Everyday there is some breaking news story about some minor or semi-major ‘celebrity’ going to, coming out of, or escaping from rehab. Perhaps the news should have a separate section dedicated to ‘rehab news’ with details of the most recent sad celebrity cases and their addiction adventures.

I never heard of anything to do with Lindsay Lohan until her drug and/or alcohol-fuelled nonsense came to me by way of some lurid headline. To this day I am still not sure whether she is an actrice or a singer or what. All I know is that, like B. Spears, she is constantly in trouble, drink-driving and what-have-you.

It does not help that the mainstream news outlets will feature all this silliness with big shouting headlines. The BBC is dumbing-down just as much as the other media giants in this respect.

These days you wouldn’t really want to be a ‘celebrity’ when you see how incurable nitwits on Big Brother pretend to the title for no other reason than having been on television. These are certainly not stars like the divas and film heroes of yesteryear were stars.

And really, after Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison is it really still ‘cool’ to be off your head on booze and dope, knowing full well that you’re in the public eye?

I suppose fame plays havoc with one’s mind and I can sort of imagine how that would work. It’s just that in the equation ‘achievement’ – ‘success’ – ‘fame’, that first element seems to be lacking in some of the newer members of the great and good.