1 5EX

Enormous excitement surrounds me, there's screaming, chanting and yelling of names. I am being jostled around like a ball in a pinball machine between huge numbers of people, mainly young women between the ages of 10 and 20 years old in varying states of undress, partly due to the hot September sunshine and partly in a vain attempt to catch the eye of one of the group. All holding posters, albums and handmade declarations of love, all hoping to be noticed by their idols. There are boobs and legs on display everywhere, and more false eyelashes and fake tan than in an episode of The only way is Essex!

We are corralled like wild cattle behind a barrier outside a music store in my hometown of London, police officers lining the road for at least 200 yards in each direction, watching the huge crowd of fans for signs of crazy stalker types, of which I am sure there probably are many. Having met some of them myself during after show fan meets I often find myself genuinely terrified for the guys in the group, there are some seriously deluded and scary people in the world who take obsession to a whole other level!

The worldwide phenomenon that is

5EX arrived from their home country of Australia 21 days ago to play 3 shows at Wembley, and 10 further dates at some other large stadiums in the UK. Today is their final day here and they are due to sign autographs and meet fans, promoting their most recent album..... their 4th release in five years, and likely to be their most successful yet. My ears are ringing with all the high pitched squealing sounds they are producing, a number of girls have already fainted and been assisted over barriers and into waiting St Johns ambulances for treatment, almost certain to miss out on meeting their heroes now after rejoining the back of the almost mile long queue that winds its way from the store entrance and around the entire retail park. Shoppers who are totally oblivious to the enormity of the event that has taken over the retail park endure utter chaos..... today is not a good day to shop for home furnishings or sportswear!!

I have enough photos, video clips and interviews with fans to write my latest fan fiction novel, and decide to make my way from the throng of hyper young females to the back of the store. I am hopeful that the rear entrance is free of fans as they are all queuing at the front of the store. I want to speak to some of the store staff to get their perspective of working during a personal appearance by superstars, and if I'm really lucky I may even catch a glimpse of the guys as they arrive, maybe even get a few words from one or two of them. Fingers crossed!!

I'm surprised and pleased to find nobody at the back of the store, but the back door wide open, presumably to allow some air to circulate inside the store before it is full to bursting with hot and heavily perfumed teenage girls!

I step quietly into the back of the store, fully expecting to be turned around by a member of the security staff but to my amazement I am unhindered. I wonder if my completely black, very casual outfit of skinny jeans, sweatshirt and trainers, so at odds with the tiny strips of fabric barely covering the hormone fuelled female fans, is what has allowed me to slip in unnoticed. I place my bag under a table after I retrieve my most useful and prized possession, my phone, and take a seat on some boxes in the far corner of a large storeroom to await the groups arrival. The room is filled with precariously stacked boxes, chairs and backboards covered in posters promoting the guys new album 'SUSTAINED OBLITERATION'.

Obviously my phone is useful for keeping in touch, but it also serves as my tour guide, entertainer, personal assistant, fountain of all knowledge and vault keeper of all my ideas, draft works, interviews, videos and photos! Between Google, YouTube, Waze, Watt pad, Spotify and candy crush I am almost never without it in my hand. I would not survive without it, couldn't write on the go so easily without the notes app, and i love the retouch app for editing my photos. I charge it overnight beside my bed and it acts as my alarm too, not that sleep is something I experience often, and honestly, I frequently feel that I function better when I sleep less. On the very rare occasion I get a 'full nights' sleep, which has in actual fact never exceeded more than 5.5 hours, I usually wake feeling sluggish, grouchy, often nauseous and sad. Contrarily, I can be awake for up to 96 hours without a wink of sleep and I feel alive, invincible, productive and just..... just vital!! Exhilerated!

The 20+ hour crash afterwards can however cause some issues with my ability to keep to a schedule. Thankfully my editor at work is very supportive and, as long as I keep my deadlines, doesn't keep me on a tight rein when it comes to my timekeeping or attendance at the office. That is something I do love about the modern age. Technology makes it possible to connect with anyone almost anywhere worldwide, to send information from one side of the world and receive it on the other in an instant. It has certainly been instrumental in my rise in popularity as a writer, definitely extended my reach by allowing me to be read globally, has absolutely improved the quality of assignments I am given and has lead to some interesting and exciting offers of work. I've also heard some amazing tales during this time. It's actually a shame i don't write the gossip column, I'd never run out of material!

My 'day job' is as Entertainment editor of a UK National news outlet. I love it! I get to flex my skills as a writer, my number one passion. I write what I want to about one of my other passions, entertainment!

I love TV shows and films but my main passion after writing is music, which is what has brought me here today, although not only in an official capacity. Today's work assignment will pay my bills and give me material for my side project, my hobby if you will. I write fan fiction in my free time. It helps me hone my skills, allows me to be creative, and frankly fills a void in my otherwise empty life.

Television and film, when done well are fantastic ways for the lonely armchair explorer to feel like part of life, to begin to appreciate and understand life as it is for others.....other races, religions, cultures, even species! Wildlife documentaries amaze and depress me in equal measure. I am awed by the sheer beauty of every plant, tree and creature, fascinated by the laws of the wild, terrified by the power of nature.

Seeing what humans have done to the Earth upsets me greatly. I was, in the past, always a person that took the view 'what difference can I alone really make to Orangutans in Borneo by not using palm oil'?

I reconsidered my perspective after a particularly exhilarating and informative conversation with a huge Hollywood name during dinner at an otherwise hugely dull awards ceremony. He works closely with many charities to sustain rainforests, retraining and educating locals, providing alternative employment for men who would otherwise be razing acres of rainforest to the ground everyday to allow farm animals to graze, or to plant palms to farm oil. I never appreciated that palm oil actually comes from trees that are not native to South East Asia, but rather to West and central Africa. No wonder the Orangs are critically endangered! I learned that from the National Geographic channel during one especially dull and lonely night home alone.

I am ashamed to be human most days, our great and insatiable 'need' for unnecessary trinkets, status symbol pets, and the mining of materials for our relentless technological March into the future is causing the destruction of everything... of life, habitats.....of the universe!

Humans are in the main a plague. I suspect the only species that is not required by the Earth to keep the delicate ecological balance of life steady, although I have been unable to verify that suspicion yet. Every other plant, shrub, tree, bug and animal on the land and in the sea enhances and adds to the fragile eco system, each having a beneficial role to fulfil. Humans just take. We will in not too much longer expunge all life, including our own if we do not make huge changes to how we live. We were given a phenomenal gift and currently we are showing our gratitude for that gift by flipping off Mother Nature with a giant LD3!!

Wow, I do get caught up in my thoughts a lot, my mind wandering off more and more frequently lately as I ponder my place in life, my ambitions for the future..... what I hope to achieve in my lifetime. Of course I want to leave a mark on the world, but I want mine to be a positive mark rather than a stain, unlike all the murderers I learn about watching true crime documentaries! I read quite recently about a rather intriguing unsolved London murder, well, death thought to be a murder, in our own paper.

I open up Google and begin to type in the name of the dead woman to re-read the story when a large box falls directly to my right, skimming my arm. The shock is enough to make me rapidly jump up from my perch, my strong legs, honed by years of regular running and a 10 year career as a child gymnast propelling me forward at pace, right into the solid wall of a human chest!! I am winded and begin falling backwards towards the ground, my eyes squeezed shut, as if somehow I will be uninjured if I don't witness my descent to the concrete. A shrill and brief scream escapes my lips and I reach out aimlessly in the hope of catching hold of something to save me from at best, a very sore and bruised coccyx!

I grab out blindly and to my utter astonishment and relief find what feel like some very strong but sinewy arms. Thank God! I am pulled swiftly upward and again feel myself crushed against that chest, the strong arms encircling my torso a little too tightly. We fall together and stop with a jolt, me landing on the rest of the body that belongs to the arms I am restrained by. I hear the air knocked from my rescuers lungs, a powerful 'Ooof' sound leaving their mouth. I open my eyes and find myself looking into the perfect face of Jimmie, one of the five members of 5EX!