Perhaps the saddest aspect of the news that the NME is to cease as a weekly publication is that it is no surprise whatsoever. “Pay peanuts and you get monkeys”, as the saying goes – weekly music writers were some of the finest scribes in the nation up until the late 1990’s, possessing the timing of comedy scriptwriters and the turn of phrase of Dickens, not only were you informed, you were educated and entertained. With the moving on of names as illustrious as Danny Baker, Danny Kelly, Charles Shaar Murray and David Quantick, they relied on eager but musically knowledge-light writers who inadvertently delivered dumbed-down articles to audiences whose attention spans were equally short. A fine legacy that actually ended many years ago, hopefully this will be the catalyst for fine and talented writers to be paid for their passion and not to churn out headlines and jetsam.