I always keep my finger on the pulse of the ‘hip’ and the ‘happening’ – except when I’m driving or pulling-up weeds from my driveway.
I read newspapers, listen to the radio, watch television and visit the cinema and theatre.
I talk to friends, family, colleagues and anyone I meet in the frozen food aisle at Tesco’s, gleaning information about every subject under the sun. Or the moon, if it’s dark outside.
My editor would like me to point out that other frozen food aisles are available.
Even though I’m so well-informed, I often feel distanced from the rest of the world, because of my total disinterest in those individuals whose faces fill the pages of glossy ‘celebrity gossip’ magazines for which entire forests of precious, oxygen-generating trees are sacrificed every year . . .
Reality TV ‘stars’ who are famous purely for being famous.
Actors/actresses, singers, comedians, writers, directors etc who spent years building their careers must find it galling when talent show rejects and talentless Big Brother contestants land a television series in which cameras follow their every mundane move.
They’re instantly dubbed ‘celebrities’ and quickly appear on other TV shows, all over the press and quite often, in lucrative commercials.
There are so many of them around it’s impossible to keep up.
As I realised when I recently read this headline in a tabloid…
“Caitlyn (Formerly Bruce) Jenner goes to cinema while rest of Kardashians support Khloe at recovering coma victim Lamar Odom’s bedside after his three-day, $79,000* drink and drugs fuelled binge in Dennis Hof’s Nevada bordello** ”.
As I tried to absorb what the headline was all about, I felt like a Martian who’d just arrived on Earth and picked-up a copy of the Post.
Okay, I’ve heard of the Kardashians, although I’d be unable to pick any of them out of a police line-up, have no idea what they do for a living or why anyone would be interested in people whose lives are permanently lived in the glare of a camera lens.
However, I’m aware there are people who would make sense of it and may even be concerned at the plight of Lamar Odom…whoever he is.
If you’re one of them, do please accept my sincere condolences.
*$79,000 for three days! How much does Dennis Hof charge for a pint?
** My editor would like me to point out that other bordellos are available.
. . . but how would he know?