Let's hear it for a very feisty woman

'Much entertained', eh? My recollection was that I had said little likely to amuse her in my article, which concerned a lunch party in London hosted by Sandeman's (the 'caped crusader' was a reference to the port company's famous 'Don' image). Digging out the piece, I found I had written the following, shame-inducing sentence concerning my neighbour at the table, Sholto Byrne, the Balliol-educated journalist who had just been hired to pen the IOS's back-page diary: "His charm and obvious intelligence inclined me to end a boycott of that newspaper which I began following the appointment of the frightful Janet Street-Porter as its editor."

Leaving aside the preposterous pomposity of this observation, I was dismayed to find that I had been gratuitously rude to someone whose reaction to that rudeness showed how little she deserved it. What right had I to call her frightful? I knew nothing of her, really, and was simply joining in with (the largely male) gang of bullies who had made it their business for years to disparage her. They laughed at her corncrake voice, her pushiness, her vulgarity, when really what they were resenting was the intrusion of a woman - and a very successful woman - into what they considered was a man's world. Private Eye sneered, so I had sneered.

I vowed at that point never to be beastly to Janet again. Since then, I find, others have started being nice about her too. They even include Lynn Barber - celebrated as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street - who recently began a profile in the Observer by saying: "There seems a terrible danger that Janet Street-Porter, having been a national irritant for most of her adult life, is turning into a national treasure. I think it started when she did I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! two years ago and proved herself to be physically tough, mentally sound, and much less irritating than one might have expected."

My impression of Janet as a good egg has only been confirmed this week, as I read the second volume of her memoirs, Fall Out, just published by Headline at £16.99. In fact, it was confirmed in one evening, as the whole book, though more than 300 pages long, can be polished off in about three hours as a consequence of the huge type size in which it is set and the double spacing between the lines. That it's not much, much longer is my one criticism of the book - though there will obviously be further volumes to come, since the story of her remarkable life is told here only as far as 1978.

This is an account of the 1960s and 1970s that will delight anyone who lived through them - a report from the centre of the world of fashion and the media. Famous names are introduced - among them, most of the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Francis Bacon, Ossie Clark (who made her wedding dress, a garment she didn't like), Arnold Schwarznegger and Johnny Rotten (she was one of the first to spot the punk scene).

She was druggy, she was boozy, she was promiscuous, she was -I feel pretty sure - prima-donna-ish. She was as a lot of us were (and even more wanted to be) at that time. As it happens, I have over the past few days been reading four other people's accounts of the period. They are those of the Police's Andy Summers (a superb book which I shall return to in a few weeks), Wendy Cook (comedian Peter's first wife), writer Freddie Raphael, and the broadcaster and wit Clive James. All present a similar picture of pretty-near non-stop fun combined with significant artistic achievement. What a contrast with a lot of today's so-called movers and shakers.

After completing this article on Wednesday, I opened my post to find a charming card from a reader telling me I was not the "clapped-out old bore" some had accused me of being. On the contrary, she writes, "your Gray Matter pieces are the first thing I turn to - they are so stimulating. How about an autobiography?"

You know I just might.

As one who wallows in memories of my teenage years, I naturally listen - when I am up in time - to Radio 2's Sounds of the Sixties. I even had a request on it not so long back (The Yardbirds' Evil Hearted You, since you ask) but this was one of those Saturdays when I was still snoring.

In common, I am sure, with all the programme's fans I was naturally dismayed to learn of the illness of Brian Matthew which has kept him out of his long-held presenter's chair for the past few weeks. In his absence, the affable Johnnie Walker has proved an admirable replacement.

Last week, however, Johnnie committed a booboo that would never have occurred if Brian had been in charge (and I was frankly surprised that producer Roger 'the Vocalist' Bowman didn't spot it). He refused to grant a listener's request to hear the Rolling Stones' Gimmie Shelter*. "Sorry, old son, it came out in 1971," he said, rewarding the fan with Stupid Girl from 1966's Aftermath instead.

Sorry, Johnnie; Gimmie Shelter* was one of the tracks - in my view one of the best tracks - on the Stones' album Let it Bleed, which scraped into the sixties by a matter of a few weeks. Having bought a copy in the dying days of 1969, I played little else over the next few weeks - and that included Led Zeppelin II, which also made the sixties' deadline.

d=3,3,1I placed an asterisk after the title Gimmie Shelter, in order to draw attention to the fact that this is how it is spelt on the record sleeve. On subsequent appearances, and on the Rolling Stones official website, it appears as Gimme Shelter.

Another odd - not to say wrong - spelling on the album sleeve involves Merry Clayton, who shares vocals with Mick Jagger (and evidently brought on a miscarriage through the strain involved). She appears as 'Mary' - doubtless because no one knew she'd been born on Christmas Day.