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Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison is an erudite but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers and avant-garde fiction rather than the writing obscure the ‘ghetto prose’ that would buy him commercial success. After witnessing, with horror, the runaway success of the latest novel in the genre, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, he sits back with a parody called My Pafology (later retitled Fuck) which he submits, to the dismay of his agent, under pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh.

I Know This Much – by Gary Kemp, Spandau Ballet’s prime mover – is simply the freshest, most exciting and best-written memoir to arrive for years.

Gary’s story begins in North London, where the Kemp family rented a home with no bathrooms and chickens in the yard. After a couple of failed attempts to kill his brother Martin, his parents gave him a guitar for Christmas.

From schoolyard battles between the Bowie Boys and the Prog Rockers to Mrs Kemp’s firm insistence on net curtains, from acting for the Children’s Film Foundation to manning a fruit and veg stall on Saturdays, Gary brilliantly evokes an upbringing full of love, creativity and optimism.

As the Thatcher years begin, Gary’s account of the outrageous London club scene centred around the Blitz and Billy’s is just sizzling. Out of this glamorous mayhem of kilt-wearing mascara’d peacocks would emerge Spandau Ballet – the band that would define the era, and hold high the victorious standard of the New Romantics.