I'm sure a number of people must have stumbled across my livejournal before now and seen the East 17 avatar and been slightly confused. "Is this person a huge fan of the East London boy band of the same name?" I'm sure they've thought to themselves. The answer's no, obviously. By the time the whole Take That versus East 17 wars were in full swing and fingernail fights were being had about who was best by teenage girls at playtime, I was too old (and too male) for all the nonsense. The only vaguely related issue I cared about was whether or not The Stone Roses were better than the Happy Mondays - and the answer, obviously, is yes. In case you needed telling.

The main reason the East 17 avatar exists is as a cheeky ironic gesture, and also a little totem of defiance to all the bloggers out there who really believe they're better off living in North London (although certainly not financially). It's true to say that Walthamstow has very few good bars or places of entertainment, but the area I live in is cheap and nice enough, and close enough to the rest of London to be bearable - if you offered me a transfer to Kentish Town at the same cost, I'm afraid I'd probably say "No, sod off - it's over-rated, I can't be arsed to move house, and in any case here is just as good apart from the fact that I won't bump into Z-list celebrities as often, which in actual fact can only be a good thing".

The "Z list celeb" statement would not be true in the case of ex-members of East 17, however, who still live in the area. Last year Brian Harvey managed to get himself in the news by running himself over with his own car (no, don't ask how it's possible, I don't understand either) just around the corner from me. I didn't hear the screams, but I did scratch my head at the subsequent headlines. Rather unfortunately, East 17 have always been the subject of a certain degree of mockery, but it wasn't always thus. When boy band main movers Take That arrived at the turn of the nineties, their first big hit was with a cover of a Barry Manilow track. East 17, on the other hand, broke through with a single that seemed to borrow sonically from those arch trance/ techno terrorists the KLF. Infinitely cooler to say the least. Also, Take That always had the appearance of being a giant bundle of stage school students or at the very least wannabes, whereas East 17 were "4 Real". A bunch of working class lads (and trained labourers) attempting to crack the pop charts, and succeeding. Their story is potentially a lot more interesting.

I was a bit let down by the documentary about their reformation that was on the television a couple of nights ago, then, which showed that lead songwriter Tony Mortimer appeared to have turned into the most disgustingly cliched kind of ex-celebrity going. A regular worshipper at the Church of Spiritualism (literally), he made his announcements about the future of the band with his eyes continually gazing into the middle distance, like some prophet or seer. I don't know why so many wealthy celebrities end up like this. It almost seems to be some sort of coping mechanism. I don't doubt psychologists in the future will start referring to it as "Halliwells Syndrome". What was most noteable about Mr Mortimer in this documentary was that he seemed the most troubled member, with a barrage of psychological problems behind him since his success, whereas the more skint fellow members of The 17 simply went back to their day jobs as roofers and plumbers when the game was up, and seemed relatively level-headed.

The gig they reformed for was perfectly OK in terms of musical output if you like that sort of thing, but visually did look as if a bunch of ageing labourers had downed tools for the evening to have a bit of a dance on stage. Which, of course, is more or less exactly what it was - again, no accusations of pretence can really be thrown at the boys, and I feel a bit evil for pointing out the obvious. Any hope of their careers being furthered on the back of this was ended when Tony Mortimer punched Brian Harvey in the face during an argument, and Brian drove around Walthamstow ranting his head off to the camera. "Oh, that's it! That's it! If he thinks so little of me that he can just DO THAT to me it's over! I wouldn't work with him for a million pounds!" he rambled. "Here, we're passing Walthamstow Dog Track - here's where it all began, and NOW HERE'S WHERE IT ALL ENDS!" he snarled. I'll bet the dog track has never been quite as iconic as that before.

Surprisingly, Tony Mortimer didn't share his point of view, believing his wounded friend would come around. He declared that his punch wasn't really a big deal and that Brian would calm down about it whilst calmly staring into the middle distance again, and nodding his head slowly. So much for "spirituality" then.

It's actually a bit shameful that the only band of any commercial note Walthamstow has ever produced is East 17. I periodically get Myspace invites from other local bands, but they're almost always dreadful. The last such act had a lead singer who wore round Lennon glasses and a Union Jack tie, and clearly wanted to party like it was 1995. They sounded awful, too, like a hundredth rate Oasis tribute band. Compared to them, East 17 were cutting edge at the time. But really, I suppose that's not saying very much.