I´d guess that it´s not much fun being Paul Weller, for all his success ... Weller more than anyone is aware of the absurd tensions which his pop star role automatically afflict him with ...

By a hideous irony, the supremely efficient Jam organisation would probably serve Thatcher as an excellent model for entrepreneurial organisation ... Weller is virtually alone in this wonderful world of pop inconspicuously giving a damn.

The effort nearly cripples him at times, too, but when it works, it´s blinding. ´A Town Called Malice´ for example ...

There´s a strong streak of the romantic in Paul Weller. It inevitably tends to colour his perceptions and make his vision of class struggle and the indignity of Labour seem over-simplified and at times almost Dickensian ...

Despite the potency of some of the images it´s only when Weller uses his imagination and not just his eyes that the strong achieves anything more than impotent rage ...

Musically The Jam are probably stronger than ever throughout THE GIFT. There´s more air and more room to breathe ... And there has to be a special mention for ´Ghosts´, probably the most haunting and haunted song Weller has ever written ...

In a couple, of weeks I should know for sure whether THE GIFT is a classic or merely a very good record. At the moment I can´t get it off the turntable ... ´Thought that I was a devil?´ asks Weller in the opening track, a dogged statement of the will to win called ´Happy Together´. ´But I´m an angel waiting for my wings´. Fine. Just stay away from those halos.