Where there's Mucc...

...there's another hypocritical rant about the press. Mucca, aka Lady Heather Mills-McCartney, took the media to task this morning on GMTV, claiming she had been driven to the brink of suicide by more than 4,000 negative stories about her in the newspapers. That'll be the same Heather Mills who has apparently used the press regularly to leak info about her divorce and make as yet unsubstantiated allegations against her former husband, Paul McCartney (who has maintained a dignified radio silence while proceedings continue).

I liked the weepy touch about her claim to be "protecting" Macca. It's almost convincing, until you remember she told the same media that McCartney allegedly hit her.

Celebrities and media enjoy a double-edged relationship, the former courting the latter whenever it suits them to have free publicity, then moaning when they are shown in a bad light.

Kate and Gerry McCann found themselves in the glare of the world's press spotlight when their daughter Madeleine disappeared 6 months ago. They courted the media relentlessly in what appeared to be a fair attempt to keep Madeleine's disappearance in the public eye. Yet, when the Portuguese police named them as official suspects and the press coverage became negative, they suddenly asked for privacy!

The fact is, you can't have it both ways - if you are in the public eye for whatever reason and you use the media for your own ends, you are hardly in a position to complain when the boot is on the other foot...

On blogging

Having been chest-deep in articles on the Indian stock markets all week - editing, chasing, getting frustrated and coping with a 6-hour time difference - I've not had a lot of spare time.

What I've had has been spent reading the press, squeezing in the odd episode of EastEnders when on, and spending time with my beloved P. I was aware I hadn't blogged for nearly a week, but I couldn't think of much to write about. The whole world is talking about the McCanns and their missing daughter and while I have my views on this, the hack in me is disinclined to comment while events are still sub judice.

Then out of the blue I was commissioned to write an article on blogging. Incredibly, it's to be aimed at beginners, people who genuinely do not know what blogging is, yet these are people who, like me, are wordsmiths. I'm going to have my work cut out trying to give a comprehensive picture of the blogosphere in 1,200 words to a bunch of colleagues who really ought to know better. Or at least more.

Editors really ought to be very aware of many things - having a good general knowledge being the basis for any editing work, with specialist knowledge a bonus. Mind you, my readership for this same article will be the same crowd who can't see the point of Facebook and think Word 97 is a perfectly adequate word-processing platform (but then ask colleagues to resave a Word 2007 file for them in the 97 format).

The fact is, the technology is here to stay - Web 2.0 platforms are the future whether people like them or not, and if you're working with words you really have no choice but to get to grips with them at the very least.

Right, now I've got that off my chest, I'm off to ponder the whys and wherefores of blogging before I put it all into words.