NEVER mind the bollocks, here's Johnny Rotten. In the opening pages of his autobiography the Sex Pistols' former singer, John Lydon, says that everything we've heard about the British band has been a pack of lies. Even if it's true, Lydon's whinging makes his side of the story sound like a load of . . . never mind.
Lydon wants to set the record straight and put the Pistols' place in the punk era into perspective. The book is billed as autobiography but Keith and Kent Zimmerman are also credited as writers and pages are padded out by first-hand accounts from friends of Lydon who were part of the punk movement at the time.
Lydon is at pains to stress he was not a puppet of either manager-cum-maestro Malcolm McLaren or clothes designer Vivienne Westwood, who between them took 90 per cent of the credit for the band's shortlived success and more enduring image of bondage trousers and swastika shirts.
McLaren even laid claim to owning Lydon's stage name - an issue which took years to settle in court.
This was one of the greatest post-Pistols controversies. But Lydon makes little of it, mentioning only in passing that a friend called him ''Rotten'' because he had mouldering green teeth.
Of similar interest, but obviously of no consequence to Lydon, is how Sid Vicious got his name. Sid was violent - Lydon makes no bones about that - recalling how he beat up six mates at a party and wrapped a bicycle chain around the head of a complete stranger at a night club. But ''Vicious'' was inspired by a nickname given to the Lydon family hamster.
Knowing this rather takes the sting out of the Sex Pistols' tale.