Tom Chap-lin(e)

Simply checking into rehab hasn't made Tom Chaplin interesting, so today, Tom's given an interview to Victoria Newton about how much he loved snorting coke. Well, we say to Victoria Newton. He gave it to Q, where Victoria read about his drug problems.

Or, as Victoria puts it, presumably using some sort of keyboard shortcut:

Now the singer has revealed the scale of his drugs hell.

Apparently, he even quit the band at the end of a Japanese tour. Only he didn't tell anybody, which... well, it's not quite quitting, is it?

Then, he traipsed off to the Priory:

“I was at the end of my tether in Japan. I was tired of life and feeling pretty suicidal.

“I got off the plane and phoned my dad. I told him I’d left the band and that I was falling apart. I checked myself into The Priory.”

But this wasn't a sudden thing - oh, no: Tom had problems before:

“In late 2005 and the start of 2006, when we were finishing Under The Iron Sea, I was in a state. Tim would come to my house and I’d refuse to answer the door. I was spending a lot of time at home crying in front of Cash In The Attic."

Well, who wouldn't? When they're trying to scrape together the money to buy an iron lung or something, and the auction's going badly, and they start to play the 'sad' version of the music under the saleroom sequence, with Alastair putting a consoling arm round a woman who's just seen her treasures barely scrape the reserve price... I'm starting to sniff myself, and this is just a composite Cash In The Attic I'm making up in my head.

It sounds like Chaplin's problems have very little to do with drugs - drug hell or otherwise - and more like depression. Still, apparently treating the symptom has done well, so that won't be like cutting a limb off but being okay because you've staunched the flow of blood.

One other thing: Victoria says that Tom's two gramme a week habit would "have cost him £700" - where the hell do Sun journalists get their cocaine from? Selfridges? Based on prices quoted by Drugscope, if you shop around you could get ten times that amount.