7 / 10
Pretty soon all of this will be history. As London's tendrils continue to claw their way out into the Home Counties like some virulent urban cancer, the city depicted in 'Mock Tudor', folk-rock fetish-iconRichard Thompson's rumination on suburban London, is disappearing by the minute.
A quick history lesson; Thompson was the guitar player in Fairport Convention before embarking upon a 30-year solo career which has created some of the most beautiful, dour and scathing music in pop. He's edging cautiously into his 50s and, if you want to know why such an unnaturally gifted fellow has never been accorded the credit drooled upon contemporaries like Neil Young, it's probably because he's a strict Muslim and looks like an anorexic bullfrog with a beard.
Here, then, are 12 snapshots from Thompson's relationship with the city of his birth from the joys of missing the last bus ('Walking The Long Miles Home') to a sardonic assault on the evils of the modern capital ('Sights And Sounds Of London Town'). The immaculately grisly anecdotes tinged with affection might leave you in some doubt as to Thompson's opinion of London, but they once more confirm the extent to which his talents have been neglected.
The old London is wandering off into legend. It would be a tragedy if Thompson should be allowed to vanish the same way.
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