Peter's eye on the world

Walking around my local Tesco store the other day I noticed in their book section they had many autobiographies by so-called celebrities. I say so-called, because I'm not even sure you have to do anything to become one these days. Surely you have to be well-known to be labelled as such, not a nobody who pretends to be one and then achieves enough notoriety.

What riled me up was that many of these people such as Lewis Hamilton are younger than me, yet they somehow feel as if they have a story to tell and a life's story worth many pages. I have no interest whatsoever in the 'lives' of these vacuous people, but I always feel compelled to have a look at the drivel that is pedalled in the pages of print. Mostly it's just narcissistic rubbish laced with many glossy pages of (admittedly well done) photographs. In the case of Lewis Hamilton's book, with the original title of 'My Story', it looks like a 'My First Autobiography' with more pictures than words. Could that possibly be because he's only 24? Whatever sells I guess.

So Mr Hamilton is fairly well-known as they go, but what about such nobodies as Alan Carr who obviously has a small doubt regarding his popularity that he has to reassure readers that it is indeed him on the front cover. Ok, so Mr Carr has presented the odd TV and radio show, but he's not exactly a household name and skimming through his book, his life hasn't exactly been something to aspire to. Nor has say, Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross with his amusingly titled new book 'Why Do I Say These Things?'. I bet he wished he could change the title of that now .