2003-02-05 - 5:57 p.m.

The whole country is a-flutter (or were yesterday, I�m nothing if not not topical) about the Michael Jackson docuMENTALary.

You probably know most of the details: Bottle feeding his baby by thrusting milky teat into its ear, �twelve� year old Latino boys with stubble that have confused being his innocent little friend with sucking him off whilst he mourns the passing adolescence of Macauly Kulkin, etc. Has this happened so quickly? Wasn�t there was a time not too long ago, when the artist yet to be known as Micko "Whacko" Jacko bestrode the charts like a mono-gloved pop colossus?

His zany ways were surely just put down to his mega-stardom and were kind of endearing in a charming, chimp-loving lunatic kind of way. Nowadays, of course, his exponential eccentricities are well documented, especially given this most recent TV study by the furrow-browed and terminally curious friend to the tragic, Martin Bashir.

But for all his baby-dangling buffoonery and odd (but we're convinced, totally natural - listen to the man, he was JUST CHANGING LIKE ANY TEENAGER) facial morphing, it's impossible to ignore his huge musical legacy. He more or less defined 80s pop, when bad was the new good, moonwalking was the new, er, walking and Michael Jackson and fruitcake were yet to be mentioned in the same sentence outside of his confection-buying habits.

A complete raving barmpot now, of course, but there you go.