Celebrity Squares

"I'm a celebrity, look at me." There is little sadder than the celebrity who insists on shouting his or her celebrity from the rooftops or from the newspaper and magazine pages than the media themselves that fuel the whole phenomenon or those that the media insist are fascinated by all this stuff - the reader.

Mallorca's media, the mags and papers, love all this stuff. Why? Who gives a damn? This weekend, we are told, a bunch of knights are pitching up in Deia: Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber has invited the likes of Sirs Roger Moore and Michael Caine to his 60th birthday thrash. Good for him. I, for one, couldn't care less. The only thing one could say is that at least these are A-listers, which is more than can normally be said for the Mallorcan celebrity.

Some of these celebs are not so much obscure as totally in the dark. They tend to be entertainers who may or may not have made it beyond a cabaret evening somewhere on the island. I haven't a clue who they are and have nil interest in knowing who they are. Then there are those celebs with some claim to fame, usually prehistoric. Take Tom O'Connor for instance. He's the turn at a "celebrity lunch" taking place at the end of the month and will doubtless provide the local press the opportunity of filling some copy with a gushing report. When you can't think of something better to write, then find a celeb, any old celeb, and hammer out a page or two. When Ron Atkinson was here for a charity do last summer, he got three pages (or was it four?).

Mallorca has of course been helped by the real celebs. The house buying of German super models and tennis players and of the likes of Michael Douglas all conspired to give Mallorca a more up-market image, but the C-listers and those who do not even make a letter of the alphabet are just frippery. Their celebrity is shallow, as is the interest in them.


Well I was looking for an excuse for this, and yesterday's quiz question sort of gives me it. Apropos of very little, other than as a continuation of a theme earlier in the week, namely socialist politics, Alastair has told me that the chair of the Dutch socialist parliamentary party is called Martinus Kox. Nothing exceptional about this, but apparently he insists on being known by a diminutive of his Christian name ... Tiny. Tiny Kox. And diminutive would be about right. Just as well he 's not a celeb.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Alistair. Today's title - who was the presenter?

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