When Julie Burchill was sixteen she was a little knockout in tight jeans, a leather jacket and a switch blade knife cutting up New Musical Express (“they thought teenagers were a figment of their imaginations” she opined. Thirty something years later she has written for the Face, the Guardian, and other big league publications, put on a ton of poundage, and found her writing style just about a cliche. But a good cliche -a smart as hell cliche. Though Burchill still doesn’t have the vaguest idea about music.

At the outset of her new book, “Not In My Name You Don’t” reminds us how silly Burchill was about music. While I admit it takes bravery to claim the Monkees better than the Stones and the Beatles combined, and if we are to fetishize youth, it also takes a wilful lack of knowledge to not grasp that “She Loves You” is more purely youthful then the entire Monkee’s oevre combined.

Leaves me wondering if Burchill knows what she’s talking about. Well, she does though she has a complete inability to balance her thought with any form ofmoral equilancy. I thoroughly agree with Burchill and co-writer Chas Newkey-Burden’s pro Israeli setiments (i mean you can’t hide the final solution from Arab -or worldwide, anti-Jewish rhetoric) both she and Chas loathing of Arabs is abit “kettle-black” itself. Two instances, the fight over Palestine is currently a fight over water rights, the Palestinians want to control the flow of water, the Israei’s won’t let them. I don’t much care who is right or wrong but it isn’t only intrangency. Next, if the English are passive-aggressive pervs, the Arabs camel humping misogynists and the Yanks glad handing back stabbers, the Israeli’s are arrogant assholes.

Stll, i love their writing on the US in total -maybe because I agree that the anti-US hysteria in Europe is the definition of hyprocrity. And both Chas and Burchill are vastly superior to the uniformly naff writing about music in Q -all wonk and wank, Mojo -all wonk and NME -mostly wank there is a disapparing act occuring,they can’t agree about much but they can agree Muse are the second coming. I bet Burchill is laughing herself sick.