According to the teenage musicologist in our household, there is only one creature in the known universe sadder than a middle-aged man expressing an enthusiasm for the Arctic Monkeys. And that, she said, as she thumbed through a Sunday supplement talking them up as the modern incarnation of Mozart, is a middle-aged man writing about how much he likes the Arctic Monkeys.
Quite where on the scale of saddery that leaves the middle-aged man writing about discovering the Arctic Monkeys some six months after everyone else has moved on to eulogising the Kooks has yet to be measured.
But the fact is, I have recently developed an affection for the Sheffield band. So much so that when they appeared on the Today programme last week following their winning of the Mercury Music Prize, I, unlike most of the listening public, who would have leapt across the room to turn the volume down, found myself singing along. Which is particularly sad on the 8.15 train.
Good words, too. If not quite Leonard Cohen, anyone who rhymes "classic Reeboks" with "tracky bottoms tucked in socks" demonstrates a lyrical ingenuity beyond the reach of most pop performers.
Besides, by outing myself as an – albeit late – arrival on the Monkey bandwagon, I am in distinguished company. Gordon Brown recently revealed that he has the Monkeys on his iPod. Their music helps him, he said, wake up in the morning.
He needs a bit of power pop after a broken night attending to the needs of Little John and Wee Fraser and he finds that no one is better at freshening him up ahead of a day of internecine feuding – sorry, running the fifth-largest economy in the world.
Almost from the moment Mr Brown revealed his morning listening, it was scoured for significance. That's what happens with politicians' iPods; their contents are reckoned part of the armoury in building up the right image, and are thus assumed to have been carefully selected by focus group.
Though quite what George Bush's people were hoping to achieve when they revealed that his contains My Sharona by the Knack is hard to fathom.
Still, you imagine whole teams of advisers would have spent days in Notting Hill's pricier eateries preparing the contents of David Cameron's personal listening device as revealed on Desert Island Discs. Why on earth would he have claimed to listen to Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) unless it was to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to Britain's small dairy producers?
My first thought was that the Chancellor's affection for the Monkeys was a PR concoction, dreamed up to prove that, far from being psychologically unsuitable, this was a modern, forward-looking PM-in-waiting.
My assumption was that the band was suggested by Ed Balls to give a notorious geek some hip credentials in his battle with Tony "I was in a rock band once" Blair.
And a smokescreen, too, to disguise the fact that his real choice of listening, as he stumbles bleary-eyed around Downing Street, is the Beatles' Taxman, with its many ideas for new policy initiatives: "If you drive a car, I'll tax the street / If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat / If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."
But watching the events of the past few days unfold from my new perspective as a Monkeys aficionado, I am now not so sure.
In fact, I think the Monkeys, with their musical tales of urban disappointment and thwarted ambition, of mates who let you down and psychotic bouncers blocking the entrances of buildings that you are desperate to get into, would provide the perfect paranoid soundtrack to Mr Brown's past week.
Most of all, I can see him now, bouncing around Number 11 first thing in the morning, shouting through the walls at his neighbour the lyrics of the song When the Sun Goes Down: "What a scummy man / Just give him half a chance / I bet he'll rob you if he can / Can see it in his eyes that he's got a nasty plan."
By Jim White for Telegraph.co.uk
Taking to the stage just after 9.30 to the theme tune of 'The Long Good Friday' the new look Monkeys tore thorugh what is likely to be a similar set at this weekends festivals launching straight into a frantic 'I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor'. Rarely taking their foot off the pace the band played every track from their Mercury nominated debut including a sublime melody of 'Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But..' and 'Dancing Shoes' plus new single 'Leave Before The Lights Come On' which sent the crowd into near delirium.
