Party On: Hero Brown

Never let it be said that I'm not up with the latest and greatest in popular culture (if you forget the way I raved about Armageddon...)

And to prove I've still got what it takes, I turned down the prospect of the glitzy parties and celebrity clamber up in Edinburgh this week to pay my respects to London's yoof culture scene.

Normally the mere prospect of an 18th birthday party is enough to send a shiver down my spine (wizened bitterness, I'm afraid) but since it was iD's "coming of age" party, I decided to make an exception.

Hard to believe, actually, that it's been 18 years since this supreme alternative style mag (alternative to The Face, that is) has been showing urban warriors the way forward. So it was deserved celebrations for the iD gang who, along with promoters Aesthetic Alliance, put on an "adults only" night at the Notting Hill Arts Club.

Now you can't really go wrong with a pervy party, and I was looking forward to it as much the next person. Of course, the only problem with an adults only theme is that people are tempted to pinch the props. It happened. By the time I made it to the bash (rammed to capacity; I spent most of the night with my nose against the next person's back), not only had the porn videos been whipped but also, rather worryingly, both the pounds 1.99 vibrator and the crucifix (decorated in fairy lights) from the confession booth. Rather basic behaviour for the purveyors of cool perhaps, but then, I'd have done the same if I'd got there first.

Anyway, whatever was lacking on the "confession" front was forgiven when I clapped eyes on the group of strippers who were strutting around the NHAC handing out warm muffins to startled punters.

Then the music cranked up an extra notch and I collapsed in shock. For, it seems, iD are in the throes of some post-commercial clubbing irony. Instead of a spot of drum n bass or similar, a Led Zeppelin poppet of a tune blasted from the DJ booth hot on the heels of The Emotions' The Best of My Love and the whole room erupted in unrestrained joy, stampeding towards the dancefloor. That is, apart from one well-known DJ, whose identity I'm unable to reveal (you know who you are - your secret's safe with me), since I inadvertently caught him in the ladies' loos catching the best of someone else's love, if you get my drift.

The celebs were of the no-fuss variety, which was a pleasant surprise. iD's managing editor Tobias Peggs was right when he called it a "deliberately low-key party with no PR back-slap crap", but really I think Tobias is being a tad modest.

After all, in amongst the style journos like Dazed's Rachel Newsome and iD's editor in chief Terry Jones MoWax master James Lavelle was seen shuffling around, while assorted spies also claimed to have seen Asian Underground's Talvin Singh, Julien Macdonald and iD photographer Juergen Teller grunging with the best of them.

As for the rest of the room, well, everyone looked like they could be really famous, and Tobias Peggs sounded very confident when he told me that, in a couple of years, most of these creative souls will be famous. Which, when you think about it, is how the Edinburgh Festival used to be before the glitz set in.

The marketing campaign may be "Virgin clothes, Virgin thinking" but, if you ask me, there wasn't much thought on display at the Selfridge's Virgin launch which I rocked along to this week at some ungodly hour in the morning (nine o'clock). Not only was Britain's favourite son, Richard Branson, absent (languishing on a Caribbean island, poor lamb), but the launch was limp. Hasn't anyone at Virgin heard of the benefits of a champagne breakfast?

The most exciting moment came when I tried out the "virtual mannequin". I stuffed my head through a hole and saw my face transplanted onto the dummy - thus "virtually wearing" Virgin clothes. However, since the mannequin was 6 foot tall and wearing men's casuals, it all seemed a bit ridiculous. Truth is, I should've followed my instinct and gone to the ICA's International Festival of Naked Poetry, where artists, drag queens and general kooks got up on stage and expressed themselves in the buff. And not a virgin among them. Which sounds a lot more fun than a clothing launch.