The first new Grazing GOATs podcast since the death of my dear old dad suitably harks back to his younger years, even if the vibe in question was a little left of his cultured centre. Dad would've had no truck with a band like The Stooges - he'd have more likely volunteered to drive a truck INTO a band like The Stooges, bless him... x

Released in 1969, The Stooges' studiously lo-fi debut power chord vomit was a gritty, grimy exposé of the dark, arrhythmically beating heart of the American counterculture. With Nixon's America shooting for the moon and basking in its global magnificence, The Stooges were the ugliest ugly ducklings in the swan pond hellbent on birthing a rock-and-roll Frankenstein's monster to "end the sixties". While other bands did their bit to make 1967 the Summer of Love, The Stooges single-handedly turned mid-'69 into a shiftless, ennui-driven summer of waking up from bad acid trips naked in a dumpster.

The concept of GOATness in any creative human endeavour is universal, contentious and open to an infinite stream of critical interpretation and revision. Generations of scholars, critics, receptive audiences, and intellectual wastrels like me who should probably be spending more time learning the rudiments of plumbing or tree surgery to cut down on bills I don’t want to pay have been fascinated by the shifting and expanding hierarchies we’ve built since time immemorial to recognise and rate our achievements against a perpetually evolving list of GOATness must-haves. This bonus podcast casts a critical eye over key elements of that perpetually evolving list and briefly marvels at the astonishing sprint speed of the average polar bear.

Think you know all there is to know about the World Cup’s origins? If so, you’ll know that before the birth of world championship football in 1930… there was world championship football. You’ll also know all about the one-armed fox in the box, the tale of the two-ball diplomatic crisis, the Battle of Buenos Aires, and the story of the Romanian midfielder who rose from the dead and scared the life out of his mum.