John Lydon on 'The Culture Show'

I managed to drag my eyes away from watching the snow fall on South West London long enough tonight to watch the special edition of 'The Culture Show' on BBC4 featuring none other than John Lydon himself. It was recorded at the start of November when John and Public Image Ltd got together to practice for the pre-Christmas gigs and a short clip from it was shown at the time. Tonight we got the full 30 minute show.

The show was made up of an interview with John in the rehearsal room, clips from Pistols and early PiL videos and various other clips, with John talking about everything from childhood ailments and reading Shakespeare to moving to America to get away from the incessant police raids. He spoke of PiL as being far more emotional than the Sex Pistols, allowing him to express anger and sorrow, like writing 'Death Disco' for his mother when she was dying from cancer and she loved the song. It's still a challenging and harrowing song today, nearly 30 years later.

It was a very sympathetic interview, with the interviewer starting off by outing himself as having bought 'Metal Box' when it first came out (huh! I got 'First Issue' when *that* was released) and being an out and out fan. But that in itself makes a change, with John allowed to talk without being cross examined.

If you've got a spare half hour in the next week you could do a lot worse than scurry over to the BBC iPlayer to watch the show while it's still availabe. You know it makes sense.