I'm not sure I enjoyed reading the lacerating take-down of my nation's Prime Minister in the New Statesman. It's not that I like the guy - it's hard to understand how anyone could like such a transparently venal character - but I confess to having found him mildly entertaining in his appearances in Have I Got News For You a few years back, and it's difficult not to feel something for anyone who gets shredded in the press in this fashion. The very fact that his venality is on display for all to see is painful in its way: I certainly wouldn't like my own paraded in public.
And that's what lies for me at the heart of the mystery with regards to the odd way in which some people actively pursue fame and its trappings, as in the case of the unfortunate PM. Isn't it obvious that becoming the centre of attention entails that the full range of one's faults are going to be eventually revealed to all and sundry? I briefly entertained the thought of what a biography of myself might read like the other day, and the horror of contemplating any kind of account of myself as a teenager, or twenty-something, transfixed me with horror (and things went downhill after that!)
I suppose in our fantasies of fame we vaguely imagine we can exercise some control over our image rights, somehow cutting out all the compromising, clumsy, messy, ugly stuff. But the only way we'll ever hide all that is by staying resolutely beneath the radar.
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