Damon reappears, only a towel around his waist. “Oy,” says Graham, “let’s see your knockers.” Damon flashes his behind. “He’s got a journalist here,” Graham shrieks. “What the fuck is he doing?”
Graham and Alex are already wearing Lacoste t-shirts. They were sent them free. Damon returns in one, so it is decided he should lend Dave one to complete the set. He gets one off his laundry pile – It’s the one he’s used at the gym. It doesn’t look too clean. “Have you used it as a fucking spunk rag or something?” asks Graham. Dave wears it nonetheless.
Damon sits next to me, putting his shoes on. The crotch of his jeans is slightly ripped. Graham tells him to put some knickers on. “I haven’t got any fucking knickers,” he says. “I threw them away, didn’t I?” Once Damon has fed the cats, we walk off down the road, myself and the Lacoste quadruplets.

These people weren’t just my colleagues. They were once my closest friends. I think probably the closest friends I’ll ever have and it had been a strange kind of limbo.

There’s Damon Albarn, 23 years old, vocalist, sarcasm champion, a cocksure type who’s paradoxically extremely likable. You wouldn’t have wanted to have known him at 15, probably, but he’s matured into a tall, lean exclamation mark, a face with a mind behind it, and the stardom of both face and mind are assured.
There’s Graham Coxon, 22 years old, moody guitarist, proud wearer of National Health specs and occasional finisher of Damon’s sentences. The pair have been singing and playing together since they were 12, antagonising careers advisory tutors by answering “pop star” to the crucial question of what they wanted to be when they grew up.
There’s Alex James, 22-year-old bassman, eccentric watcher of the skies and reader of cosmic literature, bearer of a gait likened by one person at Blur’s record company to that of a baby giraffe. He has a habit of waiting till conversation has died down and then, in a kind of confidential whisper, making a pronouncement so strange it’s not clear whether he’s wrapping up the subject or attempting to change it.
And, inside the pub, phoning round to get he band on tonight’s guest list for Five Thirty, is Dave Rowntree, 27 years old, drummer, a charming, unpretentious cove with rubber arms built specifically for those difficult rhythms.