Damon Albarn. Photograph: AP
What is it with celebrities these days? Yesterday morning we had Damon Albarn lecturing us on celebrity culture. By the evening, Ricky Gervais was doing it in the Extras Christmas Special. While both made some valid points (it's hard not to when aiming at the barn door of celebrity with your banjo of righteousness), the double standards on show here were jaw-dropping in the extreme. Yes, let's mock the B-list celebrities who have to appear on reality shows to revive their flagging careers - via a show that employs countless B-list celebrities desperate to revive their flagging careers. Yes, let's claim that "99% of the media should be banned" - as long as we keep the radio show that allows pop stars to take the moral high ground. (Talking of which, if he has a problem with celebrities acquiring status beyond their talents, what exactly qualifies Albarn to host the Today Programme?)
Both Gervais and Albarn take issue with the talent vacuum at the centre of modern celebdom. The X Factor usually bears the brunt of this. And while Gervais was spot-on about the early stages of the show, in which multi-millionaires mock "the bewildered", they're tarring an awful lot of people with the same brush. Leona Lewis is supremely talented by anyone's reckoning. OK, she doesn't write or produce her own songs like Albarn does, but let's not forget he started off writing awful faux-baggy rubbish. And anyone who takes issue with conveyor-belt pop needs only look at Motown to see it's not a bad thing per se.
Don't get me wrong: I'm no champion of vacuous celebrity culture. I'd just rather not be lectured by a celebrity about it.
