Another snippet in this week's NME - The journalist Steven Wells attacked The Smiths again in a Blur interview. After Graham Coxon said "Youth culture died in 1979 when Thatch got in.", Swells said back,"Surely it was The Smiths that killed it?" Coxon, a Marr aficionado I think, replied "Well that was for the delicate people....". Swells hates The Smiths and I think blames them for the supposedly moribund state of today's music, like Rollins he also deliberately uses any opportunity to slag Moz, in a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion feature last year he went off in a tangent about 50's America, calling Pat Boone a proto-Morrissey, a white clean living figure who tried to stop rock'n'roll, despite being a Smiths-hater he is actually a very good, funny writer otherwise and has been with the NME since at least the early 80's. As for Blur, i used to hate them, all that mockney, character song shite, but I'm warming to them now, even so I always thought it was a very big step down for Stephen Street to produce them after The Smiths.