Good age 10. When you're 10 you can really get out there and start doing those things that make you age quickly. Let's face it, nine's naff. Single figures. But 10, now you're talking...

What's more, 10th birthday parties really happen. Believe me, the Diary's 10th rocked. All the girls wore long white socks and squealed on cue when little Frank from Ridge Farm squidged Jelly through his teeth. All the boys wore ties on bits of elastic, sang rude songs about the teachers and looked puzzled when naughty Eve from Britannia Row showed them her Janet Reger designer kickers. It was magic. Fish paste sandwiches (strictly no crusts), Twiglets and (red sky at night) Angel Delight. The games were great until Flood sulked 'til he was sick because Steve 'No Homework' Levine won the AMS DDL in the pass the parcel. Phil Spector won the hide and seek and Trevor Horn cleaned up in the musical leather chairs.

The highlight of the afternoon came when we played 'who's had the most famous person in their studio'. Diane from Good Earth stood up, smoothed down her party frock and had the first crack at the family-sized Toblerone. They'd had ZTT in remixing another version of Frankie's Relax. Thomas Dolby finished Prefab Sprout's second LP and Pookah Makes three wound up their latest project with Tony Visconti, whom Diane pointed out, mouth full of trifle, "is extwemely famous". She went on to say that Hugh Cornwell from the Stranglers had taken the production duties with Getting The Fear and Robin Millar had left his throne at the Power Plant to tackle the Kane Gang's big Soul sound at Good Earth. The scrummy triangular chocolate looked hers when she told us that Adam Ant was having his new LP made in collaboration with Mr Visconti and when she blurted out that Brian Evans (!) had engineered the Thomas Dolby and Hugh Cornwell projects.

Wee Willie Mowatt from Aosis started crying, complaining that his studio was being re-vamped when all this was going on and how was he meant to win the famous people game when the workmen were moving in walls and installing Barry Blue and how was he going to remember any famous people before he was collected at four o'clock... but everyone was listening to Robin 'Forgot My Kit' Millar because he was tougher than Willie Mowatt.

Robin, fresh from his recent triumph of coming top in maths, boasted that the Boothilll Foottappers were at his place being fiddled with by Bob Andrews and that he had personally played with Everything But The Girl. He'd even had some famous foreign people in from Italy called Vulpini Volonte and Sade, ("and she's vewy famous") had started her new album with him producing.

That's when wicked Eve from Britannia Row did her party piece. She told the partiers that New Order ("Weally, weally famous.") had been in her studio with Mike Johnson, for months and months and she even knew the name of their new single but she wasn't telling. Not, that was, until vile Frank from Ridge Farm frightened her so much she screamed The Perfect Kiss and even told that Dream Academy had worked with Dave Gilmour and that the Gun Club had their faders raised by Craig Leon ("who's fwom Amewica").

Not to be outdone and hellbent on the triangular honey from triangular bees, Chris 'Playdough' Dunn from Battery informed the gathering that Mama's Boys ("Iwish and incwedibly well known") were the most famous band at his studio and that Chris Tsangarides was producing. He then said that Nigel Green, the house engineer and his partner in their marble collection had gone to Holland to work as co-producer on Def Leppard's forthcoming album at Wisseloord studios. The sweets looked as good as his as he went on that his second best friend in Stories and RE, Tony Pratt, was working with Uriah Heep and Gary Moore and making them both sound very beefy, and when he let on that Angeli Dutt had taken the Battery Mobile to Botswana to record Hugh Masekala's new album. Well...

At this point Alan 'Conkers' Shacklock punched Rupert 'Long Trousers' Hine on the arm because he had been working with Howard Jones and Frank 'Detention' Andrews stood up to say his piece. Frank was remarkably cool for a nine year old. He said that they'd had The Smiths down at the 'Farm where they seemed to just be recording and recording. He added that The Smiths were pwobably the most famous people in the world and stared longingly at the Toblerone. But that wasn't all. Dexy's Midnight Runners had turned up with '100 2" tapes' to do a couple of overdubs for their LP with Alan Winstanley, Jeff Beck had turned up to play some guitar but decided he didn't want to when he got there. Freeez got to work with Peter Wilson on their latest meisterwerk and Ramon Cin (the biggest Spanish Rock band since Baron Mojo) had arrived to start on a virtually live LP.

Ruth 'Kisschase' Barry from Maison Rouge picked up the gauntlet and with a determined glint in her eye recited from a piece of paper that they'd had Heavy Pettin'being produced and engineered by Mark Dearnley.

Everyone agreed that if they'd had (as they normally do) Nick Heyward in then Ruth would be the winner but Pattie, the shy girl from Air, already had everybody spellbound. The musical chairs ground to a halt and the musical statues all came over to listen as Pattie told of Jimmy Ruffin, Phil Collins and Arif Mardin, Kool and the Gang, Bryan Ferry and Rhett Davies, JoBoxers and Chris Kimsey, Ian McCulloch and Clive Langer, Slade and John Punter, Tears for Fears and Chris Hughes, David Sylvian's ambient album, Paul McCartney's US film soundtrack and The Fink Brothers who are Carl and Suggs from Madness.

Well, that clinched it. My mum gave the Toblerone to Pattie without any further ado, giving Frank a swift cuff around the ear for snivelling as she did so. But while all this had been going on nobody noticed that the Surrealist Paper Boy had put down his velvet and banana Meccano set and pinned the boy from The Garden studio to the floor shouting, "Why don't you ever talk to us, Cortina face."

The boy from The Garden looked up with a steely glare and said, "Get off me or I'll rip your leg off and beat you to death with the soggy end!"

"What," the Surrealist Paper Boy replied, "no foreplay?"

Again, we all agreed that people our age shouldn't know about that sort of thing.