Gertsamtkunstwerk

Sun Snippets

Marc Almond is out of intensive care, which is excellent news. I didn't blog his accident. But I did check for regular updates.

Michael Jackson's kids will get to see their mother for the first time in four years. So gratifying to know that another generation of children are being brought up dysfunctional. No doubt for the next fifty years or more we will be reading a catalogue of the whacky weird and downright dangerous behaviour of the Jackson offspring. And I can't really work out who is worse the mother or the father.

Sharon Stone may be 46 but she looks sensational as she hits the town in this stunning white gown yesterday. Good grief, imagine breaking that rule book says that women of 46 have no business looking sensational. I honestly seriously thought that once women pass thirty they all turn magically overnight into wizened hags.

Rebecca Loos is writing a book. Extraordinary really. There's a part of me that says 'yeah love, but will it be any good?' And another part that says. But it will sell, because for whatever reason, her name will attract just enough recognition in station and airport booksellers for it toddle off the shelves regardless of quality...

Do You Know Who I Am?

Joan anger at frisk strip

Actress Joan Collins spoke last night of her �humiliation� after Heathrow airport security staff ordered her to strip off items of clothing in front of other passengers.

That's awful. She's not a young woman, and it must be humiliating - certainly an invasion of privacy - to be forced to strip in front of random strangers.

The ex-Dynasty soap queen had to remove her hat, sunglasses, jacket and shoes

Hat, sunglasses, jacket and shoes. How humiliating!

I went through airport security once and set off the metal detector. I was humiliated. In front of other passengers. Turns out I had a cigarette lighter in my pocket. Would you believe that those b*stards then frisked me? They even gave me the right to have a woman doing it?

Another time I had to have my walking boots scanned and swabbed. The sheer utter humiliation. I did yell out very loudly "Don't you know who I am?" But they were not impressed by my claim to be one of Brixton Hill's top bloggers.

Spoilt bitch. If I were the security woman I would have her for assault.

Celebrity Crushes

I think we all have them. At some stage of our life. When you're a teenager, it's an important part of growing up - learning about the intensity of one's own feelings without fear of STIs, pregnancy, or even that awful self-conscious blushing, which has to be the worst of the three evils for teenagers.

When my friend was dumped by a boyfriend-(ish) with whom she was disproportionately infatuated, I suggested she should focus on Sean Connery - I don't recall now whether that was before or after I said "Pull yourself together, woman..."

For a rational mature adult, a Celebrity Crush can provide hours of harmless entertainment. (I have just finished watching my numero uno Celebrity Crush conduct La Traviata on Artsworld). Used sensibly, Celebrity Crushes can open the door to a whole world of opportunities and, er, other minor celebrity crushes. Fall madly in lust with opera singer Christmas 1980, get into opera. Maintain that lust throughout 80s and 90s and remain into opera. Fall madly passionately in lust again with said opera singer in Autumn 2002 and, well...

When I was a teenager, we (about half my school) had a Collective Celebrity Crush on a team. That team being Manchester United. It was a wonderful shared community experience, transcending age, class and even geographical location. What was the best thing that these were real, accessible people, living, shopping worshipping and, er, drinking in our locality.

We often used to go The Cliff training ground. Armed with camera and autograph book, it was a helluva way to pass a boring day in half term. Or, even better, a Holy Day of Obligation, or Speech Day Holiday (don't ask...!).

"Hi Mark, that was a great goal you scored Saturday. Bryan, will you autograph this picture I took last time, Clayton, can I have a kiss please, Gordon, d'you remember us from Question of Sport?" All a bit teenagery and girlie, but we had a good laugh with some of them. Stand up Steve Pears, the coolest goalie, ever!

Then there was Dot and Jackie. If you ever went near Old Trafford, let alone the Cliff, in the 1980s you must have encountered Dot and Jackie and friends. Oh dear! They weren't exactly young: in fact one of them was the mother of another one. The youngest were surely in their twenties. Oh boy, did they do Celebrity Crushes Big Style. The players were terrified of them.

They would go all screechy and hysteric whenever the most minor reserve player emerged from the building. Their catch phrase was "Start panicking" As in "Start Panicking, Deiniol's coming..." I was once in the loos at OT, and saw on the wall "Dot luvs Deiniol; Jackie luvs Clayton", and I actually got a dizzy spell. I met someone called Diane at The Cliff, who was friends with someone in my class but also friends with Graeme Hogg through someone she was at college with.

At the time Graeme, and Mark Hughes and a couple other of the young players were in digs in a house a few doors from the Cliff. We all knew it. My mates and most sensible people would walk past and say "Sparky and Hedger's house". Not Dot and Jackie. One night they sat on the wall into the small hours of the morning calling "Mark! Graeme! We're waiting for you. Mark! Graeme!" Diane was quite disgusted as she told this story. And Graeme, bless him, came out to chat to them and ask them to leave...

Once I was at OT for a Reserves match. I was with my brother and a couple of friends. We were sitting happily watching the match when Dot, Jackie and friends came and sat near us. "Start panicking, Deiniol's got the ball..." ad nauseam. So we moved to the next block of seats. About fifteen minutes later, Dot Jackie etc came and sat near us again, and we moved, again, along with a handful of other people who were sat in the vicinity.

After half time, a few of us decided to sit at the other side of the tunnel, and soon Dot, Jackie etc joined us. A dozen people moved to the next block of seats. By the time the players were leaving the field, there was a mass movement of a hundred or more people changing seats to get away from Dot Jackie etc.

I think the Carrington training ground is guarded by SAS Ghurkas.

Usenet - oh Usenet. There us somebody who uses a variety of aliases and is obsessed by Cheryl Studer - a perfectly pleasant second- or third-rate retired soprano.

He uses every opportunity to post about Cheryl Studer. In German.

When the Rene Jacobs Le nozze di figaro won the Gramophone award, he posted details and a review of a Cheryl Studer Figaro. When somebody wanted advice on Beethoven's Ninth, he posted details and a review of Studer's Beethoven's Ninth. There are currently sensible intelligent threads titled "La Forza del Destino first night at the ROH, Covent Garden", "Forza: Defending the Indefensible" and "der rosenkavalier (vancouver opera)". There are multiple posts from this person advertising Cheryl Studer's Der Rosenkavalier and, presumably because Cheryl never recorded Forza, there are threads called "Aida first night at the ROH, Covent Garden" and "Aida: Defending the Indefensible"

To quote a respected rmc person:

This is just garbage from a person on rec.music.opera known variously as "Gabriel Bocanegra" or "Pineiro." He is an asshole, a troll, an antisemite, and apparently a stalker of the soprano Ch*r*l St*d*r, with whom he is obsessed. Some believe that he once worked at the Harvard School of Health, and that he has since been fired from that position.

Pinheid's obsessions appear essentially to be as follows:

1. St*d*r is the greatest.
2. Any other soprano who dares to sing a role championed by St*d*r must be
brought down by gossip and innuendo.
3. James Levine is the most evil person in the world because he is Jewish,
because he leads the Metropolitan Opera, because he causes the advancement
of sopranos other than St*d*r, and because he is supposedly a sexual
deviant (at least, according to gossip and innuendo).
4. Zubin Mehta is evil because he supports the Great Satan of Zionism, but
most of all because he once fired St*d*r from a production in Munich.
5. The newsgroup rec.music.opera is a haven for Jews, homosexuals, and
people who like sopranos other than St*d*r, so it is necessary to increase
the noise level to the point where the newsgroup is essentially useless.

Please, if you should see a useless post from Pinheid in the future (they are easy to recognize, and often consist of the same tiresome reprinted review or anti-Semitic rant, over and over and over), just ignore it and don't respond to it. If you *must* respond, there is no need whatsoever to quote the entire text of it in your response. It is a waste of bandwidth and it is an irritation to those of us who believe that the world would be a much better place if Pinheid were to walk in front of an MBTA trolley.

A very good friend once suggested that I had stalker tendencies. But I have seen the real thing, and I am so many million miles removed from that...

La vendetta continua

Alan Titchmarsh came up in conversation today.

A colleague, who has very different tastes from me - including reading of the Daily Mail - pulled A Face. So I went into rant mode and she nodded vigorously. She had also spotted him in the crowd during the England-West Indies Final at the Oval; when I said that we had reflected that he'll be doing cricket commentary next, her even more vigorous nodding indicated she hand her husband had had that same discussion. With distaste.

Question for the guys

In these pictures in The Sun, who lookes sexier, Samantha Morton or Calista Flockhart

And why?

(oh, and gals, don't be shy at answering; the guys often answer gal-only questions...!)

DB07 Finished

M&S give Beckham the boot - what will my nephew do for clothes now? Oh, football shirts, football shirts, football shirts...!

Mind you, he bought some DB07 wristbands the day before England-Portugal, and he wore them continuously in Ireland, even when explaining to assorted adult second cousins exactly why Beckham is finished and past-it.

Oh, the fickleness. Ronaldo's the man. My nephew's friend has a goldfish called Cristiano. I remember when all goldfish were called Ryan or Eric...!

More legends...

The Sun misses the point entirely, in suggesting comparisons between Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Thingy, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sienna Miller, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Liv Tyler on the one hand and Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo, Liz Taylor, Bridget Bardot, Katherine Hepburn, Sophie Loren and Ava Gardner on the other.

I'm not knocking the former list, most of whom possess some talent, in some cases, considerable.

But, IMO, the second list is of people whose fame transcends whatever films they were in. I would put Liz Taylor as the least of them, but she is more 'legendary' than any of the first list.

Still collecting Living Legends below.

Michael Portillo

Resistance is futile

Nobody has been reborn in quite the way Polly Portaloo has.

He was one of the most right-wing, and therefore nasty, members of Major's government. His electoral defeat was the iconic moment of the 1997 election. When he was defeated for Tory leader race there was much sniggering. I sniggered for different reasons - the Tory Party rejecting him, as it then rejected Kenneth Clarke, and choosing Iain Duncan Smith, was good news for Labour.

He was never straightforward, of course. His father was a leftist professor exiled from Spain because of his opposition to Franco. Private sources tell me his mother was a volunteer with Amnesty International during the 90s, and everyone used to be amazed that this nice, humanitarian woman was his mother. He and Diane Abbott were in a theatre group together as teenagers; she said he was known as a dangerous Lefty.

Now he is the brightest and the best of the Conservative party, and, thus, stands down at the next election. He has an insight, lacking in much of the Tory party, into the issues that affect people who ought to be Tory voters - late youth/early middle-age professionals, urban or dormitory-town-domiciled, who really don't care about the sexual preferences or lifestyle choices of others, and who see Europe as the future, although they are sceptical about the bureaucratic and economic practicalities.

It was rumoured he was going to join the Labour Party. I'd be very surprised. Remove my partisan hat for a moment and I become an observer and student of politics. The Conservative Party needs him, like it has needed Keneth Clarke. The Conservatives' disarray is shown by its rejection of him, for being 'exotic'.

So instead, he is carving a career as Arts pundit. and, I have to say, a jolly good one. In this piece, and yesterday on the Proms TV broadcast, he said he doesn't read music, and doesn't believe he has a good ear. However, he speaks with intelligence and a genuine, if moderated, passion about the music he loves.

He grabs the headline by welcoming the dumbing-down and marketing of music, but soon launches a cogent argument that says 'so what', in the end great music speaks for itself. Moderated passion and intelligence.

It's immaterial whether or not he remains an MP. Kensington and Chelsea will always be Tory, as the sun will always rise in the East. But I find his writings on music and theatre to be just right for me.

Paul Newman

You know, it almost seems sacrilegious categorising this post into 'Celebrities'. Really, I should have another category devoted to Legends...

I have just watched the recording I made of said Hollywood Legend on Jonathan Ross's show.

He is fucking gorgeous. And I don't mean, gorgeous considering he's 79. I mean gorgeous.

He came over quite shy, or nervous, really. You'd think, by now, he'd be used to television.

And, unbelievable though it seems, he and Robert Redford are discussing the possibility of another film together. Oh my!

Gert adopts serious voice: Now listen children, you may read about everyday Celebrities in Heat magazine, and you may think they're special. Hey, you might even try to convince me that someone who's fallen off Reality TV is worth paying attention to. Don't waste your breath.

Let me tell you, when I look at Paul Newman, that's Super A- List. Forget your here today gone tomorrow soap nobodies.

The man is a Legend...!

Swoon

The Observer | Review | Paul Newman was so cool. Shame about the PR circus

I have taped the Jonathan Ross show. Not yet watched it. Pleasure delayed is pleasure doubled...

The world's most handsome 79-year-old.

Yes, but, that's only part of it. A very handsome man who, because he happens to be fast approaching 80, and still looking gorgeous, is Doubly blessed.

New Posh-Becks Baby?

Posh sees baby doc

A source close to the singer said: �Victoria has no real work commitments at the moment as she isn�t releasing any records. It�s the perfect time to have another child.

No work commitments? But how can that be? A talented superstar diva like Mrs B.?

Well, I'm sure she'll now have plenty of time to breed an entire football team, plus subs.

Celebrity obsessed?

Sven will we be adult about sex?

Brian Reade in The Mirror is absolutely right about the ridiculousness of two consenting adults shagging being given more coverage than real world news.

He also mentions that when Francis Crick died, 98% of the population had not heard of him - to that I will add other recent departures, Paul Foot, Carlos Kleiber, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, all of whom are more worthy of respect than the Abi Titmusses and James Hewitts the tabloids blueurch on about relentlessly.

And I might even add Marlon Brando - I would suspect that a fair proportion of people who avidly follow the lives of Reality TV stars probably haven't heard of Marlon Brando, either. And don't hold your breath for recognition of Ronald Reagan...

But that's the problem, isn't it? Brian Reade is usually a good read, but, when all is said and done, he writes in the Mirror, which, despite its occasional outbreaks of moral indignation (and more power to its elbow there), nevertheless is primarily in the market for its Sports coverage and its celebrity gossip.

And I know that there are a few people floating around BlogLand who fail entirely to understand why tabloids contain celebrity gossip. Because it sells newspapers! Why, because there is an inherent human instinct to be interested in the lives of other people. Perhaps especially there is a natural element of schadenfreude in seeing those that are more powerful, or richer, or more glamorous, with egg on their face.

My problem is, the tabloids tend to focus on the easily-accessible, publicity-hungry C-listers and Royals (mainly interchangeable, I think!) because it doesn't require much work. However, to me, the interest lies far more in those who don't attend the opening of every paper bag. They are usually the ones with the sleazy, scandalous lives, and I find it far more entertaining to read about them, often piecing together various bits and pieces from diverse sources, than to read yet again that some slapper shagged another slapper.

A couple of weeks ago I linked to a Times article about conductors' sex lives, which I helpfully preserved on Usenet/Google Groups. Norman Lebrecht had already discussed Why conductors have great sex. These stories would never sell tabloids - and there is similar, titillating gossip from the world of literature etc. The truth is, these people are more interesting than vacuous wannabe Model-Actress-Whatevers.

Extraordinary

This Sven-Faria thing ain't about football any more. It's partly about the Mirror sub-editor's inability to understand Italian in their desire to get a pun on Sven. But that's by the by.

Just read the article to find out how Faria's affairs became public knowledge. She was duped into sending emails to someone who claimed to be an old friend.

Really, really bizarre. And, I presume, the duping bitch had absolutely no idea when she started out that her target happened to be sleeping with the England Football Coach.

You know, if someone had tried to write this as fiction, they would be derided as being beyond the bounds of credibility.

More on Sven and Faria and other celebrities by digression...

FA is the Home Of Real Sexy Football

Every year on March 8 - International Women's Day - Eriksson wanders from desk to desk at the stylish seven-storey office block, handing each one of his female colleagues a fresh red rose.

Well, gold star for knowing when International Women's Day is, but...purlease...I do hope Mr Blunkett doesn't get this idea into his head!

My newsagent was really quite surprised that Faria looks Asian. I pointed out that one of her emails included "Inshallah" (which I think is a wonderful word and concept, BTW). That shocked him even more!

I used to see quite a lot of David Davies. This was in his pre-FA days, when he used to work as a reporter on Look North West. Often, on Saturday mornings, when I went to the local library and to the Dee Discount supermarket, greengrocers and newsagent, he would be going to the Off Licence. We said hello once or twice. But he wasn't the most glamourous celebrity on that pathetic parade of shops. Various people saw Lou Macari from time to time. I occasionally saw James Anderton at Church. He let me out into the queue for Communion once. A long time ago, when I used to go to Communion! When I was a stude, I was riding my bike down a connecting footpath with a 'No Cycling Sign' and Chief Constable Anderton was coming in the opposite direction. He gave me a look but Wayne Fontana was rumoured to live next door to the hairdressers. But I wouldn't have recognised him if I saw him. My hairdressers was at the other parade of shops.

Oh we had glamour all right in our little pocket of Sale West back in those days...

Great writing

Rooney Cheats on Coleen with Vice Girl.

The story itself is only moderately interesting, but  it is written superbly!

There was no mistaking it was Wayne Rooney because he was dead ugly...Like me Katie was starstruck with Wayne and asked if she could touch his willy, so that she could say she had held Rooney's manhood.

But he couldn't get aroused. Like most men he was turned on by fact that we were twins. However, he had only just finished having sex with me and he was flat out. He was laughing. He just thought it was funny in the end...I said in front of everyone, ' I can't believe I've just shagged Wayne Rooney'. I went home and told my mum, 'I've kopped off with Wayne Rooney'

She later found the note in my bedroom and I had  to admit to her that I'd slept with him. But I didn't tell her I was an escort.'

I think Mum probably knows now...!

More on Gaynor Morgan

This woman - who, let's face it, is not looking good for 35, let alone the 29 she claims to be - was in the year below me at Loreto Convent Grammar School in Altrincham. I was there from 1979-1986.

She was, obviously, fairly well known around school, because her father, Willie, had played for Manchester United and Scotland. She always seemed faintly embarrassed at being a celebrity daughter, and was fairly unassuming. I remember her as being pleasant, if a bit dull. She was friendly with Janine, and with Marina, who had been in my Six at Brownies (and whose brother Dylan, a former Ireland international, is captain of Fylde RUFC and a former Sale player, and is known as The Bent Postman).

IIRC, Gaynor was very good at tennis, and, I think, hockey (or was it cross-country?). My form (3M) and hers had a trip to London in June 1982 - amongst other things we went to The Sound of Music at the Victoria Palace theatre. Has anybody come here on Google and do you have photos of that trip? I know loads were taken, but I didn't have a camera at the time.

I'm sure there was some story that she had won a Miss Pears competition when she was at The Prep, but I suspect she has now spent too much time on a Cheshire sunbed - I saw her picture in Cheshire Life a couple of years ago.

I would have thought that being a footballer's daughter she would have known better than to sell a sleazy story to a sleazy newspaper. Desperate for money? Well, you could try working for a living. You had a good enough education. I can't really imagine the Charltons or Crerands stooping so low.

Her father ran a sports shop on Dunham Road, and he was always very nice, and used to let Andrea have the publicity posters for snooker when he had finished with them.

Ooh, look, she was prepared to let her son spend the night with Michael Jackson.

It takes some chutzpah you knock six years off your age in the internet era, especially when you look - let's be honest - like a total dog.

Update: An anonymous person has kindly posted the entire Gaynor Morgan/Steve from Corrie story into another post.

Slapper

If Gaynor Morgan is 29, so's my mate Ria, and I'm 30

And she used to be such a nice girl, back in the days...

Humour the Googlers

Okay, because of all the requuests I get, I would like you, the reader, to provide a list of celebrities with either Big Dicks or Hairy Chests (or both...)

Can the tone of this get much lower?

Naomi pops out

Calling all you red-blooded men - Do you find these pictures of Naomi Campbell a turn-on?

I'm curious, because, despite my liking for breasts, I don't.

But there again, I'm a straight woman...

(May not be work safe, but, there again, it is The Sun, and even my workplace has a link to The Sun on the intranet)

Name dropping

There I was on the Terrace of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden chatting on the phone to my sister, when I said, "I'm just going inside..." and she mocked the clunkity-tap of my heels on the wooden floor.

Inside, I explained that I had been stood literally next to Melvyn Bragg. She was calling "Coo-ee, coo-ee," down the phone, and asked me to get his autograph. But I said, I was not going to get his autograph because that would be really childish, plus I wasn't going to stand next to him and yell down the phone, "Ooh, I'm stood next to Melvyn Bragg..."

He looks younger and better looking - lively eyes - in RL than on the telly.

Posh goes Kabbalah

Why do stars put their faith in Kabbalah?

Rabbi Barry Marcus, a member of the Chief Rabbi's cabinet and minister at the Central London Synagogue, says:

There's not a single Rabbinic authority on this planet who endorses what they're doing; the condemnation of them is universal.

If I'm being kind, I'll say that most of them have probably done well in their field and have everything that money can buy.

But they don't have the one thing money can't buy and that's inner peace, serenity and stability. So they go searching and they can afford to.

But if I'm being unkind, I'd say that the celebrities I've come into contact with are the most insecure people I've ever met in my life.

Real Life Celebrity Crush 1985

I know this is out of sequence, but I've just started reading through my 1985 diaries. This from January:

I must tell you about when Andy placed his hands tenderly on my shoulders.

"Don't lay a finger on her, Crane!" demanded John.

"Don't flap John. She won't catch anything," Andy reassured the MCR (Master Control Room) in general. "Anything she hasn't got already."

I was laughing. Angie said, "That doesn't sound very nice, Andy."

That's when he kissed the top of my head, and he said, "Meaning, I've got nothing, and she's got nothing." He sent a tingle down my spine.

Not Fiction, but Fact.

Memories of a really nice bloke...!

Get me in there...

The Sun is having a vote on who should be in the next series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here

Names suggested include Adam Ant, Billy Bragg and Morrissey - the sublime - and William Hague, Keith Harris and Orville, and Peter Stringfellow - the ridiculous.

I tell you, if Adam, or Billy, or Mozza were on, even I would watch it...

Of no interest to the under-35s

Those of you as long in the tooth as me, or longer, and UK-based will remember a fluffy little programme that aired in the early 1980s. Mid-Saturday evening in the summer on BBC1 (earlier than Summertime Special) - no Channels 4 & 5 then, let alone satellite/cable, BBC2 was generally showing cricket or golf, and of course, we didn't watch ITV.

It was called 'Where are They Now' and was in a sense the exact reverse of 'Before They Were Famous' before it was famous. It was hosted by David Jacobs.

What I want to know is: David Jacobs - where is he now?

Other burning questions include Val Doonican, the Dagenham Girl Pipers, and, of course, Andrew Ridgely from Wham.

And of course I can google for the answers, but I can't be arsed

Celebrity stalking

Addresses of celebs. Some of them are c/o Agent or Record Comapny, but some are *definitely* home addresses.

How accurate is anyone's guess...

Posh & Becks so last week...

So Senorita Slapper has squealed for a six figure sum

she had spoken out because she "could not live a lie".

In my fantasy Shag-a-Celeb (TM), part of the fun/excitement would be in the secrecy. No one would know - I wouldn't even blog it.

As for six figure sums, well, that would be morally repugnant to me.

Beckham watching

So, apparently, it's unfeminist to slag off Victoria Beckham. Supposedly, we're a load of witches if we dare suggest that David's philandering is all Victoria's fault? The Observer | Comment | Posh versus the coven

Well, all very interesting. However, there is another possible interpretation. When somebody so cynically uses their marriage as a commodity, a means to publicity, and a way to get money (from us, the consumers), I think we're allowed a little smirk of schadenfreude She held them up to be the perfect married couple, the implication being that nobody is as good as them.

Who can resist a gloat of triumphalism when you hear that that couple you used to be friendly with until they declared they only socialise with couples - or try to create an artifice of coupledom with you and a mutual gay male male friend - have split up?

Interview with God

Steven Patrick Morrissey says 'Somebody has to be me'

His new single is 'Irish Blood, English Heart'. Still continuing to speak to and for me.

What a genius.

(Am I showing my age?)

Craving sex with footballers

The Mirror prints rumours about a woman whose ambition is to shag the entire Real Madrid team, and Rebecca loved sleeping with sportsmen, as long as they were famous..

Despite the risk of a telling off from Gordon and Blue Witch, I'm really fascinated, and puzzled, by this.

It strikes me as terribly adolescent. I recall the schooldays when one of my classmates was seeing one of the Altrincham Aces ice-hockey stars; also a couple of people that people knew as friends of friends whatever were married to Manchester United players. Someone's Mum worked with the wife of one of Echo and The Bunnymen (I think) at Warrington DHSS.

Of course there is a fascination with celebrities, especially the glamorous/beautiful ones. I suspect that many of us have at least one celebrity that if - however unlikely - the opportunity arose, we would be sorely tempted, and, depending on our personal moral code, may even accept.

But there is, surely, a world of difference between having fantasies about one or two specific celebrities, whom we admire for what they do, (my fiance likes Paula Ratcliffe - but he'd never be able to catch her!), and relentlessly pursuing minor celebs just because they are footballers, or whatever.

I am fascinated by the motivation. Is sex with a celebrity better than with a mere mortal? I would hazard a guess that it depends. I find the incessant search for the next casual screw soul destroying. I'm not sure how their can be any respect when the terms of engagement are so cynical - both parties are using each other. I will admit to a few one-night stands and short flings in my long-lost youth. But what they all had in common was that I'd already had a laugh with the blokes involved, and had already judged them to be reasonably good company. I don't recall ever setting out to ensnare a particular type of man.

And even if I - by glorious luck - had the opportunity to end up in bed with one of my pin-up heroes, I think I would want more than sex anyway. I'd like the opportunity to find out a bit what they were like as people, what makes them tick, and, you know, enjoy their company.

I can't help thinking that the pursuit of celebrities because they are A Celebrity (not Joe-Blogg-specific-celebrity) is tantamount to prostitution, perhaps worse than prostitution because most prostitutes are motivated by the need to support a drug habit or clinch a book deal. Do these women suffer a pathological self-esteem deficit? Because, if they do, there a hundred better ways to learn to love oneself.

Chav alert

19-month old Romeo Beckham has a gold stud in his ear.

Classy.

I actually feel quite strongly against small kids getting their ears pierced. I had mine done at 14. Which was my decision, and all my parents said was 'have it done at the local chemist' and asked my sister to go with me.

I don't think it should be done until the child is at least eight. And even then, only if they ask for it.

Incidentally, the Sun says

Victoria Beckham is one of the most hated women in Britain � simply because she is married to England soccer hero David.

No, Victoria is disliked because she is a talentless has-been (the Spice Girls were good in their day, but she was the one that didn't sing), and people are irritated by her attempts to use David's position to generate publicity for her so-called career. Time and again, she has talked about aspects of their private life in a cynical publicity bid - starting with 'Golden Balls' and going downhill from there. I simply have no sympathy for people like her - or the Royal family - when they bleat about Press intrusion. There are loads of celebrities who don't court the publicity and don't then get the snidey coverage.

It doesn't take much intelligence (although, perhaps more than the collective Beckham quotient) to understand that once you have sold your soul to the devil, you can't buy it back.