Four Weddings and a NOTW funeral

Okay, so I am a little behind the times…or is it the news of this world…but I have got to say that Hugh Grant is now my favourite fop of all time. Four weddings and a NOTW funeral! Kudos Mickey Blue Eyes!

It was Mark Twain that said fact was stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. The beauty of the demise of the NOTW is that although it was long overdue, who could have seen Hugh Grant coming?

Apparently he broke down in Kent and a paparazzi scum (Paul McMullan) started taking photos and generally hassling him. It was then, incredibly, that the idiot gutter-snapper started to actually brag about the activities surrounding tapping people’s phones.

First of all, what kind of whack job do you have to be to admit to extremely inflammatory and illegal behaviour such as tapping phones, whilst stalking and taking photographs of someone who acts for a living?

And then when the actor nonchalantly strolled into your pub, for the first time ever, and starts to ask you questions about the aforementioned illegal behaviour, what kind of idiot confesses all again?

McMullan said in an interview with the BBC that “journalists” at the NOTW were only trying to find the truth, and what better way to find the truth than spying on people? Hmmm, how about trying honesty first and then baby-stepping up to the truth Paul? You see, the thing that really offends me about these “journalists” is when they decree that they are acting in the public’s interest.

What is in the public interest, and what the public find interesting (as it has been stated many, many times before) is not necessarily the same thing. The public find X Factor interesting, does that mean that it is in the public interest to have all panels be chaired by Simon Cowell? Perhaps we could give him a sub-committee to run, who knows, there might be some resignations in Whitehall yet (fingers crossed, toes crossed!)

I am tired of “journalists” who define all scandal as public interest. I am tired of “journalists” who use the public, which is you and I, as their excuse to carry out their filthy livings. Speaking as a member of the public, I am not interested that Hugh Grant got a blowjob from a prostitute, and I am not interested what colour her skin was.  I am however fascinated at what he has uncovered about them.

Hugh Grant must have felt like all of his Christmas’s had come at once when Paul McMullan started spilling the beans. There are many times when many people were glad they were not Hugh Grant, but how many of you would swap places with him now? Talk about sweet revenge…

A BBC reporter asked Grant if he had been waiting for this moment to come, if he was now on some sort of crusade…what a silly question. I despised the NOTW, but I bet no one hated that heap more than the people it wrote about. Even if the NOTW had not persecuted you for one stupid mistake you made in one moment of madness (hands up anyone who has not done something they are deeply ashamed of), you only need to have a speck of morality punctuating your personality in order to want to take them down. Hugh Grant has been dreaming of this moment for what must have felt like an eternity…

The poisonous McMullan said that no member of the public ever had “sympathy” for Hugh Grant because he earned £5m a movie. He went on to say (at least, this is my interpretation of what he said) that all high earners, red carpet walkers and the like have no right to privacy. His sentiment, shared by many other “journalists”, was if you want your photo taken at a premier then you have to let us stalk you relentlessly for the rest of your career (which we will aim to destroy, so it shouldn’t be that long.) Where do these people get off? Brighton Pier is for sale, but his front would get a better price.

This celebrity culture is like a dog chasing its tail! Straight and to the point, if paparazzi stopped stalking “the already famous”, and laws were clearly made to say that it is highly illegal to do so, people would still know who they were – they are already famous. Really famous people (not the clamouring Zzzz lists who just get on your nerves after a while) need paparazzi as much as Van Gough needed stereo: paparazzi are sociopathic parasites that need to be terminated by Law.

Hollywood can survive just fine and dandy without the aid of Rupert Murdoch, just like the rest of us.

There is no excuse that justifies listening in on the private conversations of anyone. There is nothing of public interest in breaking privacy. When your interference causes innocent families to be dragged through tragedy upon tragedy in the name of public interest, you should be put out of public life.

Anyone in this world that condones or sympathises with the actions of the News Of The World should agree to remove all of the curtains from their home, allow anyone to read their diaries, personal items (bank statements etc.) and permit a film crew to follow them around for the rest of their lives, broadcasting every moment live on free TV. Perhaps then and only then would they learn the value of a private life.