Famous for 15 minutes

A man was arrested for swimming into the path of the University Boat Race. With almost equal stupidity, the media told us his name, thereby giving him the publicity he craved, and advertising this as a route to fame. (At least he kept his clothes on, unlike some others who disrupt sporting events.)

There are many ways to yell “Look at me,” if that is what you live for. Some people get a car number plate that declares their name. Like Postman Pat or Noddy. (Bless.) Some people try to catch the coat-tails of someone else’s fame – for example, by shooting them. One general (whose name is ironically only approximately remembered) had his shot at fame by destroying the Temple of Diana.

A very popular method these days is to sign up for a reality show on TV. Of course, you have to choose carefully. You need a grain of talent to gain a place on Masterchef. (Unless of course you are already famous for something else. In that case you are readily offered further fame regardless of talent, as a chef or dancer or ice-skater. To him who has, it will be given.)

But those lacking talent can still get their 2 minutes of fame (falling short of Andy Warhol’s utopian 15) on the freak-show of the X-Factor auditions.  Or simply Big Brother, which openly embraces the fact that its participants simply want to be famous.

I have a proposal for the next series of Big Brother. At the start of this piece, I objected to our being told the name of the boat race swimmer. Following the same logic, I would like to see the identity of the next lot of self-publicists carefully concealed. Let them preen into the Big Brother house in front of a crowd of carefully-chosen unbelievers, who will dutifully wave and cheer and then utterly forget the utterly forgettable. They will be there again, when the suckers emerge.

Let there be cameras all over the house, and let no film be made. (This seems to work quite well with CCTV. The bad guys see cameras and tailor their behaviour accordingly.)

And then (this is the clever bit) comes the “real” reality TV. Let secret cameras follow each emerging contestant into the outside world, and let us all watch their bemused response as they realise that nobody knows who they are.

But above all: we do not want to know their names.

(Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe Big Brother is a necessary conduit. Maybe without it, people would be reduced to shooting people, destroying religious buildings, wrecking sports events, or demonstrating their catastrophic inability to sing.)