This couldn’t happen in America. Not where they have proper pop-stars who live the lifestyle – wandering between parties and premieres with coke, drink and sexual fluids oozing from their noses. Americans know how to do things properly when it comes to stardom. Except with Anne Robinson. And Simon Cowell. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Our evening begins, strangely enough, with a discussion between Simon and I about the state of the music industry. As bands get more and more prefabricated, and the audience they’re being pitched towards gets younger and younger – isn’t there a chance that the music industry is gradually pushing itself unsustainably towards blander, less ‘relevant’ music? How long until rhythm, lyric and melody themselves are completely sacrificed to firm, tanned boys pouting at the camera in full-on pre-teen sex-free idol-porn? Only time will tell.
Simon and I were in town to catch up with each other and watch The Bourne Identity, which was empty but diverting. And when it ended we went our separate ways. Him trainwards back to Guildford, me to the Number 6 bus-stop on Regent’s Street. And it’s clearly the bus-stop of stars, because number one recording artist and third-place Britney-murderering PopIdol Darius was also milling around there with a group of friends… After a while they wandered off, just giving me time to send a few apparently-interested-in-a-kind-of-ironic-way-but-actually-quite-excited text messages to a few dozen friends, acquaintances, co-workers and complete strangers, before my bus arrived. Truly – mine is a life of true glamour…