When I was leaving university, I had an idea that I would start a music magazine or fanzine of some kind. I wrote off to as many music labels as I could find addresses for, to tell them, excitedly, about my plans and how it would be really nice of them if they could send me some promos, if they wouldn’t mind, and only if the had the time of course, and I was sorry to trouble them, and anyway anything if you could send me something I’d be really grateful etc etc…

I didn’t get a lot of exciting post in return, but one label - Setanta - were good enough to send me not only a crisp new copy of Casanova, the then brand new Divine Comedy album, but also extensive liner notes and press materials along with it. I knew something of Neil Hannon and his work before then, but since then - as a result of this simple act of kindness / big promotional push - my love for it, him, them, their songs, has been unequivocal.

Something for the Weekend recently placed 15th in a BBC Anthems of Britpop poll (won by Pulp’s Common People). A terrific result for all us ardent Divine Comedy fans, but also a signifier of the loose redonkulousness of the Britpop label. Yes, you can construct a retrospective narrative that takes in songs like Something for the Weekend, National Express, and that bit of In Pursuit of Happiness that became the Tomorrow’s World theme (not to mention Songs of Love, aka the theme music for Father Ted), and fit them into a Britpop-shaped hole if you must, but is there really anything Neil Hannon did throughout this time that he wouldn’t have done anyway? Listen to a song like Your Daddy’s Car from 1993’s Liberation, and then, say, The Plough, from Victory for the Comic Muse (2006). If you pick songs in between those two and join the dots you will surely spell Hannon, and not Britpop.