Archive for the 'Mortality' Category

I’ve never had any time for the late Jade Goody or the rest of the idiots that have come bubbling to the surface with the rising tide of so called reality television that infests the schedules. The vast majority of these so called stars are untalented, feckless idiots with few redeeming personality features and even fewer scruples. I’m therefore totally mystified by the sudden, and very manufactured, outpouring of national sorrow over Jade’s death at the weekend.

The papers are full of news about who will or won’t be attending her funeral. There’s full page photo spreads of the mountain of floral tributes, thousands of column inches devoted to her life and achievements and the great and the good are coming out of the woodwork to say how much of a shame it is that she died. Now I’m even writing about the whole affair in my blog and her mother has even started comparing the public reaction to the frankly baffling mass hysteria that followed the death of Princess Diana back in 1997. I can’t wait for the song that they chose to bring out in memory of the peoples latest princess.

Might I suggest this one?

Now don’t get me wrong here, Jade’s death was as tragic as the death of any human being, and she chose to embrace the media rather than shy away from them. I do however take issue with the relentlessness with which the press, and in particular the tabloids, have pursued the subject. Jade’s health has been front page news for nearly three weeks and has successfully squeezed out nearly anything else that’s happened in the world during that time. You know, little things, things like the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global financial meltdown and the murder of two soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland. I would have thought that they would at least have backed off a little when it became apparent that her death was imminent. I get the impression that the paparazzi would have been sitting round her bed ready to catch a snap of her last breath if they could have. Someone out there has been making a fortune off the back of Jade Goody’s misery, but I doubt it was her two young sons, I wonder who it could have been?

The life of Jade Goody should serve as a warning to a generation of fame hungry young people around the world. She managed quite successfully to live the dream that thousands of self centred arseholes around the world are desperate to emulate. You only have to watch some of the cringe worthy outtakes from the deluge of reality shows to get an idea of how self deluded some of these people really are.

I often wonder how many truly great artists that have remained undiscovered over the centuries simply because they never had the forum, opportunity or support to be recognised for their gifts. I think fame used to be like life in the wild, only the strong and truly determined manage to survive. It took determination, talent, guts and no small amount of luck to make it to the top. Nowadays however the whole process is broken and backwards. You don’t need talent to go on Big Brother you just need to be a preening self centred arsehole and hope that you manage to stay just the right side of the media to stay on the show and win the prize. There’s no talent in that, I could get a similar thing by locking a bunch of jakes in a static caravan and dropping cans of super lager in through the roof.

Now before someone comes crashing in here ranting on about those glorified Butlin’s talent shows like Pop Idol and Dancing on Ice I will admit that some shows do promote people with genuine talent, but they do it in such an arrogant and showboating style that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Prime example of this would be anything with Simon Cowell on it. The show pretends that it is about finding Britain’s Next Top (blank) or making an ordinary person a (blank) idol, but let’s be frank here: The real stars of these shows are the judges who are even more conceited than the fools that appear on the shows, and the real benefactors aren’t the hapless simpletons that win: it’s the production companies that make an undeniable fortune out of the public phone and text voting on each episode.

Far from supporting the argument that you need genuine talent to succeed on these shows I think it just highlights the sheer number of deluded fools out there that think they have that talent. Just take a look at some of the failed auditions that I was talking about. These people really believe that they have some talent you know, and worse their family and friends have probably been feeding their narcissistic delusions.

Now I’ve gone off on a rant about reality television shows, but that notwithstanding any of this I think we need to remember that behind all this crap there’s only one truly important fact: a woman with a young family has died. I think everyone should take a deep breath, say that’s terrible, and then FUCK OFF to leave them alone so they can grieve in peace.