Simply Red doesn’t think that Warner is doing enough with its back catalog, so they’re re-recording approximately 80 tracks. Manager: “People can choose whether to buy them or not. There will be fans to whom those original recordings will be everything. But some might prefer hearing updated versions. We’re not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes.” The new versions will be owned by Mick Hucknall’s label.

In case some of you are still holding on to those dramatic gay stories about Johnny Marr and Morrissey once being an item, the glum one has cleared the air: “There was a love and it was mutual and equal but it wasn’t physical. There are lots of people post-Smiths who would like to make some dramatic homosexual story. There never was one. It’s often said that Johnny rescued me but he was also bobbing about in his own lifeboat.” So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.