Captain Beefheart would seem from his obituaries to have been a rather nastier character than his hippyish, ‘love and peace’ image suggested. Sean O’Hagan, writing in the Observer, described how he ‘brainwashed’ the Magic Band as they recorded Trout Mask Replica.

O’Hagan went on to describe the musician’s fondness for the sort of “illogical wordplay that the James Joyce of Finnegan’s Wake would surely have found entertaining”.

Entertained or not, he would certainly have disliked the aberrant apostrophe placed in the title of his last book, whether by O’Hagan or his sub-editor.

Myles na gCopaleen dealt effectively with this matter in his column in the Irish Times. He wrote: “In this month’s ‘Bell’ I am asked to accept as authoritative and penetrating an article on James Joyce. Throughout the piece the master’s last work is consistently referred to as ‘Finnegan’s Wake’. That apostrophe (I happen to know) hastened Mr Joyce’s end.”

Myles himself owned, incidentally, to his continuing failure to read more than a page or two of Finnegans Wake. Too masterly for his taste, perhaps.