Fame or fortune?

Ugh. I just trekked in the rain from my house to campus to go for my gym induction but the man who was taking me round was off sick so I have to go back on Monday. Annoying, but there we go. I'm not sure how I feel about the gym to be honest. Gin, fine, gym, unsure. See, whenever I think of a gym I never imagine people there who are going to improve themselves but instead people who are there who are in the post-improvement stages, using the gym as a stage to flaunt about on. I know that's kind of paranoid thinking, but it's not paranoia if they're all looking at you. I'm joking, I don't think it will be that bad but I know the man will ask me what it is I want to do at the gym. I guess I just want to make myself a bit fitter. I don't get much exercise at all, I walk to campus and back and that's about it. I want to get to the point that running up a flight of stairs doesn't leave me feeling like I'm about to die. I don't think that's beyond the realms of possibility.

So anyway, that's what has happened today so far. Other than that I haven't done much at all. I had a letter in the post from my Nan which was sweet. She never uses any punctuation though which makes you feel out of breath by the end. Still, we can't all be perfect with grammar and punctuation. Mine is particularly poor, ironic really since I am here studying Professional Writing. Oh, that reminds me. I'm reading at the moment Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the pedantic book about punctuation and grammar. It's quite a good read actually but I am only 26 pages in and already have spotted about 6 errors. I don't know if these are deliberate or not. I mean, maybe there will be a disclaimer at the end saying, 'Ooh, aren't we cheeky. We put 235 errors in this book. Are you clever enough to find them all?' Either that or I bought the one copy that was never proof-read. I once bought a book in a charity shop which I really enjoyed. I got to about page 317 and the end was in sight, turned the page and it took me back to page 210 or something. The fucking thing was wrongly bound. But the worst thing was that the person who had it originally decided to hand it in to a charity shop, as if to spread the frustration. If that was me, I would have burnt the cursed thing. Thrown it away at the very lest or stormed back to the shop where I bought it and held up the queue taking the person behind the counter through each and every page.

That makes me think of something I once read in an A to Z list of annoying things to do to people. One of them was - tear the last page out of the book someone is reading, which made me laugh. Ooh, it's like karma coming round to bite me. Some of the others in the book were 'sniff constantly at the dinner table until someone snaps at you to blow your nose' and 'ask people what star sign they are and when they answer say, I thought you were.' That was a great read for the antagonist in me. That was a book written by Lily Savage/Paul O'Grady that someone gave me for Christmas one year.

It's weird, Paul O'Grady is still on the TV but Lily Savage as a character seems to have just disappeared. Maybe he thought the character had gone as far as she could. It's a shame really but at least it went out on a high. It's like The Royle Family. I think that ended at just the right time. If it had gone on any longer it would have lost its magic and just been seen as Caroline Aherne flogging a dead horse. No one wants that, least of all the horse. The Royle Family has to be one of the best things from British comedy in years, closely followed by Nighty Night. Actually, a friend of mine lent me Jam, which also has Julia Davis in and is pretty good too. It's a bit too dark in places though. Like, there is a sketch in which a woman and a man are having an argument. The gist is that the woman thinks the man is having an affair. He's saying things like, 'She doesn't mean anything to me etc,' and she is getting really upset. She says, 'Amanda said she saw you kissing her,' to which he replies, 'No, I wasn't kissing her. I was holding my hand over her mouth. I was raping her.' She then says 'Really? Oh, ok, sorry baby.' It's all a bit grim but some parts are a bit too close to the bone.

Anyway, I'm rambling. There was a point in there somewhere. Oh, yes I remember. I was thinking about The Royle Family and Caroline Aherne. Now, I remember a few years ago when Aherne was drinking a lot and life looked a bit bleak for her. That was probably the only time that I have seen her in the papers. I remember seeing a picture of her looking really upset against the headline 'I HAVEN'T EVEN GOT A CAT.' The way the piece that followed read was that Aherne was devastated at having no company and how pathetic she was to be screaming this at people. At the time, I think both her husband and father had died so she was obviously really upset. A couple of weeks later I saw Aherne interviewed and she mentioned this incident. It turned out that the paparrazzi (sp?) were hounding her and one asked her something about a cat to which she replied 'I haven't even got a cat.'

Anyway, I'm getting off the point by sharing Aherne trivia. What I was thinking about was the idea of someone with as much talent as Aherne not actually being that famous. I mean, we all know of her but we don't know as much about her as other 'talented' people. It also made me wonder what it's easier to be, talented, rich or famous. Nowadays, I think it's pretty easy to become famous. Just look at the cast of 'celebrity' reality programmes. Half the people in those programmes are so far off the D list status they're struggling to hold onto whatever the Greek letter for Z is. Famous doesn't carry the same connotation as it used to at all. When I think of fame, real fame, I think of people like Madonna, Cher, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts, Stephen Fry, Oscar Wilde, the list goes on. But if you look in the bestseller books list at the moment, there are various autobiographies 'written' by people like Kerry Katona, Wayne Rooney, Jordan, Jodie Marsh. Again, the list goes on. It seems that you can become famous overnight now, and with fame often comes wealth. But talent isn't something that you can just accrue from getting your genitals out on page 3 of The Sun, or going on Big Brother moaning about how hard done by you are. Talent is something that few people have and even fewer use to there full abilities.

Don't get me wrong. I think Wayne Rooney is probably a great footballer and Jordan and Jodie Marsh are, er, fantastic at all they do. But should people like this be given the same treatment that, years ago, was reserved only for iconic film stars and singers? The thing is that nowadays, the name of someone like Jordan or Wayne Rooney is worth more than the actual person. By placing the name of Jordan on a book, the publishers are almost guaranteed a bestseller (which incidentally may not have to be that many copies shifted) because the public know what they will be buying. Heat readers know all about her relationship about Peter Andre, the child she has who has many difficulties and her fight with finger cancer. The book sells because people have already show enough of an interest in Jordan to keep her in the pages of numerous glossy magazines.

I hate this celebrity and Heat culture. It really riles me. I know I have a very low tolerance with some things anyway (some peoples faces, the way people approach you in a queue and ask, 'Are you in the queue?'), but there is something about this new breed of culture that makes me despair a bit. The main thing I can't stand is Heat. Now, I admit that I do pick it up in the shop and have a flick through at the new reviews and things but the bulk of the magazine makes me get just a little bit angry. There are a few reasons for this. One is the picture stories at the front of the magazine with things like: Paris Hilton buys new hat, Sarah Jessica Parker catches her skirt in taxi and Cheryl Tweedy/Cole looks at cat in street. It's just like, who gives a shit? I don’t know. Maybe I am as bad for even picking up this printed excrement, but I just don’t see that anyone can read something like that and think, 'Oh, that's interesting.' The other thing that I hate about Heat is the fact that every week it has different lists: 50 curviest women, 20 skinniest celebs, 30.5 anorexic stars, 0 normal people. OK, admittedly I made the last one up. But those kinds of lists are in the magazine all the time. Some weeks they praise Charlotte Church for her curves, the next week they circle her 'cellulite' and say it looks unsightly. On the same page they circle Nadine from Girls Alouds legs and say she needs to put on a weight. This circle is lovingly known as 'The Circle of Shame.' The only shame is that the main demographic for this magazine is young women who are being fed clashing information. One week, Heat says celebs are too fat, the next week - too thin. There is no consistency at all and the thing that really irritates me is that they place 'celebrities' on pedestals while at the same time saying, 'Oh look, celebrities are just like us really,' and telling the readers how to emulate a certain 'stars' style. I don’t ever look at celebrities in that kind of way at all. If I see someone famous in the street I don’t feel overwhelmed. People are just people at the end of the day. They live and die just like the rest of us and just because their faces adorn the covers of magazines and their work is sometimes seen by millions of people, is no guarantee they are any happier. Nor does it mean that they can't be afflicted by illnesses the rest of us have to suffer, look at Kylie for instance. I don’t believe that fame or wealth leads to happiness.


Right, I'm finished for now I think. I am so hungry I might eat my own face.

xx