Nobody has a good word to say about The Boomtown Rats any more, and we all know who’s responsible for that. But take away the obnoxious loudmouth know-all who can’t stop poking his nose into politics and they were a pretty great band at the start.

Say what you like about Sir Bob (and I once spent about five minutes trying to ask him a single question and every time, like the charmer he is, he responded “Fuck off” – though on another occasion, while interviewing him, he offered to call Condoleeza Rice (“Condy”) to prove a point about foreign policy), but he was a great frontman in his day.

For a while the Rats blended a fiery punk spirit with some good tunes – a rarity back then – and an occasionally pertinent lyric.

Or “a bit of social comment” as Noel Edmonds, presenting TORP, introduced their debut single, released in August 1977 – soon after I’d seen the Rats supporting Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

They were, according to my sources (Wiki) the first ‘New Wave’ band to appear on TOTP and this was the first such song to get on the initially punk-hesitant BBC Radio 1 playlist.

Looking After No.1 got to No.11 – the first in a string of ten consecutive Top 40 hits for the Rats – who would go on to top the charts twice with Rat Trap and I Don’t Like Mondays.