Celebrities
“I’m so old I remember when fame was a by-product of talent!”
I read this the other day and it immediately struck me as very true. Nowadays it takes little for a person to be declared a celebrity. A brief appearance in a Soap, or Chat Show will do it, plus clever manipulation of the social media and a publicist thrown into the mix. And for the time you are a celebrity, you will continually be in the public eye, regardless of any talent you might have. It may sound pompous but I have always been of the opinion that true fame should mean you have achieved something that distinguishes you from the rest of us. You might be a great writer, artist, actor or statesman – and by the latter I don’t mean any old politician, but a leader of stature and integrity! We don’t seem to have had one of those in this country for a very long time. I am constantly bewildered when a list of ‘so-called’ celebrities are announced for a television programme – ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, ‘I’m a Celebrity get me out of here!’ etc. – only to find I’ve never heard of any of those taking part. Unless you continually watch the Soaps, or TV Game Shows, or read the Mail, the Express, the Mirror, or the Sun, you are out of the loop. I’m not sure why anyone would actually want to be a celebrity. It can’t be a very comfortable existence. For the short time you do exist, your life is continually put under the microscope, with your public just waiting for a scandal, the breakdown of a marriage, or financial downfall.
Of course all this nonsense can easily be ignored, but there is one aspect of this ‘celebrity culture’ that rankles and annoys me. It seems that anyone of these ‘so-called celebrities’ can write a book. Some are arrogant enough to write their autobiographies, whilst still in their twenties. But it is the badly written and inadequate novels that really irk any serious writer. In a very over-crowded market, just because of a few appearances on television, these celebrity ‘so-called’ authors, can immediately hit the best-seller lists, while professional writers, working hard to produce a book of real worth, are overlooked. It seems grossly unfair and is my rant of the month!
I cannot believe we are already in April. We had a brief glimpse of the sun and then typically for our erratic weather, it is now freezing cold and even snowing in some parts of the country. But I remain optimistic that life will slowly start to improve as Spring turns to Summer and more of us have the vaccine and a certain normality returns. I also have the publication of my Book 2 of the Rawlings Trilogy coming out in a couple of months. More of that soon…
If anyone cares to make comments on my blogs I would be delighted to read them – and of course answer any questions that should arise.
