Nick Cave calls John Cooper Clarke a "brilliant, brilliant man" in latest Red Hand Files response

For the latest response on his The Red Hand Files Q+A site, Nick Cave answers three questions in one. The first asks "do you like haiku poetry", while the second question from Larry in Stoke asks Cave to tell a joke, "We need a laugh," Larry adds. The final question asks Cave's thoughts on John Cooper Clarke.

Cave wraps up all three answers into a neat response. He starts off by recalling Clarke as a "very funny man", adding, "I used to see him around back in the day, and I think we probably both had the same fondness for dangerous things - drugs and humour. I remember standing in the audience at some little club, maybe forty years ago, and watching John, staggered by his speed and virtuosity and mordant humour, and laughing and laughing and laughing."

He goes on to write out one of Clarke's haiku poems, answering the first question, and goes on to praise the performer and poet, "So, if you’re in lockdown and feeling low and need to laugh, go online, check out John Cooper Clarke and have your faith in humanity restored. A brilliant, brilliant man."