Why is “Old Joe” pointing at the roof? For any reason anyone wants him to be. But in my head, it’s something unusual and, perhaps, sinister, but there’s nothing specific. It’s a happy coincidence, but, weirdly, I do like William Barnes. No is the answer, but I do like him. Neil had all the brass and bells sorted because he wanted it to sound like a Spaghetti Western. I think it works well. We got Ben Savage in to do the trumpet, and he did a great job too.

Anyone had a despatch notification from Proper Music yet? Will not be at all impressed if it’s not on my mat on Friday. CD’s just arrived! Thank you Rough Trade. Question is, will I cause a rupture in the space-time continuum if I play it before the official release date? Anyone else with a similar reason to be cheerful? Glad to hear there were dogs on the pitch – but by the looks of the photo the fans over the age of fifteen were too cool to be associated with the players? We locals may be a tad-oversensitive on this one. Partly down to being denied so many bands, international football etc. during the Troubles. I was too young to travel to Liverpool or Hull so it was shit just in the sense of being “a right pain in the arse” We do, now and again, get compared by some people to other bands – The Pixies is one, which is very flattering, but I didn’t hear them until late on – though they are possibly (subconsciously) a musical influence. I’m only a “Best of” bloke, though!I don’t know if “Sean” is dead or alive – I never thought it through that much, to be honest, not least because he doesn’t exist! I miss the organised chaos of a good old ProbePlus release day, lt sort of calmed me down. Anyways three cheers for Yodel.

Slipping The Escort – something away fans did in the 1980s. Stoke City. 1985. A fair walk to the train station too. No, no. But, then, I could never answer that kind of question properly – because when you come out of a studio after finishing an album you think “I won’t be writing any more songs now, surely. That’s going to be it”. If I’d fallen off my bike and died, just before I died I would have thought “That’s a nice one to go out on”. I purposely put it as the last song on the album in case things like that happen, so I can say “That is our final song”. But in the last few days – and even on the way here – I’ve been writing. I can understand people saying they think it could be our swansong but I don’t think that. HMHB and David Bowie have been consistently jostling for first place on my podium since 2014, so early January has been pretty raw for me these last few years. This news goes some way to restoring the balance-though the staggered release dates mean I’m going to have to become one of those people who buy records in multiple formats.Schoon My only CD player is in the car and I only use that to go to Sainsbury’s. Time to start travelling further afield or sitting on the street outside. Warning: Nigel said at the outset: “I simply don’t have an answer for a lot of the points people have raised – sometimes I just leave things up to the listener, and sometimes I just get things wrong!” Somebody on Facebrit has probably already started a campaign to get it to number 36 in the charts to mark the 36th anniversary of The Trumpton Riots EP being number one forever. I dare say we’re not alone down here, I suspect there’s a growing audience for the band in NZ, I wonder what we have to do to get them to tour down here… It might actually be easier to round up all the HMHB fans and charter a flight to England. It probably came from two things – a few people have got the right church in Heswall where I saw the sign about the rug sale on one of my bike rides: the Heswall URC. And the “Wearing my buskins of mottled cordovan” – I just saw that written down and thought that’s great. It might be from The Nibelungenlied (an epic poem written around 1200, which inspired Der Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle of four epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner). But Dr Desperate could be right – it could be from The Mabinogion (the earliest British prose stories compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th/13th centuries) because I’ve read that as well, round about the same time possibly.

I didn’t have any particular rich singers in mind when I wrote that line about “the singer’s paintings” because there are quite a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong, because there are probably quite a few musicians who are great artists. But it’s just that cliche of those musicians who get successful and suddenly think “I’ll become a great painter now”. Then one morning he sees the fella is not sitting on the bench – he’s collapsed. This commuter, then, who’s on his way to work in an office, gets off the train – and at this point he thinks “Sod it, I’m not doing that again. I’m not going to do that job anymore; I just want to go for walks and do what I want to do”. I am ignorant of many things – eg I had never heard of voltarol – so can someone enlighten me on what the title is a play on please?

It’s unusual deaths – I like all that. Like Stupid Deaths from Horrible Histories, perhaps. I had about eight titles for the album, and one was “Loft Ladders Killed Our Norman”. Don’t know why I changed it to “Martin”. But I obviously didn’t think it was as good as The Voltarol Years. Take away the last bit of the song, the rest of it is brought about simply because – and this is ridiculous but it’s true – there’s an episode of Dad’s Army where they get trapped on the pier, and they’ve got nothing to eat because Pike’s forgotten to bring the food. There’s a chocolate machine there, and they have one of those claw crane things – but the chocolate is made of cardboard. They’re all really angry and all that and Warden Hodges ends up with them and he gets pissed because Frazer has some whisky and Warden Hodges steals it. And he starts singing – and for years I wondered “What’s he singing there?” I loved it and it made me laugh. And he’s singing “Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life” by Nelson Eddy. I investigated that song and bought it on CD by Nelson Eddy. He did it as a duet with Jeanette MacDonald, so I took the basis of that and thought “Right, I’m going to write a song around it”. Could still find a part for Nighy mind. He could have a walk on as Old Jake pointing up at the roof.

As I posted on FB on both groups, the Liverpool Echo story is fascinating and delightfully macabre. Chris From Future Doom wondered aloud about the gestation period of a song like this– “Several years, I would hazard. Also, a fantasy question for an interview with the great man that will never happen.” Christie Malry: if I recall the BS Johnson novel correctly, that’s a gloriously inappropriate pseudonym for a clergyman.

Thank you, for both the time and effort involved. Even if I realise it probably wasn’t exactly a chore, I’m still very grateful. There are two reasons why it’s about a dog and not a cat – I’d already used cat on Bogus Official (from Achtung Bono) and because of the two “Os” next to each other sounding better –“Your dog got lost” rather than “Your cat got lost”. Ferenc (post 159): I was a skinny indie kid of 12 when Rovers clinched the title – most of my matchday memories are pretty vague, although I do recall the victory celebrations after the Chatteris game with a little more clarity. Great photo halfway down this old article: https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/haverhill/sport/donning-the-all-red-kit-once-more-9069704/ I can’t see that ever happening, never mind with an ethical, professional journalist like Paddy – a print interview will be for the purpose stated to the interviewee and a broadcast interview would be totally different. Anyway, there will have been loads of bitching about us buffooons on here, off the record 😀