They played Hit The North at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday night, in memory of Mark E Smith of The Fall who died last week. The club tweeted its condolences on the day, too. Proper club, City. Proper people there. Anyway, enough of that. This column is going to feature no ribald anecdotes, quotes from the same five interviews, details of personal relationships or any of the other nonsense that has been flying around since last Wednesday.
The best observation on Smith’s death came from Patrick Brill, the artist better known as Bob & Roberta Smith. He wrote: ‘All these bits of writing about by music journalists on Mark E Smith get him wrong.