Then of course there's Amadou & Miriam. Like many, I became a fan in 2004 with their 'Dimanche a Bamako' album, a great pulsing temtimony to one of the top musical cities. The furthered the story with 'Welcome To Mali' in 2008 and then last year there was the more contentious 'Folila'. This found the duo working with a variety of western hipster names, with questionable results. But that won't stop me getting in a fever about their appearance in this year's Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in Belfast, May 9. Prepare for maximum delight.

The Dells - Thinkin About You (Universal)
Johnny Marr - Lockdown (Warner)
Palma Violets - Johnny Bagga Donuts (Rough Trade)
Little Green Cars - Harper Lee (Island)
The Strokes - All The Time (Rough Trade)
Indians - Lips Lips Lips (4ad)
Johnny Marr - Upstarts (Warner)
Chelsea Light Morning - Heavenmetal (Matador)
Caitlin Rose - Old Numbers (Names)
Amidships - Lost (white)
Michael Stipe, Courtney Love - Rio Grande (Anti)
Le Carousel -The Good Times (white)
The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet (CBS)
Barbara Acklin - Just Ain't No Love (Brunswick)
Palma Violets - We Found Love (Rough Trade)
Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell - Invitation To The Blues (Nonesuch)
Ryan Vail - Fade (white)
Johnny Marr - New Town Velocity (Warner)
Ciaran Lavery - Love Will Tear Us Apart (white)
Amadou & Miriam - Cherie (Names)
Indians - La Femme (4ad)
Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell - Old Yellow Moon (Nonesuch)
Marika Hackman - Retina Television (Dirty Hit)
Nick Cave - Higgs Boson Blues (Bad Seed)

Working at the the NME in the Nineties was the like serving in the Harlem Globetrotters of pun. Every song title was an invitation for mischief and linguistic mirth. A great idea was bounced around by a series of other sharp minds until there were puns on top of puns and many layers of absurdity.

I'm no longer a grand-master of pun rock. But a bit of that skill has endured, and so I responded to the local café idea.

Might we call it Two Door Cinnamon Club? Spam The Man?

And what to serve? Some of the dishes might include:

Stiff Little Fish Fingers.
And So I Watch You From A Farl.
Chasing Carrots.
Sloe Patrol, featuring Jonny Quince.
Shining Rice.
Flan Morrison.
Alternative Ulster Fry.
And So I Weight Watch You From Afar.

While she's not an artist from Northern Ireland, our favourite fried food might be represented by Pastie Kensitt. I for one, could not resist that calorific charm.

For pudding, the following came to mind:

Teenage Twix (so hard to beat).
Angel Cake Interceptor.
Andy Curns.
Girl From Mars Bar.
Tart Together.
Jelly Hooley.
All finished of with a National Expresso. Just be careful though. Too much of the above and you might be turning into The Goutcasts. Go ahead puns, make my day.

There are songs of perseverance and quiet trouble. 'All The Empty Pockets Of Ireland' is set in the twisted present, but there's a dream-fable about unloved millionaires and levitating parents. 'The Road To Fivemiletown' is a rural escape story without the get-out clause. And you cheer on the author when he sings 'Most People Are A Pain In The Ass', because his benevolence gives way to something less giving. "If life was a journey, you'd slash their tyres in the driveway," he figures. It's like watching a fella smile while spitting tobacco juice out of the corner of his mouth.

There's a Dixie shuffle here, a bit of John Prine humanity elsewhere and a significant moment on 'The Only Child In The World' when the floor disintegrates and all seems done. Yet by the end of the song, Anthony is out of the wreckage and determined to fail, better. Just like you hoped that he would.

Once I looked to the punk fire-starters for my style. I wore magenta striped socks because they were endorsed by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers on the cover of 'L.A.M.F'. I learnt to use my mother's sewing machine to convert my flares into drainpipes. I had a DIY screenprint operation in the garage to make my Clash T shirts. I made a 'Sid Lives' badge on the day that the Sex Pistol died, and wore it to the local youth club with unassailable cool . Now here I am, several decades along, no longer copping ideas from NME's Tony Parsons, but from his namesake Nicholas.

Still, it's hard to resist an attractive bit of neckwear. The gold standard for rock and roll has been the Tootal scarf, maintained by Paul Weller, Liam Gallagher, Steve Marriott and inevitably, Robbie Williams. The brand goes back to the nineteenth century and was a dapper accessory with the RAF before mod culture appropriated the look. The cravat actually goes back to Croatian mercenaries in the seventeenth century, impressing Parisian royalty and then the court of Charles II. According to the new issue of GQ, the cravat is "your neck's best thing" and are recommending a Louis Vuitton number for £220.

The likes of Peckham Rye and Nicholson And Walcot are servicing a more discerning clientele, including Martin Freeman, a hobbit with panache. Alternately, you can prevail with vintage versions from Tootal and Sammy, manufactured in Rayon and Viscose ("wash as silk"), in patterns of paisley, geometric and ersatz oriental. Good enough for Nicholas, and acceptable for necks in the city.

After Glen Matlock left the Sex Pistols, the bassist formed the Rich Kids with Midge Ure. Their third single was 'Ghosts Of Princes In Towers', another reference to Richard and the Plantagenet story. Richard has been cited by Morrissey while the Manic Street Preachers referred to "the winter of my discontent" in 'Love Letter To The Future'. Even Van Morrison delivered a passing reference to the line in 'Sense Of Wonder'.

Meantime in 1997 Supergrass had formulated a moody song for their second album, 'In It For The Money'. As was their habit, they gave the track a working title, reflecting the the billowing tone. 'Richard III' it was, and title stuck. Fortunately for us, really.

'Back In The Night' is perfect testimony to Wilko's choppy guitar, perhaps only rivalled by 'Roxette'. What a great song it is - the story of a man who moisturises with Swarfega and who gets though the shift work on the memories of the previous evening's escapades.

Dr Feelgood - Back In The Night (Arista)
The 1975 - Chocolate (Vagrant)
Telecom - Cristina (Moshi Moshi)
Ciaran Lavery - Little More Time (Public Sector)
Johnnie Allan - Promised Land (Jin)
Nolan Cormier - He Haw Breakdown (Swallow)
First Aid Kit - Kings Of The World (Wichita)
Villagers - The Bell (Domino)
Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers - It's Not Enough (Track)
Widowspeak - Ballad Of The Golden House (Captured)
Sir Joe Quarterman - So Much Trouble (Metro)
Toots And the Maytals - Funky Kingston (Island)
Cat Power - Manhattan (Matador)
Indians - New (4ad)
Bill Kirchen - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (Floating World)
Ciaran Lavery - Shame (Public Sector)
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Baby (4ad)
Annabelle Chvostek - Ona (Borealis)
Ian Skelly - Firebird (Watertown)
Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before (Island)
Indians - Reality Solution (4ad)

I was there when the Rats played their final show. It was the Self Aid concert at the RDS stadium in Dublin. Geldof wore a grey sweatshirt and looked weary. The band played after a turgid fashion - essentially a rhythm and blues combo that had chanced it into the punk caper and even got some further mileage out of being a grimacing pop act. Not too many great songs, but there are days when I'll tolerate 'Looking After Number One' and 'Joey's On The Street Again'.

I've met Bob a few times and he was top company. He laughs a fair bit, he's a raconteur with many ripping stories and he doesn't have pretensions about being a self-made millionaire. He misses the rock and roll years and is seemingly hurt that The Rats are not considered to be part of the panetheon of punk. And you know, I think he would trade much of his wealth to be in that position again, bleating out 'Banana Republic', moving like Jagger and working that rubbery visage. No harm in it, surely.

'Sunrise' was released into a tentative peace process, the idea that a strange and beautiful thing was being illuminated. It was right for the time, and when Neil recently appeared at Ebrington for the Sons And Daughters concert, 'Sunrise' was reappraised, 15 years on.

Big words like plurality are still being mouthed by our leaders, but their lips are tightening and their concerns are often small-time and parochial and mean. Neil Hannon didn't need to underline any of this. There was much irony in the circumstance of the song. That's not to say that the dawn will never deliver a kiss of brightness. But perhaps we might need to sing the refrain a little louder.

Other songs have the intent written into them. With the encouragement of Pete Seeger and a few others, a gospel song about heavenly deliverance became the shout for justice on this sphere. This evolved into 'We Shall Overcome', a song that continues to move Bruce Springsteen and many hopeful hearts.

There's a whole other range of songs that have accidentally fallen into significance. 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was a 1945 show tune that has become transcendental. Rodgers and Hammerstein would never have imagined a song about a suicide could take on such cosmic import, but hey, that's one of the random effects that popular music can invest in our souls.

Hence the rising consciousness of the Snow Patrol song, 'Take Back The City'. It was a top ten release in October 2008. At the time, Gary Lightbody called it "a love song to Belfast". It was written at a time of optimism, when peace seemed achievable, when the landscape and the creative vision of the place was being reimagined. There was a fresh script out there, better demands to make.

But circumstances in Belfast are mocking some of that. Bad economics and messy politics have taken the shine off the dream. The roads are cratered again and the helicopter blades mangle the night air. At the City Hall peace rallies, people have chosen to bang drums, to make noise, to exorcise some of the hate. It makes for a skewed kind of release.
Into this despondent frame, the sentiments 'Take Back the City' have been revived. Instead of blind hope, there is a determination to be there, now. To counter the dread with good company in town. To favour the social places that are taking a hit. And so the song has been rolling across social media and casual conversation and now is a kind of reversed anthem. Aspiring to normal, rather than extraordinary life is something in itself. It's a hashtag and a mindset. Gary Lightbody is also aware of the song's new value and seems to concur. He notes that he's "very proud our song about Belfast is being used as part of the campaign for peace and sanity".

You can pick a side, or pick a fight. Alternately, you might want to get the epitaph right.