Celebrity. Culture.

I'm sat in the lounge at Terminal 5 waiting for my flight to Chicago, and Jamie Oliver is sat a few yards from me. I'm not writing this to claim bragging rights on nearness to fame or anything: t's more that I'm intrigued at my own reactions and emotions.

Firstly though, some background: we don't have a television at home - so no regular updates on so-called celebrity behaviour and antics; I'm not an avid Jamie fan in any case, as, although I enjoy cooking, and co-own a coffee shop, it's not my thing; from the snippets of news I get from the internet and general chatter amongst friends and collegues, I understand that recently he's received some flack for this persistent use of extremely bad language on his latest TV show (which I mention because I have a low tolerance for bad language, as for me it's simply a sign of lack of self-control and laziness with the English vocabulary, which has more than enough words to express any feeling one might have).

Therefore (eventually getting to my point), I find it immensely intriguing that I should be feeling some need to glance at Jamie every now and again, so that I can see this 'celebrity' in real life. For some reason I'm curious about his demeanour, what he's doing, and what he looks like. Why? I can only surmise it's a subconscious subscription to western popular culture, which in turn is the pursuit or worship of fame and glamour. Is it a fundamental building block of human nature (or at least of mine), that fame is alluring, and the money and power that it brings tempting?

Well, those are my musings on the matter, and, you'll be glad to know, I managed to restrain myself from dashing over and getting his autograph. Or, more importantly, inviting him to appear as a guest chef at the coffee shop one Saturday morning ;-)