Stuart & Craig - Coach trip 2012

My partner took me out for a few drinks last night & we met Stuart & Craig who are from Bradford & were the winners of Coach trip 2012. Shame Brendan wasn't with them he comes across as such a nice guy!

I went through a period of chasing celebrity status (although in truth it was more for the life experience than fame). I once applied for Big Brother & got as far as auditions in Leeds & I narrowly missed out on being on Castaway because the psychologist took a dislike to me lol

I have a love hate relationship with the notion of celebrity & fame. The part of me that longs for acceptance would love a spot of fame (although rationally I'm fully aware that it's a vacuous illusion) but I hate the fact that celebrity has simply come to mean 'well known' rather than having a basis in any concrete skills or talent!

Alain De Botton calls it 'status anxiety' & it's a social disease that's grown out of all proportion & just leads to unhappiness. The grass always looking greener but it rarely is in reality.

A lot of kids these days when asked what they want to be when they grow up just say "Famous!" which is truly tragic.

Magazines like OK, Heat & Hello just generate envy & the idea that people aren't good enough whilst simultaneously deriding celebrities for their human foibles ("look at how fat she is now!") to make their readers feel better about their own status!

The tragic Jade Goody was a poster girl for this new breed of celebrity. Her death (as anyone's) was tragic but her plight prompted many women to get checked for cervical cancer & therefore saved lives so perhaps that's one good function of empty fame, they are a mirror for ourselves?