diff --git a/CGAT/Pipeline.py b/CGAT/Pipeline.py
index e4ed7a38..89ad7f66 100644
--- a/CGAT/Pipeline.py
+++ b/CGAT/Pipeline.py
@@ -2176,8 +2176,13 @@ def cluster_runnable(func):
     and *toCluster* true. This will submit the function as an external
     job, but run it on the local machine.
 
+    Note: all arguments in decorated function must be passed as
+    key-word arguments.
     '''
 
+    # MM: when decorating functions with cluster_runnable, provide
+    # them as kwargs, else will throw attribute error
+
     function_name = func.__name__
 
     def submit_function(*args, **kwargs):
diff --git a/requires.txt b/requires.txt
index 30b366c1..e1690cb5 100644
--- a/requires.txt
+++ b/requires.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # latest setutools required for automatic cythonization
 setuptools>=1.1
-pyparsing==1.5.7
+pyparsing>=1.5.7
 cython>=0.19
 numpy>=1.7
 MySQL-python>1.2.3