Hate to flog a dead punk horse, but here’s another

reason why the New York Times drives people up the

wall. In a Week In Review obit/appreciation of Joe Strummer,

Joe Ward, supposedly a “rock historian” for NPR

observes:

“When the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, draped on his
microphone, intoned, ‘No future,’ it was the cry of
youth coming out of school to discover that there were
no jobs in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and refusing to
accept that as reality.”

Small problem: The Sex Pistols one-and-only album,

with its one-two punch of “God Save The Queen” and

“Anarchy In The U.K.” was recorded and released in

1976 — a full three years before Maggie T. became

Prime Minister! As Andy “Rotten” Stuttaford observed

here a few days back, the punk explosion was something

of a populist critique of the reality of Labour Party

policy in mid-70s Britain — of which the political

expression swept the Tories into power a few years

later.

But, such analysis doesn’t quite fit the NYT world

view, now would it?