​There are times in my life when I’m terrified of death. And there are other times that it gets bad. This January has been horrible. Of course, we were all knocked sideways by the news that David Bowie had gone and done one. For me he was the guy who had been blessed by my mother's disapproval as 'weird'. Like Alan Partridge I loved a Greatest Hits tape until I got to university and I began my formal education. Last year I read Paul Trinka's biography Starman, which only deepened my admiration for the man. His ability and nerve to simply walk away from his most successful creations and to reinvent himself, his technical accomplishments as not only a song writer but as one of the finest record producers in the business and his generosity in resurrecting the careers of people he admired, added heft to the image I already had of the polymorphous cocaine addled bonk-athlete and space cadet.