Preposterously Convenient

I have to confess, I love a bit of celebrity gossip, particularly favouring round-up sections. Today's Guilty Pleasures pages in Metro featured the news that Jade Goody's mother, Jackiey Budden, had followed the same road as the ever-laughable Kerry Katona, being filmed snorting lines of coke.

Aside from her actions being “excused” by her grief at the first anniversary of her daughter's death, several things struck me about this story.

I was never a huge Jade fan, like many, confused as to what she had done to have managed to sustain her celebrity status, or even earned it in the first place! I avidly followed the first Big Brother house mates and continued to watch the show, until by the third series, my interest started to waiver.

Jade's rise to stardom irritated me because she was essentially lacking any brain cells and had done nothing but make painfully stupid remarks that seriously lacked any eloquence or indeed any grammatical understanding. Her supposedly endearing “charm” could have been easily rivalled by any girl from the street given half the chance to make it as a C, or even D list, celebrity.

I was in Australia when news of her death reached me and was pretty shocked as I had been travelling for so long, I hadn't been keeping track of much of the inessential news from home. As much as I resented her misplaced celebrity and found her excruciatingly annoying, her particularly painful and premature death, saddened me.

Now a year on, reading about her mother's antics, I have to wonder why the mother of a deceased D list, or perhaps E list, celebrity is even in the news and whether the coverage of such shenanigans is a pathetic attempt by Jackiey to keep her name in print. After all, all press is good press, right?

I am pleased to say, aside from catching the odd disturbing picture of her and her gold-digger toyboy, until today I had never read an interview with her. Scanning today's shocking news I was unable to resist the temptation to see whether her IQ matched Jade's. Commenting on the News of the World expose at the weekend, wordsmith Jackiey, said: “Yes, I was a crack head, nine years clean. Five o'clock one morning and I was stressed out I thought, 'Do you know what? I'll just take two lines.' It's the biggest mistake I've ever done. I feel physically sick and disgusted that I ever done it. I shouldn't have done it but I did.”

Aside from Jackiey's linguistic flair, her comment caught my eye because I was left wondering who decides at 5am to snort coke and is able to instantly access some, without already stocking it? It seems preposterously convenient - like these celebrities who sadly take their lives by accidentally or suicidally hanging from their wardrobe railings. I am not sure I have ever had a wardrobe big enough or tall enough with a rail strong enough to carry my load! Surely, some amount of planning must be involved?

The lovely Jackiey went on to update her adoring fans on the progress of Jade's two children: “Bobby's IQ at School is grand and Freddie, who was obviously knocked back for a couple of years, can read a little bit now and can write his name more proper.” If ex-drug dealer Jackiey being a role model for these two children is not disturbing enough, then her belief “Bobby's IQ is grand” certainly is! I hope for Bobby's sake he doesn't follow in the footsteps of his mother or grandma.