I found this album on the day of release, after hearing Neil on Mark Radcliffe's much mourned evening show.

One of those moments where I walked into a shop, they were playing "The Summerhouse". The oboe solo stopped me in my tracks. One word; "Genius". There started a love affair with an album that persists to this day. Put it in context with the big albums of the day and you'll see why it made such an impact.

If ever an album was about me, it's this one; it never leaves my top three albums, it's just the most intensely romantic melodic, witty and yearning album I possess.

My treasured original CD will be in the box with me. Nuff said. Hope one day it'll be reissued so more folks can own it in other than downloaded format

For once the hyperbole on review pages is justified. This album is an utter delight from start to finish.

It is hard to believe that Neil Hannon was so young when composing this record; it has a lyrical wit and musical virtuosity of an artist at the end of a career not so near the beginning.

Promenade received very positive reviews when it was released - I remember the now- defunct Select magazine being particularly enamoured of its charms. But such plaudits did not translate into sales and Hannon had to wait for Chris Evans to discover Something for the Weekend (from Cassanova, the subsequent and weaker album) to find a few months of proper fame.

But for me, Promenade is his masterpiece. By turns hilarious and moving, mockingly pretentious and life-affirming, this is a record that takes the listener through a single day culminating in with the incomparable Tonight We Fly.

Vinyl copies now sell on eBay for about eighty quid so there must be some people out there who hold these songs in the kind of esteem that I do. But for most, this album remains a mystery.

Do yourself a favour and buy this now. Your life will be better as a result.

And that is not hyperbole.

I cannot possibly do this record justice in my humble review, other than by saying that no one, not anyone, has ever produced music so fine, endearing, accessible, beautiful or so utterly fantastic and perfect in every way as Neil Hannon. Nowhere is this more evident than on 'Promenade', from its beautiful minimalistic opening, through sing-a-long classics, laugh-out-loud humour, literary paradise, exquisite lyrics, running themes, sheer and utter beauty, and its perfect ending, the heaven of a tune that is 'Tonight We Fly'.

Total and utter bliss, this.

That is all.

This album doesn't feature anything as immediately arresting as "National Express" or "Something for the weekend" but is all the better for it. Every song is an understated gem, and the album reveals layer upon layer with each listen. Comfortably the most coherent and wondrous collection that even this great songwriter has assembled.

A very strong contender for the greatest album of all time.

'nuff said.