Tender Comrade, New England – fantastic songs. But I refer you to his spat with the Manics at Glasto in the nineties where he showed his hand, moaning about them having their own toilet backstage to his audience. I also appeared on Never Mind The Buzzcocks with him and found him frighteningly competitive. He ate up the BBC Not-Funny-Department jokes that were fed to him during the writing rehearsal which I thought was sad. I hate the fact he is regarded as some sort of spokesman by the wooly middle-class media. And I wasn’t impressed when I met him on a plane in Europe where he was in first class while his band, The Blokes featuring Ian McLagan, travelled in economy. As I passed him he looked embarrassed and said it was because he was phobic about flying. It was the apology that made me suspicious. I think he’s a fraud. A nice guy, but a fraud.
As for the kilt, I’ve done my days in the Scottish skirt, tartan flares too. It’s getting too close to the referendum to be flirting with national symbols, ironically or otherwise.