My little China girl

David Bowie, my most high profile and least effective spy, has reached 60. It's 30 years since he wrote his love poem to me.

How strange that the years continue to pass. Bowie first came to the attention of Madame Mao after her young disciple Michael Connerty started sending excited reports from his bedroom in the 1970s.

The Cultural Revolution was at its height back then and the prospect of using Bowie’s skeletal form as a Trojan spaceman to infect the capitalist western Christian/Judean construct was one that was too good to miss.

Through Connarty I sent a number of missives to the pop star. where he became the Thin White Duke I urged him to become instead the Short Yellow Comrade. Where he wore the garish face paint of Alladin Sane I urged the more correct serge blue suit and cap, thick glasses and a bicycle.

Hah! That Bowie … no imagination.