Pete Doherty. Nice.
Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Giddy with contentment, Lost in Showbiz spent yesterday morning cutting letters out of Heat magazine headlines and glueing them on to a piece of paper. "I HaVE YOur LiTeL SCoTTy DOG MisTER JOSay anD LeT ME TeLL YOU HE Don'T LiKE iT DowN ThE Pit iN My CeLLar. Yap-YaP-yAP He GOEs. EiTHer YOU SaY SoRRY TO ReadiNG AmBulaNCE SerVICE or IT TIME FOR AnotHER OF HiS 'KwarANTiNE INjecTIONS'."
Alas, all natural highs must wear off and a rapid comedown was precipitated by the news that a west London "space" is exhibiting 14 paintings by Pete Doherty, the Bejam Byron. What makes the Bankrobber Gallery's show deserving of the attentions of heavy artillery is the fact that the works, if we can be hysterically flattering to them for a minute, are largely drawn in Pete's blood.
Gallery director Michael Chambati-Woodhead - on the basis of no evidence whatsoever I'm speculating that Michael has a trust fund and nurses delusions that he is "making a difference" - had this to say to the media.
"Painting is a relatively new thing for him," he explained, lest anyone should look at Pete's scribbles and somehow find them analogous in terms of artistic maturity to, say, Rembrandt's last self-portrait. "Painting with his blood is the expression of the intensity with which he does everything."
Oh, do come on, Michael! Surely it's the kind of thing any of us would do if you gave us enough smack and we were desperately looking for excuses for our failure to be able to maintain an erection for Kate Moss.
As for the artworks themselves, I'm afraid some arch observation about imperial nakedness really doesn't cover it. There are simply no adequate words, even for someone whose most overused conversational gambit is, "I've seen some crap in my time, but this ... " Such a monstrous charlatan is this reasonably talented songwriter becoming, it is tempting to suspect he was merely invented as a test of human idiocy. And given that some of the works are reportedly on sale for £45,000, we're clearly failing on a goddamn species level
When trying to conceive of his explanation for these drawings, for some reason I have a vision of Pete dressed as Maude Lebowski, the artist played by Julianne Moore in The Big Lebowski, who prances around in a long robe and says things like "My art has been commended as strongly vaginal", while her black-clad acolyte, played by David Thewlis, cackles maniacally in the background.
"My work has been commended as strongly hepatitic," Pete declares to an audience composed of people too wasted to move, and fifth-form girls videoing the declamation on their pink cameraphones, before they text it to their classmates who have been grounded. ("OMIGOD the bit where he sez we R R own gods is amazing LOL by the way did u get that belly ring in Claires" Acessorries Got to go my mum's calling me :-( ")
Moss in the Thewlis role, obviously, probably tossing off another collection of scrappy waistcoats while she's at it.
Should you require any further info, it seems the drawings are largely taken from a forthcoming book entitled The Books of Albion: the Collected Writings of Peter Doherty. If you spot it on a friend's shelf, make time to ask them what on earth they are doing with their life.
Clearly, even contemplating buying one of these provides the most accurate indicator of your status as someone who should be prevented from participating in human society. In fact, come Lost in Showbiz's revolution, anyone buying a Doherty blood painting would be compulsorily sterilised, banned from voting in all elections, and made to work the phone lines at ITV Play for all eternity.
The ups and downs of Paris and Britney
Lost in Showbiz has long held the belief that changing seasons in this earthly sphere exist simply as a metaphor for Britney Spears' state of mind. Yesterday, looking out of the window at flowers breaking into bloom, this column was suddenly struck by the understanding that Britney had updated her website. It was as if nature knew.
And as surely as spring modulates into summer, suspicions were confirmed: "The reason for this letter is to let everyone know that their prayers have truly helped me," begins a homepage communique from the singer, who underscores her newly helped mindset by posting a new picture in which her blonde-bewigged self is shown covering her naked breasts with white-gloved hands. "I am so blessed that you care enough about me to be concerned," she goes on, "and will continue to live in this brighter state with all of you by my side during this trying time. You are all in my prayers. Godspeed, Love Britney."
Yet we would not know light without shade, and there is only a finite amount of good fortune in the universe of women who shun undergarments. For Britney's erstwhile new best friend Paris Hilton, news is mixed.
On the one hand, the heiress's impending prison sentence has been halved for good behaviour, suggesting that Tim Robbins could have got out of Shawshank jail a lot quicker if he'd ditched the library, stuffed a teacup chihuahua in his handbag and made a point of giving his nightclub exits the flavour of a gynaecological examination. On the other, though, the appeal by Paris's mother to Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has not been successful, and Kathy Hilton has now issued a statement.
"Hopefully, young people who look up to Paris will learn from this," it reads, and we must wish Kathy Godspeed, while noting the almost unbearable poignance of her failure to realise that life forms who look up to Paris normally only live a matter of days in these sublunar climes. Indeed, the archive photo of her daughter wearing a T-shirt reading "I'm Paris Hilton and I can do whatever I want" now seems an image of Sophoclean irony.
