It was only last week, in the most movingly lucrative of interviews with the Daily Mirror, that Pete Doherty described his recently terminated relationship with Kate Moss as "like the Vietnam war".
No doubt, no doubt. Though as its bitter fallout continues, which of us hasn't begun to wonder whether it might not in fact be preferable to be somewhere on the Mekong river, half submerged in a bamboo cage while Charlie spins the bullet chamber?
That this endlessly protracted conflict will claim an entire generation of fake hipsters and showbiz writers now seems a certainty - indeed, we appear to be moving into its Tet offensive phase. Barely a day goes by without some new revelation about the couple's life together falling into the hands of high-paying tabloid newspapers, in what we assume is merely Pete's lengthy teaser campaign to the inevitable release of a sex tape - which will, incidentally, be the precise cultural moment at which those frequent mentions of Kate's "sphinx-like qualities" will be poignantly and forever retired. Because really, nothing screws with your air of mystery like badly lit footage of you saying, "It really doesn't matter, babe - it happens to all guys, especially if they've just taken a hit. Let's, um, write a song instead."
And it is to the couple's joint artistic endeavours that we turn today, as it emerges that the partnership's dissolution leaves unfinished what surely promised to be one of the great theatrical works of the modern era. To wit: they were writing a musical together.
Yes, "a source" has told the Sun that the pair were crafting "a love tale of two star-crossed lovers as they struggle through life". It's the originality of thought that gets you, isn't it? For reasons alluded to above, one immediately conceives of it as a kind of Miss Saigon, only set in a lavishly appointed house in St John's Wood during the week, a Cotswolds pile at weekends, and with a walk-on part for their mate Kelly Osbourne, the rock spawn whose continued ability to get work is beginning to make Caligula's elevation of his horse to the senate look like a triumph of meritocracy.
"There is so much of it," the source continues of the musical, presumably by way of a threat. And yet, Lost in Showbiz finds itself strangely able to resist the temptation to turn the entire rest of this column into one of those brilliant parodic songs Richard Littlejohn just doesn't write enough of. "The musical is something Pete was really into because it ventures outside the borders of singing on stage. When Pete is on stage or going to court it is often like he is acting anyway, as the two gel into one."
Are you listening, your honour? Because the sooner you realise that the British legal system exists merely as a highly self-conscious backdrop for the performance that is Pete Doherty's existence, the sooner he can get on with the business of those whacked-out car chases in stolen vehicles. It's only theatre, love!
"Pete thinks it would be such a waste," the source concludes, "if he scrapped all the material they created together."
Mmm. Something tells me that "cash flow" issues mean this one probably won't be subject to the 30-year rule.
Alas, it may still be doomed to remain incomplete: just another instance of the ill-fated brand that style journalists christened Moherty, and which Lost in Showbiz really respected as the marketing concept that promised to wring every ounce of potential out of the glamour of going out with a sore-encrusted blabbermouth you have to give pocket money to.
Dear God, they simply burned too brightly.
