Media index

Guardian Archive (from Guardian online web site. The archive from the newspaper has more than 1,000 Brind items, but life is too short for that!)

The heat is on

The Guardian, Thursday January 22 2009

Alok Jha
To the casual observer, there is something distinctly creepy about the silver van I'm crouching inside. On a pitch-black winter evening, we're crawling the streets of Reading, taking pictures of every home we pass. Surrounded by computers in the back of the van, thermal surveyor Chris Brind points to a screen displaying a camera feed. Ghostly multicoloured images of houses (...)
(...) Surrounded by computers in the back of the van, thermal surveyor Chris Brind points to a screen displaying a camera feed. Ghostly multicoloured images (...)

Country diary

The Guardian, Tuesday October 28 2008

Roger Redfern
John Constable's skies are so believable because he spent a lifetime observing and recording them. He really began a tradition of East Anglian artists who knew how to apply the paint to such realistic effect. Sir John Arnesby Brown was a more recent exponent and his legacy spread to the north Derbyshire hill country, in the work of his able pupil the late Winifred Wilson. (...)
(...) white - graze the slanting pastures that rear to Winifred's own Great Brind Wood. The one thing missing now is the delightful wooden studio (...)

Cringing in the aisles

The Observer, Sunday August 3 2008

Veronica Lee
Not awight Troubled comic Michael Barrymore's first Fringe has got off to a bad start. Terry Lubbock, whose son died in the star's swimming pool in 2001, is threatening to disrupt performances of the play Surviving Spike (based on Spike Milligan's agent's memoirs) at the Assembly Rooms, so you would think Barrymore might have been keen to ingratiate himself at the press (...)

Having an abortion

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday July 29 2008
This information tells you about an abortion to end a pregnancy. It explains the different types of abortion, how they work, what the risks are and what to expect afterwards. The statistics we've included here are based on research studies. But some things, such as the chances of having complications, can vary from hospital to hospital. You may want to talk about this (...)

Minority out of control

The Guardian, Saturday November 3 2007

Ben Goldacre
Parliamentary select committees are one of the few places where you can see politicians sitting down and doing the kind of thing you'd actually want them to do, like thinking carefully about policy. This week the science and technology committee delivered its report on scientific developments relating to the Abortion Act, and even as a man with a very low boredom threshold, (...)
(...) get breast cancer later on'. This is the comparative group that Dr Brind favours and the result is expected, since carrying a first pregnancy (...)

Experts who testified to MPs failed to reveal abortion links

The Guardian, Tuesday October 30 2007

James Randerson, science correspondent
Six UK medical experts who submitted scientific evidence to an influential inquiry by MPs into the UK's abortion laws did not reveal links to anti-abortion groups. Their interests were revealed to the committee of MPs after individuals and organisations submitting evidence were asked to reveal membership of campaigning organisations relevant to the inquiry. "I think it's (...)

Spirit of the age

The Guardian, Tuesday October 4 2005

Julia Eccleshare
"You would read it and read it and you couldn't stop reading it." This was how one captivated young critic summed up her experience of reading a novel longlisted for this year's Guardian Children's Fiction prize. The fiction prize has been running since 1967, but for the past three years it has been partnered with a competition for young reviewers. They are invited to (...)

Stolen violin returns for an encore

The Guardian, Friday August 19 2005

Sophie Kirkham
A rare 18th century violin has been reunited with its owner more than a year after it was stolen. The violin, worth £20,000, was found by experts when it turned up at an auction house this month. The instrument is one of few made by Edward Lewis still in existence. Alan Brind, a former BBC young musician of the year, thought he would never see his 265-year-old violin (...)
(...) is one of few made by Edward Lewis still in existence. Alan Brind, a former BBC young musician of the year, thought he would (...)

In brief

The Guardian, Saturday August 13 2005
Woman ends hunger strike Kelly Taylor, 28, who has a rare and terminal heart condition, has halted her hunger strike aimed at ending her life with dignity after 19 days, because she was in intense pain. Man arrested over tree death A National Trust worker has been arrested over the death in Dunham Massey Park, Greater Manchester, of Tim Sutton, eight, who was crushed by a (...)
(...) than a year ago from former Young Musician of the Year Alan Brind has turned up at Bonhams (...)

Flotilla of four returns empty-handed

The Guardian, Monday July 4 2005

Steven Morris
After the triumph of the Live 8 concerts, the movement's nautical arm, Sail 8, turned out to be a bit of a damp squib yesterday. Bob Geldof had called for a flotilla of small boats to set sail for France and bring back European activists who would then head for the G8 summit in Edinburgh. The organisers had hoped that around 70 boats would sail from the UK to Cherbourg and (...)
(...) warnings from the coastguards contributed as well." A Sail 8 spokesman, Don Brind, said: "It wasn't a numbers game. It was a matter (...) *

Kent docked points by pitch panel

The Guardian, Friday June 3 2005

Martin Rose
Kent are considering an appeal after being docked eight points by a three-man ECB disciplinary panel in Maidstone last night. The pitch liaison officer Tony Pigott, the former Sussex seamer, called in the technical expertise of the former Lancashire captain David Hughes and the groundsman Harry Brind after 27 wickets fell on the opening two days of Kent's First Division (...)
(...) expertise of the former Lancashire captain David Hughes and the groundsman Harry Brind after 27 wickets fell on the opening two days of (...)

Honour among hounds

The Guardian, Saturday April 23 2005

Jan Mark
Brind and the Dogs of War by Christopher Russell 208pp, Puffin, £4.99 One of the minor characters in TH White's The Sword in the Stone is the Dog Boy, who lived with Sir Ector's hounds and owed his provenance to "the Duke of York who was killed at Agincourt and described such a boy in his Master of Game". Of the same distinguished pedigree comes Brind, who, found (...)
(...) Brind and the Dogs of War by Christopher Russell 208pp, Puffin, (...)
(...) seen through 14th-century eyes. Jan Mark gazes at Christopher Russell's Brind and the Dogs of (...)

Where are they now?

The Guardian, Wednesday May 5 2004

Stephen Moss
How nice to see classical music making the pages of the Daily Star. "Stunning Nicola Benedetti is set to fiddle her way to the top, with a £1m record deal on the cards. The 16-year-old Scottish violinist had the classical world at her feet after winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in Edinburgh. One music insider said: "With those looks and her ability (...)
(...) rest - trombonist Michael Hext, oboist Nicholas Daniel, pianist Anna Markland, violinists Alan Brind, Nicola Loud, Rafal Payne and Jennifer Pike, cellists Natalie Clein and (...)

Super plonk

The Guardian, Saturday March 27 2004

Malcom Gluck
No one needs reminding of the rise in the fortunes of Chilean wine, but its temporary ascension to the fourth floor of a quondam school (or courthouse - it depends on which historian you listen to) off Tottenham Court Road, London, is more telling. In late February, I cycled to the Imagination building for a Chilean wine fair. The building's resurrection as a commercial (...)

Vaughan's headache; America's confusion; and Gough's uncertainty.

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 16 2003

Lawrence Booth
DARREN GOUGH SPECIAL: PART I England's 15-man squad for the two Tests in Bangladesh and three in Sri Lanka leaves one big question: who is going to do a Darren Gough? When England last toured Sri Lanka, in early 2001, Gough bowled a sixth of England's overs but took nearly a third of their wickets. He pitched it up, mixed it up and emerged - as ever - smiling. He was (...)

England v South Africa LIVE!

guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 4 2003

Sean Ingle
Coverage starts at 10:15am. If you're bored, why not pass the time by doing some work , or reading and subscribing to Lawrence Booth's excellent weekly cricket email The Spin. It's funny, it's informative and it's free. Pitch watch The groundsman Paul Brind must have living accommodation in the MI6 building just up the road from The Oval, so secretive is he about his (...)
(...) it's informative and it's free. Pitch watch The groundsman Paul Brind must have living accommodation in the MI6 building just up the (...)

Romeo and Juliet

guardian.co.uk, Friday June 6 2003

Judith Mackrell
The last time Alessandra Ferri danced Juliet at Covent Garden she was counted one of the Royal's three ballerinas most likely to succeed. Yet, while her fellow starlets (Fiona Chadwick and Bryony Brind) stayed at home, Ferri took her chances abroad, where for the past 18 years she has danced with American Ballet Theatre and La Scala. On Wednesday night she was back at last, (...)
(...) likely to succeed. Yet, while her fellow starlets (Fiona Chadwick and Bryony Brind) stayed at home, Ferri took her chances abroad, where for the (...)

Romeo and Juliet

guardian.co.uk, Friday June 6 2003

Diary

The Guardian, Friday October 18 2002

Marina Hyde
Once again our eyes are drawn to the electoral posturings of Tony Banks, the charmless Mockney keen to be Labour's best boy for the London mayoral elections. Recently, market research firm Vision 21 was polling Labour members for Mr Banks, but falsely claiming to be doing so on behalf of the Labour party. Now, we learn, Tony has breached regulations again by (...)
(...) Shannon. Calling to discuss the matter with Tony's campaign PR Don Brind, my colleague Raoul Surcouf experiences for the first time the cheering (...)

Diary

The Guardian, Friday September 27 2002

Matthew Norman
Today's cockup, making its debut as lead item, concerns yesterday's story about Labour members being called by market researchers Vision 21 and quizzed about their views on the London mayoralty. Several sources report that when they asked who the polling was for, they were told "the Labour party". This is where the confusion arose, and we apologise to our friends at (...)
(...) fact conducted on behalf of Mr Banks. We know this because Don Brind from his campaign has been in touch, mildly irritated, to say (...)

GM crop trials spread pollen

The Guardian, Monday August 19 2002

Jon Lockett
Environmental campaigners have hit out after it was revealed four government GM crop trials had gone wrong, spreading modified pollen across the countryside. An official report into the tests revealed stubble of harvested oilseed rape resprouted late last autumn before flowering again in November. The problem was missed by both government inspectors and Aventis, the (...)
(...) rape was found at trial sites at Witham on the Hill, Lincolnshire, Brind in North Yorkshire, Winfarthing in Norfolk, and Wormington in Gloucestershire. Aventis (...)

Commonwealth Games round-up

guardian.co.uk, Monday July 29 2002

Staff and agencies
Women's hockey: Defending champions Australia broke their own Commonwealth Games record with an 18-0 demolition of Malaysia's women on the way to confirming their automatic place in the semi-finals. The Hockeyroos demonstrated why they are the best in the world by eclipsing their previous record of 15-1 against Namibia at the last Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (...)
(...) second-placed team in Pool Two. Women's squash: England's Stephanie Brind gave world number one Sarah Fitz-Gerald a useful workout but (...)

Sport in brief

The Guardian, Tuesday November 6 2001
Olympic Games A special National Guard unit - from the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team - will be sent to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City next February in case of terrorist attacks. The 22 weapons and medical specialists are trained to respond to biological, chemical or nuclear attacks. "We'll be there in case things turn ugly," said Lt Col Fred Hoon, (...)
(...) 11-1, 7-2 against Mike Redshaw of South Africa. Squash Stephanie Brind, playing only the fifth WISPA final of her career, was outplayed (...)

Sport in brief

The Guardian, Monday November 5 2001

Richard Jago
Squash Stephanie Brind, who became the highest-ranked Briton for the first time last week, unexpectedly earned a final against the former world champion Carol Owens in the Macau Open yesterday. The world No4 from Kent was given a semi-final walk- over by Leilani Joyce, the top-seeded former British Open champion from New Zealand, who aggravated an ankle injury in the (...)
(...) Squash Stephanie Brind, who became the highest-ranked Briton for the first time last (...)

Rise in assaults on school heads

The Guardian, Wednesday May 30 2001

Will Woodward
Headteachers yesterday demanded changes to the law to give them the power to exclude pupils if their parents are violent and abusive. The National Association of Head Teachers reported that the number of such cases has doubled in the past year. Of 88 assaults and 52 incidents of threatening behaviour against heads and deputies, about 70% involved parents and the remainder, (...)
(...) their children, or who themselves are abusive or violent in school". Roger Brind, headteacher of Trelai primary in Cardiff, said violence against staff was (...)

Want a chance of a profit? Try a zero

The Observer, Sunday March 25 2001

Heather Connon
Investors just can't win at the moment. Falling stock markets are hitting share portfolios; falling interest rates make deposit accounts an unattractive haven. So where can investors get a decent return without too much risk to their savings? Two possible options are zero dividend preference shares and corporate bonds. Both have been doing well recently - zeros have risen (...)
(...) which the funds assets could fall without affecting the final payout. Nick Brind of Exeter Investment Group, which offers an Oeic and an unit (...)

GM trial sites and their map references

The Guardian, Thursday March 1 2001
Beet NX 967 137, Rottington, Cumbria; SE 630 035, Armthorpe, South Yorkshire; NZ 127 133, Hutton Magna, Durham; SO 711 171, Blaisdon, Gloucestershire; SO 854 227, Twigworth, Gloucestershire; SO 558 484, Preston Wynne, Herefordshire; TL 110 129, Redbourn, Hertfordshire; TF 233 878, Burgh on Bain, Lincolnshire; SE 195 840, High Ellington, North Yorks; SE 650 844, Beadlam, (...)
(...) 107, Hutton Magna, Durham; NZ 193 370, Oakenshaw, Durham; SE 755 312, Brind, Yorkshire; TA 016 599, Little Driffield, Yorkshire; TA 265 378, Aldborough, (...)

Kerry cleans out

The Observer, Sunday September 3 2000

Norman Harris
Kerry Packer, who was reported last week to have lost $20 million in a single night at the blackjack tables of Las Vegas, may be gratified to know that his name is no longer mud over here. Indeed, Cornhill Insurance - for whom The Oval represents the end of 23 years of Test sponsorship - say the Australian magnate 'did us all a favour'. In 1977, the shock and fear created (...)
(...) they could be activated overnight, without need of supervision. Wisely, groundsman Paul Brind has not yet gone that far. Cricket grounds, water, computers and (...)

Fingers crossed for a flat track

The Guardian, Wednesday August 30 2000

Matthew Engel
Exactly five years ago, West Indies and England approached the Oval at the end of a ding-dong Test series in which England had a sniff of ending their melancholy sequence of failure in the Wisden Trophy, dating back to the days of a two-bob pint and a tanner's worth of chips. In 1995 the score was 2-2 with one to play, so England were desperate for a result pitch. Paul (...)
(...) one to play, so England were desperate for a result pitch. Paul Brind, the Surrey groundsman, was new, and apparently petrified. He served up (...)

Superplonk

The Guardian, Saturday August 19 2000

Malcolm Gluck
I am pleased to announce the merger of Morrisons and Waitrose. Alas, this is only for the purposes of this column, and not a hair-raising commercial reality. It is, however, amusing to imagine the lone wine-buying hero at Morrisons, Mr Stuart Purdie, contemplating the £50-quid bottles at Waitrose Direct, just as it is entertaining to contemplate Mr Julian Brind and his (...)
(...) at Waitrose Direct, just as it is entertaining to contemplate Mr Julian Brind and his platoon of fellow Masters Of Wine in the Waitrose (...)

Anger at paper's abortion claim

The Guardian, Monday August 14 2000

Sarah Hall
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is considering making a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over a Mail on Sunday story which claims the college believes that having an abortion can increase a woman's chances of developing breast cancer. The college is incensed by the front page story, which it describes as "very inaccurate" and "the worst (...)
(...) on Sunday's story had been based on research, conducted by Joel Brind of the City University of New York, which suggested that women (...)

Seven days that spun out of Blair's control

The Observer, Sunday July 9 2000

Kamal Ahmed
Don Brind was at home watching the tennis when the phone rang. It was Saturday evening and the Labour Party official was on duty to field calls from journalists following up stories appearing in the next day's newspapers. On the other end of the phone was Bob Roberts, deputy political editor of the Press Association. Was Brind aware, Roberts asked, of a story appearing in (...)
Don Brind was at home watching the tennis when the phone rang. It (...)

Results

The Guardian, Thursday April 27 2000
Football FRIENDLY INTERNATIONALS Holland (0) 0 Scotland (0) 0 24,500 N Ireland (0) 0 Hungary (0) 1 9,140 Horvath 61 Rep of Ireland (0) 0 Greece (1) 1 23,157 Lakis 15 Andorra 2 Belarus 0 / Austria 1 Croatia 2 / Bolivia 1 Colombia 1 / Bulgaria 0 Ukraine 1 / Cz Rep 4 Israel 1 / Denmark 1 Sweden 2 / France 3 Slovenia 2 / Germany 1 Switzerland 1 / Italy 2 (...)

England elite take central line

The Guardian, Friday April 7 2000

Mike Selvey
So it is peace in our time. The contract dispute which had threatened to disrupt the preparations of the England team for an arduous summer has been resolved and the 12 players selected for six-month contracts by the England and Wales Cricket Board have agreed to sign on the dotted line. Normal service will be resumed with a training camp in the west country at the start of (...)

Australian gets plum Royal Ballet job

The Guardian, Monday March 13 2000

Judith Mackrell
The Royal Ballet has offered the job of artistic director to Ross Stretton, director of the Australian Ballet, after a worldwide search. As soon as the current director, Anthony Dowell, announced that he would be leaving in 2001, the dance world went into speculative overdrive as to his successor. Stars such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp and Sylvie Guillem were touted (...)

ITN's breach of trust

The Guardian, Wednesday September 29 1999

Kamal Ahmed
Norman Lamont confessed that he was, quite frankly, astonished. A senior executive at ITN had leaked confidential polling information to John Major's campaign team during the battle for the Conservative leadership in 1990. It was information on the opinion of bankbench MPs - information which would prove rather useful to the future prime minister. To that amazement we (...)

Now is not the winter for discontent

The Observer, Sunday September 26 1999

Vic Marks
How to send all you cricket nuts into winter hibernation without a grimace? It's tricky after a summer in which England were bundled out of the World Cup at the earliest opportunity before losing at home to New Zealand in the Test series. The notion that England might be bribed to play badly might provoke a smile, but only a resigned one. In fact there were moments to (...)

Hollioake tightens Surrey's grip on title race

The Guardian, Thursday August 5 1999

Paul Weaver at the Oval
The thought of the England and Wales Cricket Board pitches consultant Harry Brind popping down to the Oval to have a stern word with the Surrey groundsman, his son Paul, is an amusing one but it will not happen. On a number of occasions umpires, many of whom played in the days of uncovered pitches, have been too eager to blame bad batting rather than dodgy playing (...)
(...) The thought of the England and Wales Cricket Board pitches consultant Harry Brind popping down to the Oval to have a stern word with (...)

Catching the zeitgeist

The Guardian, Saturday June 5 1999

Vanessa Brown

The Guardian, Tuesday June 1 1999

Ronald Bergan
Vanessa Brown, who has died of cancer aged 71, characterised, more than most actresses, the phrase, "Not just a pretty face". Although she made her name as the sexy, flighty girl upstairs in George Axelrod's The Seven Year Itch on Broadway in 1952 (the part taken by Marilyn Monroe in the 1955 Billy Wilder movie), and played a number of other none-too-bright women, she was a (...)
(...) IQ of 165 made her feel "squirmy". Vanessa Brown was born Smylla Brind in Vienna, the daughter of language teacher Nah Brind and psychologist (...)

BBC fears 'hacking' by Labour insiders

guardian.co.uk, Sunday April 4 1999

By John Arlidge
BBC chiefs have ordered an emergency review of internal security amid claims that outsiders are hacking into the corporation's computer system. A recent incident in which a senior government spin doctor complained about a sentence in an early draft of a story that was never actually broadcast has raised fears that the BBC's central computer has been compromised. (...)
(...) deputy to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's official spokesman. Corporation executive Don Brind is now press officer to the Parliamentary Labour Party and the (...)

Cricket comes in to bat at Downing Street

The Guardian, Thursday November 29 1990

Matthew Engel
Put aside any considerations of right and left, or even right and wrong, it is good to have a sporty Prime Minister at the helm. This is nothing to do with his attitude to sport itself but everything to do with his attitude to life. Any man who has supported Chelsea for a long period will inevitably have acquired a sense of the transience of glory and the capriciousness of (...)
(...) in politics it is no time at all on one of Harry Brind's featherbeds. Both sides of his sporting life will give John (...)

Media index

Edgar Dennis Brind would have been 41 in 1962. His mother's maiden name was Barker, but he appears to have no obvious siblings and it is hard to find a Brind/Baker marriage

Catching the zeitgeist

The Guardian, Saturday June 5 1999

Shot from the obscurity of a dead-end job or a bedroom in the suburbs, pop stars can shape the spirit of their times (All You Need Is Love) or rearrange language to sum up the zeitgeist (Sorted For Es And Whizz) before either falling back to Earth, and becoming one of us again, or going right out into orbit and becoming a kind of hologram of themselves, part human and part a trick with lights and mirrors.

But at the start, there comes a moment when a pop star seems to discover a signature image: a merger of looks and personality to complete the glamour package and flick the switch to put their name up in lights. More often than not, this moment of pop celebrity will have been captured by a photographer with the vision to see that little bit into the future, to when their subject will have found the face to launch a thousand shops.

These can be the most telling of portraits: publicity photographs, mostly, but also an X-ray of celebrity. Later, if a star is brought down by the traditional combination of drugs, despair and self-loathing, there will be a different kind of photo - the grabbed shot, the intimate portrait of collapse - that will record the other half of the story.

Curated by Terence Pepper of the National Portrait Gallery and Philip Hoare, a biographer of Noel Coward and the Hon Stephen Tennant, Icons of Pop examines the way portrait photography can turn nobodies into Big Stars. Covering 41 years - from the depressive austerity of Britain in the late 50s to the pre-milliennial tension of 1999, this survey of portraiture describes what Roxy Music founder Brian Eno calls the role of pop: "It isn't about making music in the traditional sense of the word; it's about making imaginary worlds and inviting people to try them."

The prehistory of British pop was in some ways a dream of a warmer country. By 1959, the "problem" films of teenage delinquency - all hysterics and miserable weather - had become empowered by the glamour of rock'n'roll to offer the first of pop's "new imaginary worlds", that of the mixed-up, working-class hero as an all-singing, all-pouting rebel.

These films, steeped in the atmosphere of dives such as Soho's Two Is coffee bar - owned by a former wrestler called Dr Death - were perfect for presenting new stars to a wide audience.

And so the early pop portraits were an extension of the cinema "lobby card", with the new star moodily lit in an actorly pose. Before the picture-postcard colours and sugary sentiments of Expresso Bongo and Summer Holiday, even Cliff Richard had starred in a "problem" film, Serious Charge (1959), which addressed the risky subject of a frisky vicar. And Adam Faith, photographed in 1962 by Edgar Brind as the conventionally handsome matinee idol had done his bit for the youth-quake as a beatnik in Beat Girl.

As Quentin Crisp declared, "style stands facing the other way", so the icons of 60s British pop would hone their sense of distance from the conformity of the crowd. What was being created and photographed was a new aristocracy - young, white and lippy - whose primary role was to reinforce the chasm between the young and old. The expansion of media, and the newly discovered fetish for youth, made London in the 60s a place where the social, cultural and professional boundaries were challenged The idea of London as the magnet to which creative or free-thinking youth were drawn - as much as the suburbs and provinces being the places where boredom ruled and sensitivity was persecuted - became a defining equation in pop's formula.

This relationship between conformity and rebellion, escape and imprisonment, became a focus for British pop in the 60s and would be reflected in the photographs of its stars. The Beatles, as mutations of lovable working-class lads, would become the mystical leaders of a politically-aware generation. Similarly, as Marianne Faithfull could combine the sexual ambiguity of an Art Nouveau figurine with the pop decadence of her role as hippy love mascot to the Satanic court of the Rolling Stones, there would be the sense that drugs and sexual liberation had created not simply a new world for British pop, but a parallel universe, in which the Union Jack was a graphic device to be subverted. As David Mellor pointed out in Sixties Art Scene in London, John Entwistle's Union Jacket - as worn by the guitarist in David Wedgbury's photograph of The Who - gave the flag a celebratory, "serial meaninglessness".

Picking up on Oscar Wilde's philosophy that "the opinions of youth are the only opinions worth knowing", pop's insistence on the cyclical, generational response to what has gone before it provided David Bowie with a key phrase to bridge the chasm of sensibility between the 60s and the 70s: "Your brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones"

As pop was just learning the power of revivalism - through glam rock's obsession with The Great Gatsby, Art Deco and its dance-band swing - the new worlds on offer in the early 70s derived from a notion of escaping the boredom of the past through fantasies of time travel and sexual ambiguity. And as Eno's Roxy Music pushed a version of dandyism and male beauty to present themselves as "a 50s' vision of space nobility - Members of the Galactic Parliament", so Bowie - the most important figure in British pop - reinvented himself as a kind of Queer Messiah from Space, the ultimate outsider, born in Beckenham. And Marc Bolan, himself a former suburban "individualist" (as the extreme splinter faction of Mod was known) would wrap Tolkienesque fantasy in trashy tinfoil: The Electric Warrior.

Blessed with cheek bones like wing mirrors and, photogenic features, Bolan and Bowie possessed a mix of prettiness and oddness that photographed as beauty. In Keith Morris's exuberant portrait of Marc Bolan and his electric guitar taken in 1972, the star has all the sultry knowingness and arch amusement of a lap-dancer brandishing a male phallus. Even his little-girl tap-shoes accentuate the ambiguity of the portrait in a way that mainlined sexual fantasy to a million teenage bedrooms - a trait of infantilism and erotic ambiguity that was mirrored in Kate Bush.

The context of glam, despite the crotch-hugging satin and the pale blue eyeshadow, was a Britain where gyms and irony were as yet unknown in the mediation of pop stars. For all of its toying with visions of a dandyfied future, Glam had a pasty Britishness that was the most effective canvas for glitter and sexual audacity. As a celebration of artifice, it prepared the way for punk rock's obsession with the cheap, the cynical and the synthetic - a witty creed of bloody-mindedness and self-parody that gave the best of punk its mordant sense of humour and dark sense of style.

Steve Severin, the co-founder of Siouxsie and The Banshees, explains the experience of being in front of Pennie Smith's camera: "When I look at the early photos of the band I see a curious mix of anxiety and arrogance. We trusted no one, particularly photographers. In hindsight, we need not have worried; we were just 'being ourselves'."

In the early 1980s, when magazines such as The Face and iD emerged as a consequence of punk, there was a new playfulness, and, vitally, colour to pop's portrait photography. In images of the great British synthesiser groups, such as the Pet Shop Boys, the Human League and Duran Duran, where a sense of style was engaging with the emotional headrush of pure pop or disco, there was a presentation of the stars as alienated technicians, dipped in the glamour of a glossy magazine.

With the Soho of the 50s being revived as a type of cappuccino cult, there was a return to the notion of pop performer as lobby-card pin-up, be it through the bronzed good looks of Wham!, the mod intensity of Paul Weller or the camp melodrama of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Culture Club and ABC. Once again, pop offered a "new, imaginary world", and this time it was the world of mediation itself: the universe as a photographer's studio, where you were perfectly-lit for all eternity, with your finger on the pulse. But on the pulse of what?

It took the lyrical genius of Morrissey to puncture this idyll of mediation, and to strip-mine the history of British pop culture in search of a fresh rallying cry to those children still stuck in their bedrooms in boring towns a million miles from Soho's glamour: "Shoplifters of the world unite, and take over!".

A dividing line had been drawn in the top-soil of popular culture between the legacy of Morrissey's Smiths - which would mutate into the retro-rock and ironic whimsy of Britpop - and the sheer creative power of dance music.

In the 90s, as the mainstream of pop becomes broad enough to mention Robbie Williams, The Prodigy and Catatonia the same breath, pop has become as much a response to the processes of mediation (think of Pulp's magnificent "I want to be like common people") as it is a montage of its influences. Bands such as The Verve or Oasis returned to the imagery of Northern laddism, while the Spice Girls create a statement about pop, sex, mediation and gender which no Young British Artist could match. Ultimately, in terms of pop portraiture, one can recognise a return, perhaps, to the exuberance and styling of the early 60s, when stars were stars and fans were fans, with all of the hierarchy of pop's young empire still in place.

Media index