Don't you just love the internet? At the weekend I had a craving to hear the reassuring tones of John Peel again. Comfort food for the ears. A simple search, with the wonderful word "blogspot" after it then rolled out a whole host of recordings of the great man from various shows.

40 years ago to the day, at just after midnight, the swirl of medium wave radio, dutifully dubbed from a reel to reel tape, you can still catch The Perfumed Garden from Radio London which opened with the nation's number one, All You Need Is Love by The Beatles before Peel confirms that he will be playing "all kinds of beautiful records," as he intro's Epistle To Dippy by Donovan. Of course, he does.

Throughout the programme he recounts his recent travels, visiting the UFO Club and that he missed yesterday's show because "after a night of celebrating at Peel Acres I missed the train. In fact I didn't wake up till one o'clock." Hey, it was pirate radio long before high rise flats delivered dubstep.

Amid the ads for Vitalis hair grooming product he plays UFO faves The Purple Gang, Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightning and the debut Velvet Underground album after which he encourages everyone to "wander through our midst, pick a flower and plant it in your mind." Oh, go on then.

There's not a lot of DJs that it's worth seeking out for personal recommendations these days, mind. Of course, Dylan's show is ace for summoning up back porch reverie. Mark Lamarr is always spot-on when he's doing downtown Ocho Rios or sweaty New York dance clubs of the ‘40s. And, I still have tapes of Danny Baker's shows where he played all the kids novelty records by Danny Kaye, Morecombe And Wise, Bernard Cribbins and co that would be on Children's Choice courtesy of Ed Stewart in my day. But Peel was something else. Like a rights of passage thing. The transistor signal on phase and a journey into the unknown every night.