The famed ‘cultural cringe’ of the Sixties and Seventies was exacerbated by the realisation that most artistic and fashionable trends back then tended to arrive on our shores several months or even years after capturing the imagination of our European and American cousins. This was largely due to the tyranny of distance and the time it took for goods and merchandise to be shipped here, but it was also an inevitable result of us being cut off from the daily discourse of life in the ‘swish’ capitals we so desired to emulate.