There’s an alternative universe where Spygenius are revered as the saviours of British pop. The course at the University of Hawaii’s English department that produces the most (and the most abstruse) published papers is dedicated to analysing Peter’s lyrics. Recursive recondite references have been known to open a warp in space-time that leads to the Jolly Brewer’s real-ale pub in Milton, outside Cambridge. It has seen the end of a many an academic career. Still, they make the beer at one end of the road the crisps at the other. Secondary girlschool teachers have long been aware of the faction known simply as The T-Ruth, renowned for all playing bass and fighting with girls from other gangs. The quickest way to start such a fracas is to stand in front of a T-Ruth girl and click your fingers like a metronome. Or say something derogatory about cats. Or smile at her. An evening of T-Ruth girl bands usually warrants the subsequent attention of a structural engineer. There is really not much that hasn’t already been written about the Cult of Alan. One need only visit Easter Island to see his image manifest in stone, “hewn from the living rock” as it were. Much has been made of that particular community’s twilight, though the obvious cause was having to construct a granite drumkit under each moai. Byrne Schools of Music have an entry requirement of no fewer than seventeen instruments to grade 8 proficiency. Extreme right-wing groups have lamented the passing of their moribund mono-instrumental culture and lazily blame all of society’s ills on its inexorable drift into multi-instrumentalism. In this alternative universe, his ability to spin plates does not extend to lens manufacture and the band remains helplessly short-sighted. Fine album chaps. On the back cover, has Ruth trodden in something?