The thinking man’s punk

Sometimes you absolutely know, beyond the gentlest breath of a doubt, that you’re not going to like a person; something you’ve heard, or read about them, has tipped you over into a flinty conviction that they’re not your type. I took a preconception of this sort with me to meet the cult film-maker Julien Temple. He’ll be arrogant, I thought, full of humourless guff about rock festivals and his days documenting the lives of the Sex Pistols (Sex Pistols Number 1 [1977], The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle [1980] and The Filth and the Fury [2000] — though all three films were good).

I carried my conviction with me along Bethnal Green road to Temple’s recording studio; into the canteen and up to his table, where, as he lifted his head to say hello, it instantly collapsed. My antipathy, it turned out, had just been a front for a fear of punk.