The debonair dude has ditched his dandy image in favour of the Reservoir Dogs look.

The trademark suit and carefully-coiffeured locks remain intact, but the cigarette holder and associated Noel Coward paraphernalia remain just a memory.

His songs still have a comic edge and some are indeed divine, but the follow-up to A Short Album About Love has turned into a slightly more drawn-out affair about everything from the death of Diana to the situation in his native Northern Ireland.

Dreading the year 2000

Fin De Siecle is, supposedly, a glance back at the 20th Century, through the eyes of a cynical man who has been dreading the end of it since 1977.

"I was seven then and the thought of the year 2000 made my heart sink with the impossible vastness of time. Of course I would never be 30 - I couldn't even imagine being 10," he admits.

Preparing for the future

And so what better way to prepare for the unknown future than by attacking the past to try and learn from proverbial mistakes?

Generation Sex, with its jaunty It's Not Unusual feel, "respects the rights of girls who want to take their clothes off - as long as we can all watch" and goes on to berate the press for its relentless pursuit of and latter-day obsession with Diana.

Thrillseeker is Mission Impossible with a hippie edge - Jim Morrison carving himself a niche in goth folklore - while Sweden entwines the clumsiness of the villains' signature tunes from '60s Batman with the sinister operatic element of The Omen.

Humour

The Hannon humour is in full force with National Express, while Eric The Gardener is a beautifully ambient eight-minute epic and the fin de Fin De Siecle, Sunrise, is a powerful account of the Irish situation.

Yes, Hannon is a man who wants to be taken seriously these days, at least some of the time.

The fop has eaten himself, but you can't help but like him. He's still a charmer, after all.