IT'S been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve had the summer off, doing bits and pieces, including buying a new flat - we move next month; frankly I’m a bit stressed - reading a few books and listening to the radio, as usual. Comfort listening, mostly. Get It On … with Bryan Burnett on Radio Scotland, football talk on Five Live, Guy Garvey on Sunday afternoons on 6 Music. But I’ve now got a new radio habit. The Alex Kapranos Show on Absolute Radio, Sunday nights at 10pm.

The Franz Ferdinand frontman has a great voice for radio and a record collection perfectly suited to those of us of a certain age. Sunday night’s show saw him play Bowie, Roxy, The Clash, Lou Reed, and Kirsty McColl, with the odd outlier including Steeleye Span, Dead Or Alive and Glasgow’s Life Without Buildings.

A recce through Kapranos’s record collection would be enough in itself, but as a presenter he has a little more ambition than that. And so at the heart of each programme is an interview with a guest. He’s already spoken to Johnny Marr and last Sunday night he was joined by musician, artist and Turner Prize winner Martin Creed who came into the studio dressed in a dart-adorned pinstripe suit, bow tie and square hat (Kapranos had to describe this look to us given that this is radio after all).

Creed had clearly made an effort. Which made the rather truncated time given over to the resulting conversation feel a little disappointing. Still, even in short doses, Creed is entertaining company. He discussed his clothes, his music and his tendency to make art that irks as much as pleases (of which his infamous 2000 Turner Prize winning piece The lights going on and off certainly qualifies).

“I think I quite like annoying people. I must do,” Creed suggested. “It’s like being naughty.” More of his naughtiness would have been welcomed.

Never mind. There was other stuff to be getting on with. At one point Kapranos started telling us about his grandmother who, at the age of 12, had to go into service after losing her dad and all her brothers when they were drowned at sea during a storm.

“That is a pretty bleak story,” Kapranos admitted before choosing a tune that he hoped would lighten the mood. Cue Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. Very droll, Alex.

But bleakness was very much in the air this week. Strikes, energy bills, the cost of living crisis. On Monday morning on 5 Live, Nicky Campbell even asked “is Britain broken?” Quite a few callers said yes. And that’s before any future Indy referendum.

Any good news? Well, over on Radio 2 another pop star, Kim Wilde (be still my beating heart) took up co-presenting duties alongside Gary Davies on Sounds of the 80s last Saturday night. And Kim would cheer anyone up.

Obviously my long-gone teenage self is still half in love with Ms Wilde. If anything, she went up in my estimation, if that is even possible, by raving about Prefab Sprout at one point, right enough. Hot dog, etc, etc.

That said, the reason she joined Davies in the first place was to celebrate her 40 plus years in the business. Four decades. Are you feeling old? Yeah, me too.

Listen Out For: A Punk’s Progress, Radio 4, today, 3pm

Talking of 1980s pop stars, Roland Gift, frontman of Fine Young Cannibals, writes and narrates this coming-of-age drama based on his own life.