I’VE never understood how “woke” came to be a term of abuse. Consciousness is the prerequisite of meaningful existence.

It’s what makes us cleverer than the apocryphal two short planks and gives us our identity as human beings. Deriding it is dissing humanity itself.  

In a similar — though far less malicious — misappropriation of language, the term “wake” is mostly used to describe a social gathering, usually involving monumental amounts of alcohol, to celebrate the life of someone who is no longer “woke” in the temporally physical sense.

Even that seems odd to me: I’ve always thought that a “wake” should happen when the subject of the celebration is still there to enjoy it.   

So I’m happy to announce that pioneering alternative comedian Tony Allen, who always followed his own path through a long life, will be present at his own wake in July, and I’ll be there along with many others who shared a part of it to party with him and say a few words in his honour.  

I first met Tony in 1980, shortly after I had taken the name Attila the Stockbroker and started jumping on stage in between bands at gigs shouting my words at pissed punks and skins, simultaneously challenging both the accepted, sterile notions of what constituted “poetry” and of what was “acceptable” at punk gigs.   

Tony and I hit it off immediately, because he and Alexei Sayle were just beginning to take exactly the same approach to the comedy world with its plethora of sexist, racist dinosaurs spouting prehistoric garbage.

He had come up with the pioneering concept of “alternative cabaret” and invited me to perform at some of the early shows.  

They were brilliant, raucous, chaotic and alcohol-sodden — but compared to shouting down punk crowds and occasionally being attacked on stage by Nazi boneheads, a piece of piss: sophistication itself! 

Alternative cabaret really took off in the early ’80s and Tony and I saw a lot of each other, but then the mix of comedians, musicians, poets, jugglers, storytellers and the rest became an endless string of comedians and, though I love making people laugh, I’m a poet and musician, not a comedian, so I went off to do my own thing.   

We still saw a fair bit of each other, though, united by a contempt for the mainstream commercial bog which comedy increasingly mired itself in, mainly at music festivals and political actions, where he compered in his own inimitable style. And we’ve both been ploughing our individual furrows ever since.   

A true pioneer and a lovely bloke. I’m proud and happy to participate in his “woke wake” (entitled This Was Your Life) which will take place in his lifelong stamping ground, west London, at the Quiet Night Inn, W11 on Thursday July 27. All who knew and loved him are welcome.

There is a crowdfunder to help with quality live streaming and other expenses for the event — find it online at bit.ly/42jjTFv.

As you read this we’ll be in the middle of our 23rd Glastonwick Festival, near Lancing in West Sussex, and then, after a gig at Medway River Lit festival next Tuesday, I’m off to mainland Europe for seven concerts in 12 days in five countries including the Political Song Festival in Austria, successor to the one that was held in East Berlin for 20 years.

I’ll also be doing my first ever gigs in Slovenia, home of the mighty Laibach and my 25th country as a performer in total. 

My next column will be written there, and will include a review of Laibach’s latest release, a reissue of their groundbreaking first album Nova Akropola, first issued by our mutual record label Cherry Red in 1986. 

I never forget how lucky I am to live this life — though I put a lot of work into it!