By burning punk memorabilia McLaren’s son is trying – and failing – to be as controversial as his parents

John Lydon has described Corre as a ‘selfish f***ing lingerie expert’ while Corre counters, ‘I do not think he has had anything relevant to say for the last 20 years’

John Lydon with Janet Street-Porter in 1978

Back in 1976, punk was a big part of my life. I went to gigs and presented television documentaries (which still get shown), met The Clash and got sneered at by Sid Vicious. John Lydon turned out to be a smart cookie and we’ve stayed in touch.

No one disputes that punk was hugely influential, but the website punk.london (funded in part by the National Lottery) somehow sanitises and sucks the life out of something that was rough and ready and exhilarating in its unexpectedness.

There have been reverential exhibitions at the British Library and the Museum of London and even a feature about investment in punk memorabilia in the Financial Times (a copy of Sniffin’ Glue magazine founded by Danny Baker and Mark P is said to be worth over £20,000!), so it’s clearly time to go through my record collection.

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the Pistols’ anthem “Anarchy in the UK”, and Joe Corre, millionaire offspring of Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, plans to stage a huge bonfire at a “secret location” (you can sign up to watch online) – destroying his mum and dad’s clothes and assorted artifacts worth (according to self-publicist Joe) over £5m.

There’s no love lost between Lydon and Corre, who was just a child when it all happened back in the late Seventies. Lydon has described Corre as a “selfish f***ing lingerie expert” while Corre counters, “I do not think he has had anything relevant to say for the last 20 years.”

Corre claims the bonfire is “an opportunity to talk about home truths”. As a punk act, this is pretty minor league: I applaud the master of stunts, Bill Drummond, formerly of KLF, who with his fellow band-member Jimmy Cauty went to the Isle of Jura in 1994 and burnt £1m of their earnings. The year KLF won best act at the Brits, they deposited a dead sheep outside the after-party with a sign, “I died for ewe” and then disbanded the band and deleted their back catalogue. Drummond is a mad creative genius, still working and writing – Joe Corre is trapped by his lineage.