Sunday, April 3, 2011

Reality TV and romance don't mix

Nasty rumours about The Only Way is Essex's Mark and Lauren, a bitter breakup for Josie and John James ... at least David Van Day knows how to make a grand gesture

What a gloomy week it's been for romance among what you might call the below-stairs area of celebrity, where outdated bourgeois mores such as being talented, creative or interesting are rejected in favour of something akin to the dzogchen state of Tibetan Buddhism: simply being is the heart of everything.

Woe has been piled upon woe, misery added unto misery. First came sad news regarding The Only Way Is Essex stars Mark Wright and Lauren Goodger, whom Lost in Showbiz hadn't really heard of before this week's avalanche of tabloid coverage alerted it to the fact they were clearly The Most Important People In The World. Alas, reports suggest The Most Important People In The World's engagement is a sham, designed to hoodwink viewers: the pair have already filmed their breakup scenes. These charges were hotly denied by the couple in an interview with OK!, next to photos of them dressed, for reasons that LiS confesses it doesn't fully understand, in mud-spattered 18th-century military uniforms.

Anyone unconvinced by their protestations ? "I'm not short of girls but I get this bellyache feeling when I'm not with her," offered Wright, who may be confusing love with irritable bowel syndrome ? might be assured that OK! itself had obtained cast-iron proof. "Why should we doubt them?" thundered the magazine. "After all, their PR confirmed the engagement is 100% real." A statement from a PR is very much the dernier cri in establishing the veracity of a story.

Elsewhere there was the announcement that Big Brother 10 couple Josie and John James had split. As far as LiS could gather, theirs was a story as old as time, a love that wasn't strong enough to overcome a fundamental difference of opinion regarding hot-air ballooning. "She wants to go off hot-air ballooning and I can't think of anything worse . . . I couldn't care less about views and things like that . . . I'm just not interested in hot air ballooning," protested John James. But his partner had been unable to resist the inexorable allure of the propane and the basket, leading to terrifying scenes of domestic violence ("I threw a lipstick at you, didn't I, John?" "And a coat hanger.") "I'm not interested in celebrity," concluded John James, an announcement all the more powerful for coming in a seven-page interview with photoshoot in a celebrity magazine.

It's all very sad, but LiS is delighted to announce that it has discovered the perfect antidote in the shape of former Dollar frontman and erstwhile Conservative candidate for Brighton & Hove city council David Van Day. This week, Van Day made the bold decision to express his love for Sue Moxley, his wife and partner in musical duo Rich and Famous by recreating the Annie Leibovitz shot of a naked John Lennon, a mere five hours before his murder, curled around Yoko Ono. "David, 54, tells us that he is 'a bit shameless'," offers the accompanying article in Closer, for the benefit of anyone who watched David Van Day undergoing plastic surgery on Living TV's Pop Goes The Band, behaving on I'm A Celebrity . . . in a manner that caused a fellow contestant to label him a "vile sex pest", and apparently dumping his girlfriend live on The Wright Stuff before marrying her on Celebrity Four Weddings and had considered him to be the living embodiment of dignity.

Nevertheless, while gazing horrorstruck at David Van Day's buttocks, LiS found itself touched by such a public display of affection, motivated by nothing other than love for his betrothed and his new position as the face of organic Botox cream Richibrown ? buy this, and it'll make you look like David Van Day, that seems to be the confusing message ? and struck by the manifold similarities between Van Day and the late Beatle. Like Lennon, Van Day is a nonpareil musical genius. The world was rocked by their respective bands' split, but they bounced back: Lennon with the unsparing dredging of his soul that was 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band; Van Day with the unsparing dredging of his soul that was the 2008 single Biff Baff Boff! featuring Timmy Mallett. Like Lennon, Van Day espoused controversial views, not least when he told the Brighton & Hove Gay Men's Chorus at a gala dinner that he would "bend over backwards for anybody" but that he didn't want to be "behind them at the time". ("I was told these jokes by gay people. I'm very angry about all this. Where does it all stop? Is there to be no laughter?" he protested.)

Like Lennon, he subsequently faced harsh criticism. In the case of the former Beatle, it came from Tariq Ali, Paul McCartney and the Nixon administration, who embarked on a "strategic counter measure" against his anti-war stance and began a campaign to deport him. For David Van Day, it was Attitude, which asked: "Do you think the Gay Men's Chorus want to bum you?" LiS gazes once more upon his unclad form, wipes away a tear of admiration and asks, plaintively: well, who wouldn't?


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2011/mar/31/reality-tv-romance

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