BOOKS

WHEN Pam Ayres made it big on ITV talent show in the mid-1970s, Mancunian wordsmith John Cooper Clarke found it oddly inspiring: “A poet making a living,” he noted. “At last, here was a successful contemporary.” In his elegantly sardonic memoir, , Clarke outlines his ideal of the poetic life: “You get to wear fine clothes and perfume and no-one pulls you up on it. You get out of bed late in the day and no-one calls you a lazy bastard.”