Slippers for Nippers

A new year, another week, and another celebrity media broohaha. No I'm not referring to the current Big Brother featuring Mr Slick himself, the uber-cool and ever so tidy Dirk Benedict, who is currently the only reason to watch the show. No, the news that's grabbed and angered me can be summed up in two words: Kate Middleton.

First off, and this is my main cause for anger, this is not celebrity news and yet is being treated as such. I don't have a huge hankering for celeb gossip anyway, but if you're going to run celeb news as 'celeb news' then at least make sure you focus on an actual celebrity. Kate Middleton is NOT a celebrity. She just happens to be a girl who happens to go out with someone who happens to be in the royal family (not like he had a choice in that matter). Nothing more. Has she done anything of note in her life to warrant all this attention? No, of course not, and I'm not suggesting she has to. Maybe she's happy with a nonplus life of uni, mates and pub like the rest of us, in which case good on her.

But why has this media attention around her reached fever pitch, to the point of a lawsuit being initiated to ban all use of paparazzi photos of her in newspapers? There are two sides to this coin, and I don't like either of them. Firstly, the actual lawsuit banning paparazzi shots became a bigger story than the paparazzi hounding itself. The day after the lawsuit was announced there were twice as many reporters outside her house, only there to see how many paparazzi would show up outside her house (four, apparently). Can no one else see the lunacy in this? The newspapers were full of almost identical stories on which OTHER newspapers were running stories/photos of Kate Middleton. I'm sorry, I realise we live in a world obsessed with pseudo-celebrities, but this is sheer madness, and completely arbitrary to the point of the lawsuit. The reverse effect this had can best be summed up by TV's 'Titty Bang Bang' - "Don't Look At Me! Don't Look At Me!"

I'm not naive as to how these things work, but Miss Middleton clearly is. She's dating, and will probably marry, a member of the ROYAL FAMILY. It's conceivable that one day she will be the QUEEN OF ENGLAND! What exactly did she think would happen?! Did she really expect the media to leave her alone? She made her choices, and then got all stroppy and legal on people when she didn't like it. Ahhh, poor Kate, must be tough being rich and privileged.

I don't have an opinion on Prince William either way, he seems alright but has never done anything to offend or impress me. But I've already decided that, if this goes the course we all expect it to, I don't like the next Queen. Bit of a whiny cow, if you ask me. Jesus, if she's this pissed off with the attention she's getting for just being his girlfriend, what the hell's she gonna do if and when she becomes Queen? Ban all tourists from taking photos of Buckingham Palace? Cancel Christmas because she doesn't want Wills to do the speech? Replace the person on the stamps because she wants to be left alone (no doubt with someone like Robbie Williams or Chris Martin)?

God save the Queen? God help her, more like.