My class at school.

All of these people could have been in my class at school - they're all from the same academic year:


Gary Barlow, Michelle Gayle, Betty Boo, Johnny Greenwood, Sonia, Jayne Middlemiss, Patrick Kielty, Sarah Kane, Amanda Holden, Charlie Brooker, Rachael Weisz, David Tennant, George Osborne, Susan Lynch, Mckenzie Crook, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Dido, The Aphex Twin, Lisa Snowdon, Liza Walker, Emily Mortimer, Melinda Messenger, Tupac Shakur, David Walliams, Jared Leto, Elon Musk, Winona Ryder, Lisa Lefteye Lopes, Martin Freeman and Carla Gugino.


It's a sobering group: four of them are dead for a start. Eight of them have rather fallen off the radar. Charlie Brooker is the nearest thing to a late bloomer. David Walliams, who would have bullied me, is inexplicably, horribly famous. Martin's doing well too, the cocky little shit. I'd have sat next to Elon in science, though I know he would have had his elbow bent round his exercise book, hiding his working. Everyone would have fancied Carla and Rachael but I would be holding a torch for Betty.

No one liked George but I hated Jared because all the girls liked him. Aphex stopped coming to class in fourth form and no one ever knew what happened to him. Tennant was a lanky ginger gobshite whose favourite band was Soft Cell. He used to hang about round the prefabs smoking Benson and Hedges he bought in ones from the local shop. McKenzie got done for having a ripped up porn mag in his desk. We used to laugh about the bags under his eyes. I don't remember much about Melinda. She was a quiet, studious girl, sunny but with serious eyes. Sonia tried it on with me at the fifth year disco and cried in the toilets when I got off with Jayne: our song was "Zoom" by Fat Larry's Band. I heard it everywhere that year. Even now when it comes on the radio I think of Jayne Middlemiss. I have one of her yoga DVDs somewhere.

Gary always had a note for PE. He'd spend wet lunchtimes in the music block perfecting his Bobbie Crush smile. Everyone thought Johnny was a girl. David and Amanda used to bully him badly until he revealed he had an older brother, Colin. After that they used to bully Colin.

Halcyon days, really. Annoyingly they all look much better than me - the ones who lived. Not David, the big oily bastard, but the rest of them look great. Dido has barely changed. Jared's youth is frankly inhuman. But that's fame for you. I'd be thin and have great teeth if I'd been famous. Or I'd have been dead. Poor Lisa.

Its sobering to think that a lot of them are long past the height of their powers. Even the successful ones have bounced back from wilderness years, long ago. I've yet to have my first bounce. But its coming - I'm going out like Humpty Dumpty.


    

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