When I was seven years old, I did one of the worst things I have ever done.
Diligently manning a stall at a Blue Peter bring-and-buy sale in my parents’ living room, which is the sort of thing my family did to pass the time in Wolverhampton in 1992, I noticed a framed photo of a blonde, bubble-permed woman grinning out from among the other tat. Under the picture was a name: Kylie Minogue. As our neighbours rifled through the jumble, my eye kept straying back to it: the slightly goofy front teeth, the perfectly proportioned features, the air of friendly approachability. I only really knew of Kylie because pop culture seeps into the pores of small children, but this photo completely beguiled me. I felt a psychic surety that this person was important to my life.
