From 1968 to 1979, studio-based musicians in the employ of Pickwick Records in Britain, mimicked everyone from Diana Ross and The Sex Pistols to Roxy Music and Funkadelic. Eight albums were issued every year for 12 years, one every six weeks. 

Strikingly housed in sleeves adorned with Pan's People look-alikes, those collections of faceless impersonators somehow shifted 300,000 copies at their peak.

Glam might have looked on the surface as if it was a lot of blokes poncing about on high heels in make-up but look a little closer and you'll more often than not see that it isn't eye make-up, it's a black eye. 

Men wanted to look Glam but remain masculine and hard, and The Sweeney offered two perfect male role models in the shape of Jack Regan and George Carter.

Our ex-Prime Minister has always been keen to skim over what has been called his 'lost year'. And one look at the photographs on this page perhaps suggests why. Sporting shaggy, shoulder-length hair, a tight Lurex shirt and brown flared jeans (with patterned turn-ups), this is Tony Blair circa 1972.

Aged 18, he had thrown off the shackles of his Scottish public school to dip his bare toes in the choppy waters of the rock music business.

As a new decade began, the Swinging Sixties became the Swapping Seventies. Well, that is if you believe everything you saw on the big screen. 

Britain's film industry in the early 1970s consisted of the odd James Bond film and two series of witless, though gloriously politically incorrect films, which used the double entendres as often as Slade used the A Major chord.

Many TV shows are lubricated by alcohol, and the big American soaps would dry up and stop without it. The Rovers Return, The Queen Victoria and the like, are the setting for so much important action, useful places for characters to meet and a boon to writers.

What's the tipple of choice of some of the most famous TV characters? It's your round . . .

Once upon a time in a country where school children were served warm milk for free, the TV overlords surveyed the multitude of potential disasters that awaited the feckless populace and decided that "something must be done". 

The result , via the Orwellian-sounding Central Office of Information, was the production of a number of instructive short films designed to cope with every potential perilous situation, from slippery polished floors and loose carpeting to the searing heat of a nuclear apocalypse.

These beautifully produced radio documentaries, presented by such luminaries as Brian Cant, Sally James and Fred Harris, discuss the history of TV shows including Crackerjack, Blue Peter, Vision On, The Clangers, Camberwick Green, Pogles Wood and Magpie. 

If you haven't yet heard these wonderful programs, download them now and wallow in nostalgia.

It's no coincidence that Britain embraced Glam at precisely the moment that colour TV sets became affordable. It was a visual revolution which would see metaphorical blood shed, and a new order arise. 

Out went any series which looked great in black and white but lacked the imagination to capitalise on the potential of colour images; Andy Pandy, Lamb Chop and Bill And Ben stood no chance against the Glam appeal of Crystal Tipps And Alistair, The Wombles and Follyfoot.

The late Ronnie Lane - Someday his bad luck surely must end! A look at the man and his memorial concert at London's Royal Albert Hall in April 2004.

One of the most universally desired sex symbols of Glam was Sally James, star of probably the greatest Glam kids television show ever, Tiswas. She is our guide to the dress habits of the great, good and cor-blimey of Glam.

The great majority of internationally acclaimed rock & roll has always been produced in English-speaking countries. Almost from the start other countries got in on rock & roll, and it remains a fairly obscure fact that the 60s produced much interesting rock from non English-speaking countries.

There were always more differences between albums and singles than just the price and size. The advent of the New Music in 1976 challenged the state of the industry by returning artistic focus to the 45. Anarchy In The UK was, like My Generation, an anthem single, a song, a brief statement of anger.

The Capri, Marina, Cortina, Granada and Princess were family cars which doubled as a sports car for those Jason King and Persuaders fans who had no chance of ever getting a truly Glam car like a Jensen Interceptor, Ferrari Dino, Aston Martin DBS or even Triumph Stag.

1969: Neil Armstrong walks on the Moon, America bombs Vietnam, and dozens of Minis bring Turin to a standstill. We take you behind the scenes of The Italian Job - The greatest caper movie of all time.

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