To anyone brought up in the seventies and eighties, the fact that so many Palestine Action protestors are themselves in their seventies and eighties is the least surprising fact of the year. These people were the original ‘Boring Old Hippies,’ those dreary teachers and lecturers whom so many of us had to suffer the first time round.

Since age confers a harmlessness on everyone, it was rather sweet to see them again, enjoying one last stab at rebellion before marching off to that Great Student Demo in the Sky. And yet when I was growing up, these ‘rebels’ were the very people we rebelled against. Musically, we couldn’t bear their Pink Floyd, their early Genesis and those heavy slabs of prog rock inspired by the Hobbit-y tosh of Tolkien.

No wonder we embraced the rhythm of reggae, the joy

See Full Page