Some random thoughts and not a lorry in sight

Britain's answer to Paris Hilton, Peaches Geldof, has just embarked on her first marriage. I say "first" because I know with doom laden certainty that this sudden Las Vegas coupling isn't for keeps. It seems to be some sort of promotional push for her new husband's band. Ironic, seeing as in an interview recently in one of the "quality" papers she lamented the way she is always being compared to her mother. This after she was rushed to hospital after an alleged drugs overdose.

It seems Peaches cannot exist without the oxygen of press coverage, mostly negative. She seems doomed to travel on the roller coaster of Z list celebritydom and to live out one failed marriage after the next.

Wrong? Hope she proves me wrong. But somehow I doubt it.

Meanwhile the city where I was born, Plymouth, has been in a lather of excitement thanks to 14 year old sychronised diver Tom Daley. (My brother Robert was apoplectic at the Radio Times crediting Portsmouth for this prodigy - a most unfortunate error, given that bloody Portsmouth has been preferred over Devonport and the dockyard there is now doomed to closure).
Unusually for a 14 year old, Tom is confident and lucid, and quickly became over-hyped by the press both in the UK and in China. The fact that his 26 year old diving partner then criticised him when they came bottom didn't surprise me in the least. The poor guy was barely mentioned in the run-up to the Olympics, even though it takes two to do synchronised diving. He was bound to be secretly seething, and by the next Olympics will probably be over the hill.

Let's hope Tom comes good in the individual diving event near the end of the Olympics. Otherwise four words "Eddie The Eagle Edwards" spring to mind.

Paris Hilton: what did you expect?

I had a little snigger when I heard that Paris Hilton had been released from jail so soon on "health grounds." What health grounds, I wondered - a broken finger nail?

But really folks, what were you expecting? That she would do her full term and emerge chastened and remorseful? I knew there would be some sort of dodge to get her out quickly. Money is everything, even with the law.

What surprises me a little is the sentiment around her release. It's like wolves baying for blood. OK, so she's a pampered princess, an heiress whose biggest daily challenge is changing clothes several times and accessorizing the dog's jacket to match. She has a useless, worthless life, but she seems happy enough with that. I don't think she's troubled by enough brain cells to want more.

It seems to me that most of the antipathy is fuelled by nothing more than good old-fashioned jealousy, and outrage that money can open doors anywhere, it would seem.

Folks, get over it: if I take a good long look at the life of Paris Hilton, I can guarantee it's going to be one disaster after another: superficial relationships based on money, drugs, alcohol, dissatisfaction. Unless she finds a cause, or purpose for her life, she will drift. The roller coaster of plastic surgery will inevitably follow as she tries to keep her looks (though I'm always perplexed about this "Paris is beautiful" thing because to me she looks like an anteater). There's nothing very lucky about a life like that.

I am surprised her advisors didn't see this as an opportunity to relaunch her on a better path. Naomi Campbell apparently performed her community service as a cleaner very cheerfully - or so she says in the book that inevitably followed. I was half hoping that Paris would serve her time humbly and then come out fired up with the desire to reform the penal system. But I forgot - I guess you need a few brain cells to do that.