The rise of the idiots continues

Just occasionally, one receives a press release that contrives to distill everything one hates about a certain stratum of "public life" into a single document. This week's is entitled "Supermodel's first home purchase supports Central London property market."

"The Central London property market is in a league of its own," begins this breathless work, "highlighted by house purchases by celebrities such as Lisa Snowden. The glamorous presenter of Britain's Next Top Model recently bought a townhouse from [name redacted: we don't "do" publicity here], one of Central London's leading estate agents."

Mm. I really hope there's a cretinous quote from this estate agency's managing director. Oh look! There is. "People recognise that the London market is one of the key areas to purchase property," he says. "Whether you are an owner occupier or a buy-to-let investor - London is the place to be!"

How is this stupid? Let us count the ways.

Lisa Snowden is not a supermodel (see also Caprice), whatever her insanely detailed Wikipedia page might state to the contrary. "She has recently been titled the British Tyra Banks", this same Wikipedia page goes on to say, and yet - do you know? The only place Lost in Showbiz can find Lisa referred to as "the British Tyra Banks" is her own Wikipedia page. Curiouser and not-very-curiouser.

Anyway, the people who crafted the gem of a press release are an outfit called Oxygen Marketing, so Lost in Showbiz called them to congratulate them on perhaps the most witless and inaccurate example of the genre this week.

"Thank you," says the woman who answers the phone, and who is clearly unfamiliar with the words witless and inaccurate. "I meant to call anyway," she continues chirpily, "because Lisa is happy for more details about it to be known, like what area it's in."

Well of course she is. There is not a single transaction in your average D-lister's life that cannot be co-opted into a publicity opportunity, so let's congratulate Lisa on elevating her house purchase into a career positioning manoeuvre, and hope it inches her closer to the regular terrestrial channel presenting job that so bafflingly continues to elude her.

But it is the assertion that the purchase of a single house "supports the London property market" that seems most luminously thick.

The Oxygen Marketing woman seems confused. "The Evening Standard are happy to print it," she says.

Well of course they are. The Evening Standard has a dedicated property gossip column, if you can imagine anything more hilariously tragic, written by a chap who appears to believe that he is chief beau monde correspondent, as opposed to the bloke who lets you know that Frank Lampard has bought two flats in a riverside development, which the Chelsea midfielder will add to an already substantial investment portfolio.

Here concludes today's look at the public relations industry and the noble souls who feed off it.