Parky’s 2p Worth

I take back what I’ve said about Parky in the past. Fair play to him for not quite hitting the nail squarely on the head, but giving it a good glancing blow, providing one of the more lucid and reasoned comments surrounding the passing of Russell Brand’s “Primark Princess”.

There was more than a smidgen of hypocrisy around on the death of Jade Goody, with hundreds lining the streets and people weeping openly. There’s an unspoken law against speaking ill of the dead, and it’s the fear of breaking this law that too-often results in the Great British public (or maybe it’s human nature in general) having a tendency to over-compensate by waxing lyrical about the passing of someone whose conduct, in their life, was less than perfect. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but if it’s not this, it’s sad that it takes someone’s untimely demise for people to realise they quite liked someone. Either way, it’s a bit of a sad reflection.

At the end of the day (Brian), no one deserved to go through what she went through and I felt desperately sorry for her and her kids, but I’m not going to be a hypocrite and pretend she was someone who I liked; I often thought she was odious in the extreme. "Her death is as sad as the death of any young person but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di," wrote Parky in the Radio Times, "[she represented] all that's paltry and wretched about Britain... the perfect victim of our times".

While you can read this in a number of ways, he didn’t shirk from describing what she was, though he seemed to obliquely place the blame on both society and the times we’re living through. It’s the old nature and nurture thing: was she unpleasant because of who she was, or was she unpleasant because of what her environment turned her into? It’s probably a bit of both; the two aren’t mutually exclusive. A product of society and lifestyle she may have been, but it didn’t stop her being objectionable.

I disagree with Mr P on the role of the press though. I always thought the relationship between Jade and the media was pretty symbiotic. On a steady fulcrum of mutual exploitation, they fed off her pseudo-celebrity to sell their magazines and she was all-too-willing to give of herself in exchange for a few quid. They existed more or less in equilibrium to the benefit of both parties (which is a lot healthier than some celebrities’ dalliances with the paparazzi). The relationship was one of mutual use rather than abuse.

It’s a shame that she’s gone. No right-thinking human being should celebrate the passing of another human being in such circumstances, though the double standards from both individuals and the media is highly questionable. Now she’s gone, she’s undoubtedly left a Jade-sized void which will be difficult to fill, though my money’s on Kerry Katona.

The real benefactor from all this misery is Max Clifford who’s emerged earnest-faced, richer and smelling of proverbials.