Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Pete Doherty and Kate Moss - Star-crossed love or something darker?

Page: 1(2)3 4

17:56 / 19.09.05

Perhaps crystal meth might be the really ethical consumer’s choice of pick-me-up? All artificial ingredients. And less drug miles.

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:05 / 19.09.05

Or, skunk. It's fast turning into a big selling cottage industry and the only people who are harmed are the self-abusing users -- that is, if you don't count groups of teenagers breaking into skunk dens to pillage the crops, but getting a nasty shock from an electrified door knob instead.

20:09 / 19.09.05

I've always thought that spiking a huge shipment of cocaine with Anthrax could be on the list of terrorist actions.

Wasn't that an episode of 24 ?

paranoidwriter waves hello

20:11 / 19.09.05

Dunno, never watched it. Was it?

Haus of Mystery

20:20 / 19.09.05

I've always thought that spiking a huge shipment of cocaine with Anthrax could be on the list of terrorist actions.

Yes. Because they'd obviously want to get the advertising execs, children's TV presenters and b-grade indy bands first wouldn't they?

20:23 / 19.09.05

Well I don't see why not.

paranoidwriter waves hello

20:32 / 19.09.05

Yes. Because they'd obviously want to get the advertising execs, children's TV presenters and b-grade indy bands first wouldn't they?

Indeed. Not to mention the majority of the rest of the hedonistic western media. Infidels the lot of em!

20:38 / 19.09.05

It was a big rumour just after 9/11. Not that it takes a lot to get shallow media cokeheads rattled. It got into Chris Morris & Armando Ianucci's "Six Months That Changed A Year".

paranoidwriter waves hello

20:45 / 19.09.05

Nice one. Cheers for link, fridgemagnet!

21:04 / 19.09.05

This was the bit...

Anthrax scare in Britain - BBC advises staff

TO: ALL USERS SUBJECT: SECURITY

This email is being issued to all staff.

Be alert about your handling your mail, particularly if it:

· is mailed from a foreign country

· has protruding wires

· is lopsided or uneven

· has a strange odour

· has discolourations, oily stains or crystallisation on the wrapper · is unexpected

· appears to contain powder or other unusual contents

· is covered in bin Laden's piss or something that smells like it

· has a couple of miniature AK47's sticking out of it and the muffled sound of jibbering muslim midgets

· the envelope keeps spinning and pointing to Mecca when you put it on a table

· the envelope bears a stamp advising you not to read the letter so much as lick it all over and eat it

· the letter inside claims that the white matter in the envelope is 'the first instalment of some free salt you've won' or 'some sugar for your morning coffee'.

NB: If you are unsure about your regular postal consignment of cocaine (or speed if you are black and a cleaner) the BBC will for a limited period only, check the powder for anthrobacillus. We regret we cannot be legally responsible for any errors in this analysis and staff will be required to sign a waiver. In the event of a long queue for this service, priority will be given to those whose drugs are supplied by Cocaine Direct or similar who ensure the coca harvesters are part of a profit sharing initiative based on end user purchase receipts.

10:46 / 20.09.05

....and H&M have back-tracked and decided to dump her for the new campaign....

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:13 / 20.09.05

Has the world gone mad? I leave the country for six days, and come back to find that the fact that a really skinny rich chick who's been out with both Bobby Gillespie and that tosspiece from the Libertines takes drugs is somehow newsworthy?

What the fuck's next? "Sun rises again"?

11:16 / 20.09.05

There's a more concerning angle to all of this that's implied in the media coverage and is quite explicit in the water-cooler discussions people are having about this *story*.

Namely a really superficial reading of why people get involved in relationships at all. Now I'm not the biggest fan of Kate Moss, but I find the whole 'what on Earth does she see in this smack addict' tone of the media coverage and popular conversation pretty repugnant.

Doherty's addiction (and really, physically how that makes him appear) becomes the uber-criteria on which their relationship is judged. There's no mention of his talent or sensitivity or self-awareness or whatever.

You really get the impression that the way people view these things is that if you're pretty and clean and straight that seems to be more than enough. Why's no-one asking 'what the fuck is Pete Doherty doing with someone as blandly talentless as Kate Moss'? (Not that they should, mind.)

I think the whole of this episode exposes this crass superficiality that's increasingly being accepted as a perfectly legitimate norm. Probably was always so, but I'm sure it's accentuated in these days of zero-to-hero overnight celebrity, where really the only criteria you have are the surface ones.

(Re-reading that I sound a tad like some Libertines/Babyshambles groupie - which I'm not)

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:25 / 20.09.05

If your post makes you sound like that and you're not, maybe you should revise it.

There's no mention of his talent or sensitivity or self-awareness or whatever.

Heh.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:25 / 20.09.05

There's no mention of his talent or sensitivity or self-awareness or whatever.

There's a reason for that, FP.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:30 / 20.09.05

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:31 / 20.09.05

They also neglect to mention his pet anteater.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:39 / 20.09.05

Did you know that, in the old days, a person had to work two weeks down the mines, have an IQ of 140 or more and be able to juggle swords before they were allowed to be famous?

A-levels were harder back then, too.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:43 / 20.09.05

They also had to know that it's called the Book of Revelation.

Tabitha Tickletooth

11:59 / 20.09.05

Not just a tabloid disease, I'm afraid. Here is a particularly irritating 'focus' report from this week's Observer, featuring two particularly irritating teenagers from Kate's old school (who I can only assume have some close connection to the writers or their friends to justify their central role as arbiters of Kate's fate).

Seems to me rather like a weak attempt to convince us it's 'in-depth, responsible, broadsheet' coverage of the same crap tabloid story.

(Trapped in airport - forced to read paper cover to cover or would normally have skipped this. In fact, I read quite a few articles that damaged my already waning affection for the Observer...)

Tom Paine's Bones

12:26 / 20.09.05

Namely a really superficial reading of why people get involved in relationships at all. Now I'm not the biggest fan of Kate Moss, but I find the whole 'what on Earth does she see in this smack addict' tone of the media coverage and popular conversation pretty repugnant.

To an extent, I wouldn't expect anything more from the tabloids though.

And equally objectionable has been the casual misogyny coming from some of Doherty's fanbase. According to certain letterwriters in the NME, apparently Kate Moss is fucking up his life (because Doherty was obviously entirely stable before they started going out) and is only going out with him to help her career (because Kate Moss is obviously far less famous then Doherty is).

16:11 / 20.09.05

On the question of whether its newsworthy or not?

The story itself is nonsense but its going to sell papers- (keeping you in work Stoatie?) however the knock on effects are more interesting.

The sacking of Kate Moss by several major corporations could be considered newsworthy to those that it effects- potentially millions of pounds/ dollars of business could be scrapped if she is deemed unsuitable ( I know Rimmel & H&M have stuf being worked on now that could/ will be scrapped). With the effects felt in the ad agencys, production companys, magazine publishers and not least the company (H&M) itself.

Its also likely that she will recieve some kind of Golden handshake/ payoff to go quietly.

Don't forget when Mariah Carey got her $80 Million pay off from sony to leave- 6 months later over 1000 staff were laid off due to poor sales....

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:25 / 20.09.05

Point taken, Copey (and yes, I guess it is keeping me in work too*. Bless 'em!)... but firing models for taking drugs? Where will it end?

Apart from the obvious "coke makes you thinnah!!!" thing, we're talking very rich, very glamorous people who naturally hang out with other very rich, very glamorous people. To not succumb to SOME form of idle decadence, whether it be casual sex or serious drugs, would require superhuman effort. And if you can manage that, then be a superhero rather than a celeb. It's WAY cooler.

*(Although I'm sure that if I were a coke dealer, I'd be making more money from being kept in work thus... maybe it's very elaborate product placement?)

16:29 / 20.09.05

"Sun rises again"?

Yet again, another scoop for the Sun! Our boys bag big ball brightening Britain! GOTCHER!

18:11 / 20.09.05

re Observer: the point at which I was reassured that the new mini Guardian was going to continue its former journalistic standards was when, the day before the Moss/chaz revelations, that the first article in g2 was titled "Why Kate Moss is the coolest woman in the world".

It was like eating a pork pie in a hot bath with Sailing By playing on the radio.

20:35 / 20.09.05

threadrot

/threadrot

20:57 / 20.09.05

Hello, Dr MadeUpStory! It's a goodun though.

The Return Of Rothkoid

04:52 / 22.09.05

That sounds suspiciously like the story about the wake that's in Easy Riders And Raging Bulls. Now it's a dog instead of a Mack Truck heiress, though. (IIRC.)

This whole thing is pretty laughable. Kate Takes Drugs! Surfuckingprise. It's a bit like the recent "current affairs" TV show here in Oz that says crystal meth's bad for you.

Really? Go on.

Presumably next they'll be running stories on the dangers of putting you cock into a blender.

But as for the whole tabloid blame thing: if it didn't sell papers, it wouldn't be run. Simple as that. Newspapers and magazines are, in the current market - at least over here - pretty much tied to giving their readers stories they want to hear or the spin they want to hear. But this iteration is like a slightly less exciting version of the "You media fucknoses killed Diana!" argument.

Jack The Bodiless

10:55 / 22.09.05

Having said which, unless that cocaine is free-trade Moss is a cock either way. Taking coke is basically saying that you don't mind if brown people live in fear and die in pain as long as you get to feel like a game-show host on a regular basis.

Surely that's pretty much true of any form of privilege or consumption? I mean, not meaning to be a piss artist here - no, I don't take coke for the same reason that I don't drink Coke, but I'd hardly call someone who did a cock for doing so. I own a house, two laptops, three DVD players, a PC and an iPod, subscribe to Sky TV, voted Labour in the last two elections but one, and am a cheerful drunk who works for a law firm. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary in white middle class circles, but that lot makes me complicit to varying degrees in just about every social, political and environmental crime on the planet today. Even acknowledging that it's a list based on white middle-class privilege make me a cock, by your definition. A white middle-class cock. Although personally I was raised poor working class, so I'm never entirely sure which camp which foot should be in...

I like Pete Doherty because he said he wanted to "boob Morrissey on the hooter". And for no other reason, because clearly he's a waste of space.

12:12 / 22.09.05

I still don't know who Pete Doherty is.

12:19 / 22.09.05

Neither does he most of the time, from what we can tell.

12:27 / 22.09.05

He’s a songwriter whose music some people like and some people don’t. He’s a bit grubby looking and HE TAKES DRUGS. What else could anyone possibly want to know?

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:31 / 22.09.05

Jack: Obviously, we are all to some degree complicit in the abuses of the weak that consumer capitalism involves. This degree may be greater or lesser. I would say that cocaine is a slightly different class, because by taking cocaine you are essentially saying that people being shot in the head is a reasonable part of what we in the biz call the supply chain. One could just as well say the same of oil, or indeed say that the poor conditions of a thousand people making shoes equates to one person being killed. That's all fair enough. However, speaking purely personally, I don't find the yurt argument convincing in this context. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

rising and revolving

12:42 / 22.09.05

Meh. Every time you cross a bridge you're complicit in a similar fashion. When they build 'em (and, in fact, many major works projects) - construction budgets generally account for a number of people to die during the project. It's part of the accounting, because it's a high-risk business.

I'm not sure I see how the coke trade is greatly different, from a purely outcome based perspective.

12:43 / 22.09.05

I own a house, two laptops, three DVD players, a PC and an iPod

Right, anyone up for a spot of breaking and entering?

Page: 1(2)3 4