Fun Size Magrs

In the early 90s, being a Bowie fan was hard work.  In the music press he was seen as being over the hill, a washed-up rocker resorting to a money grabbing greatest hits tour after the critical disaster of his loud, back-to-basics Tin Machine project. The record buying public weren't too keen on Tin Machine, either - the second album sunk without much of a trace in late 1991. I'll still speak up for Tin Machine 2;  the 7" mix of  You Belong In Rock n Roll is one of my favourite Bowie singles of the 90s and there's a handful of brilliant tracks on the album - great Bowie moments like Baby Universal , Amlapura and Shopping For Girls .  He'd also turned up at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in early '92. He came pretty close to stealing the show, collaborating with Annie Lennox on Under Pressure  and bringing on Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson for All The Young Dudes. It was all going so well - until he decided to end " Heroes" by reciting The Lord...

Summer 1999. It started with a kiss. No. No it didn't. Really, it didn't. Like most of my interactions with the opposite sex, it started with a drink . Actually, nothing got started without quite a few drinks. Otherwise, I was hopeless.  The first couple of pints would just about calm me down, and then after another one or two, I might be able to speak to other human beings... And after that... In 1999 I was working as a copywriter at a radio station next to the Tyne Bridge. Every month or so, there'd be an invite for all staff to have drinks on Newcastle Quayside. lt was always a Friday evening straight after work. The Quayside was famous for the sheer number of pubs, bars and clubs in the space of a few hundred metres, so just having one drink in each venue was guaranteed to get everybody hammered. There'd always be some reason for going out - a birthday, an anniversary or maybe somebody was leaving to start a new job or have a baby... any excuse to go out and get pis...

I always knew my brother was a bit different. He was three-and-a-half years my senior but always seemed so much older than that. I loved to watch him draw characters from comics. He'd produce near perfect copies of Donald Duck or Spider-man and I'd ask if I could colour them in. He always told me to draw my own. Now and again he'd read stories at bedtime. I don't remember either of my parents ever reading bedtime stories - but I do remember my brother doing it. Was he reading them to me, or did he just like the sound of his own voice? Our Dad would take us to the little town library. I'm not sure why it was his responsibility to help us find books - I never saw Dad read anything - but he did encourage us.  I was only allowed to look at the big, colourful picture books that were untidily arranged in a big wooden trough but my brother was already devouring the fiction section. He only seemed really happy when his nose was in a book. Even if he wouldn't read to me...

  November 1989.  I was happy. And it was such a strange feeling.  I remember sitting in my bedroom on a rainy Autumn evening... I was listening to music and almost laughing because I felt... happy. I just felt happy. I had loads of homework to do - notes to make for Geography and a whole essay to write about William bloody Wordsworth and his lyrical bloody ballads - but I didn't care.  I was happy! So that's what it felt like! It didn't last. I'd just started my A levels and school was suddenly so much better. No more P.E! No more school tie!  I had free lessons and I could spend that time in the Art rooms or the Library. The teachers suddenly trusted us to work on our own. And best of all - the kids who'd made my life so miserable had left school after finishing their GCSE exams. I was no longer being called " fat", "gay"  or " spotty"  by a horde of bloody idiots. It made such a big difference. For the first five years of Comprehensi...