When I think about Spike I think a lot of the time we spent together was the simple stuff of friendship: dinners in each others kitchens, pints in good pubs, walks over muddy fields (followed by pints in good pubs). Holidays (a few). Songs (many). Talking about books and politics; Spike recommending books about politics that I’d probably never read, but I was flattered that he thought I would. Of course, when I think about Spike I think about singing. When he was pulling together the music for Mel’s 50th he decided that I should sing harmony on a few songs , and I saw a new side of Spike I hadn’t seen before: a patient, encouraging teacher, his belief that I could do it. ‘You just need to practice so much you think the person singing melody has got it wrong’, he’d tell me. His faith in me was definitely misplaced, I never got the hang of it. But he’d always tell me ‘that was great, Al, beautiful’. Kind liar that he was. I remember the night – the sun had long since gone down - we were in our garden having a good old singalong, one song after another, we’d just launched into Desperado, and the window upstairs was flung open: ‘I’m sorry, but would you mind shutting the fuck up?’ Maybe not our finest moment, but what a way to meet our new neighbour. And I think of Spike and Nigel playing together. Listening to him and Nige on their guitars, working out a song, trying out the harmonies, gently disagreeing about how they’d done it last time: I’m sure you go down here. Do I? Let’s try it. Oh, no, that’s the next chorus. I’m going to miss that so much, not just the sound of voices together, but the communication between them, the easy understanding that comes of many hours spent playing together, in rehearsal rooms, in studios, in each others’ kitchens. I’m thinking of the last time he came over, just a few weeks ago, to play and sing, and I wish more than anything that he were here now and I could hear their voices floating up to me while I sit here at the computer, writing.