Who says there's no such thing as Father Christmas? ... Pete Doherty's latest release... from custody. Photograph: Getty/Chris Jackson
My abiding memory of Pete Doherty is his first appearance on the Jonathan Ross Show. With his simpering eyes and a look that suggested that heroin wouldn't melt in his spoon, he cooed and sashayed his way through an interview that couldn't have been any more of a puff piece had it been conducted by Doherty's PR. With all the confidence of Oliver Twist asking for a second bowl of gruel, Ross eventually dared to ask Doherty the one question worth asking - are you clean at the moment? Yes, came the answer, followed by words to the effect that the singer was sorting himself out.
Was he balls! Once again Pete Doherty has been arrested for scurrying around London allegedly carrying hard drugs and once more he has escaped jail (this time on a technicality). What, I wonder, does the man have to do to land himself in the Big House? Those afflicted by addictions of this manner are quick to point out that their burden is in fact a disease. Who knows, they may be right. But if Doherty is suffering a disease he certainly shows no inclination to be cured.
The real crime, though, is that it's all so boring. It's pitiable, in fact. Pete Doherty's sorry swagger onto the stages of the summer festival circuit (mid afternoon slot) and his look of gormless contempt as he wobbles into court once more means his presence is as irritating as that of Pete from Big Brother - last year's Big Brother! It's also as irrelevant. You disagree? Check out the ticket sales for the Babyshambles' forthcoming arena tour, set to die on its derriere this very autumn. Check out how many people don't care that the band's next single is to be given away with that other dying British institution, the NME.
I suppose Pete Doherty has achieved one thing: he's destroyed the myth of heroin chic. It was possible to view Keith Richards and believe the secret of his success was a drug whose true currency is misery and violence. No such danger here; Doherty's look is the kind you see in the nooks and crannies of London's Seven Sisters Road, of horrid drugs and desperate people. Even the soundtrack is no longer his own. When you see him do you not think, "Who's that scummy man? Just give him half a chance I bet he'll rob you if he can..."?
So please, can we put a stop to this waste of precious time? Please make this man go away. Judge, send him down.
