Birthday boy Van Morrison: Have I told you lately...

Van Morrison turns 70 today. There should be a lot more going on to pay tribute to somebody whose contribution to music and popular culture has been spectacular, suggests Michael Clifford

The occasion is, of course, being marked in his native Belfast with two concerts on Cyprus Avenue, the street immortalised in Morrison’s breakthrough 1968 album, Astral Weeks. BBC Ulster and RTÉ are also giving him the nod with a series of programmes.

There should, however, be a lot more going on to pay tribute to somebody whose contribution to music and popular culture has been spectacular. Van is the man — the greatest singer songwriter ever to emerge from this island, and up there occupying a pantheon with Bob Dylan and perhaps a few others.