I Wanna Live Forever

I have stopped trying to give up ranting as a New Year’s resolution because usually, within a day, I have exploded when confronted with the fallout from the Cult of Celebrity from the previous year.

I have just watched Most Shocking Celebrity Moments as I always do at the end of each year. You may ask me why I torture myself with this banal nonsense. I do so, simply to educate myself when my peers, and others who are stupidly obsessed with celebrity, start a conversation about their bizarre antics. I have been chastised in the past for being oblivious to people like Kim Kardashian, Cheryl Fernandinho-Vermicelli and Miley Billy-Ray Cyrus and in order to at least appear to feign interest, I research the antics of these show-offs by struggling through a televisual experience, with the aid of my soapbox, that highlights how deep they will plummet into depravity to maintain their status as newsworthy icons.

Kim Kardashian? No - this is Kym Cardassian

I know you can’t wait to hear what I have learned from last year’s Hall of Shame. I shall begin.

The first thing I discovered was that there is such a thing as a "professional reality star”. These are people who degrade themselves on national television in a variety of bizarre and humiliating ways in order to expose themselves to sad fans who love to watch car crash television.

Shows like I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here, Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Geordie Shore and Keeping Up With The Kardashians are full of these self-important and talentless show-offs whose only purpose in life seems to be is to expose everything about themselves to their baying audience.

These people have no talent, only the balls to make themselves look like the idiots they are. Yes, I know that they are paid a lot of money for doing this but I would not want to show my true self to a thick audience of punters who will watch them spread their vile vitriol all over social media sites like Twitter.

Some people will do anything to get into the news, either celebrity or otherwise.

Who are these people?

Katie Hopkins is one such celebrity wannabe who, in order to annoy religious types, this year declared herself to be “The new Jesus”. Is she that desperate for publicity? She’s not original (John Lennon said something similar years ago). Personally, I was more irritated by her referring to refugees as “plague of cockroaches” and advocating using gunships to send them back where they came from. I hope that in 2016 you get your comeuppance, little Miss Nasty.

Others include the Kardashians, who miraculously have somehow wormed their way into the hearts of an audience of people who I thought had some intelligence. I learned that Bruce Jenner, a former gold medal Olympian, married the widow of Robert Kardashian, the father of the Kardashian women, and has now become a woman called Caitlyn in the second most shocking moment of 2015.

I don’t care!

If he wants to be a woman that’s up to him. What I don’t understand is why anybody else outside the Kardashian family would even consider this to be a newsworthy item.

Another thing I learned was that some so-called A-List celebrities consider themselves to be far more important than anybody else. In their minds, they are gods and we, the plebs, are meant to worship them. Now I like the character Iron Man and I love Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of his eccentric alter-ego, Tony Stark. Yet when he was interviewed by a Channel 4 news reporter called Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the latest Avengers film, there were rules about the questions that could be asked. Of course, being a news reporter, Krishnan Guru-Murthy deviated from the rules and started asking more personal questions about the actor’s rather controversial past and, like a diva, Robert Downey Jr. stormed out and later referred to the reporter as a “syphilitic parasite”.

I also learned that Mariah Carey has entered the world of online dating, presumably because she cannot find a man who will surrender to her diva demands. Whether or not the myths about her are true or not, I can’t imagine any sane man wanting to enter a relationship with her.

Here are a couple of the most outrageous demands she is alleged to have made:

• She wanted eleven bodyguards to surround her table in a restaurant so that the plebs could not see her eating.
• She only drinks soft drinks through a straw, the glass having to be held by one of her minions.
• She rented every single penthouse in a luxury London hotel “for privacy” and demanded a red carpet lined with white candles so that she could make a dramatic arrival.

I wouldn’t mind – her music is absolutely shockingly bad and she has done nothing to deserve such wanton acts of greed and egomania.

Talking of egomania, the next diva is one of my favourite persons of ridicule, Mr Kanye West who, this year at Glastonbury, declared himself to be “the greatest living rock star on the planet” having just absolutely murdered Bohemian Rhapsody. Worse, at a later event, he declared that he is going to run for President of the United States in 2020. I have to say, this man has either got balls of steel of is genuinely deluded and should seek help.

In other lowlights of 2015, there were a couple of high profile separations and divorces, most notably Ben Affleck who allegedly left Jennifer Garner for a babysitter and Gwen Stefani whose husband, coincidentally, left her for a babysitter.

This is one of the main reasons I would not want to be famous. If you seek fame and fortune you have to sacrifice your privacy and, in my opinion, your love life. If you think about how long the average celebrity marriage lasts, you would never want to enter into such a relationship. I may mock Mariah Carey’s diva attitude but the truth is that I feel sorry for her, as I do any famous person whose life is there for public scrutiny. It’s like a double-edged sword. You have the adoration of your fans (no matter how sad some of them are) but the moment you make a fool of yourself in public or your life starts to fall apart, then your downfall is plastered over all the rags all over the world for all to enjoy.

Have people really enjoyed watching Charlie Sheen self-destruct over the years? Are they happy now that he has admitted being HIV positive? What about all the speculation about Cheryl Ferdinand-Vavavoom and her body size? If she is losing weight because of stress, what do you think seeing terrible stories written in tabloid media are going to do for that stress?

The poor woman cannot win.

Such a lifestyle stinks. If I were famous, I would be a recluse – which kind of defeats the object really.

I wouldn’t even want to be a politician. David Cameron was in hot water because, allegedly, he did something disgusting in his youth, as an initiation to become a member of a posh Oxford Dining Club, involving an intimate part of his anatomy and a dead pig’s head. If you want more information, please watch the following video (it’s a bit rude so reader discretion is advised):

Worse, in my view, were the words of Donald Trump, a man who wants to be President of the United States of America. He wasn’t mentioned in the shocking moments programme but some of the outrageous claims and promises he is making scare me to death.

Please, please, please don’t give this man any power.

And if he stands, please, please, please don't give Kanye West any power.

Anyway, enough negativity.

Some celebrities have shone this year. The first I would like to mention is Barry Manilow. Okay, he has made an arse of himself over the years with plastic surgery, but this year he got married – to a man! After all this time, and presumably to the horror of every Fanilow, he has admitted his sexuality.

Good for him!

The other celebrity who continues to prove that he is the nicest guy in rock is Dave Grohl. Madonna was the most shocking moment according to the TV programme because she was dragged off stage at the Brit Awards.

People praised Madonna for continuing but Dave Grohl surpassed that. He fell off the stage in Sweden and broke his leg. However, instead of cancelling the show, his band mates in the Foo Fighters carried on playing cover versions until Dave Grohl returned, his leg now in plaster and apparently in a lot of pain, to finish the concert.

That’s not all. Over a thousand people in the city of Cesena in Italy recorded a version of Learn To Fly in an attempt to persuade the Foo Fighters to play a concert there:

Dave replied in Italian and promised to visit and play a gig:

And he made good his promise (complete with broken leg) – excuse the rather fruity language:

Now that’s what I call celebrity, not despicable diva behaviour, nasty controversial vitriol or professional humiliation.

Anybody who wants fame for the right reasons, look at the example of somebody like Dave Grohl, not the egomania of Mariah Carey and Kanye West or the nastiness of Katie Hopkins and scary rhetoric of wannabe politicians like Donald Trump.

A Celebrity Rant

Do you mind if I have a good rant?

Well, I don’t care – I’m going to have one anyway.

At the end of every year, I watch a TV programme called Most Shocking Celebrity Moments simply to learn a little about the so-called celebrities that made the news in the past year for the wrong reasons, mainly so that I know who the bloody hell people are talking about. To be honest, it’s a knee-jerk response to people saying things like:

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of Kim Kardashian? Have you been living under a rock?”

Thanks to this programme, I now know who Kim Kardashian is but the cost of knowing that has made me dust off my soapbox. The programme was a countdown of the most outrageous behaviour of these people in 2014 and I for one was almost apoplectic; as you would expect, the higher the number in this chart of disgrace, the more outrageous the deed.

For two hours, I screamed at the cats, asking questions like:

“Who is this person?”

“What on Earth was she bloody well thinking?”

“Why do people humiliate themselves so much just to get noticed?”

The cats were equally incredulous.

Here are the lowlights for me.

Robin Thicke (by name and nature) who, not content with writing a song that was a misogynistic pile of crap and allowing Miley Cyrus to thrust her arse into his groin on an awards show, managed to get caught being a very naughty boy, so much so that his wife left him – understandably so. What does he do? He releases an album dedicated to her, in a futile attempt to win her back. It bombed – and I’m glad.

I discovered who Kim Kardashian was because she had a photo shoot in a magazine showing her huge naked arse under the heading “Break the Internet”. As far as I can tell all she is famous for is having a rich father and starring in a terrible reality TV show. Apparently she has an army of fans and it makes me wonder – what in the name of all that is weird do these people see in her? The famous “arse” photo has been seen all over the internet (and I am not going to reproduce it here because the last thing I want to do is give her any more publicity, however, microscopic it would be) and it goes to show that this woman (and sadly many other so-called celebrities) will plumb new chasms in order to add a little more infamy and win more idiotic fans. And the worst thing I discovered about her, is that she is married to Kanye West – arguably the most arrogant and egocentric musical celebrity ever to stagger onto my television screen. He has claimed to be God, the new Shakespeare and the best rock star in the world.

Yeah, Kanye, yeah!

Moving on swiftly (because I could spend an entire post ranting about Kanye West), have you heard of media troll Katie Hopkins? She first hit the headlines on the UK version of The Apprentice and even then her arrogance stood out a thousand miles. It was clear back then, when the post-mortem on her exit from The Apprentice was shown:

That was back in 2006, and since then, particularly recently, she has said outrageous things on Twitter and on TV. Here’s an example where she annoyed the host of a TV show because she judges who her kids can play with based on their names. This is unbelievable:

She’s insulted fat people, other celebrities and even wrote a nasty tweet about a Scottish nurse, who after catching Ebola while treating people in Africa, was transported for treatment from Glasgow to London. She wrote: "Sending us Ebola bombs in the form of sweaty Glaswegians just isn't cricket."

I, personally, would sign a petition to get this woman removed from all forms of media. Is she so desperate for fame that she is happy to offend as many people as possible? Perhaps not because she has just joined “Celebrity Big Brother” and will spend a few weeks in a house with a whole bunch of other celebrities desperate to revive their ailing careers.

Finally, of course, we have Justin Bieber, a kid with the arrogance of Kanye West who considers himself to be above the law and is so consumed by himself that he is oblivious to all of his crimes and misdemeanours.

I simply cannot connect with these people in any way whatsoever. It is almost as if they are a totally different species. They are so consumed by themselves that they simply do not seem to be able to understand the effect of their actions or behaviour. I don’t understand either.

For example, why on earth would a person take a naked photo of themselves and store them on a medium (in this case “the cloud”) that can be hacked and published on the internet? I would never take a photograph of myself naked – not even if I were drunk.

Even when something bad happens in a celebrity’s relationship, it seems to be like a media explosion or, in the case of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, a breakup can be veiled in the most idiotic phraseology to disguise what it really means in an attempt to sugar coat the event and portray the breakup as something sweet.

I mean, what the flump does the phrase “conscious uncoupling” even mean? If I were to go to Mrs PM and say “I want to consciously uncouple”, I think she would rip out my spine and parade it on a huge spike in the centre of Manchester with the banner:

The Plastic Mancunian and his spine have been consciously uncoupled

And, do you know what? I wouldn’t blame her.

My final part of the rant (and it is the final part – I promise) is this obsession with nips, tucks and plastic surgery.

Why do celebrities feel the need to alter their appearance? Why can’t they just grow old gracefully? Actresses in particular should be aware that they can’t play a young sex siren at the age of 50. Instead, we find that they convert themselves to fish by pumping their lips up like balloons. Surely they are aware that as they get older they can play more mature parts? Think about it – movies need older actors and actresses to play older people.

And if you are a pop or rock star, why do you have to be weird (and yes I do mean you Lady Gaga) or kill yourself to still look like a 20 year old at the age of 50? I like the music, not the looks of the bands who play it.

Phew! I’m all ranted out now!

What do you mean “Thank God!”?

I will, of course, punish myself in December 2015 by finding out which celebrities have made complete and utter arses of themselves in the coming twelve months.

It confirms to me at least that I am a happy normal every day person.

Oh – and dear reader – if I somehow become really famous in 2015 and make an arse of myself in public you have my permission to come to Manchester and give me a good slap – although I will be so ashamed I will probably use my new found wealth to exile myself on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.