Where were you when Michael Jackson died?

It's an odd question isn't it? And yet, for some strange reason at the times of the momentous, and particularly the unexpected deaths of our generation, we ask: Where were you?"

My parents always talked about the Kennedy assassination. That was their one big date. How many days are there like that in a generation? I can think of four in my lifetime.

I was at Brunel University in Uxbridge when Kurt Cobain died. I vaguely remember that the Brazilian motor racing champion Ayrton Senna died in the same week. Wow, that was a huge shock, especially for a student who basically did nothing but play loud music all week and lie in bed on Sundays watching Grand Prix.

Bizarrely, my overriding memory of Cobain's death is that I had a ticket to see Nirvana playing in Brixton about one month later. Rather than hold on to the ticket for posterity, I went back to the ticket company and got my money back. Hey, I was a broke student!

And of course I remember where I was when Princess Diana died. You're basically not British if you can't remember that. I was in Staines, Middlesex, for the record, and I'd got pretty drunk the night before it happened at the only 'nightclub' in Staines. I recall that we'd all worn sports hats to the club. As the place rarely had customers, we all got in despite our headgear. Anyway, it was a curious hangover that September morning.

Oh, and rather randomly, I had borrowed a Lotus Elan the weekend of Diana's funeral and shall always remember being slightly disappointed that everyone was inside watching the funeral on the TV when I wanted them to be admiring me in my borrowed sports car.

And now Michael Jackson. I was in the office in San Jose when I heard the news. It was again a bizarre experience. The whole floor of usually reserved and studious executives and their assistants erupted with chatter from behind cubicle walls and cries of "Oh my God! Michael Jackson's dead!"

And that's it for me so far. Michael Jackson. Princess Diana. Kurt Cobain. Ayrton Senna.

What about you? Whose deaths would you say are the milestone of your generation?