mostly david ephgrave

For someone who’s very musically minded, I’m ashamed to admit I know very little about the work of Billy Bragg. I know the basics – that he’s a left-leaning political activist with a musical output that blends folk, punk and 'protest' – but that’s about as far as my knowledge stretches. Bizarrely, I’m probably more familiar with Bill Bailey’s Bragg pastiche, ‘Unisex Chip Shop’, than of anything by the original artist. Even Bragg’s own son quoted the song as a favourite of his ‘dad’s’ work, so it seems that I’m in good company. Bailey and Bragg once joined forces to duet the song at Glastonbury's Leftfield; track down the video on YouTube if you're interested; it's quite entertaining. One of Billy Bragg’s songs that I do know, however, is his recent single, ‘Handyman Blues’; it just came on the radio, and I bloody love it. I first heard it on The One Show on BBC1 (that bastion of popular culture). Bragg was appearing to promote his current album...