1996

You are the second guitarist of Blur and also the youngest of the band. You are 24 years old. You are 8 years younger than Dave, 4 years younger than Damon and Alex and 3 years younger than Graham. So you started Blur, in 1989, when you were only 17 and you would never have believed that it would take on such a big scale. At the beginning all this craze for the band, in 1994, was funny, new and exciting. You finally felt recognized for what you do, at your true value, finally loved. But it started to become too much. Too much present, much too often. It started with Oasis and the 'battle of britpop' then the media started to look for any excuse to talk about you and/or Blur which started to create tensions within the band. Like any true artist, and especially since almost everyone was doing it at the time, you turned to alcohol and drugs, which made things better in the short term but made them worse in the long term. And to make matters worse, you're really not doing well emotionally. You think you're a disaster. You ruined your last romantic relationships by getting with people you didn't really love just to not be alone. And the only time it was reciprocal, this person only used you for your fame.

'Everyone around you is happy and living their dream... so why you can't be happy? Why do you have to screw everything up?!' you think.

You're in your apartment, a small one-bedroom apartment not far from London. It's not very big but it suits you perfectly since you live alone in it. You hardly go out anymore and the only times you do go out is to get something to eat or go to rehearsal with the band. You hear someone knocking on your door, it's Damon. He looks worried. At the same time, you've missed 3 rehearsals...