Sponsored by
Nick Ahad: Pinter's tragic death a poignant reminder of true meaning of celebrity
One of the things about being a journalist is that you never switch off.
It's not like news stops happening when you leave the office.
This Christmas I made a promise to my better half that I wouldn't log on to work emails, wouldn't clog up the house with every newspaper published on a daily basis and would try to limit my time watching news channels.
On Christmas Day, as a little treat to myself, while everyone was sitting in front of the Mamma Mia DVD in a post-lunch stupor, I slipped away and logged on to a newspaper website and was met with the news that Harold Pinter had died. I had to break the ban.
On Boxing Day I went out to buy all the newspapers I could to see the coverage of this profound loss, and to my horror found the local newspaper shop closed, while bucks fizz for breakfast meant I couldn't drive anywhere that might be open.
So it was only this week when we all returned to work that I was able to see the coverage of the loss of one of our greatest playwrights.
I "borrowed" Boxing Day copies of the newspapers from around the Yorkshire Post office and took them home to devour every word written about the Nobel Prize-winning writer. My appetite satiated, I then watched Celebrity Big Brother.
Now, before you start making all kinds of unkind assumptions, I am emphatically not someone who ever watches this ridiculous programme. Normally.
However, the promise of celebrities being cooped up
in a house and the chance to see something as entertaining as the breakdown of that horror of a woman Vanessa Feltz, who lost her marbles half-an-hour after entering the Celebrity BB house a few years ago, was just too tempting.
The episode I watched had the various inmates, or housemates, whatever they're called, showing off their talents; demonstrating the particular skill which makes them a "celebrity".
There was a couple of singers, a rap artist, a weather girl, a glamour model and Michael Jackson's sister.
The last of these two, the glamour model (a Page 3 girl) and LaToya Jackson, demonstrated little other than the fact that fame these days is an end in itself – lack of talent doesn't stop the really ambitious.
I watched as LaToya sang a song written and recorded by her brother and the Page 3 girl spoke into a camera while wearing a t-shirt and knickers.
And I looked at the pile of newspapers next to me and thought about the fact that a playwright's death had made it onto the front pages of all the broadsheets and warranted substantial coverage in all the tabloids.
Pinter had achieved the status of "celebrity" as a by-product of his enormous skill and talent.
Fame was only ever a by-product, it was never an aim for Pinter. He had more talent in one hand than this whole house full of "celebrities".
I looked back at the television and I had to switch off.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Three-inch blanket of snow heading our way today
- Alan Shearer in list of favourites for Leeds and England jobs: Latest odds
- Barnsley’s Keith Hill invokes Fawlty Towers over link with Leeds job
- McCormack feels United search can be narrowed down
- Redfearn throws down gauntlet as queue builds at Elland Road
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North west
