Peel is an odd one because he was absolutely vital for me during a short period of my life, when I had hardly any money and you could hear all this stuff every weekday night for free. But soon as I had a student grant and/or dole I could afford more records and started to make my own way with music, or rather, I was finding certain music press figures more reliable guides than Peel. And then when I became a music journalist, I didn’t need a filter / curator figure - I was doing that myself, for myself. So from about 1985 onwards I hardly ever listened to Peel - and I confess started to find him, increasingly, somewhat of a de-intensifier or de-libidiniser, to use the terms Mark would probably have applied, as a cultural presence. His flat, dour presentation had a deflating effect on what he was presenting. Okay, sure, on Top of the Pops, that unimpressed manner was a tonic, in contrast to the bubbly blandness of the other presenters. But a whole two hours of it on the radio... 

He was also fairly erratic as a filter/curator - if you go back to the old Peel shows, including those done during the absolute white heat of postpunk, there’s the well known great things he championed like the Fall and all kinds of bizarre oddities that had no other home on the radio, but it’s striking how much subpar generic stuff and outright rubbish  he played. And by the mid-Eighties the show was just too eclectic to have a coherent vibe - shambling shite next to African music next to electro next to hardcore punk next to something folky next to…  Mark would probably have found Peel’s approach to have not been sufficiently nihilatory - the ragbag eclecticism with an non ideological slant towards the DIY and regional added up to a sort of unpop version of poptimism, in fact.