So finally we're at the best bit of my story - CosmoGIRL!

I was at Company magazine when I saw that a new magazine for teens had launched in the US - only this wasn't the usual downmarket mag with cheesy writing and free publicity shots - this was a magazine that not only made you feel great but also had all the high quality photography and writing of a grown-up glossy. CosmoGIRL! was gorgeous, aspirational and slightly kooky in a good way! And I desperately wanted to be a part of it.

It took about ten interviews (no kidding) before I finally got the job as editor of CosmoGIRL! But the moment they told me has to be one of the happiest in my life shortly followed by slight panic. It was February 2001. They wanted the magazine to hit the newsstand in September and all I had was an empty shell of a tiny airless office.

I needed a 'wow' cover, an ideas-busting team and someone to make sure it all actually happened (usually known as the chief sub editor). In the event we got all that and much much more. And on 12 September 2001, both the first issue of CosmoGIRL! and cosmogirl.co.uk reached YOU. Cue huge celebrations and crazy dancing to Five (hey, they were big at the time!).

What next? Well, those of you who are good at maths will be able to work out that it's our 5th birthday this September. Since launch we've got smaller and cuter in size, won a heap of awards and done some madcap things just for you (as those at the Gareth Gates, Blue and Blazin' Squad casting events will testify to). But ultimately CosmoGIRL! is still the same today as it was when we launched: the most feelgood, be-the-best, inspiring and interactive magazine out there.

Enjoy!

That's it for me...next up CosmoGIRL! Celebrity Editor Dan is going to tell you how to get his job and what your favourite celebrities are really like...

So slick on your lippy, because this is by far the most glamorous part of my how-I-became-editor-of-CosmoGIRL! story. And no, it wasn't the point when I joined Vogue or Cosmopolitan but the point I became a lowly reporter on film journal Screen International.

As a magazine that anyone who is anyone in the film industry reads, Screen International morphed from a weekly into a daily paper at the star-packed Cannes Film Festival. Sleep became secondary to getting the story, which of course involved blagging your way into every money-no-object showbiz party going.

Oh my! Cannes parties make Vanity Fair's post-Oscar bash look like a village fete. Here are two moments from those nights that are etched on my memory for ever:

Glam Memory 1: The Trainspotting party - beautiful villa, hot-band-of-the-moment Leftfield playing, wall-to-wall celebrities, unbelievable goody bags - you name it, it was there including Leonardo DiCaprio at the bar. He's taller in real life than you'd imagine but still choke-on-your-Red Bull good-looking and of course I convinced myself that we had one of those eyes-met-across-the-room moments you read about in trashy novels. But - and my friend still teases me about this - he DID look at me and when I walked over to the bar LEONARDO DICAPRIO STARTED TALKING TO ME! We had quite a long chat (OK, it was probably about five minutes but let's not ruin the fantasy) and then I tried to get him onto the dancefloor. That's where it all fell apart cause I started pogo-ing around to Leftfield in fantastically un-Hollywood fashion and er, he disappeared!

Glam Memory 2: The Velvet Goldmine party - ditto above but way more exclusive. In fact I'm probably the only journalist there so I do what any self-respecting human being does when they're way out of their depth and retreat to the bathroom. It's engaged but within seconds the door opens and out pops Sigourney Weaver. (She's kind of the forerunner of Angelina Jolie in a take-no-prisoners feisty female role way.) She's also taller in real life especially when wearing head-to-toe white silk teamed with skyscraper Manolo Blahniks. "Do I look OK?" she asks me as if she really wanted the opinion of a mere Levi's-and-sparkly-top mortal. We spent the next five minutes trying on feather boas to see if both of us could look more 'Velvet Goldmine'.

more to come in next blog!

Back again....So, this is about how I became editor of CosmoGIRL! and I haven't even mentioned the magazine yet...that's because I'd got to the bit in my story that featured style magazines like iD and The Face, and CosmoGIRL! hadn't even been thought of yet (more on that later though, I promise).

So I asked - actually that should read 'hounded' - The Face for work experience. The Face no longer exists, but back then it was one of the best magazines ever invented - seriously. Most of the top photographers and writers you see on big billboards and in the national newspapers today started out in the pages of The Face. What did I do as a contributor? Well everything from interviewing hardcore techno DJs in the middle of fields at 3 o'clock in the morning (it was the rave era), documenting the rise of drum & bass and discussing the importance of visible panty lines. You know, life-changing stuff like that!

I LOVED my job. The only problem was - and not many people tell you this when you start out as a journalist - I was sooooo poor. I couldn't even feed the electricity meter. So I got the first fulltime reporting job that came along...on a TV technology magazine. I swear I didn't understand a word of what I was writing (thank goodness for great editors) and luckily moved onto a film magazine called Screen International before they handed me my P45!

...more to come