Tragedy, farce or just another everyday occurrence in the on-going evolution of post-millennial celebrity culture? Minds boggled when John Lydon - formerly and still occasionally, if the money's right, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, one-time antichrist-ah and threat to every aspect of western civilisation which the Daily Mail holds dear - was reported to be on the shortlist to join the z-list desperates in Channel 4's Australian designer jungle for a few weeks of ritual humiliation under the mock-solicitous gaze of presenters Ant and Dec. Whatever happened to punk rock, maaaaan?
There is, of course, a strong possibility that the story is a PR stunt or a colossal wind-up, and that Lydon - who nowadays lives a life of cosy domesticity in Los Angeles with his wife, his swimming pool and (allegedly) a lucrative sideline in property development - does indeed have better things to do with his time than to pick tarantulas out of his underwear, gather logs and gorge on unusual wildlife among dubious company.
Other proposed contestants include comedy-breasted Jordan, portly comedian Frank Carson, tragic booze-widow Alex Best, drug-test controversy athlete Diane Modahl, forgotten teen idol Peter Andre, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond andsome who are even less noteworthy. The people you'd really want to see on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! - Tony Blair, Madonna, Dame Shirley Porter, George Galloway, Dr Ian Paisley, Keith Richards, Paris Hilton, Germaine Greer - always seem to have more important things to do. Well, perhaps not George Galloway.
I hereby invoke the Trade Descriptions Act: legitimately, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! should be retitled I Used To Be Vaguely Well-Known and Right Now I Have No Gainful Employment So Gizza Proper Job, Pleeeeeze. In other words: a high-concept, high-budget contemporary equivalent to the Celebrity Squares of olden days - a chance for faded slebs to strut what's left of their stuff and hopefully revive their careers in the style of Tony Blackburn, Phil Tufnell and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.
Part of me hopes that the story is total hype and hooey, and that Lydon will remain in LA with his feet up and his dignity (or rather, whatever dignity remains to him after the fiasco of the last Pistols reunion tour) intact. Meanwhile, another part hopes that the story is indeed true, and that Lydon will not only submit himself to the show's ritualised ordeal, but that he will win, thereby cementing his place in the nation's heart once and for all as one of the great British curmudgeons de nos jours. Victor Meldrew was tolerant by comparison.
The Rotten persona was a magnificent creation, a vital adjunct to the handful of great rock tunes for which the Pistols' legacy is rightfully venerated. Part Albert Steptoe, part Pinky from Brighton Rock, part Richard III and part Kenneth Williams. Lydon's manic stare, bored north-London drone and instinctive mastery of the iconoclastic one-liner have earned him an honoured place in British pop's definitive pantheon. He is a grand archetype, and there aren't too many of those around.
After all, who remains from Rotten's generation who still possesses even a shred of authentic magic or genuine unpredictability? There was the late Joe Strummer, who took his integrity and his rhetoric so seriously that he maintained the rock equivalent of Trappist vows for the best part of two decades be fore returning to the rock fray. There's Paul Weller, but even when he was making his best music he was a boring sod. And then there was Geldof, but let's not go there: if Bob was on I'm a Celebrity he'd have them all organised into either work gangs or a mass breakout by the end of the first week.
Ray Davies of the Kinks - who made the honours list and the New Orleans Police Department's crime register in the same week - how's that for rock 'n' roll behaviour beyond the call of duty? - once sang, Everybody's in showbiz/everybody's a star. That certainly held true in the 70s - the decade of the high-street knockoff of the Mr Freedom T-shirt with the big appliqued star on the front - but it's truer than ever now. There is no branch of the arts still distinguishable from showbiz, and on this level Will Self and Michelle McManus, JG Ballard and Chris Moyles, Sir Ian McKellen and Geri Halliwell are all, ultimately, in the same racket.
So let's hope Rotten does indeed take that flight to Australia. At least it'll be more entertaining than Modahl and Andre comparing six-packs and Carson vainly attempting to make his co-sufferers laugh.
By the way, older viewers will be reassured to learn that it is easy to tell which is Ant and which is Dec. First of all, they always stand with Ant on the viewer's left. And for those unable to tell their left from their right - an easy mistake to make under New Labour - Ant is the one who actually looks like an ant.
