I GREW up in awe of David Bowie. His moody, distinctive tones wafted through our house as my older brother and sister played his Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane albums over and over.

They and their friends worshipped him. They wore clothes like him, dyed their hair like him. To my mother's horror, my sister even went out with a lightning bolt painted down her face, just like Bowie.

To an eleven-year-old like myself, he was the ultimate rebel, totally unconventional. He was deep, so cool and enigmatic. Now, sadly, he is little more than a mildly embarrassing disappointment.

This week, Bowie was named the most influential rocker by today's music stars. But I suspect a whole generation of his original fans would probably now vote him the greatest let-down.

Once renowned for his unique, distinctive style, the 53-year-old now dresses like one of Harry Enfield's Kevin and Perry characters - a shaggy-haired teenage clone in baggy combat trousers.

All the mystery has gone. Bowie has now appeared on so many chat shows his life is an open book. And once he started to make small talk in public, his reputation for being a deep, original thinker was shattered.

To the young rebel rocker and wild London boy, working in a bank would have been the ultimate boring, establishment job. Now he doesn't just work in one, he owns one, on the Internet.

Bowie, his model wife and baby have even featured in a nauseating glossy picture spread in Hello! magazine. Renowned for his dramatically different changes of image over the years, he appears to have metamorphosed into a typical, modern, commercial celebrity.

Many of his original fans will feel cheated, all illusions shattered. But, after all his transformations, I suspect this is the real David Bowie emerging at last.

PEOPLE in Chester-le-Street are celebrating after councillors threw out plans for a controversial bail hostel over fears of increased crime. While the probation service looks for a new site in County Durham, residents say they are overjoyed. But, having successfully shunted the bail hostel out of their town, I wonder if they've spared a thought for whichever nearby community which will end up being forced to live with it now?

WITH no dead sheep, dirty knickers or used condoms on show, this year's Turner Prize shortlist was disappointingly tame. Organisers must have breathed a sigh of relief when Hexham-born artist Glenn Brown whipped up controversy after it was revealed his painting was a practically identical copy of the cover of a science fiction novel. Still, the judges stood by him: "He takes the image, he transforms it, he gives it a completely different scale," said the Turner chairman. I think he meant it was bigger.

THE pretty 14-year-old singer Charlotte Church appeared at a showbiz event last weekend caked in make-up. Her heavy foundation, bright blusher and vampish lipstick masked all her fresh-faced, wholesome beauty. Meanwhile, Revlon has dropped one top model from its advertising campaign because she is too old at 34. Isn't it time make-up companies faced up to the fact that young girls like Charlotte don't need their products while gnarled old boots like myself clearly do?

SCIENTISTS say babies who cry and infants who are aggressive could grow up with problems. But they stress they have "good news for parents" because research shows a child's temperament is set by inherited genes - not by how they are brought up. In other words, if a child is particularly troublesome, there's nothing we can do about it. And this is supposed to be good news?