READERS of a certain age (and by that I mean people who are as old as me) will remember Mike Read as something of an Eighties superstar.

The presenter of Radio One's breakfast show and of live weekend children's TV programme Saturday Superstore, Read was a household name.

His fame peaked in 1984 when, taking it upon himself to be the nation's moral guardian, he refused to play the Frankie Goes To Hollywood hit Relax,

It was an action that made national headlines, led to a BBC-wide ban for the track and, inevitably, saw the song stay at number one for weeks and sell more than a million copies.

Since those heady days, it's fair to say Read has had something of a chequered career.

Said to be one of the inspirations for the Harry Enfield character Mike Smash (star of fictional radio station Fab FM), Read's career trajectory over the last 30 years perhaps better resembles that of another fictional radio DJ.

The words Alan and Partridge spring to mind.

Read has written disastrous musicals - Oscar (based on the life of Oscar Wilde) didn't last beyond its opening night, while Cliff: The Musical limped through a three-month run - tried his hand at contemporary art and also made an unsuccessful attempt to be Conservative's candidate for Mayor of London.

Now a presenter on BBC Radio Berkshire, Mike Read was suddenly back in the news this week and for all the wrong reasons.

Having once made headlines for banning a record from the airwaves, he has now banned his own record - though whether any station other than BBC Radio Berkshire was playing UKIP Calypso is doubtful.

If you haven't heard the song, check it out online. It's toe-curling, nails-scraping-down-a-blackboard stuff as Read sings the praises of Nigel Farage and company.

The song boasts the chorus: Oh yes when we take charge/And the new Prime Minister is Farage/We can trade with the world again/When Nigel is at number 10.

Who needs Rodgers and Hammerstein or Lennon and McCartney when we've got national treasure Mike Read, eh?

The controversy over the song revolves around Read's delivery of it in a cod-Jamaican accent (because, as he claimed this week, 'you can't sing a calypso with a Surrey accent').

Condemned as racist by critics, the furore was initially dismissed by Read before he apologised unreservedly yesterday for any 'unintentional offence' and instructed his record company to withdraw the song from sale.

What an odd tale.

I think the racist charge has been thrown a little too freely at Read and I'd actually take his defence at face value. But what this episode really shows is the ultimate problem that UKIP will face when the serious stuff of a general election comes around next May.

And that is that, for all Mr Farage's blokey bonhomie and impressive campaigning and television performances, much of the rest of his party and its high-profile supporters look a bit, well, odd.

UKIP wins a parliamentary seat and then Mike Read takes all the headlines.

The party's first MP makes his debut speech in the Commons (or his second debut speech given he was previously the Conservative MP for the same seat) and all everyone is talking about is a song that hits number one on the embarrassment charts.

UKIP might well pick up a few more MPs next May, although making progress as a 'protest party' at a general election is notoriously more difficult than doing so at by-elections, and it might even make the difference between Tory or Labour victories in some seats.

But it will never be taken seriously as a political party unless it can rid itself of the aura of strangeness, perfectly highlighted by the calypso controversy, that seems to surround it.