ARE you as mystified by the cult of the celebrity DJ as I am?

I know there must be a knack to it. But I can’t work out what it is. Last year I was secretly delighted to find the chart topping DJ we shared the bill with at a society gathering had been refused admission because he didn’t have the right colour wristband.

The difference between us however is that we were paid peanuts for shifting our heavy gear and drum kit up three flights of stairs. He got paid an alleged £50,000 for turning up with a laptop and an attitude problem.

Recently however, having been offered an arbitrary sum of money, I was convinced to join the DJ club – for one night only. I enlisted the help of my Neapolitan colleague Carlo Matassa, widely known around Kidlington as “that little Chinese fellow”.

We turn up at the venue – a trendy bar on St Clement’s – to find the DJ decks dismantled in a crate. These we approach with caution, like Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing about to scale Mount Everest. Carlo plugs some wires in. I turn the switch on. To our surprise nothing explodes.

The atmosphere is great, the staff are young and hip.

An energetic well-dressed crowd bob along in front of us. But both of us feel ridiculous standing up there without our instruments.

A jezebel with wild hair asks Carlo for his phone number so he hands her his business card. I slide the bottle of red wine I bought in the shop into my pocket and down half of it in the loo. I might be a celebrity DJ but there’s no way you’ll find me paying pub prices.

There’s a vintage theme so we’ve carried in crates of ancient vinyl.

Some of it sounds older than the combined age of our audience.

We look incredibly retro too.

I think about that overpaid DJ with his laptop and feel momentarily proud because we may be poor but we can lay claim to authenticity. And then one of the record decks breaks down.

An awkward silence cuts through the room. Young women no longer gaze up as though they’re desperate to sleep with us. Carlo takes his mobile phone out of his coat, turns to me and delivers the following words in a thick Italian accent: “It’s okay – I’ve got Spotify Premium”.

So much for authenticity. Now with access to 20 million songs, he goes for the jugular. He plays Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer.

The crowd go nuts. I look down at my puny selection of 45s and despair.

I conclude that no matter how impressive our record collections, no matter how extensive our knowledge of obscure soul music all people really want to do is get trashed and listen to the likes of Bon Jovi, Slade and Wham.

Just find me a celebrity DJ who plays that stuff and I’m all in.