We're not sure if Pete Doherty's plan is to try and push things so far that British tabloid readers feel there's no option but to build up a pile of faggots and kindling and burn him, but the way things are going, that seems to be the only ending. A couple of days ago, he was getting himself muddled up with a sixteen year-old, who yesterday was spread all over the front of the Daily Star pledging to take Kate Moss' place "in Pete's bed and on the catwalk" - you'll note the British tabloids treat 16 year-old girls as children in need of protection when they're in a car with pop stars, but as women able to make their own decisions and choices when they're being interviewed; it was almost a step back to the days when Mike Gabbert was editing the Star and ran a picture of a fifteen year-old girl with a headline which mentioned the size of her tits, and how many days until she was 16, when she was pledging to get them out for the paper.
This morning, the main story in the People is headlined RACE TO SAVE FAN 15, FROM JUNKIE PETE BUS. That's not, of course, a junkie called Pete Bus. The heart of the story is that a 15 year-old girl decided to leap onto the Babyshambles bus as it left Dundee; her parents called the cops; the police intercepted the bus at a motorway service station. Not, really, the stuff of Hollywood movies, but the People do a good job of writing it up to make it sound as lurid as possible. They almost let the facts get in the way of a good story, too:
The impressionable 15-year-old had embarked on a 400-mile motorway journey through the night after being invited on to a tour bus used by Babyshambles crew members that followed in convoy with junkie Pete's coach.
So... actually, she wasn't even on Junkie Pete Bus, she was on some other bus. Which reduces the impact of the later paragraphs, somewhat...
The 15-year-old's distraught parents - aware of Doherty's horrific use of illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine - alerted cops after getting a mobile phone call from their daughter.
But while they might be distraught, what does the habits of someone not on the bus have to do with the story?
Last night family organisations were appalled by the girl's experience.
But... why? What was the experience that was so appalling? Sure, there were a few errors of judgement on all sides, and we can imagine it must have been a bit upsetting for the parents. But 'girl takes a lift; parents panic and intervene' is hardly that bad, is it?
Eric Hester, vice-chairman of Family and Youth Concern said: "It is every parent's nightmare. These girls might look older than their years but a 15-year-old is still a child and she should be protected."
We know that Family and Youth Concern are permanently on aler - and it's a sign of how ready they are to judge that Eric Hester broke off from chairing their vice sessions to comment. But this is all a flap about nothing, isn't it? It could have been very bad indeed, yes; but it wasn't.
And The People's Agony Aunt Rachael said: "This has to be the ulimate horror for parents - your teenage daughter on a bus full of roadies from a pop band headed by a self-confessed junkie."
Again, it's probably not what parents would want to hear, but we can think of dozens of parents who have had horrors far more awful than hearing their daughters have climbed onto a bus and had a bit of a silly adventure; and we're prepared to bet that when they got the phone call saying "Mum, I'm on a tour bus" they actually were relieved that some of their more obvious, burning horrors they'd been imagining - involving shallow graves and brutalism - were able to melt away.
Meanwhile, the Sunday papers rush to play catch-up with a full seven days of Kate Moss stories: Lucy Clarkson will clearly never work again after blabbing to the people:
Opening her heart to The People, Yorkshire-born Lucy, 23, revealed how...
YOUNG girls take part in lesbian orgies after losing their minds on Class A drugs.
SLEAZY businessmen hang around backstage luring young models into sex romps by offering them drugs.
DESPERATE models routinely take cocaine because it suppresses their appetite and enables them to stay slim.
CATWALK JUNKIES snorted the drug off silver platters at the prestigious London Fashion Week.
FASHION BOSSES know about the illegal abuse but ignore it.
We know, we know... who knew that models might take coke to stay slim? We're as shocked as you are.
Something we are really surprised at is the Mirror's claims that Naomi Campbell is Kate's "supermodel pal" - surely Kate can't have been so addled by drugs as to be mates with her, can she? There doesn't seem to be much to the claim, apart from a bid to stack up the paper's insistence that Moss will go onto Parkinson when she comes out of rehab. Apparently, Parkinson is the show of choice for yer recovering addict, says the paper's mysterious source:
"If she goes on and says: 'I'm sorry. I'm hooked, I was wrong,' people will show her more respect. That's what Naomi did. She's been through the same nightmare herself and has told Kate that Parky is the right show to do. It worked for her. And she's convinced it can work for Kate, too."
We're not quite sure how it "worked" for Naomi, who threw a massive strop when the Mirror ran pictures of her coming out of her twelve-step group (despite acknowledging you have a problem being step one...), but we know why Parky's the first choice - he's such a lame interviewer, it's more like being licked by a kitten than asked questions. The other main options - Martin Bashir or Jonathan Ross - would be either too probing or too prone to take the piss. Going on Parky is like choosing a twnikly old priest who doesn't much care anymore to make your confessions to.
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