Star navel-gazing (continued)

This is what celebrity PR fire-fighting looks like from the other end of the telescope from the Tiger debacle: Michael Phelps is hitting the swimming-pool in Manchester in a glorious comeback merely months after being outed as an alleged cannabis user by tabloid world.

The reality is that there are armies of in-house paparazzi camping in the proverbial bushes as well as freelance amateur photo-journalists wielding mobile phone cameras/videos and the random coincidence of being in the orbit of a celebrity when their guard is down for the promise of a cash windfall.

There are no prizes for guessing there are people employed to sit it out for scoops on A-List celebrities: the more wholesome the image, the better. Without counterattacking, rottweiler PR teams, it can't be much fun being the likes of Robert Pattinson, Miley Cyrus, Zac Ephron, David Beckham, Megan Fox, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Peyton Manning, Kobe Bryant, etc, etc, especially as to get known in the first place you have to play the celebrity game.

There is a moment, however, where if you survive as a celebrity you reach an untouchable 'national treasure' status, unless of course there's a seismic dissonant event that exposes the gap between image and reality (e.g. Phil Spector, Michael Barrymore, Angus Deayton).

Today Sir Terry Wogan, the famous BBC radio DJ, retired from his breakfast show after 27 years to a chorus of universal praise: a great example of how private life can be separated from public gaze.