Salvo reissued Ian’s 1984 LP in 2013. I was delighted to be asked to do sleeve notes as I always thought it was one of his most under-rated albums. It had real charm - ‘Peter The Painter’ was a testament to his old art teacher, Mr Blake, who went on to design the Sgt Pepper cover! ‘Tell Your Daddy’ was a beguiling ballad… ‘The Man With No Face’ was chilling film noir… the jaunty ‘Really Glad You Came’. Sadly, and understandably, the Edith Blyton Estate refused permission to include ‘Fuck Off Noddy’ (“Fuck off Noddy, you stupid prat/ Fuck off Noddy in your rotten hat”).

I only interviewed Dury once; he didn’t go out of his way to make me feel welcome, but I was willing to forgive him. As I wrote here “In this age of prefabricated celebrity and synthetic pop songs churned out by faceless people, don’t you find yourself yearning for a thoroughbred wordsmith who litters his lyrics with words like ‘recalcitrance’ ‘blandishment’; and ‘vestige’?” Ian Dury was only 57 when he died. What a waste…

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