounds like Kirsty gave him the sort of grilling he probably needs:

When I asked him about the trail of destruction and violence that accompanies heroin's journey from the poppy fields to his body - particularly the plight of mainly female drug mules - I don't think he'd given it any thought.

Naturally, there's a lot of debate flowing in the wake of the appearance: Drowned In Sound have a thread: Tobyj muses on how the Libs have grabbed the posh media:

Endeacott scored a first radio play ever for the Libs (I think) on Radio 4's Today Programme, while being interviewed about something else. With hindsight it seems oddly consistent with Doherty ending up 3 years later on Newsnight - true rebellion maybe being the capture of the posh media. David Baddiell discussing Pete on R4 probably stretches their audience much further than an NME cover.

... and you can see his point; although this is a process that started with Suede a decade ago, where The Independent, the Late Show and the South Bank Show latched on quickly; presumably because by the start of the 90s these programmes and papers were being edited in part by people who had bubbled up the media from a fanziney/NME route and who had both the knowledge and the passion to communicate about slightly-more left-field music in a way other than "Punks! Hide yourself!"