Journeys to the past when the future was the destination

I suppose, to be fair, the C86 movement were never likely to be confused with the Futurists, but even Bobby Gillespie in his most Byrds-drenched, pre-Bourbon incarnation would have raised a surprised eyebrow at the idea that C86 would get a three CD expanded reissue in 2014.

The extra tracks include some interesting stuff, including a supposedly never-previously-released North of Cornwallis track, but it seems to have stretched the defintion of C86.

But wouldn't you rather all this effort was put into making a C2014?

Roll forward a few years, or perhaps just don't roll back as far, and we find ourselves at a week-long return of The Evening Session, a show which has been revived more often than Beau Geste. This time (probably every time) it's to celebrate Britpop.

Oh, Britpop. It's like Jeremy Bentham's corpse - now that all the life has gone, you're just left with a weird artefact that serves little purpose other than to be occasionally kidnapped and paraded up and down the street, missing the vital pulse that interested everyone in the first place.

Lamacq added: For me, this is the week 20 years ago that the musical tectonic plates shifted. On the Tuesday, Oasis played live on Radio 1 for the first time and on the Friday morning we heard the news of Kurt Cobain's death. It was as if one scene had announced it had arrived, as another began to lose its way."

Steve, you're better than that. I don't think a single person, on hearing the news of Kurt's suicide, thought "that's kind of epochal, what with Oasis having been on the wireless a few days back."

Jo is actually more honest:

Jo Whiley said: "I will always jump at the chance to work with Steve. He is my radio 'other half' and we did fight the Britpop wars together after all. It was a great time to be a DJ on UK radio but, as ever, when you're in the eye of the storm, you are blissfully unaware. It's only in hindsight that you appreciate what a privilege it was to live and work through such an exciting time for British music."

Who'd have thought it was the more excitable one of the pair who remembered that a lot of Britpop shibboleths are coloured by red, white and blue tinted hindsight?

Steve and Jo will be trotting the 'half a pint of cider before the show' anecdote for the 1,000th time as part of a big Britpop disinterment across the BBC.