Who is your Greatest Living Englishman?
"This is a very tough question but surely, at the top of the list somewhere must be the great and slightly under-rated Sir George Martin. They've stopped making that particular model." | "I may as well live in poverty writing poems as continue being robbed blind by a music biz with a cash register where its heart should be." | |
Why do you think there are not more poet-musicians or musician-poets? You can probably count them on your fingers, not including thumbs.
"The job description, in this country at least, doesn't really exist. In France I would be called a 'chansonnier'. Artists such as George Brassens, Leo Ferre, or Jacques Brel would have understood my job entirely. Here in the UK if a poet such as Andrew Motion, or UA Fanthorpe decided to start singing, people would be embarrassed. If Paul McCartney publishes his poetry, the critics sneer. It's an unfortunate quirk of our native culture I'm afraid and one which I don't have time to file a coroner's report on here." What precipitated your move into poetry?
"I always say that I 'came out of the closet'. By the late 80s, I was a bit fed up with music and decided that I may as well live in poverty writing poems and light verse as continue being robbed blind by a music biz with a cash register where its heart should have been. I didn't expect to be immediately successful but I was. Maybe it was a consolation prize for having struggled so valiantly in bands for all those years." You've worked with some great people over the years like Andy Partridge and Captain Sensible. What's been the most fun to do?
"Both of these two gentlemen are terrific fun. At one point in 1993 the three of us worked together, doing a track called the Green Gold Of The Summer. The Captain and Andy are very different types of guitarists but after the session, we sat in Andy's local in Swindon and found that all three of us had been huge fans of Rory Gallagher in our younger days. That was a good drink and a yarn I tell 'ee." You've been to Reading before - is it a patch on Colchester?
"Reading was the last gig I ever did with The Mighty Plod (Colchester's premier and only Glam rock band) Colchester's quite a tough town really. Lively night life (he said tactfully). Breeds good rock bands." What will we be treated to at the Rising Sun gig?
"Poems, songs, stories and some smut I suppose. A few impressions. Something to discomfit everyone I hope." Your material is often very funny. Is the humour a vehicle for exploring more serious topics or just a bit of fun?
"Well I tend to think of humour as a good steam valve for anger, as well as a much better weapon against what we dislike in life, than say, stridency. But I just like funny stuff anyway. Absolutely addicted to it." How did it feel when they asked you to write for the Independent? Did you feel you'd somehow been 'accepted by the establishment'?
"No I was very pleased and honoured. The Indie was still very much a new maverick in the media world when I began writing for it. And I'd been reading it since Week 1 in autumn of 1986. I'd written the odd thing for the Guardian in earlier years, but the Indie as a concept seemed to really suit me. As for being Establishment ... I think like all good rebels I should BECOME the establishment by late middle years. That's what successful rebellion is about isn't it?" You must get a bit sick of people asking this, but how's your mate John Cooper Clarke doing?
"HE'S alright. It's everybody else. Naah, he's fine. A nice courteous and elegant chap. Never turned blue in MY bathroom anyway." You have a habit of running away when it looks like you're going to become successful - why?
"I dunno. Just don't like too much fuss really. I like things when they're fun. As soon as they threaten to go stellar, the money men move in and it stops being fun. It's my ball...so I take it home with me sometimes that's all." Gardening. What's the appeal?
"A good follow-on question to that last one. Gardening is a blameless, timeless, healing thing. No-one comes and gives me a bad time when I'm cutting a hedge or being a lawn-dog. Very good for mind, body and soul. So that's what I run off and do when the world gets too much for me." | 
