Fevered Egos

Generally, I have no interest in celebrities, celebrity gossip, or celebrity reality TV shows. The very idea of 'celebrity' is horrible, appalling, and any number of other derogatory comments, and the fact that people should pay real money to read about the exploits of the unjustly famous is something I find weird beyond measure. People like Paris Hilton and Pete Doherty are undoubtedly, to quote Bill Hicks, "fevered egos, tainting our collective unconscious and making us pay a higher psychic price than we realise" - and the world would be a quantifiably better place if we all just stopped caring about them.

That said, I make two exceptions: Michael Jackson and Heather Mills-McCartney. The former is so odd and his story so bizarre that I can't not be interested in it - like watching a surrealist satire on modern life. The latter, meanwhile, is just so plain awful that I simply must know what happens next. More like watching a train crash.

I strongly dislike Heather Mills. Let's get that in the open straight away. She strikes me as a money-grabber, a fantasist, and a liar, and totally undeserving of any of Paul McCartney's money - money which he earned legitemately, rather than through just marrying somebody rich. But her recent performances had earned her my sympathy. She did an interview on British TV the other day in which she honestly came across as a woman on the very edge of suicide, and her claims - that the media frenzy surrounding her was pushing her to the brink - were compelling. Even if, as most newspaper people point out, she has only herself to blame for stoking up that frenzy in the first place, that still doesn't excuse the behaviour of the British press, which in most scenarios such as this would compare negatively with a pack of sharks.

And then there she is, the very next day, giving an interview in the US blaming Paul for the divorce. And I think, well done, Heather. Cry foul at media intrusion, then show yourself to be a hypocrite and liar - and, worse, a petty manipulative harpy - at the very next available opportunity. That'll get the public behind you.

Meanwhile Paul McCartney behaves in an honourable, respectable and professional manner throughout, almost his only comment being: "The only solution is to remain dignified. If I don't keep a silence about it, I lose this idea of being dignified."

Dignity? A word so rarely heard these days that it's almost become antiquated. Now here's a celebrity worth talking about.