John Cooper-Clarke, Bernard Manning and Michael Gove.

In one of the best episodes ever, John Cooper-Clarke was on Desert Island Discs this morning, Dubbed the “punk poet”, he was always much more than that. Interestingly, he praised two very unlikely, very un-punk figures for aiding his success. He credited Bernard Manning with giving him his first break. But years before that, his English teacher instilled a love of poetry in the whole class by making them read poems off-by-heart “Michael Gove style” which, he said was “the only way”. I worked with him once and he was wonderful – simultaneously weird and very down-to-earth. He was also the palest, skinniest man I’ve ever seen. He came into the studio, said he was “Fookin’ starving”, picked up a small satsuma and ate it. “Ooh”, he said, “That really hit the spot”. Full-up on a satsuma. For me, John Cooper-Clarke, especially with Dion among this morning’s choices – always hits the spot.