LAURENCE OLIVIER IS TOO MARVELLOUS

T H U R S D A Y,  9  N O V

Lucy and Adrian, Anya and Malcolm, and Sandra and Greg are all going out on Saturday to see 'The Dirty Dozen'. They're so lucky. I feel so miserable.

At 5pm Pam, Lucy and me walked down to town. It wasn’t too cold. We popped into Rumbelows first. Pam can’t believe I haven’t heard all of Sam and Dave’s records (I've heard a few through Radio Caroline) but she’s been brought up going to clubs and things because her boyfriend is a DJ on a private travelling discotheque. Roger takes her to millions of unusual things, and they go to a party or a dance every weekend - oh just imagine having such a marvellous time, she's the luckiest person I know. She says she couldn’t live without music, I didn't realise that. Roger must have influenced her like anything.

We went to the chip shop and bought two bags of 10d chips between us. It would have been miles better to have got a bag each like I wanted to.

The coach left the Clock Tower at six. We bought 5/6d seats, and at seven the film began. The acting was staggering. Laurence Olivier as Othello is too marvellous though he overacted a bit in parts; he even walked  like a Negro. Iago was marvellous too. Maggie Smith would have been good if only she didn’t look so old; Desdemona's meant to be 13! Othello’s meant to be about 60. Roderigo is a really comic part, so dense and so pitiful. In the interval I spoke to Jackie while queueing for ices; she's mad over Laurence Olivier whether he’s “black, white, pink or yellow”(!) Lost my glasses so had to see the second half without them.

Of all the daft things, the coach stopped at school, so everyone had to walk down to Epsom.

“The launch of Rolling Stone ”

First cover pic: John Lennon in 'How I Won the War'

“You're probably wondering what we are trying to do. It's hard to say: sort of a magazine and sort of a newspaper. The name comes from an old saying: 'A Rolling Stone gathers no moss.' Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote, the Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy's song, and Like A Rolling Stone was the title of Bob Dylan's first rock and roll record.

“Because the trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant, and because the fan magazines are an anachronism, fashioned in the mold of myth and nonsense, we hope that we have something here for the artists and the industry, and every person who ‘believes in the magic that can set you free.’

“We've been working quite hard on it and we hope you can dig it. To describe it any further would be difficult without sounding like bullshit, and bullshit is like gathering moss.”  Jann Wenner, Editor, 9 November 1967