Sharing. Helping comrades out. Public displays of affection. All great things. But there is one thing which should never be shared between comrades, and that is A HORRIBLE LURGY.

There I was last Friday in Newport, doing a gig to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Chartist uprising with excellent locals Give Me Memphis and my heroes, brassy socialist R&B combo Thee Faction. 

Both Memphis and yours truly went down very well and Thee Faction were in full flow when I noticed that singer Billy was not quite his usual ebullient self and was obviously under the weather with a bug. The set was about to be cut short. We couldn’t have that. 

I’m familiar with their songs of course and without a moment’s thought, offered my assistance, which was accepted. A shared microphone, a comradely hug. I should have known.

I’m writing this sitting on the ferry to Dunkirk at the start of my 20th anniversary German tour with my band Barnstormer. My head feels like a diseased elephant’s scrotum and my voice sounds like Tom Waits singing through a cement mixer. Twelve consecutive gigs to come, starting tonight. Of course the show will go on, aided by the beery medicine the Germans do so well. Wish me luck.

Last Saturday I paid my first visit to Clapton FC, home of the Clapton Ultras. With more and more football fans being priced out of the modern high-level corporate game and/or disillusioned by the sanitised sit-down-and-shut-up atmosphere, the grassroots rebellion is growing, spearheaded of course by the likes of AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester. 

Clapton are one of the latest clubs to benefit from fans’ disillusionment with modern football and I joined the hundred-strong and growing Scaffold Brigade at the Old Spotted Dog ground for an afternoon of pyrotechnics, banners, beer on the terraces and basically everything you aren’t allowed to do at league football these days. 

I had a great time.

On the pitch, Clapton were playing FC Romania in the Essex Senior League. Given that they were up against a club set up for the entire Britain-based Romanian community — who have boasted an ex Steaua Bucharest player — it was perhaps unsurprising that they lost 5-0. But the Ultras were undeterred — the beers flowed, the pyrotechnics flared and everyone sang their hearts out. 

If you’re a beer and punk rock loving football fan based in East London and fed up with the modern game go and watch Clapton. You’ll have fun www.facebook.com/ClaptonUltras.

Talking of East London, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the new album by fiery political fireman Steve White and his Protest Family. It’s called This Band Is Sick. For older readers I should explain that in this context “sick” is a modern youth term which means “good” and it is a very good album indeed — a foaming rant of anti-yuppie rage, anti-fascist commitment, anti-capitalist activism and, unusually, a heartwarming song about testicular self-examination (called Never Mind Your Bollocks).

Thoroughly recommended. To get your copy visit their Facebook page.

It always amuses me when the mainstream media asks, as they regularly do, “where are the protest poets/singers”? Answer: all over the place, actually. I meet them all the time. 

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The media know exactly where we are, but because of our politics they won’t touch us with a barge pole and then they claim we don’t exist. 

Fortunately, the advent of social media makes getting the message out a lot easier these days, of course. As does our beloved Morning Star…

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