I'd like to put you in a trance

Timeslip moment again...

We've beamed down in this week 25 years ago, in 1992: HM the Queen's annus horribilis (with the divorce of Ann and Cap'n Mark, the scandalous split of Andy'n'Fergie, the separation of Charles and Di and the near-destruction of parts of the historic Windsor Castle, her favourite palace); the year of Boris Yeltsin, the BCCI banking scandal, Steffi Graf, the Barcelona Olympics, Damien Hirst's "shark", PM John Major (who won the general election), the Maastricht Treaty, Betty Boothroyd, Euro Disney, the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Nigel Mansell, the dismantling of Yugoslavia, the Los Angeles riots, the election of President Bill Clinton, and the births of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne - and Ab Fab.

In the news in October 1992: the fallout from so-called "Black Wednesday" (the UK's withdrawal from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism) continued, fuelling a continuing recession; protest rallies were held in Washington to challenge the Bush administration's lack of action on AIDS (and the AIDS Memorial Quilt was born); there were protests, too, in the UK about the planned closure of a string of coal mines and over 30,000 job losses; the Mozambique civil war finally ended after sixteen years; a huge earthquake in Cairo killed 543 people and injured more than 6,500; in the ascendant were Lithuania (which held a referendum on its first democratic constitution since it seceded from the former Soviet Union), the Cartoon Network (the world's first TV channel devoted to animation) and Sinéad O'Connor (who ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live); but we bade our sad farewells to the multi-talented actor Denholm Elliott. In our cinemas: Patriot Games, Beauty and the Beast and Strictly Ballroom. On telly: Later... with Jools Holland, Gladiators and The Big Breakfast.

And in the UK charts? At the top of the heap at #1 was "one-hit wonder" Tamsin Archer with Sleeping Satellite; also present and correct in the Top Ten were Bizarre Inc, Boyz II Men, The Shamen, Dr Alban, Simple Minds, Prince, Take That, Undercover and Doctor Spin (whooo?). But, just landed - and about to cause a media shit-storm - was Our Glorious Leader Queen Madge, with this all-time smutty classic...

Madonna - Erotica

Can it really be a quarter of a century since we first met "Dita"...?