There are some of us who spend most of their lives in an alternative world. I’m 26, I play the piano for sustenance and work as a doctor for pocket money. And today I feel an essential loss from this ‘real’ world and my own ideal one.
When I was 12, I fell in love for the first time, it started when I nicked my Dad’s Off the Wall cassette and played it in re-run over and over. Then I bought what was probably my first tapeever (with money saved from choc bar fasting), Thriller. It was a monkey-ride thereafter, my brother and I,11 and 12, respectively, we played Michael’s music during monopoly and table tennis; we spent hours deciphering what he actually said (it’s almost as tricky as working out Beethoven sonatas sometimes, trying to figure out what Michael’s saying) and singing his songs.