I am not leading you up the garden path with some vague notion that I am going to replace Paul Rodgers in Queen, but yes I was three behind the great man at Liverpool John Moores University’s graduation ceremony. Yeah that’s me in the middle with my head cut off in fetching pink! If can get a better one, you will be the first to know.

Dr May is the university’s Chancellor and, apart from composing some of the most memorable rock songs ever, he is pretty nifty on the old calculator too with a PhD in Astrophysics. So now I have broken the illusion for you, what’s my point? It’s about celebrity.

You may have read my piece about Michael Jackson which was written at the time of his death. The problem is that some celebrities believe the hype. Once  they believe the great things that are written about them, it becomes very difficult to come down from a high and do ordinary things like order a bag of chips, mow the lawn. And yet that’s where it’s at.

Basically, as human beings we need light, heat, food and love. That’s. We receive too much heat, spotlights and heaps of hedonistic fayre, the picture becomes extremely distorted. Metallica, my friend Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale, Robbie Williams all suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but noticed some time later that levitation alluded even them.

Dr Brian May is a shining example of someone who has always put the celebtrity baggage aside and carry on achieving. There is then a correlation between rock music and business. We are all in danger of believing our own hype. Grounding through study, reading and finding out about what other people have achieved past and present all help us to become better people. Achievement is one thing. Being a strong person to carry it all through, without treading on others, is another

This year seven of our students on the BA Business and Public Realtions degree received firsts. Many others achieved 2.s and 2.2s. Whatever the grade, the achievements are still to come the rewards are round the corner if you know where to look. Sometimes the answer is staring at you in the face. It was for me. Only last year I converted to teaching in higher education. It was the best move I have ever made and yet it took me six years to realise what I was really good at.

Sharing a stage with Dr May was an inspirational moment and one I am not shy of sharing.