George, Jon, Mikey and Roy

I’ve got fantastic memories of being 12. That time before teenage hormones and adult expectations start to burden us is a golden time of our lives. It’s the time of unfettered enthusiasm and energy and so many formative experiences – first kisses, crushes and adventures. Horizons are expanding as we seize on ideas and assert our identity.

Anyone who remembers me from when I was 12 will probably sum me up with the words ‘Boy George fan’. I was glued to the radio, TV, magazines, newspaper and records featuring the wonderful George.

Most of my schoolfriends had yet to declare their preference for a particular sort of music or allegiance to a band. This was to be the time of obsessive fandom. Duran Duran, Wham, Spandau Ballet or Culture Club – you couldn't like them all. I was the Boy George girl.

Internationally renowned Boy George fan

As well as all their music, I had badges, posters and stickers galore. I made fabric cases for my complete collection of singles and albums (including some imports and picture discs), and covered my Culture Club scrapbooks with montages of quotes and photos snipped out of magazines.

I regularly wrote to – and even visited – the fan club. A few times I hung around outside George's home where I met up with some of my similarly George-obsessed penpals. I'd work George into conversations, quote his quips in my essays and discuss imaginary dreams of hanging out the Jon Moss and the Duran Duran hunks with my classmate Jo.

Another of my classmates paid tribute to my obsession by dressing as George with a hat trimmed with coloured plaits for a drama performance. We held a fundraising three-legged race along the seafront (actually a 17-legger) and I donned a customised man's shirt with huge coloured letters and symbols, like my idol's. Once I celebrated George's birthday by making a cake decorated as his famous BOY cap.

Inevitably, my favourite band's fame waxed and waned after a few years and the band eventually splintered as George's drug problems became apparent. I continued to follow his every word and went to as many solo gigs as I could. My cunning move to London made it all the easier.

My admiration and love for George has grown and aged along with us both. We've had our ups and downs and have evolved into quite different people from when I first declared my interest in the 'flamboyant cross-dresser who sings blue-eyed soul' back in 1983.

But my love for Culture Club isn't the same. The group reformed for a couple of years at the start of the century and it was wonderful to see them back on Top Of The Pops and in concert. Teenage over-excitement came flooding back and with every heartfelt lyric I was transported back to being 12. Then they disappeared again and George went back to DJing and pursuing various musical and fashion endeavours.

This week, Culture Club played to a packed house at Heaven nightclub underneath Charing Cross station. It’s the very venue where they play their first London gig on their first tour and is an iconic club for anyone who loves the 80s. I was there – as was a poster asking ‘Duran Duran who?’. It made George chuckle when he peered at it.

Culture Club being back is brilliant. Their ‘oldies’ as they call their back catalogue still stand strong and they’ve got some great new tracks for their new album. The enthusiasm with which Roy Hay attacked his guitar and played the rock god all over again was immense. The whole band’s delight at playing together was infectious. As for me, I loved being transported back to my first Culture Club gig in 1984 and being filled up anew with energetic verve, fearlessness and simply enjoying an all-consuming unaffected love.

Zingy Lime Muffins

I'm a great one for seeing what we've got in the vegetable drawer or fruit bowl and making up recipes based on them. The internet makes it really easy to find successful combinations that other people have tried, but I often end up winging it on the ingredients front. 

Our great local market (a proper one rather than a fancy artisan farmers' market) sells great value, great quality fruit and veg. For simplicity, items at Lewisham Market are priced a £1 per bowl. "Pound a bowl! Pound a bowl!" comes the refrain. Last week, I needed both lemons and limes and ended up with a mixed bowl from the market of about six of each.

This week I had a few leftover limes that I knew wouldn't keep until we get back from a few days away. I was also wondering if I could rustle something up that we could munch on our long journey to Devon.

At first I thought I’d make a lime drizzle cake as an easy alternative to the lemon drizzle cake that's become a bit of a standby. But I didn't really want the hassle of eating slices of cake in the car and it's not long since I made lemon drizzle cake anyway.

Lime Muffins seemed like a good idea instead. There's a really easy recipe online for the basic mix. Better yet, it uses vegetable oil rather than butter. We slather butter on toast, so rarely have enough left over for baking. Here's a summary of the Taste Of Home recipe.

2 cups plain flour plus 2 teaspoons baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

1 cup of caster sugar

Third of a cup of vegetable oil

Quarter of a cup of milk

Two eggs

3 tablespoons of lime juice

Teaspoon and a half of grated lime rind

Beat the eggs and stir in the wet ingredients, then mix them into the dry ingredients. Spoon into 12 cupcake cases and bake in a cupcake tin at 200 degrees C for 18-20 minutes. Cool in the cupcake tin. 

I added a whole juicy lime's worth of juice to the mix rather than the three tablespoons the recipe suggested. I also added a whole zested lime rind.

The cakes took the full 20 minutes to bake and rose nicely. I'd used self-raising flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder rather than the plain flour and 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder in the original recipe. The cakes had a nice rise – but they looked rather plain. 

Tangy icing-topped lime muffin

Time for a nicely iced topping, I decided. As you'll surmise from the photos, I've not used a piping bag for at least 15 years. Nonetheless, I mixed up 4oz of butter, a cup and a half of icing powder, some milk and a bit more lime juice and zest to see what transpired. The taste was glorious: both sweet and very tangy. 

The extra juice made the icing runnier than ideal and I should have added a mite more icing sugar to make it a little stiffer. It piped easily but didn't set into swirls. But it was the taste rather than the look that I was really after. 

I'll add another tablespoon of icing sugar next time – which probably won't be long given the price of limes at Lewisham Market.

Zingy Lime Muffins