Route 666

were dead, the dilettantes and madmen in their graves. But the Summoner breathed still, alone in the knowledge that the Time of Changes was truly imminent.

Fish would sprout from trees and the sun would burn black. But first the blood ritual would be complete, the Dark Ones would walk the face of the Earth, the common mass of humanity would be cast down, the raging chaos would coat the red-soaked land. The battles would be joined, and the fires of ice would burn. The Age of Pettiness would be at an end, and the Great Days, the Last Days, would be upon them. It would be a glorious sunset, and an eternal night.

And the Summoner would have his reward.

ZeeBeeCee's Nostalgia Newstrivia:

The 1960s

Do you remember where you were, what you were wearing, which song you were humming, when Americans touched the moon in 1965? Tonight on Nostalgia Newstrivia, Luscious Lola Stechkin recalls the decade of Family Value and the British Invasion, of American Harmony and Chaos Abroad…the Solid '60s.

Hi, America. Wouldn't you just love to hug me and squeeze me and touch me and feel me?

Slip into your Interactive Rubber Cardigan and enjoy the totality of the Lola Stechkin arm- wraparound experience. For further sensations, turn your dial to 143 and place your mouth to the lip-mallow, selecting the 'French Kiss' option. This has been a bonus service from ZeeBeeCee.

Mmmmmmmm-wah! Tonight we drift back to those dreamy idyllic years of your baby-boomette childhood, when Marlon Brando ran the Ponderosa and Richard Nixon ran the country.

It was the decade that began with the promise, made in President Nixon's 1961 inaugural address, that an American would walk on the moon by 1965. That promise, like so many others, was fulfilled.

John Glenn: One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind…

It was the decade which ended with the escalation of a futile war in South-East Asia. Hostilities between Russian and Chinese ground troops in Indo-China lead to a brief, terrifying exchange of tactical atomic weapons along the Sino-Soviet border in the Nine-Minute War of 1970.

First Secretary Gromyko: The People's Government of South Vietnam cannot be allowed to fall to the barbarians of the North, behind whose depradations we sense the insidious hands of the barbarians of the East.

Montage: Soviet troops marching, parachuting, driving tanks, smiling at the camera, smoking kir. Vietnamese villages burning. A running firefight. A Kremlin official reading off casualty figures Mao Zedong ranting. Long-haired protestors thronging Red Square. Mushroom clouds rising. Gromyko resigning. A KGB officer holding up a severed head.

Tonight, on Nostalgia Newstrivia, we remember the moods and the music, the triumphs and tragedies, the faces and factoids, the prices and the crises, the fashions and the food…

President Nixon: My fellow Americans, we must survey each situation, national and international, and ask one simple question, not 'what's in it for us?' but 'what's in it for the US?'

For America, these were years of achievement as President Nixon seemingly conquered the universe. After the calamitous failure of the first manned Soviet orbital flight, we surged ahead in the race thanks to massive US investment in the space programme and the diversion of Russian initiative into its ruinous land war. Mercury begat Gemini begat Apollo begat Hercules begat Pegasus.

Everyone remembers the first men on the Moon, John Glenn and Wally Schirra, but spare a thought for the casualties of mankind's first steps to the stars. Yuri Gagarin, Virgil Grissom, Richard Rusoffe, Garrett Breedlove and so many others. A sombre rollcall of heroism.

It was once suggested by General Westmoreland of NASA that the moon be granted statehood, though the question of who exactly might represent the new state in Congress and the Senate was never satisfactorily answered.

Montage: Rockets rising from Cape Canaveral. Rockets exploding on the gantry. Funerals for dead astronauts. Mass oblations before smiling, blown-up ID cards. Americans walking in space. Americans on the moon. Americans beset by tickertape. Countdowns, Touchdowns, Splashdowns. Animated diagrams of weapons satellites. John Glenn in a plaid suit, grinning on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

In music, the decade saw the withering of American dominance in the wake of the rock 'n' roll riots of 1961. Followers of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart clashed with those of DJ Alan Freed at Madison Square Gardens, New York. Among the thousands left dead by morning were Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard and Freed himself. A family footnote was the tragic, permanent crippling of the Reverend Swaggart's cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis.

In the wake of the Tin Pan Alley Self-Regulation Codes, names like Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins disappeared from the jukeboxes, remembered only by a rising generation of Russian children who, energised by the anti-war movement of the late '60s, would transform the American rhythms of the '50s into the all-powerful Sove Sounds of the 70s and beyond.

These were the years of the British Invasion. The Liverpool Sound came to America, represented by Ken Dodd's first international million-seller, 'Tears (for Souvenirs)'. American artists were fast to react and soon Fabian Forte, Jan and Dean and Gracie Wing were covering the hits of Matt Monro, Mrs Mills and Valerie Singleton.

America's teenagers embraced the Brits but found a place for their own idols. The President, admitting he owned every disc Pat Boone ever cut, commended the music industry for championing decent young citizens whose example in moderate behaviour, modest dress and fetching hairstyles was eagerly copied by adoring fans. The President even confessed one or two 'race records' had caught his fancy, reserving especial praise for Diana Ross's interpretation of Rolf Harris's 'Sun-a-Rise'.

Sizzling Sixties Top Ten: 1961: '(I Love, I Love, I Love, My Little) Calendar Girl', Neil Sedaka; 1962: 'Love Letters (Straight From Your Heart)', Marilyn Monroe; 1963: 'Happiness, Happiness (The Greatest Gift That I Possess)', Ken Dodd; 1964: 'Shout', Valerie Singleton; 1965: 'It's Not Unusual', Norman Wisdom; 1966: 'Theme From Star Trek', The Billy Cotton Band; 1967: '(It's a Treat To Beat Your Feet on the) Mississippi Mud', James M. Hendrix and the Merry Minstrels; 1968: 'White Horses', Jacky; 1969: 'Hooray for Nixon', Cherilyn LaPierre; 1970: '(I Did It) My Way', Ken Dodd.

At this point, should you wish to further your intimate relationship with the lovely Lola, please press the PAY button on your remote, and attach the milking sleeve as shown in the diagram provided. ZeeBeeCee takes no responsibility for coronary ill-effect or electrical discharges caused by faulty wiring or overuse of this consumer function. If in doubt, consult your family doctor…

While the '10s were marked by War and Revolution, the '20s by racketeering and bathtub gin, the '30s by Depression and the New Deal, the '40s by World Conflict and Swing, and the '50s by the dread shadow of the unleashed atom, no decade before or since has seemed so uncomplicated and peaceful to the great mass of the people of America as the 1960s. There were overseas wars, but America was merely a mournful, helpful observer, consistently intervening in futile attempts to find common ground between combatants.

After 1961, there were no more riots among the young, the happy racial minorities, or the working man. 1969 saw the great Peace March – lead by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Senator Lyndon Johnson and John Wayne – which gathered outside the Washington consulates of the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. Similar marches in Moscow and Peking were not as peaceful; the death toll of that day will probably never be known.

Employment held steady, rates of divorce and suicide plunged, American industry launched countless successful products – typified perhaps by the most popular car of the 1960s, the Ford Edsel – and the nation's position in the world was paramount.

Alfred E. Neuman: What, me worry? I drive an Edsel!

Truly, the 1960s were the American Decade, and the Man of the Solid '60s was Richard Nixon, the only First Executive ever to have co-hosted Your Show of Shows with Milton Berle and Chevy Chase. President Nixon, that wise old bird, resisted calls that he share with FDR the opportunity of running for a third term. With typical good humour, he claimed he could make far more money from books and lectures after his