For Pete’s Sake

‘IN the Eighties, heroin screwed you up. That at least was the message scrawled by the Government of the day across TV screens and billboards.

‘What cigarette?’

For added impact, the top children’s TV show of the time, Grange Hill, scored a tea-time plot in which one of the cooler characters became a junkie.

Some years on, and taking drugs might well still screw you up, but it also makes you deeply fascinating to the press. That’s why for the umpteenth day running, the Sun has a story on “rock junkie” Peter Doherty.

And the big news is that the singer has been arrested.

As Pete and his band finished a gig at Shrewsbury’s salubrious Music Hall, a 15-stong police squad raided the place.

Doherty was promptly arrested in his dressing room, taken to the local police station and asked about his alleged possession of a class A drug.

Those clever chaps at the force had been keeping their ears to the ground, and their noses in a copy of the Mirror, and worked out that Doherty, man who carries the epithet “junkie”, might be carrying some illegal substances.

Not that the man still billed as “Cocaine Kate’s boyfriend” in the Mail was concerned. “It’s OK,” Pete shouted as he was carted off. “I’ve got nothing on me.”

And he appeared to have been telling the truth as the Sun, which had waited patiently outside the nick, sees Doherty soon freed without charge.

Which all adds up to not very much. “It’s all a load of rubbish,” says Doherty in the Mail.

Or junk, as readers are learning to call it…’

Posted: 3rd, October 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink