Tainted love

Because Betty has suggested that BBC2's 'Girls And Boys - Sex And British Pop' is reviewed here weekly, and I can't let down my public. Even if I did only manage to catch the second half of this week's installment.

That was a bit of a relief, actually - meaning, as it did, that I missed most of the New Romantic prancing and preening (though a sighting of Adam Ant would have been welcome). As in the two previous episodes of the documentary, the subject was the intersection of pop music and culture with issues of sexuality and the wider political world. Covering the 1980s, the programme flitted from band to band - this week, everything from Divine to The Smiths with the likes of Wham!, Eurythmics, Spandau Ballet and Pet Shop Boys in between - at an unnervingly quick pace, but there was still much to enjoy, not least the focus upon the exploration of gay identity and sexuality (or its concealment) within the pop culture of the 1980s, and the impact of AIDS upon that culture.

It was also well worth switching on for the extraordinary footage of Morrissey playing live and being hugged by a succession of overwhelmed and obsessed male fans who had clambered up onto the stage - extraordinary at least in part because the notorious misanthrope appeared to tolerate it.