Peaches Geldof has died...

[max_tranmere]

IT girl and daughter of Sir Bob died this afternoon aged 25. A very sad event. She leaves 2 children, one of whom was about one and a half and the other was about 6 months old. Her mother Paula Yates died when she was 11. Bob Geldof lost his ex-wife Paula, now his daughter Peaches has died. He is also raising the child that rockstar Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates had, following the death of Hutchence. Tragedy seems to strike that family and people currently or formerly associated with it. I can't imagine how you either explain, or subtly convey to, two babies that their mother has died. I remember when Geldof's kids were born back in the 1980's and the media going on about the perculiar names they had, so I've been aware of Peaches and the others all their lives. A truly sad day, a 25 year old mother loses her life. RIP Peaches.

[Gentleman]

Boo hoo I couldn't give a shit.

Considering that she appeared to be nothing more than a example of what self obsessed parents can produce the extent of media coverage is extraordinary and makes her out to be a talent of the kind we will never see again.

Currently I'm listening to radio 4 with some expert talking in terms of her being a pioneer and voice of her generation!.

I'm going down the bookies and going for a punt on drugs doing for her.

[Gentleman]

Regarding my punt for cause of death I may try lamentable wanking based accident as a long shot.

Anyway child of fucked up media couple who was only famous for her parents being fucked up media couple but had some gigs in the media herself has died.

[WigBilly]

You evil cunt.

[Essex Lad]

Gentleman could have phrased his posting slightly better but essentially he is correct.

Whilst it is sad that any young children should lose their mother, Peaches Geldof had more opportunities than most because of who her parents were.

Would any newspaper had given her a column if she was not the daughter of Bob Geldof (he isn't Sir Bob) and Paula Yates?

Did she have any great insights to offer society in her columns?

She worked as a model but be honest you wouldn't give her a second look if not for her name.

There must be plenty of 25-year-olds on their second marriage with two kids but no one invites them onto television.

Entry into the best restaurants, invites to glittering parties, no financial worries, people listening to her views ? and yet dead at 25. What more did she want?

[max_tranmere]

I guess the ultimate sadness is the fact she leaves behind two motherless babies and also the fact she was only 25 which, obviously, is too young to die. I agree that she was largely famous for who her parents were, as I said at the top she was an IT girl and little else. The media's description of her as an author, newspaper columnist, and so on, is laughable but I don't want to say bad things about her as her death is a tragedy.

In this modern era you get 'authors' who write and 'authors' who don't - but bizarelly both catagories are called 'authors'. Martin Amis 'is an author', Katie Price 'is an author'. One of them writes books and one doesn't, but they are both authors. People who have been to university to study journalism and write for newspapers are called columnists (there are many examples obviously), people can barely even write their own name and are commissioned by broadsheets to 'write' about their alternative lives (wifes of footballers and rockstars, IT girls, kids of celebrities, etc) don't write one word of the piece but are described as 'columnists' also.

This sort of description reduces and invalidates the respect that real authors and columnists deserve. I've always found it strange how in an other profession this would be called fraud - if someone has never held a paintbrush, and someone else paints a picture for them, they could not pass it off as their own and call themselves 'a painter'. You can sit down and be interviewed and verbally state the rough jist of how the story in a novel should go however, someone else writes the book, but you can call yourself an author, have all the respect and coverage that would get, and even get awards for this book you never wrote. It's all very odd. Same with newspaper columns.

Back to the original thing though: it is sad this young lady had died.

[max_tranmere]

Agreed. The column she 'wrote' from aged 14 to 16 had been mentioned a lot in the media tonight and the way the TV news talks you would think someone that young getting such a thing was a mark of how advanced they were - just like those kids who pass A-levels aged 13 and so on that you hear about. In reality, like you say, it was her family name, and possibility family contacts, that got her the column and like most of these 'celebrity columns' they don't write them anyway. Many of these people are barely literate yet are called 'columnists'. The rough core of what is going to be said in the piece is said by the supposed writer, usually in a phone call from their house to the newspaper or magazine office, and a journalist then writes it. The vast majority of what later appears isn't from the celebrity anyway, 80%-plus the journalist comes up with and all of it, in terms of how it reads, is done by the journalist. It's odd these people get columns and it's even more odd that it's implied they are official writers, rather like someone who trained at University to be a jounrlaist. As I've said in my last two comments though, it is very sad this girl has died.

[steve56]

Very Sad i just read on Facebook

[David Johnson]

Well it is very sad when anyone so young dies, particularly when they are a mother. Having said that, my heart sank when the BBC 10 o'clock news started with this item. It seems a classic example of someone being famous for being famous.

Not sure when this phenomenon of "famous for being famous" started but it isn't a recent one.

This from Wikipedia
"The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge may have been the first to use the actual phrase in the introduction to his book Muggeridge Through The Microphone (1967) in which he wrote; "In the past if someone was famous or notorious, it was for something?as a writer or an actor or a criminal; for some talent or distinction or abomination. Today one is famous for being famous. People who come up to one in the street or in public places to claim recognition nearly always say: 'I've seen you on the telly!'"

This process has accelerated as a result of 24 hr. media, I guess. So much time to fill, in many cases, so little funding to fill it. Hence, the easy option is taken to put on the tele the ever-available modern day "celebrity", desperate at all costs to keep in the media eye.

[frankthring]

I agree Max that its immensely sad for her children and for her extended
family. One can like or hate Bob Geldhof but he deserves our sympathy
right now for losing a loved child - and no parent deserves to suffer the
death of a sibling.
As to Peaches herself she seems to have been, as you stated, and others on
this post, a young, cheery girl of rather wooly-headed, vacuous ideas (as
most young people are) who was made into something she was not by the
media. Similarly she will be forgotten by the media and pop culture circus
in a matter of days. Such is the cult of "celebrity" in these times.
I thank you for your nice words about authors. There is a huge difference
between someone who writes a book and someone, like most of the "authors"
in your local Tesco, who had their life stories "ghost-written".
I know all this the hard way. I began writing history under my real name 10
years ago and my 4th and latest book is in your local Waterstones, 320pp
and ?25. As I am not a "celebrity" I don`t sell thousands of copies like
Peaches did (though, amusingly, I outsold Gordon Brown`s memoirs) !