Not too much change On My Radio for Pauline

The Selecter were one of the leading lights of the Renaissance 2 Tone ska of the late 70 and early 80s with hits like too much pressure on my radio.

After a spell away from the music business, singer Pauline Black is touring with a new line-up of the band, with fellow founding member Arthur Hendrickson "gaps", which appears in Derby next week.

She spoke to the Mail journalist Tim Fletcher about his upbringing as the adopted daughter of white parents, rapidly increasing prominence of the band and their role in the history of music.

Riots downtown, the growing tension and economic hardship - the parallels are striking between 2011 Britain and the countries that bubbled and simmered with frustration pent three decades ago.

The soundtrack of those times was provided by the 2 Tone bands that erupted in the late 70's and early 1980, combining the rhythms of ska blowing with the political consciousness of these troubled times.

Songs like The Specials Ghost Town "and The Selecter too much pressure for success gave voice to disaffected youth across the racial divide in the early days of the Great Britain of Margaret Thatcher.

Pauline Black, lead singer of the latter, then said the recent riots in the streets may have been fueled by Facbook and Twitter, the underlying reasons behind them remain the same as 30 years ago when the World Wide Web was simple science fiction.

"Riots occur cyclically every 20 years or more, so it should not come as a surprise to anyone." She said.

"Economically people feel powerless and helpless, and feel that no political party no longer represents.

"What surprised me was the instinctive reaction to the riots of people like David Starkey.I think we roll back a few years, people can still think like that and that such views can still be broadcast on the BBC. "

Black grew up in Romford, Essex, a mixed-race child raised by his white adoptive parents, an experience that will leave in front of her quest to fill the missing pieces in the puzzle of his racial and cultural identity.

"I was four when I found out my mom and dad were not mine," she said. "Regardless of the color I was, I had not thought of that.

"It turns your kind of world on its axis and my sense of identity has been hit a little out of whack. As I get older, I thought about it more deeply and when I left home, I was able to embrace one side of me, I had never had before. I designed by my experiences.

Retro To Go: Retro TV W/C 30th January 2009

Barry Murphy returns once more trawl the TV and radio guides (so you don't have to) to find anything worth tuning into this week. All listings are for UK terrestrial TV, Freeview and national radio, with the shows running from Friday 30th January to Thursday 5th February 200 9.

Highlights of the week

Five begins it's new series of Minder (Wednesday 4th - 9pm) this week. The famous drama series is reborn with wheeler-dealer Archie Daley (Shane Richie) following in the footsteps of his Uncle Arthur. In the first episode, Archie enlists the help of a taxi driver to settle a debt. BBC 4's Folk America season continues with the second part of Folk America (Friday 30th, 9pm), exploring the increasingly political edge adopted by folk music after the Depression and the emergence of artists Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. This is followed by the Arena documentary on Woody Guthrie (Friday 30th, 10pm). Motown star Smokey Robinson gives an insight into his musical influences on S pectacle: Elvis Costello with Smokey Robinson (Channel 4. Wednesday 4th, 12.10am), while BBC 4 has a nostalgic look back at the country's first regional news programme in It's Time to Go Nationwide (Thursday 5th, 9pm)

On the Radio this week, music journalist Mark Paytress tracks down Prince Stash (or Prince Stanislaus Klossowski de Rola Baron de Watteville), a hip dandy at the centre of the London counter-culture scene - busted for drugs along with The Stones, friend of Pink Floyd and lover of Marianne Faithful and Nico in Stash: the Dandy Aesthete of Swinging London (Tuesday 3rd Feb, BBC Radio 4. 11.30am) Stuart Maconie and Lauren Laverne put British style and fashion between the 1940s and the 1990s into the dock. They are joined in the studio by design specialist Ben de Lisi, singer and fashion broadcaster Mica Paris and musician, model and designer Pearl Lowe to discuss whether the 90s will be remembered as the golden age of celebrity, glamour and the triumph of the high street or as a bland, joyless decade in which the globalisation led to homogeneity of style.

Style on Trial: Finale - BBC 4. 12.55am - 2.25am Stuart Maconie and Lauren Laverne's quest to identify Britain's most stylish decade ends with advocates putting the case for their favourite fashion era to an expert judging panel. Doing the honours are Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen for the 40s, Brix Smith-Start for the 50s, Jill Kennington for the 60s, Wayne Hemingway for the 70s, Caryn Franklin for the 80s and Ben de Lisi for the 90s.   Three days before the 50th anniversary of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, Steve Harley tells the story of their US Winter Dance Party tour, during which their plane crashed. With Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Keith Richards, Don Everly, Carl Perkins, Little Richard and others. Plus new input from Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch, the two surviving band members of the tour.

Woody Guthrie, America's Folksinger

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