TODAY’S column is a great big red salute to Morning Star arts editor Cliff Cocker, whose funeral was yesterday. He was a lovely, warm, witty Scouser and the best editor I have ever had. I couldn’t be at the ceremony because I have four gigs in the north-west this weekend but send huge solidarity and love to his family and friends and all who will be partying in his honour as he wished.

My main focus for my writing has always been my poetry and song lyrics, but I have been  a freelance journalist for 40 years as well, writing for national newspapers and music publications as well as football papers and fanzines – and inevitably falling out with my editors because I rejected the strictures and structures imposed on me.

When I was asked to do a bi-monthly column for this newspaper some eight years ago I thought: this will be interesting, it needs a bit of livening up! I joined at a time of transition, not long before Ben Chacko became editor with a modernising brief.