"a land of Phil Collins"

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl with golden blonde hair. She was a skinny little girl, and short, and had big green eyes. People told her she was cute, and she would smile, and imagine beaning them with a baseball bat, or perhaps a well-lobbed cricket ball to the groin. Her mother had already taught her about Feminism. She was a Ms. not a miss.

one day she would dye her hair red and become Cherry.

this little girl was an 80's child.

the 80's were a time of terrible fashion, music, and furniture. Oh, the padded shoulders, striped eyeliner, legwarmers, steel-and-grey-leather furniture, airbrushed painting. The little girl had always had a vague sense that something was wrong in the world, but did not have the vocabulary to clarify it. Until she learned the word garish. She had always been a voracious reader, and one day stumbled upon a book of Victorian fashion plates, and realized thing had not always been like this. She read more books on fashion, and realised that the 80's were a fashion singularity (although she would not learn about singularities until much, much later). The 70's were pretty bad, but not even close.

the most offensive symbol of the 80's, she thought, was the music. as her mother played tapes of Billy ocean and genesis, and her stepbrother played Roxette and Dire Straits and A-ha, and Kylie and Jason Donovan dominated the radio (and let's not forget Wham, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson when he still actually was on the radio)... To her it seemed that music was silly and pointless and annoying. She didn't see the point.

one day she heard a joy division song on the radio. It was an alternative radio show, on Sunday evenings, and she started listening to it whenever she could. Usually at bathtime. She bathed all by herself at this point.

anyway, our heroine eventually grew up (although some may debate this point), and learned about all the good, worthwhile music in the 80's. She learned more about music, even dated a musician for a long time. When he became a dj she felt a little betrayed. She reads Q magazine and loves Goldfrapp, and hardly ever enjoys britney-xtina-type pop.

so, why, gentle readers, does our young cherry find herself obsessed by the type of music she hated as a child? A-ha? Genesis? Simple minds?

so, readers the young girl who grew up into a Cherry wonders: is the pull of nostalgia so strong? Am i going to turn into my mother... Will my taste in music turn to crap? Will i one day, enjoy the music of dire straits?

for that is surely a fate worse than death.