But then tabloid-television fusion cuisine has got our appetite for reality more than a little confused these days, especially when it’s connected to the world of Wags.
Tanya — or at least the actress who plays her, Zoe Lucker — told the Daily Express she was “starstruck” by seeing the ageing bespectacled Tibetan holy man “about three feet away” on a “trek” to the holy sites of the Himalayas.
He even “waved”, she gushed, although it is possible the venerable lama was just recalling the frantic sex scene in which Tanya takes team manager Frank to a different nirvana. Whether or not his Holiness succeeded in what the Express called “taming the superbitch” may be judged by whether or not kids hide behind the sofa when she next hits our screens as an evil intergalactic vamp in Doctor Who.
But she convinced the tabs: “What could be more different . . . than backpacking through the mountains with nowhere to wash?” At least it’s nice to know there’s nothing impure in our interest in watching Tanya and Shannon — the cosmetic surgery addicted footy wife played by Lucker’s flatmate Sarah Barrand — being buried up to their necks in sand by a naked shaman. There’s holy for you!
Meanwhile in an alternative reality two Sads (the Sons and Daughters as opposed to the Wives and Girlfriends), Bianca Gascoigne and Calum Best (respectively stepdaughter of Gazza and son of George), “canoodled” to share a £100,000 prize on the so-called Love Island. Just to prove that even without any conspicuous talent a second generation can still get paid for scoring live on TV.
Advertisement
“I went in there as a sponge. I absorbed everything and came out made of iron,” Bianca told The Sun. Which was possibly too much information.
Amid all of this, it was nice to see one footballer’s wife (well, almost) still has her feet on the ground. Wannabe Mrs Rooney, Coleen McLoughlin, who earned a reputed £5m last year from a career wholly unrelated to Wayne’s footballing feats, told her emulators to “get a grip”.
“You can look amazing on a budget,” she told The Sun, posing in the new “designer” collection she is promoting for supermarket chain Asda. And it has to be said that, unlike the world of reality TV, Coleen was at least being halfway realistic — some would debate whether she looked “amazing”, but few could deny that she’d been shopping on a budget.