Is Lily Allen turning into Amy Winehouse?

Well, no. I don't think so. For a start, she has one-tenth the talent that Winehouse exhibits in her little finger, although I have to admit that on first hearing I did enjoy Lily's debut album. The problem with Lily, artistically, is that she sounds the same on every track and it all becomes so boring on second listening. Amy, by comparison, only becomes better. That's her salvation. But is it going to save her?

Readers write in to comments' pages because they're fed up reading about 'z-list' celebrities. But that's what the newspapers want to give us, that's why. Someone asked why newspapers don't write about 'real' people with 'real' issues and problems. The reason is axiomatic. No one is interested in 'real' people with 'real' problems. At least, that's what we are forced fed to infer from the same newspapers or magazines. When journalists write features about people with, among other things, problems with money or sex or madness, then the snapshot of their lives that we are presented with has no relation to reality.

A shocking headline is offered up to the reader in order to draw him or her into the article, whereafter everything is spun. "My life was ruined because of my excessive spending" reads one. "My wife left me because I ran with call girls" is another banner. "My girlfriend's depression caused me to want to take my life" is one more.

Having then offered a hook, the article invariably goes on to rehash what has been written about time and again and, because these are 'real' people, without celebrity status, the interest factor is about nil.

So we are left with the Lily Allens of the world whose celebrity is predicated on their getting drunk to oblivion and then making asses of themselves - so that they can then vomit up feeble excuses on Facebook. 'Look,' they say. 'It really wasn't me. It was the booze/draw/coke/my cat died/I didn't sleep last Thursday...' Tedious, isn't it?

Lily Allen the new Winehouse? Would she wish it? She probably would.