Anyone in the public eye is not supposed to get old, ill, fat or even extremely tired. Not while I'm watching them on the telly, anywayI can't shift the unsettling sight of Davina McCall being pulled limp and apparently barely conscious from the freezing waters of Lake Windermere during the swimming part of the 500-mile triathlon she's doing to raise money for Comic Relief's more athletic cousin, Sport Relief.One element of my discomfort is the discombobulation that always occurs when we are reminded that famous people are human, too. It makes me angry. They are meant to transcend all that. Anyone in the public eye is not supposed to get old, ill, fat or – it turns out – even extremely tired, not on my watch. Which is to say, not while I'm watching. I am not there to protect my celebrities. They are there to protect me. What do I pay for – in the form of cinema tickets, magazine cover prices, licence fees or in the debased coin of my affection – if not the momentary banishment of thoughts of mortality and the signs of my own encroaching decrepitude and death? My faith in the endlessly ebullient uber-host – capable of uniting an audience through sheer force of personality and who, if we could only find a way to harness her to the necessary grids, could end the global energy crisis by the end of a single episode of The Million Pound Drop – has been shattered.Another reason for my discomfort was that I know (I always know, whether or not I admit it, and whatever my actions... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-15 00:00:00 UTC ]