His next statement will be "Document - what's that mean? I never heard of it. Who's the Red Cross then? Are they, like, cross, like all the time, they want to chill out then I don't know nothing about nothing." More from Mark Steel. And we're creating a generation that believes the first step to doing something well is to get business cards printed, and attend a course on how to assert yourself with strangers at parties. Once you've got that sorted you can work out what it is you want to be good at.But there's a danger, which becomes joyfully evident with access to cable television. Flick through the channels to the obscurest corners of Living TV and Bravo, and you'll find piles of these perky idiots who, not long ago were giving interviews to the glossy magazine that comes with the The People about the pressures of being a superstar, or how they find it hard to live a normal life since coming fourth on Big Brother.

Then everyone else will have to compete; Bolton signing Leslie Ash, East Stirling signing Rhona Cameron and so on.The depressing side of this is similar to the problems caused by royalty. If we believe someone is worthy of special adoration because they're on breakfast television, we must also believe we're less worthy of respect because we've never been photographed with our dog for Heat magazine. Whereas W G Grace, Dennis Compton and Muhammad Ali were celebrities due to their achievements and personalities, Beckham's celebrity is out of all proportion to either of those attributes. Instead it thrives on the way he lives his entire life in a celebrity world. His greatest value to a club now appears to be the amount of merchandise he can sell. Perhaps Alex Ferguson should make a shock signing by replacing Ruud Van Nistelrooy with Britney Spears. Give it a few weeks and Maxine Carr will be presenting "TV's Naughtiest Blunders", or appearing as Aretha Franklin on Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes.

If only Shipman had been patient for a couple of years he'd have earned a fortune for a "Me and my cell" feature in Hello magazine.But most modern celebrities have done nothing except be on things. The reverence they're afforded isn't even necessarily their fault. But the media surrounds them with sycophants whispering how marvellous they were, when all they did was sit on a settee reading an autocue, so they never get to know how useless they are. If the same system worked in sport, TV executives and showbiz reporters would surround a footballer who'd just missed a penalty and gasp: "You were wonnnnnderfulll.