Finding myself (in the old-fashioned, not New-Age, sense—what do you take me for?) in Stoke Newington the other day, I recalled Alexei Sayle’s fine joke—a historical vignette that already needs exegesis, given the area’s later vibrant image:

His memoir Stalin ate my homework, on his, um, unusual upbringing, is at once heartfelt, perceptive, and hilarious.

He may have mellowed over the years since his early cameos in The young ones and angry standup, but he hasn’t lost his edge, as we can hear in his recent BBC Radio 4 series.

Among many gems is his account in Episode 2 of how a casual expression “Soup, swoop, loop de loop”, recycled as a forgotten piss-take after a London dinner party, came to be exported to New Zealand and immortalised in the dissertation

“Soup, swoop, loop de loop”: shamanistic incantations in Rarotongan food preparation rituals, University of Topeka, 2001.