When people find out I’m a music journalist there’s a set line of questioning they tend to follow. First will be, "What’s your surname?", followed by a look of mock-recognition, a flattering set-up to, "Can you get me a ticket for Kings Of Leon?" Then will come more of a statement than a question: "No, I won’t have sex with you and these three other girls, and can you please stop stealing my food?"

Finally, the classic: "What’s your favourite band?" I know what they want me to say. They want me to degrade them with a withering snarl, make them feel like an ignorant maggot on my cultural boot-heel (the slaaags) and sneer, "The Monks, obviously".

Or they want me to reel off an endless list of Big Pinks, XXs and David Sitek’s Spunky Backpacks that they can memorise and repeat back at the call centre in order to look like an SAS sniper scout of rock’n’roll. Or, if it’s someone in IT, they want me to say Radiohead.

In all cases, I disappoint. After a lifetime of hunting out the best new music, my favourite band remains The Beatles.

Sorry. I am that mythical music critic who really does believe that ‘Revolver’ is the best record ever made. I would swap a million smack-slurry Peter Doherty demos to get my mitts on the forthcoming remastered Fabs’ back catalogue. I felt privileged to get to chat to Sir Macca himself for this week’s NME Eggmanstravaganza.

Yes, if only I was an ex-public schoolboy, a failed musician and had once shagged a Geldof I’d tick all the boxes on the roll call of honking music hack clichés.

But the next question – "Who’s your favourite Beatle, then?" – has stumped me of late. George wrote my favourite Fabs song (‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’) but Paul was overall the best tunesmith and John the Fucked-Up Cool One On Druuugs. But, as each of their legends has towered over rock, and as every solo album has dragged us further and further from their Big Bang genius, it’s slowly dawned on me that perhaps the best Beatle was Ringo.

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Patrick Wolf throws the mother of all hissy fits onstage at C/O Pop Festival in Cologne, lobbing chairs and mics at the crew, presumably angry that his vulture-feather cape and head-dress ensemble hadn’t been properly primped by the herd of greased transsexual midgets he’d specified on his rider.

At Summer Sonic in Osaka, Placebo’s Brian Molko is carried offstage having passed out in anticipation of the rockingest event of the summer, or a dodgy teriyaki kebab.

At Bloodstock the crowd perfect their aim, cracking Cradle Of Filth’s guitarist on the bonce with a missile (thereby, according to organisers, ruining the vibe and "camaraderie" of a festival called Bloodstock – what next, Oktoberfest ruined by ‘a few drunken louts’?) and declaring themselves ready for Fall Out Boy.

It’s the Summer Of Chaos. Festivals across the globe are descending into bloodshed, artist Vs crew warfare and mild overheating issues. It can only mean one thing: the world is warming up for Reading and Leeds; each festival season’s End Of Days.

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“Listen girly, surely you don’t want me to talk about how I nutted early because I ejaculated prematurely and bust all over your belly and you almost started hurling and said I was gross, go get a towel…”

Spot quiz: broadcast last week, where is the above quote taken from? A romantic ballad by the Bloodhound Gang? A random snippet of any script for The Inbetweeners? A moment of madness on the part of the writers of Monarch Of The Glen? Or an overheard conversation from Wayne Rooney’s last voluntary stint at his local retirement home?

Uh-ERRRR! None of the above! It’s from Eminem’s track ‘The Warning’, and it’s about (you might want a bucket to hand at this point) Mariah Carey.

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According to the Daily Star, this week’s NME cover star, La Roux’s Elly Jackson, is considering getting her quiff insured. “Imagine if someone cut it off in the street,” she was quoted as saying, “that would be my career over”.

Now, having more brain cells than a lobotomised house-brick, I don’t believe everything I read in the Daily Star, otherwise I might be convinced that Jordan’s left implant is running for President of the EU, or that Michael Jackson is alive and well and working as Goofy at Disneyland Paris.

Nor am I convinced that gangs of vengeful hairdressers are likely to ambush Elly down a dark alley and shave her head as part of some outlandish Keep Hair Sensible campaign.

I wouldn’t be surprised though. Over the years many a pop star has taken out third party, fire and theft on their most unique attributes, presumably taking advantage of Iggy Pop’s staff discount.

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So last week ‘Laughing’ Leonard Cohen complained that his most famous song has become over-performed.

And he’s right: I hate ‘Hallelujah’ now. It’s mawkish, mewling, so earnest it’d make Halfwit cringe and, worst of all, it’s too damn religious. It makes me want to vomit up my own kidneys so I can ram them down the throat of anyone singing it.

Shame, because this time last year, when only Cohen, John Cale, Buckley and Rufus had gotten their emotive wee mitts on it, it was the most moving song I’d ever heard; I literally couldn’t listen to it without blubbing like a fresh member of the Deal Or No Deal 1p club.

From goddess to whore in a single Christmas chart run-down; after witnessing the foul degradations carried out upon ‘Hallelujah’ by Alexandra Burke I was almost driven to call time on the cover song altogether.

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Having written in favour of rock stars opening up on political issues in the interest of opening up discussion among the supposedly ‘apathetic generation’, I was saddened to recently see the media happily battening down the hatches of close-mindedness in rock.

Jarvis was berated for going on 'Question Time', beating the poor lad back into his pop kennel with patronising cries of ‘musicians should stick to what they know!’.

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