Rave culture has an unlikely stronghold of support at the very heart of ‘the establishment’. This morning BBC Radio 4 broadcast a very good half-hour documentary on how the Acid House revolution 20 years ago has effected life in the UK.

It follows some other recent largely positive programs including one on the ‘Ecstasy Generation’ reaching 40 and not actually turning out to be a load of washed up, deranged old addicts (as predicted by the tabloids) and former MP Oona King’s own celebration of house music.

I imagine you can ‘listen again’ to those too if you hunt around the R4 website….

t’s great that these sort of programs are being made and can be accessed easliy now, so we don’t just have to put up with the usual scare stories and ‘dance music is dead’ crap.

Today’s prog, Sorted for Es & Whizz’, saw Miranda Sawyer interviewing an interesting collection of scenesters including acid house hero Mr. C and a policeman who said that all their efforts to stop raves were a waste of time(!)

She also comes up with some interesting points on how the ‘going out all night’ culture has come to be a major part of British life now. So even if all those E’ed up idealists who thought they’d change the world by running around hugging random strangers in fields were a little off the mark, there have still been some quite dramatic effects on our social lives.

Rave on Radio 4!