One of you is an emotional child, the other likes hanging out with rock stars: not the ideal recipe for loong-term love, but that's the lot of the 'rock couple'. Then there's the groupies, the press, the drugs....

Alongside pictures of: Noel, Meg, Liam & Patsy sitting as couples on a long sofa in a great Jill Furmanovsky black and white shot; Noel and Meg; and Liam and Patsy

Noel Gallagher & Meg Mathews

The 21st Century Paul & Linda?

How they met: November 1994 after a Q Awards party. Mathews accompanied MTV presenter Rebecca de Ruvo (with whom Gallagher was going out at the time) to Gallagher's room in the Landmark Hotel. "Things were being strewn everywhere, a complete mess with his Q award on top of the TV. I think his bill came to something like five grand, and that was just his drinks tab," she reminisces in 'Getting High', Paolo Hewitt's Oasis biography.

How long together: Four years, and counting.

Romance:The relationship didn't take off immediately. They became friends first, and Gallagher slept on Mathews's sofa when he was looking for a new flat. The affair with de Ruvo, however, had fizzled out by Christmas and by New Year 1995 Gallagher and Mathews realised they were in love. "Wonderwall" was to become their something.

In 1996 they bought a four-storey house in Belsize Park, renovated it with psychedelic deep pile carpets and a 14-foot-long fish tank, and called it 'Supernova Heights'. They also acquired a country pile in Chalfont St Giles. Favouring kitsch above restraint, they were married in May 1997 in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. "There is a word to sum up me and Noel and it wouldn't be love," mused Mathews. "It's a lot stronger than love."

Mathews clearly enjoys being a celebrity wife, hanging out with Kate Moss, shopping at Prada and Gucci, driving a Porsche Carrera, and buying Arran jumpers for her dogs. Her Sunday Times column reads like a cross between a press release and someone who's just won the [Football Lottery] Pools.

Mathews was running a DJ booking agency when she met Gallagher. Shortly after they got together she landed a job at Creation organising promo parties. Since then she has set up her own PR company, 2 Active [with Fran Cutler, a long-time friend] and regaled us with weekly tales of life in the fast lane with "chums".

Strife: None to speak of. In the beginning Mathews's DJ agency struggled and she found it hard being dependent. "I didn't have a job and I felt [Noel] was thinking I'd given up my job because of who he is..." She also found Gallagher to be closed and self-protective, "but then I realised he's like that with everyone." Nowadays she gets more column inches than him. When Gallagher said recently that Mathews's party-organising was keeping her away from housework, she remarked, "Noel can always catch up with me by coming to the parties."

Relate say:"They strike me as being a more conventional pair than most rock couples. They don't flirt with the press. Despite features on their house in Vogue, or Meg's partying, they keep their actual marriage private."

Liam Gallagher & Patsy Kensit

Mrs Jim Kerr meets Mr Cuntybollocks. Unbelievably, it's love.

How they met: December 1995 at a party in Manchester. Kensit was bemused by the way Galagher kept coming to sit next to her and yet not saying anything. The party went on to Kensit's room at the Holiday Inn, and at the end of the night, Gallagher asked for her number before heading back to his hotel. When he woke the next morning he jumped up and shouted: "Patsy-f*****g-Kensit! I've got her f*****g number!"

How long together: Three years (just about).

Romance Soon after becoming an item they went on holiday to Antigua. Kensit watched him walking down the road one afternoon, "shimmering in the heat waves, like Lawrence of Arabia", and fell in love. He, too, was mad for it. Later he was heard proclaiming: "I'm growing older...I want a nice gaff and to come home to a beautiful woman, and that is Patsy. I want to be with her forever." He caused ructions in the summer of '96 by leaving an American tour to look for a house with Kensit and her son James (the offspring of a previous marriage to Simple Minds's Jim Kerr). The couple settled on a £1.25 million abode in Primrose Hill, and the two of them graced the cover of Vanity Fair. In April 1997 they married at Marylebone Register Office. The wild man of rock, it appeared, had been tamed by the well-heeled actress.

Strife: Not so fast. Their relationship has always been tempestuous, and within two months of the wedding, he moved into a hotel for three days following an argument. The rows were over his manic drinking binges, but, it has been suggested that Kensit is pretty volatile herself. "They love each other to death but they also drive each other crazy. The main problem is they are completely ill-suited," the Daily Mail reported. In September 1998 Gallagher threw Kensit and James out of the house after a heavy drinking session. There was talk of divorce, but by Christmas the couple were patching it up.

Relate say: "There's an intensity about this relationship. It's either all brilliant or all bad. They live their lives at these extremes, it's become a lifestule for them. I wonder if they're marrying the idea of marrying. These public blow-outs, it does seem to be Patsy's way."

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c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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