Daily Telegraph finally beats the 1960s

Ha! The Daily Telegraph never liked the 1960s, coming in all flash with expensive haircuts and electric guitars, pushing away the glorious austerity of the 1950s. And now the paper has been proved right:

The Mamas and Papas incest case shows that it's time to stop celebrating the Sixties, says Gill Hornby.

Yes, of course. One bloke had an incestuous relationship with his daughter, which completely negates the putting of a man on the moon, the invention of the laser, Twister, KerPlunk, the Beatles (when they were fresh) and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and the World Cup and the Mini.

Of course, Gill doesn't just rely on a spot of incest to stack up his case:

The Beatles might crop up, perhaps The Rolling Stones. Yes. And who had the Christmas number one in 1969? Rolf Harris, with his groundbreaking, radical Two Little Boys.

That was, younger readers, the last time anything even approaching a novelty record reached number one.

Now, you or I might wonder if picking the Christmas number one, one week before the end of the decade, is perhaps going to say anything much about the music of the previous ten years. But not Gill. The existence of Rolf's single somehow means that Giant Steps, Easter Everywhere and Carryin' On are wiped out.

It's a silly, spurious article, and to try and hold a decade responsible for an act of incest is as unfair as blaming Gill Hornby for Conrad Black's crimes simply because Hornby writes for the Telegraph.