Draw near, fame-feeders, as these remain edifying times for the celebrity angle. The news event that cannot be improved by a tenuous connection to someone famous has yet to be found, with the week’s exemplar being the Daily Star’s front page “JOEY GIRL LOSES LEG IN THEME PARK HORROR”.
This, as you’ll have worked out, is the dreadful case of the 17-year-old who was injured in a rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers, and has subsequently had to endure an above-the-knee amputation. What you may not have worked out, however, is in what sense she is “Joey girl”, particularly in this context. Allow me to clear up the mystery: she once took a selfie of herself with Joey Essex.
While that defining moment sinks in, here follows a refresher course on Mr Essex. A former hero (though not eponymous) of scripted-reality doltscape The Only Way is Essex, he is, quite simply, the lodestar by which early-21st-century Britain must navigate any cultural event. During the election, this was highlighted by the fact that he was granted audiences and campaign time with all the main party leaders bar David Cameron, by people who imagined him to be the spiritual leader of politically disengaged youth. If fate has conspired to place you more than one degree of separation from Joey, be advised that it will be impossible for anyone to get a handle on anything that might ever befall you, no matter how dramatic.
Consider the lessons learned in the wake of the conviction of Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins. The latter was a celebrity in his own right, yes, but his crimes would simply not have been eye-catching enough had he not gone out briefly with a C-lister many years previously. Or as the Sun’s splash headline put it: “FEARNE EX: I TRIED TO RAPE BABY BOY”.
Of course, it isn’t just unspeakably grim things that can only be understood by a celebrity connection so bizarre that you could fancy it was being made by an alien whose empathy-simulation software has suffered a catastrophic malfunction.
Elsewhere this week, I very much enjoyed the tale of some suspected illegal immigrants who made a break from a lorry in Gloucestershire. The entire drama just happened to be captured in photos credited to the celebrity paparazzi agency Xposure Photos, which by some cosmic coincidence appears to have been on the scene at the precise moment the men began their daring – and photogenic – exit. What are the chances, eh? It’s like Cartier Bresson said: “Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot; simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?”
An intriguing debate, particularly with these pictures, but one in which the Mail declined to get bogged down. Instead, it led with the following summary: “The men cut holes in the side of the lorry, which had a Romanian number plate, before leaping free from the truck while it stopped at the lights on the A429 near Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, around 10 miles from where model Kate Moss lives in nearby Little Farringdon.”
Well. I have two questions. 1. As close as 10 miles? 2. Which sub is going to get a carpeting for failing to include the guesstimate value of said property?
Let’s look at an archived Sun report to see how it should be done: “Career girl Kate Beagley was murdered just yards from model Jerry Hall’s £10m mansion.” How ghastly for Jerry. “Pretty Kate, 32, was killed – and possibly raped – in a meadow near a Millionaire’s Row in Richmond, Surrey.” Was it ghastly for property prices too? Speculation on that front remained tantalisingly unexplored, though a 2007 Mirror report on a case of child battery was at pains to mention that the crimes had taken place in an apartment block shared by “Frank Skinner and Carol Vorderman”, where flats “cost between £500,000 and £3m”, and which boasted “a 24-hour concierge and state-of-the-art gym”. All of which certainly puts the toddler battery into perspective.
Other classic examples of this almost comically psychopathic style of reporting include the main headline on the front page of the Daily Mail website. “Three revellers killed as police helicopter crashes through roof of Glasgow music venue where Billy Connolly once got in a punch-up.”
In this sort of context, perhaps it isn’t a surprise to see the celebrity angle showing up in increasingly unexpected places. Our final snapshot comes from rebels in the Syrian town of Kafranbel, whose resistance to both Assad and Isis saw them this week unfurl a giant banner hitching their cause to the world’s hottest new star. “Caitlyn!” this read. “We would write Kafranbel with a C, if it meant like you, we would be free. Maybe liberated Cafranbel?”
Clearly, these people are far too nice (and desperate) to add the inquiry: “DID WE GET YOUR ATTENTION YET, SHITHEADS?” But as chastening images go, you’ve got to say it’s up there.
