Michele Kirsch is a friend from NME days; Mama K’s True Stories began as a column devised for City Limits in the mid 80s. It suited her writing style — and the need for it perhaps marked the accelerated dwindling in that time of the range of ways you were likely to be allowed to talk about music or books or film or life, at least in weeklies and monthlies devoted to record reviews and tour news and the promo interview run. City Limits was not long for the world in any viable form; I went on to edit The Wire and lost touch with MK till I ran into her on a Hackney street-corner a couple of months ago.