Barrymore strikes it lucky again

Quite possibly, the least interesting news I have read today is that Michael Barrymore is to be interviewed about the death of Stuart Lubbock by Jeremy Kyle.

I am pleased to say that I have never seen a Jeremy Kyle show in its entirety, just odd bits in my local barber.

From what little I have seen, Kyle's sole purpose is to humiliate slightly dim people who would otherwise have been humiliated on, say, the front page of the Daily Mail.

You know the sort of thing: "I had sex with the neighbour's pet dog."   (This is an illustrative point, not something I have done.)

Now quite why Barrymore would want to appear on the show is anyone's guess.

He is called an 'entertainer' in the press but from what I have seen he hasn't done much entertaining for many years.  The last time I saw him, he did a sort of Basil Fawlty act on a terrible show called 'Strike It Lucky' and then a man called Lubbock fell in Barrymore's swimming pool, not in the show, and drowned.

Part of the subsequent interest in Barrymore is that Lubbock was found to have severe anal injuries.  And on a completely different subject, Barrymore is gay.

I am not a snob but I don't pay much attention to what appears in the tabloid newspapers so to read now about Barrymore makes me wonder what this is really all about.

His career has obviously tanked since the tragedy but I reckon a one trick pony like Barrymore might have struggled in subsequent years anyway.

There must be three possible reasons for him to appear on a show like Kyle's.

One is that Barrymore wants to confess, to tell the full story, if he hasn't already.  If he is to tell us what he has said before, then what's the point?  For us to feel sorry for him?

Two is that he wants to resurrect his career on the grounds that, even if he makes a complete tool of himself, the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity still holds true.

Or three, he just needs the money.

He must have reasoned that any of the three options above will make his life better than it is now, in one way or the other.

And he will come out of this at least no worse off than he started.

I know nothing about poor Mr Lubbock but I am pretty sure there is little for his memory to gain from this. And nothing but more distress for his family.

Unless Barrymore really does come out with something approaching a confession, then they will have no more answers than they did before.

Kyle wins because he gets good ratings and the tabloids and gossip magazines will gain extra readers too.

And that explains why it's all our fault.

We're the ones who watch Kyle, who buy the scandal sheets and help keep this awful tragedy (for Lubbock and his family) in the headlines.  Without us, the family might be allowed to grieve, albeit painfully and slowly, without any real answers.

This tabloid world we watch gets worse by the day and on so many occasions the bad guys do best out of it.