The Celebrity Awareness-Challenged

The UK Prime Minister, earlier today, announced his government is setting up an enquiry charged with the task of coming up with solutions to a very serious problem facing the country. This is, of course the crisis of the celebrity awareness-challenged. The government, the PM’s spokesperson said, is acutely aware that there are thousands, perhaps millions, in this country who suffer from the very serious dilemma of not really knowing who – out of all those people that appear on their TVs, on websites and in the rest of the media – are actual celebrities. Or, in some cases, if – indeed - they are celebrities at all.

The government’s preferred option, and the one which the enquiry is most likely to recommend, requires lavish funding from the government to set up a website and 24-hour emergency phone helpline to help sufferers overcome this serious debility. Experts believe that this is the very least the government can do to help those – often through no fault of their own - who are confronted with an apparent celebrity and who have no idea who that celebrity is, and for what reason – however tenuous – that person has become famous.

The government is also considering changes to the school syllabus right through from nursery level up to GCSE and A level on how to spot a celebrity. In answer to critics who say that such a course would not be rigorous enough, the education minister said that the A level course would including the very demanding aspect of trying to discover what it is about some celebrities that has made them famous. Other critics say that such a demanding aspect of the course should not be introduced until degree level, if only not to discourage students taken such a difficult option at A level.

The government have also hinted that there may be public demand for some sort of adult or continuing education aspect for courses on how to spot a celebrity, how to tell if someone on the telly is famous for something and, if so, what.

Furthermore, as the problem of identifying who is – or isn’t – a celebrity can only get worse as 24-hour global media increases its influence, the government has promised to raise the issue at both EU and UN level meetings in order that the governments of Europe and the world can all get to grips with this most pressing of problems.

As the PM himself said: ‘It may not happen in your or my lifetime, but we can all dream of a future when it is possible for someone in this great country of ours to state with absolute confidence that they know someone glimpsed on a TV programme or pictured in a magazine or website is – in fact – a celebrity, but also state they know exactly why that person is famous.’

It remains to be seen, however, if such a dream can be realised in the near future, or if this is just another government project due to become yet another embarrassing – and expensive – failure.