The D-Star Of India

So, Jade Goody has received serious shock treatment for her acute bullying and racism symptons. It was delivered homeopathically - the medical philosophy of treating “like-with-like” - so she got severely bullied by the rest of the world and its media. And me. I’m sure it was richly deserved, but anyone who is genuinely against bullying must have winced at the sight of her falling apart beneath the nation’s glare and glee. She cut a pitiful figure during the Davina McCall interview, no matter how soft it was. The News of the World Q&A interview was also toe-curling in its pleading. But the video footage of that interview, played constantly on Sky, digital was excruciating and sad. She sobbed her heart out. It was like watching a five year old, who had been told off beyond all proportion to her deed, hyperventilating her way into a desperate frenzy to say sorry. Please, enough apologies, although I think that was only the beginning. Any continued Jade witch-hunt would obviously be absurd and unfair. She has had a tough enough kicking. I can’t help thinking that the experience might even be good for her in the long run. You know, in a personal development kind of way, but who knows. I won't hold my breath.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in her agent John Noel’s office these past days. (Take a look at the intro to that website). It would be fascinating to hear the discussions and ideas being floated to re-boot the Jade “brand”. I bet Noel has never worked harder for his 20%. It was reported yesterday that Jade could fly to India next week, although apparently her visa application is on hold and being discussed at the “highest levels”. I pray to the big, racially neutral and politically correct poppadom god in the sky that the trip goes ahead. It could provide some of the most unintentionally funny copy, photo shoots and headlines of any envoy mission from the British Empire. As Jade is greeted by an angry mob (well, five bemused passers-by and 200 journalists), I think the papers will have a field day, from the red tops involved in the big money (all to charity, mind) buy-up, to the serious diplomatic writers of the heavies. What chance The Sun will come up with something along the lines of “Jade Tikka-d Off By India”?

Sally Cards Plug

URGENT PERSONAL PUBLICITY WARNING. Please be aware that the following blog features a Blatant Plug for a product created by and owned by me with the sole intention to begin promoting it herewith. In the world of journalism and PR, this would be described as “pre-publicity” because the products are not even out yet. Please do not read on if you are easily offended by bare-faced publicity that is not masked by someone pretending to talk about something else while holding up a CD, a book, or reciting the booking number for a theatre. What follows is unrefined, arm-over-the-shoulder, self-back-slapping publicity.

I have just got the first retail order for 'SALLY', my first and utterly brilliant greeting card range. It has come from the equally brilliant card shop chain Paper Passions which will display these delightfully wry and irreverently amusing cards at its Kings Road branch and other London outlets. Considering that Paper Passions is the first shop I have approached, I am delighted to report a 100% success rate. I am mildly excited, which is an emotion I keep to a minimum in moments of baseless optimism. 'Sally' will become a global brand (no irony intended) soon after she is officially launched at the utterly brilliant Spring Fair trade show at Birmingham’s NEC on 3rd February.

Talking exclusively to his own tape recorder, Rob McGibbon garbled: “I am delighted to be successfully aligned with such an iconic - if, as yet unknown - creation as ‘Sally’ and fully believe that in Paper Passions we have found genuine cross-fertilised synchronicity with oceans of blue sky ahead of us for this venture. Most of all I would like to thank…” Drrrrrrrrrrrr. LOW BATT.

Big Bother

Apologies for my absence, but I've been upto my elbows in the silt of my life while clearing out my loft. Heck, the things one keeps and what a bizarre high-speed slide show it is, going through the fragments of your yesteryears. But that subject is for another day. I simply need to quickly blog by on the big bother at Big Brother.

I have traditionally hated BB. I don’t watch it, apart from the odd dip in, like watching my old friend (well, 53!) Carole Malone make her dignified exit. But generally, I don’t watch because I don’t like the way BB makes me feel; it’s all that voyeurism, all those posers, idiots, and all that boredom. I get enough of that interviewing celebrities, so I choose to slump in front of equally crass TV on the other channels.

But as of last night, I’m now in da House, sadly hooked. The publicity about the race row suckered me in like a Two-For-One sticker in a supermarket. After watching an early screening of The Last King of Scotland (a tour de force from Forest Whitaker) I got home quickly because BB was in my mind. Not a nice feeling. I flicked on the TV and hit the moment it all kicked off. Most fans have spent countless hours scavenging for little highs from this series, but I suddenly main-lined neat reality TV heroin. It made me feel instantly sick. Seriously, it disturbed me.

Jade Goody is a snarling, foul-mouthed, tragically ignorant bitch, of that there is no doubt. I thought that long before last night. Honestly. I have been appalled by the heights of fame, media coverage and financial success she has been awarded. Er, for WHAT? Now, I believe, all that has gone for her. Oh, goody. Her true colours – blue aired and misty red with bilious rage – have been shown. The lovable, daft clown is really a volatile, vindictive vixen with deep-rooted bitterness in her veins and an enormous chip on her shoulder. She is a big, bad bully. And, yes, I believe she is racist, whether overtly or covertly. Her line of racism is probably based on pig ignorance, rather than the seething hate you see in a tattooed skinhead gobbing his way down Welling high street. What perfume manufacturer, TV production company, or any other product would want to be associated with Jade now? (That said, she might get the Iceland telly ad contract from the belching drug-mum Kerry Katona. They’re clearly not fussy.) The newspapers will love her until she has done her exit buy up, and she'll get another book deal, but little else.

There will be a certain poetic justice if this is indeed the end of the Jade show. Live by the plastic vanity sword of reality TV fame, then die by it. I have little sympathy, but I do feel distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect of the world watching her unravel even more in the programmes ahead. She may be a veteran of the House but she must be unaware of the scale of the outrage focused on her. How can she be allowed to continue on this racist collision course? Big Brother must step in, illuminate her ways and give her the chance to save herself, although I doubt she has the brain or maturity to undo what has been done.

Watching Jade’s assault on Shilpa made me shudder and squirm. She was scary, unhinged, but the people I felt a real loathing for were her sniggering co-bitches Jo and Danielle. They are the worst type, the cowardly stirrers beside the bullies, mixing it from the sidelines, vicariously soaking up the thrill of confrontation without personal risk. Looking at those three girls, I felt a real sadness. They are products of the swearing, liquor swilling ladette explosion of the ‘90s and what a sorry sight they are. Devoid of intelligence, compassion and culture, they are the templates of the vacuous, Me-Me, gimme everything for nothing generation that haunts Britain's youth. How on earth are they going to feel when they see their behaviour? The prospect of these vain little creatures, with their bolser wood characters, coming out to the baying crowd hardly bears thinking about. But maybe their ilk will be in the majority and they will be cheered. God help us if they are. Whatever happens it will be compulsive – and uncomfortable - viewing.

I feel slightly ashamed that I will now almost certainly be tuning in to Big Brother. Am I just standing in the playground circle with the other kids shouting, Fight, fight, fight? Maybe, but not exactly. My excuse is that this is now part of a wider debate and news story and I am a journalist. I believe that Jade and Big Brother have inadvertently revealed a dark and powerful heart of racism that beats silently, but ever more strongly, across Britain today.

Personally, I hope that I will be watching the end of Jade Goody’s ill-gotten fame some time very soon, but, most of all, I hope we will also be seeing the death throes of Big Brother and its perverse, spiteful sport.

One thing is for sure – I think the time is now right to sell off a piece of memorabilia I came across while clearing out my loft. I found the original Channel 4 press pack from the opening day of the first Big Brother house. I walked through that building in 2000 and wondered what on earth this programme would be like. I didn't much like the idea of it then, and I have hated it since. Rev-up the bulldozers. And Ebay here I come!

'ello 2007

Yaaawn. Stretch. Creak. Squint. Re-focus. Hello.

So, that was Christmas. What did I do?
Another year over.
Oh no! A new one just begun.

I haven’t got my blogging head fully back on just yet, but I felt I should stop by and, you know, wish everyone I don’t really know a "Happy New Year", whatever that actually means. Consider it mass-market PR, blog-style.

I for one am feeling genuinely positive about 2007. Purely on a personal level, I am expecting powerful, transformative shifts in every aspect of my life. I will be fitter and healthier than ever, professionally more successful and fulfilled, emotionally and romantically blessed. Yes, I am annoyingly bouncy with watery-eyed optimism for the future. I even have happy hopes for the world.

Ask me again in a week.