I have made it clear that I am a fan of MacColl, and I certainly don't lionise him. My own experience of those that knew him well, or met him on a number of occasions or met him once or twice, is that he was courteous and polite and helpful.

Loads of people will tell you that he was arrogant, told you what to sing, said you couldn't do this and you couldn't do that. They invariably heard it from someone else.

So I contradict them with my own experience. Jim does it with his (much deeper) experience. Nothing to do with fawning devotion but a lot to do with facts.

I tried to say in another thread how hard he worked at his stage performances. Would that others did the same.