expressxmas

Sunday 16th December 2001

The alternative Queen's speech

Remember when Her Majesty announced her annus horribilis? Well, for this queen, 2001 has been an annus hideous. I lost my friend Tranny Paul. Then I lost another friend, Joe Victor, who died in a car crash on a trip to buy his daughter a Christmas present.
Add to the that the events of September 11, the ensuing war, and the fact that I fell in love for the first time in seven years and had my heart broken without a word of an explanation.
Then there was the unpleasant call from a certain tabloid which claimed they had been sold a story that I had been rushed to hospital after a heroin overdose. Can't a girl lose four stone in peace these days?
The upside, though, has been a creative outburst: songs have been pouring out of me for the past month and I am preparing to release the most brittle, acoustic album of my career, called Useful Things To Do With Your Pain.
There's nothing quite like a broken heart for writing songs. My astrologer warned me that this year would be bumpy because, within the 9 Ki astrology I follow religiously, I am in a Nine year and it is a year of confrontation. But to quote John Lennon, no one told me there'd be days like these. My therapist said through my tears: "You're still standing but you're standing still." Then I realised why I have been immersing myself in work. Obviously it's a great way to avoid the terror of being alone with your thoughts.
Next year, which in the Japanese calendar starts in February, I enter a One year - a year of introspection and reflection, a time to do things for your personal wellbeing. And I intend to put it to good use. But don't cry for me, Argentina, because some good things have happened.
After a year of pushing to get my musical Taboo on, we open for preview on January 11 at the Notre Dame Hall in London. The Freddie Mercury Trust has bought out a night for a Mercury Trust gala and ticket sales are healthy, so fingers and legs crossed. We recently held a press preview to point out that it's not some Eighties retro shindig but a brand new musical with 20 fresh songs and a couple of old hits.
Steve Strange showed up and that really made the night for me. Then Selfridges offered an in-store exhibition to promote the show, with a through-the-years look at my wardrobe.
Other good things this year... I started a new interview series for UK Play called One On One.

My favourite album of the year has to be David Gray's Lost Songs, especially the track Flame Turns Blue, which sums up how I've felt these past months. It inspired me to search through the vast collection of my own unreleased tunes. I found one called Fat Cat, with a chorus that goes: "Your're the dirt on my collar, you're the hole in my favourite shoe, you're the last dying breath of love, you're the weight that I need to lose." Strange how you write stuff and it turns up and slaps you in the face.
Losing George Harrison was deeply sad but I think his dying words were poignant: "Love one another." I've learned to value my friends, and the few real ones have been there for me in the most thunderous year of my life.
So what about next year? Stop smoking, stop thinking I have to fall in love with the first man who smiles at me and offers me champagne. Remember the good advice I give to friends and try to apply it. Some hope. Knowing and doing are worlds apart, but knowing is a start.
This has been my queen's speech. You can watch the other one on Christmas day.