In today's Observer, there is this profile of Amy Winehouse, written partly in the wake of the after-show party that followed her gig at Somerset House on Friday night. What wasn't added were some of the comments made to me there by people from her label, which raised the question again of whether Amy is any kind of role model.
So these stories are the sort that you'd think they tell you: how Amy is really such a down to earth girl, and vulnerable too. So much so that the bin men and parking wardens round her way have started defending her from the ever-present paparazzi. Recently, apparently, a parking warden caught a bunch of them outside her house and ticketed every vehicle save hers, telling the snappers they didn't deserve her. Don't it make yer heart bleed? The boozing, the bedlam, the bruised emotion? Is it something we enjoy as part of the package? Or would we prefer Amy without any of it? One thing: the gig was great, as even her recent detractors seem to have recognised.
