Robyn Hitchcock: Respect

IF THERE WERE any justice in the world, Robyn Hitchcock would be an English cult hero. But it's the very English middle-class-ness of the man which has made it so tricky for this determinedly quirky character to gain any sort of foothold in the British pop scene. If it's perfectly acceptable for Suede to crawl out of semi-detached Hayward Heath, it's somehow always been unforgivable that Hitchcock's legendary post-punk band, The Soft Boys, formed at – pause for blushes – Cambridge University.