The hub of 1960s counterculture: 102 Southampton Row, WC1

This unassuming London shop was once the unofficial HQ of the 1960s alternative scene, a beacon for disaffected youth and the site of umpteen plots to outrage and provoke the Establishment. It was the home of the Indica book store, which also housed the offices of the International Times, the 1960s counterculture newspaper. Funded by Paul McCartney, the "IT" boasted as many as 40,000 readers. Its pages were full of information on music and "free-love events". Its driving spirits were the founder, John "Hoppy" Hopkins, and his creative partner, Barry Miles, who was a friend of McCartney. Hopkins, a photographer, masterminded the launch party in October 1966 at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, north London. Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine played on a makeshift stage, but as sugar cubes spiked with LSD were freely available, not everyone could recall the performances with clarity. Together, Hopkins and Miles had set up the Indica Gallery and book store off Piccadilly, where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono, in early 1966, before moving the store to Southampton Row. In March 1967 the Obscene Publications Squad raided the basement and stripped the premises bare. Luckily for the newspaper, the police didn't find enough "obscenity" on which to hang a trial, and a variety of editors managed to keep it going for three more years. It is now the address of Scottish Collection,selling possibly the least revolutionary garb: kilts and woolly jumpers.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

"Censorship means that every report must be approved before it can be published. We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what the newspapers can report."

Translation: "We'd rather the world's media wasn't on hand while we suppress the black population."

Louis Nel, South Africa's deputy information minister, defends a ban on first-hand reporting of unrest in the townships, June 25, 1986.

THE GROWING ARMY OF ELVIS IMITATORS

On average, one in every 3,400 Americans is an Elvis impersonator. There are 85,000 of them in the US today, compared with just 150 in 1977, the year Presley died. If their growth continues at the same rate, one-third of the world will be at it by 2019. But one of the oddest tributes to Elvis comes from a Finnish professor, Dr Jukka Ammondt, who translated Love Me Tender into Latin. Albums such as Rocking in Latin and The Legend Lives Forever in Latin included the classics Non Amare Non Possum (Can't Help Falling in Love) and Nunc Hic Aut Numquam (It's Now or Never). But when Ammondt tried his hand at translating the song Blue Suede Shoes into the ancient language of Sumerian, there were difficulties, not least that the Sumerians, who lived in 4000BC, didn't have shoes, let alone suede ones. As a result, the title became Sandals of Sky Blue Leather. Ammondt performs it live wearing a leather kilt, blue leather sandals, and backed by a band dressed as Sumerian governors.