241 Pizza

For fortysomething kidults, wearing 1980s fashion for the second time around, popping out babies in our middle age, believing we’re still cool, believing we’re really not at all old and more than belong at Glastonbury 2009, something died along with Jackson last Thursday, live on Twitter.

Every generation has a rock star death that shakes them up and marks a new chapter: Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, John Lennon. It doesn’t matter whether you liked them or owned their records or were even especially aware of them. The soundtrack to the fun, carefree part of your life has suddenly ended; the stylus skitters across the vinyl (remember vinyl?), and it’s as though some stentorian voice boomed down and said, “Now do you get it?” Time to put away childish things.

That, egomaniacally enough, is why so many people who grew up in the 1980s feel an unexpected sadness at Jackson’s death. He was the king of pop, yes, and no, we probably won’t see his like again. But the most remarkable thing about his death, for me, was being able to communicate instantly with friends, acquaintances and complete strangers all over the world — to share in an event as it developed, to think and engage and be provoked.

I’m not mourning my youth. We may have had the Smiths and got there first with the batwing sleeves, but nothing is as mind-blowing as the ability to confer collectively and globally when something happens.

+ Speaking of Glastonbury and popular beat combos: having fond memories of northern soul weekenders in places such as Wigan, I’d always been of the naive opinion that music gatherings, including festivals, were for everyone, by which I mean for young people who didn’t necessarily live in fabulous houses and have violin and Mandarin lessons from the age of four.

Instead, it is so prohibitively expensive that you know all the young people there are called Jack, Tarquin and Daisy and are enjoying a bit of musical slumming before Tuscany and Ibiza later this summer. My son’s ticket cost £180; kitting him out with camping equipment, wellies and so on cost another £100; the ticket to the party bus to Somerset cost £50; and that’s before a single penny of spending money. He is having the most fabulous time imaginable (and yes, I do envy him bitterly, pace Michael Jackson and my extreme old age), but really — what’s with the pre-recession costs? Still, 170,000 people can afford it, which is cheering in these gloomy times.

india.knight@sunday-times.co.uk

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