Roger, Wilko!

SPEAKING of the Albert Hall (see elsewhere), I was there on Tuesday night for the 70th birthday party of guitarist Wilko Johnson, Canvey Island’s answer to Chuck Berry — who some of you may know as the executioner in Game Of Thrones.

It was — dare I say it? — a very English occasion and one that Wilko feared he wouldn’t see after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, from which he has now recovered.

Best line of the night came from poet John Cooper Clarke, warming up the audience before Wilko’s set.

He was talking about the recent reports that scientists now admit the threat of climate change is less than they’d previously warned. The trouble is, he said, when a liar says he’s not lying to you any more, how do you know he’s not lying?