On the Monstrous Creation of the Fourth Simon: A Short Story Written in the Manner of Mary Shelley

Simonstein (SA/2026)

 

It was an unholy and tempestuous winter's night when I, Victor Frankenstein, completed my most singular transgression against the natural order ...

      For months, I had been gathering the disparate remains of three men named Simon [1] in order to create a singular, supreme intellect whom I would name Solomon [2]. 

    The torso and lungs I took from Simon Armitage, ensuring the Creature would breathe with pleasing rhythm and its heart beat with the metrical precision of a poet. To this, I grafted the hyper-attuned nerves of Simon Reynolds, that Solomon might perceive the vibrations of the modern world with the vital energy of a thousand subcultures. Finally, I encased these within the shining skull of Simon Critchley, layering the grey matter of the philosopher over the soul of the poet, providing the capacity for tragic pessimism and existential depth. 

      By the glimmer of a nearly extinguished candle, I applied the spark of life; a bolt of blue lightning captured from the screaming heavens. The composite frame shuddered and the eyes - squinting, yet filled with a terrible, multifaceted intelligence - threw open and Solomon spoke: 'Those who know not evil, know not of anything good.'

      I recoiled in horror. I had sought to create the ultimate post-Romantic intelligence, but I had instead birthed a chimera of restless critique and malevolent verse. 

      Solomon rose from the copper-plated operating table, his movements jerky like those of a monstrous marionette. He did not seek my blessing; only a pen with which to write. As he departed across the fog-choked moorlands, I realised I had not merely animated a corpse - I had unleashed a critic from whom no aspect of cultural life was safe. 

      Locals say that on certain nights, one can hear a voice on the wind, deconstructing the aesthetics of the Abyss in perfect, terrifying meter. 

   

Notes

 

[1] Simon Armitage is the current UK Poet Laureate, known for his accessible verse often rooted in everday life; Simon Critchley is the British-born Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research (New York); Simon Reynolds is a music critic known for his chronicling of glam, post-punk, rave, and pop culture's endless recycling of its own history. 

      For my post on the Three Simons, click here.     

 

[2] Síomón Solomon - of whom this is an affectionate fictional portrayal - is a Dublin-based writer and independent scholar who, arguably, embodies elements of the above figures, whilst giving his own unique post-Romantic take on things informed by the schizopoetics of Hölderlin. 

      His 2021 publication, Hölderlin's Poltergeists: A Drama for Voices, was a translation and ingenius remix of an audio drama by Stephan Hermlin which has been much discussed on Torpedo the Ark; as has his disturbing debut play, The Atonement of Lesley Ann (2020), a theatrical ghost-cum-love story based on actual events. 

      Whilst he may lack the public profile of the Three Simons and his work may not have the same broad appeal, for me, he is very much their peer and not just a contemporary who happens to share the same prénom.    

      For posts written on (or inspired by) Síomón Solomon's Hölderlin's Poltergeists, click here. And for posts written on The Atonement of Lesley Ann, click here.  

 

On the Three Simons: Messrs. Armitage, Critchley, and Reynolds

The Three Simons: Messrs. Armitage, Critchley & Reynolds 

(SA/2026) 

 

 

I. 

 

I'm guessing that Simon was a very popular name for boys in the UK during the 1960s [1]. Perhaps not as popular as it was during the first century AD in Roman Judea, but popular all the same. 

 

In any event, there are three Simons of increasing interest to me, each born in the early sixties and each characterised by a specific late-twentieth-century British sensibility: they are the poet Simon Armitage; the philosopher Simon Critchley; and the music critic Simon Reynolds [2].  

 

I don't know what these three figures think of one another or whether they have ever met socially, but one assumes they must have crossed paths or shared a stage in a professional capacity at some point. But perhaps not [3]. 

 

Either way, I thought it would be nice to bring them together here and briefly note one or two of the parallels between them, whilst remaining aware of the fact that their fundamental modes of inquiry are distinct.    

 

 

II.

 

The first thing to say is that each of the above are adept at translating complex aesthetic and metaphysical concerns into accessible (though always cleverly crafted) text. 

 

Perhaps it's a post-punk thing - or possibly a working-class thing [4] - but all three Simons, whilst capable of scaling the icy heights, always seem happiest when descending back into a world where cabbages grow in the dark earth. 

 

Armitage, as a poet, is particularly skilled at finding meaning and beauty in the mundane with linguistic precision. But Critchley and Reynolds are also very good at mixing critical theory with references to popular culture moving from Derrida to David Bowie and back again in order to conceptualise (and deconstruct) political and socio-cultural trends.     

 

 

III. 

 

Another thing which, as a thanatologist, one can't help noticing, is that the three Simons seem to be  fascinated by death and related issues to do with memory, mortality, and loss. 

 

This is particularly true of Critchley and Armitage, with the former adopting the Heideggerian position that thinking the thought of death is essential to guarantee an authentic human life and the latter recently publishing a collection of poems entitled New Cemetery (2025), wherein he uses moths as an indicator species to comment on death in nature and the threat of mass extinction due to environmental breakdown.

 

But Reynolds too is thanatologically inclined, utilising Derrida's concept of hauntology to explore spectral presence and what he terms retromania (i.e., a culture's fixation with its own immediate past leading to a form of stasis or living death). He has a particular concern with suicide, both as a mental health issue and as something around which there is an entire mythology, referencing the cases of Ian Curtis and his friend Mark Fisher.   

 

 

IV. 

 

Politically, all three Simons can best be described as left-leaning, although they occupy different positions within this broad cataegorisation. 

 

One might have imagined that Critchley's tragic pessimism would have inclined him in an opposite direction, but, no, he's a radical leftist advocating for a form of ethical anarchism and a politics of resistance to the established order (not that this prevents him from holding a highly prestigious and well-paid named professorship at a private institution). 

 

Similarly, Simon Reynolds frequently engages with post-Marxist (and poststructuralist) thought in order to critique neoliberalism's stifling effect on culture and our ability to even imagine an alternative (non-capitalist) future. At the same time he has established a long and successful career on the back of this critique and built a nice family life in South Pasadena, California, so must surely concede there are some advantages to a free market economy ...?

 

As for Simon Armitage, despite accepting the role of Poet Laureate and thus having the seal of royal approval stamped on his work, he likes to think of poetry as inherently radical and, in some sense, offering a form of dissent to the powers that be. If wary of being too overtly political, he nevertheless attempts to articulate the concerns of the poor and marginalised (and, indeed, of wildlife). 

 

   

V. 

 

Finally, I'd like to touch on the inclination all three Simons have towards concepts that might be described as spiritual or transcendent (if in a secular or non-religious context) ... 

 

I would certainly endorse Armitage's belief that poetry is a way of inventing meaning in a meaningless world and, perhaps more importantly, ritualising events and giving ordinary objects back their magic and mystery. Ultimately, and to his credit, Armitage rejects spirituality and consistently describes himself and his work as down to earth. 

 

I'm happy also, like Reynolds, to regard music and dance as powerful expressions of our inherently religious or creative nature. This will to euphoria - which should not be confused with ecstasy [5] - is, says Lawrence, our prime motivity. Unfortunately, Reynolds, like many others associated with rave culture, does seem to conflate the two terms euphoria and ecstasy and then conceive of the latter in relation to the synthetic psychoactive drug of that name [6].  

 

As for Critchley, he directly explores those intense feelings that lift us out of ourselves in his book Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy (2024) and openly discusses the building of an atheist utopia on the basis of mystical anarchism and new forms of consciousness - all of which makes me fearful of the direction he's dragging philosophy. 

 

The mystical Professor Critchley ... where he leads I cannot follow. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For those who just have to know the facts: the name Simon experienced a significant rise in popularity  between 1955 and 1965 as part of a wider trend for traditional names with a biblical ring. 

      In the early 1970s, Simon even briefly broke into the top ten of British boy's names, but then rapidly went out of favour; its sharp decline in popularity continuing in the 21st century; it is presently ranked outside the top 500 with only a handful of newborn baby boys being given the name (compared to the 1000s of Muhammads and Olivers). 

 

[2] I'm assuming that most readers will know of the three Simons and have some familiarity with their work, or can quickly google details if not. However, for those who might appreciate a quick line or two of biographical information right here, right now ...

      Simon Armitage was born in Huddersfield, in May 1963, and is a celebrated English poet, playwright, and novelist who currently serves as the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and holds a post as a Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. His debut collection - Zoom! (1989) - brought him immediate fame (although he wasn't able to become a full-time professional writer until 1994). Armitage is rightly-celebrated for his darkly humorous and often northern-inflected style that blends colloquial accessibility with formal precision. His most recent work has focused heavily on the natural world and the human experience within it. His influences include Philip Larkin and W. H. Auden. His official website can be accessed by clicking here.  

      Simon Critchley was born in Liverpool, in Feb 1960, and is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, in New York. His work engages in many areas of philosophy, literature, and contemporary culture and he has written over twenty books, including studies of Greek tragedy, David Bowie, Shakespeare, football, and the ethical practice of joy before death. Critchley is a public intellectual in the best sense; reminding us all that in a world shaped by nihilsm we must root our ethics and politics not in the old ideals, but in an acknowledgement of limits and failure and the fact that this is an essentialy tragic age. His philosophical influences include Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. Critchley's recent work has taken a somewhat troubling mystical turn as he attempts to attune himself to the silence and find a form of secular transcendence. His official website can be accessed by clicking here. 

      Simon Reynolds was born in London, in June 1963, and is an independent music critic and cultural commentator who has a real knack for identifying trends and inventing new terms to discuss them in. He has published several definitive works on pop history, including, perhaps most famously, Rip It Up and Start Again (2005) - his study of the post-punk era (1978-1984), framing it as a period of avant-garde ambition and political radicalism - and Retromania (2011), a seminal investigation into pop music's zombification in the digital age, due to its obsessive recycling of its own sounds and fashions. Crucially, his work often explores how music intersects with issues of class, race, and gender and he isn't afraid to infuse his journalism with theory drawn from the likes of Derrida and Deleuze. He is a long-time and brilliant blogger: click here to access Blissblog, just one of many sites he maintains.

 

[3] I could find nothing to suggest bonds of friendship between the three Simons, so must conclude that whilst they are contemporaries in British intellectual life, their relationship is, at most, one of mutual awareness rather than close personal acquaintance. 

 

[4] Whilst Reynolds comes from a rather more middle-class background than Armitage and Critchley, he doesn't seem to identify with such. Rather, Reynolds posits the idea of a liminal class existing in the void between the upper-working and lower-middle classes and he seems to place himself here. He credits this liminal class with possessing creative (and radical) energy which results in significant cultural production.

 

[5] See the post 'Euphoria Contra Ecstasy' (26 Nov 2025), where I explain the distinction as I understand it: click here.  

 

[6] Reynolds views the drug ecstasy as integral to rave culture, shaping the sounds and experiences and enabling a form of communal bliss, whilst acknowledging its rather more troubling aspects. See his book Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (Routledge, 1999). 

      For a more recent work on the synergistic link between dance music and MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), see Kirk Field's Rave New World (Nine Eight Books, 2023). 

 

 

For a follow up to this post on the monstrous creation of a fourth Simon, click here.   

Back of the Net mit Martin Heidegger

Back of the Net mit Martin Heidegger 

(SA/2026)

 

 

I.

 

Did Heidegger like TV? 

 

I very much doubt it ... 

 

One strongly suspects that he would view it not for amusement, but with extreme prejudice; just another example of technology which enframes human existence at an essential level and which abolishes distance by bringing far away events into the living room on the one hand and transporting the viewer to far away places on the other, so that they are never really at home even when they are physically slouched in their favourite armchair.  

 

The constant stream of news and entertainment communicates nothing and ultimately the medium alienates the viewer from their own life.   

However, despite his philosophical objections to television, Heidegger was prepared to place his principles to one side when it came to football: the question of being and the overcoming of metaphysics mattered a very great deal; but the beautiful game mattered more ...   

 

 

II.

 

Amusingly, because he refused to own a set of his own, Heidegger was obliged to visit his neighbour's house on match day and this he would frequently do if it was a major European Cup match or when the national team were playing and Germany's 2-1 victory over the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup gave him a good deal of satisfaction and pride in his final years.  

 

Heidegger was a huge fan of the German captain Franz Beckenbauer - der Kaiser - in particular and would often express his admiration for the latter's skill on the ball and the way in which he could take control of a game in his role as a centre-back sweeper. Beckenbauer, he said, was an inspired player [1]. 

 

Now, for some readers this will simply reveal Heidegger as a hypocrite. 

 

Others, however, might defend his actions by referring to his concept of Gelassenheit; sometimes, in life, you just have to accept things as they are (let them be) and surrender to the world as it is (rather than as you would have it). And that means that, on occasion, even a committed Heideggerian can use mechanical devices whilst remaining troubled by the question concerning technology.     

As this is the more generous reading of Heidegger's football-loving, TV-watching actions, I think I prefer to accept this line of argument.  

 

 

III.

 

Heidegger, of course, was by no means the only philosopher to have loved - and played - Fußball. 

 

One immediately thinks, for example, of Camus and Derrida who were also enraptured by the beautiful game, the former famously declaring that what he knew for certain about ethics and our obligation to others he had learned from football [2] and the latter once confessed that he would "rather have been known as an international footballer than a philosopher" [3].   

 

Perhaps Simon Critchley is on to something when he suggests that football offers pitchside supporters and even TV spectators a shared and ecstatic experience that is at the same time authentic. It certainly provides a very different experience of time; 90 minutes in the world of football is strangely subjective and waiting for the final whistle can sometimes seem like an eternity, or an agony of extended duration, as Critchley writes [4].  

 

 

IV.

 

In sum: if the philosophical question concerning technology (and the legitimacy of watching TV) remained essential for Heidegger, in his later life he was evidently just as preoccupied by whether Geoff Hurst's controversial extra-time goal in the Wembley final had or had not crossed the line ...      

    

 

Notes

 

[1] See Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, trans. Ewald Osers (Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 428. 

 

[2] Camus originally made the remark in an article he wrote for a sports magazine produced by his former club, Racing Universitaire d'Alger (RUA), in April 1953. He repeated the claim in an interview after he won the Nobel Prize (1957), saying: 'What little I know about morality, I learned it on football pitches and theatre stages - these were my true universities'. 

      See 'The morality of football and the philosophy of Albert Camus', on the website Scottish Sport History (4 Jan 2020): click here.   

 

[3] See Michael Dillon writing on Derrida in Palgrave Advances in Continental Political Thought, ed. Terrell Carver and James Martin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 260. Cited by Matt Qvortrup in 'Philosophers on Football', in Philosophy Now, Issue 159 (Dec 2023 / Jan 2024): click here.   

 

[4] See Simon Critchley, What We Think About When We Think About Football (Profile Books, 2017). Critchley amusingly uses Heidegger's concepts from Being and Time to understand football's unique temporal flow, where objective time differs from subjective experience. 

      More widely, Critchley argues football is more than merely a game; that it is rather a vital cultural activity providing insights into memory, identity, class, and the human condition and I would recommend this work, even if Geoff Dyer was less than impressed; see his rather scathing review titled 'Dead Ball Situation', in Harper's Magazine (Dec. 2017): click here.

 

 

For a sister post to this one - 'Lost in Space mit Martin Heidegger' (12 Jan 2026) - click here.          

 

Soured Through the Ages Like Piss Lemonade: Notes on Punk Is Dead (2017)

(Zero Books, 2017)

 

 

I.

 

Pressed between the 300 or so pages of this book are a series of memories from various contributors who still like to filter their experiences and thinking through the prism of punk in order to explore the past and indicate their own role within it: I was there is the running refrain throughout the work: And bliss it was in that Summer of Hate to be alive (and to be a young punk was very heaven) [a]. 

 

There is, of course, a certain irony in this: if punk prided itself on anything, it was the refusal to be nostalgic or to acknowledge that it owed anything to the past: No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones in 1977 ... [b]

 

Similarly, punk was not sentimental. As Tony Drayton reminds us, the phrase Kill Your Pet Puppy meant breaking all ties, committments, and responsibilities; "reject domesticity, keep on moving [...] never look back, leave your family behind" [195] [c].

 

And so there's a further irony in the fact that the book opens with the two editors - Richard Cabut and Andrew Gallix - thanking their partners, parents and children and thereby placing punk within the Oedipal triangle.
 

Still, never mind the bollocks - let's move on ...

 

 

II. 

 

First up, there's a Foreword by Judy Nylon; a colourful figure who, by her own admission, is "often left out of punk histories" [1], despite being - like her friend and compatriot Chrissie Hynde - on the London scene from the very beginning. 

 

I suspect the reason for this is that Nylon is bigger and more complex than any scene or subcultural identity, which makes her - like many of the singular individuals in this period - too punk for punk. The fact that her "very existence would eventually come into conflict with Malcolm and Vivienne's version of punk" [2] probably also helps to explain her exclusion from many (official) accounts of the period.  

 

Next comes a two part Introduction by the editors ...

 

Richard Cabut makes the perfectly valid point that punk in the early days - "before the Clash essentialy" [8] - had no fixed essence or political allegiance, but was, rather, a defiant and stylish response to the boredom of everyday life. 

 

Where he and I differ, is that he understands this in terms of a "quest for truth and significance" [9], whilst I see it more as the playful deconstruction of these and related ideals as part of what D. H. Lawrence terms a sane revolution:

 

If you make a revolution, make it for fun, 

don’t make it in ghastly seriousness, 

don’t do it in deadly earnest, do it for fun. 

 

Don’t do it because you hate people, 

do it just to spit in their eye. [d]           

 

This resentment-free gobbing - and not the search for meaning - is surely what defines punk, is it not?

 

Andrew Gallix, meanwhile, muses on the passing of time and the fact that even punk rockers - unless they live fast enough to die young like Sid and Nancy - get old ... 

 

I suspect, however, as a reader of Deleuze, Gallix is perfectly aware of the fact that one can, in fact, age stylishly - that is to say, like Malcolm (but unlike Rotten) - not by attempting to remain young, but by extracting the molecular elements, the forces and flows, that constitute the youth of whatever age one happens to be. 

 

Gallix also warns of the dangers of retrospective reinterpretation; "of the way in which the past is subtly rewritten, every nuance gradually airbrushed out of the picture" [11]. For this is not just a way of negating certain inconvenient elements in the past, but of creating a sanitised present. This whitewashing of history and murder of reality is what Baudrillard terms the perfect crime.    

 

Ultimately, however, the cultural importance of punk must be remembered, even if, as a selective process, remembering always involves a degree of forgetting. 

 

Indeed, Gallix argues that punk must not just be remembered, but commemorated in museums and art galleries; both as "the last great youth subculture" [12] and a "summation of all avant-garde movements of the 20th-century" [12] [e].  

 

 

III. 

 

In his essay 'The Boy Looked at Eurydice', Gallix continues to reflect upon the punk obsession with youth: "All we can say for sure is that, more than any other subculture before or since, punk was afflicted with Peter Pan syndrome." [17] 

 

That's probably true: I remember one of the first things I ever wrote was entitled Never Trust Anyone Over Twenty and I always (like Sid) used the term grown-up perjoratively. Again, this came from Malcolm who encouraged his spiky-haired charges to be childish, irresponsible and disrespectful of adult authority [f].   

 

More importantly, however, was the fact that punk was a thinking against itself - "internal dissent was its identity" [26]. Real punks, as Gallix rightly says, always hated the term: "Being a true punk was something that could only go without saying, it implied never describing oneself as such" [26-27] [g].   

 

 

IV.  

 

For me, one of the most interesting pieces in Punk Is Dead is by Tom Vague who retraces the semi-mythical origin of punk rock to the Situationist International and the Gordon Riots of 1780; a connection first made by Fred Vermorel. 

 

The fact is, whilst you can analyse the Sex Pistols from various perspectives, to talk exclusively about the music or the fashion whilst ignoring the politics which inspired McLaren and Jamie Reid is to profoundly miss the point. 

 

Crucial aspects of the project - particularly in the glorious last days of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, when the band essentially no longer existed - will simply not make sense unless you first understand the political context in which things evolved and I would advise everyone to read Chris Gray's Leaving the Twentieth Century (1974), which, as Vague reminds us, is a kind of blueprint for the punk revolution [h].    

 

V.

 

Sadly, of course, for the majority of punk rockers it was all about the music (not the chaos); all about forming (or following) bands, making (or buying) records, playing (or going to) gigs, etc. These were the kind of people who read the NME (not Guy Debord) and failed to see that the most exciting thing about Never Mind the Bollocks was the sleeve (just as the only interesting thing about Johnny Rotten was his public image).    

Unfortunately, these music lovers abound within the pages of Punk Is Dead - still talking reverently about rock history and referring to the Sex Pistols as the Pistols thereby turning them into just another boring band rather than the embodiment of an attitude and an approach to art, politics, and life that bubbled up at 430 Kings Road. 

 

To his credit, Paul Gorman understands the importance of the above address as an immersive art environment and recognises that the music was simply an expression of SEX and Seditionaries (and arguably of far less importance than McLaren and Westwood's clothes designs) [i]. Not everyone could join the band - but anyone could be a SEX Pistol if they had the right look, the right attitude. 

 

Punk was perhaps not all and always about Talcy Malcy, but, as Gorman says, without McLaren and his odd little shop at 430 Kings Road, punk "wouldn't have taken the form it did" [77] [j].       

 

    

VI.

I would normally at this point in a review indicate which are the pieces (and who are the authors) contained in this collection that I really hate - and there are several (not to mention one or two essays that simply don't belong in this book, interesting as they may be). 

 

But, in the spirit of Richard Cabut's positive punk, let me end with a wonderful line taken from Dorothy Max Prior's 'SEX in the City', an amusing account of her days working as a stripper in the pubs of punk London, full of dodgy-geezers and brassy-birds: 

 

"Modernity killed not only every night, but every lunchtime over a pint of Double Diamond in a City Road boozer." [118]

 

 

   

Notes

 

[a] This line from Wordsworth - paraphrased here - is also paraphrased by Andrew Gallix in 'The Boy Looked at Eurydice', in Punk Is Dead, (Zero Books, 2017), pp. 17-18. Note that future page references to this book will be given directly in the text. 

      To his credit, punk-turned philosopher Simon Critchley says he consciously tries not to lecture young people about "how great it was to be alive in the 1970s". Of course, as he admits, he often fails in this. See 'Rummaging in the Ashes: An Interview with Simon Critchley', Punk Is Dead, p. 39. 

[b] As the Clash sang on the B-side of their first single White Riot (CBS, 1977): click here. 

      Andrew Gallix, however, persuasively argues that without nostalgia we would have no Homer or Proust. See his Introduction to Punk Is Dead, p. 12. 

      See also 'Rummaging in the Ashes: An Interview with Simon Critchley', in which the latter says that although he hates nostalgia, "it is unavoidable and I get whimsical when I think back to the punk years and how everything suddeny became possible". Punk Is Dead, p. 37. 

 

[c] Tony Drayton (in conversation with Richard Cabut), 'Learning to Fight', Punk Is Dead. Drayton was the founder of the punk fanzines Ripped & Torn (1976) and Kill Your Pet Puppy (1980). 

 

[d] D. H. Lawrence, 'A sane revolution', The Poems Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 449.

[e] Interestingly, Simon Critchley takes an entirely opposite view: "I must say that I find the idea of the commemoration of punk particularly distasteful, and that punk can be archived and celebrated in museums pretty awful." See 'Rummaging in the Ashes: An Interview with Simon Critchley', in Punk Is Dead, p. 38.

[f] Ted Polhemus picks up on the deliberate and determined childishness of punk in his essay 'Boom!', describing it as "the opposite of the beard-stroking, educated, technically-accomplished, grown-up world where the Boring Old Farts had reduced the anything-goes spirit of rock 'n' roll to a limp, ageing shadow of its former self". See Punk Is Dead, p. 98.

[g] As Paul Gorman writes in 'The Flyaway-Collared Shirt': "Everyone I knew, and/or admired, moved on from punk as soon as it was given a name. [...] The richness of [the] scene had been traduced to the saleable gob 'n' pogo archetype: spiky hair, permanent sneer, brotel creepers, Lewis leathers." See Punk Is Dead, p. 105. 

       

[h] For example, Chris Gray's idea of forming a totally unpleasant pop group "designed to subvert show business from within would obviously be a major influence on the [Sex] Pistols project". See Andrew Gallix, 'Unheard Melodies', Punk Is Dead, p. 213.   

 

[i] As Richard Cabut says in 'A Letter to Jordan', in terms of cultural influence upon style, SEX (later to become Seditionaries and World's End) is "the most influential shop/meeting place ever". See Punk Is Dead, p. 120. Cabut is also right to recognise - like Adam Ant before him - that the perfect embodiment of SEX was Jordan, rather than Rotten. 

 

[j] Ted Polhemus challenges the view that punk was primarily and most significantly shaped by Malcolm: 

      "Not only is this view a reductionist distortion of how history happens - and actually did happen in 1976 - but it also fails to give credit were credit is surely due to the startling, unprecedented creativity of hundreds and then thousands of teenagers like John Lydon [...] and so very many others whose contribution was great but whose names were never known to us [...]." 

      See his essay 'Boom!' in Punk Is Dead, p. 99. The fact that Polhemus refers to Rotten as John Lydon perhaps indicates where his sympathies lie and why he might wish to down play McLaren's role.