Reality check

Being married to The Doctor, who has no idea who any celebrity is (I often wonder if he would recognise Madonna if she danced past him in Waitrose singing 'Like a Virgin'), I sometimes feel like a bit of an airhead for having a fairly good working knowledge of trashy celebrity culture. OK, so I know who Jordan and Peter are, know all the who said what to whoms of the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston saga, and read articles in magazines about Gywneth Paltrow's collection of high heels. I may have an English degree, and have read Little Dorrit, but my head is full of trivia, which makes me good at pub quizzes but is otherwise pretty useless.

I also have a guilty liking for two reality TV shows; The Apprentice, which is my absolute favourite, and I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here, which is currently brightening up the cold November evenings. This is odd, because in general I don't like them; I avoided Big Brother after the first series, ditto X Factor and couldn't give a stuff about John Seargant on Stricly Come Dancing.

But the other day, at the hairdressers, I realised that my celebrity knowledge is not as encyclopaedic as I thought.....

It was 4pm and there were no other customers, just me, my hairdresser, the receptionist and another stylist from the salon. We got onto the subject of local celebrities, by way of discussing Gordon Ramsay and his alleged affair which has been all over the tabloids this week. ( "ooh, how could he. Those beautiful children..."etc etc)

I reeled off a few of my local celebrity sightings, which consist of Vivienne Westwood at my yoga class and Neil Pearson, ex Drop the Dead Donkey, at the gym. We shared a bit of local urban legend, such as Mark Owen from Take That living off the Northcote Road (he looks REALLY SCRUFFY, said the hairdressers disapprovingly). I thought that was pretty good. But no. They then launched into a whole stream of 'celeb spots' , consisting of people I had never even heard of, let alone would recognise.

"We had her, from Celebrity Come Dine with me, in here to do her highlights. You know the one." (I didn't)
"I saw Chico from X Factor on Lewisham station," (cue gales of laughter from the others - whether because it was a celebrity in Lewisham I don't know...)
"Y'know Brian from Big Brother, he lives right above the post office round here."
And (my favourite) "I saw Jerry from last year's Big Brother in Tesco's. Just, like, sitting there. Sitting there!"
At this point I had to opt out of the conversation. Oh dear. I clearly haven't kept up. It is a slippery slope and sooner or later I will turn into the kind of fogey who asks who the Beatles are.......

*The lovely Bush Mummy has awarded me a 'superior scribbler' award, so thank you very much. I will pass it on, but just not now because I have builders in my house and should not really be blogging at all......