Strictly speaking I suppose they weren't hippies in the historical sense of the word, but they had the air of people who had once been closely acquainted with cheesecloth, patchouli and the occasional exotic cigarette. The encounter took place at a party celebrating someone's 70th birthday and I suppose if I am honest I didn't want to be there (which sounds terribly rude - why did I just not politely decline?). Anyway, I was there and it was rather like stepping back in time, but the hippies had aged and withered. The bright summers of the 1960s - when I was just a boy - had turned into the wet and cold winter of 2010 and the passage of time had knocked us all about to some extent.
As someone whose musical puberty was spent in the punk era I suppose I have a residual - and entirely unreasonable - antipathy towards hippies. Sorry for continuing to use that word, it's very lazy of me. And I continue to warn "Never trust a hippie." I'm not sure why now. Could it be that love and peace turned into stuff and nonsense and then just plain old power and money. If that is the case I have to put my hands up to the fact that such transitions seem to affect all movements and punk was no exception. "Tempora mutantur" as the wily Romans were often heard to mutter before then observing "but not much".
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