freecelebrity.com

Celebrities are loved...and hated. I'll never forget when at school Chris Tarrant showed up to do some filming in Abingdon. We were on a school trip to a local farm and he was parked in the car park we had to pass through. Kids mobbed his car and started rocking it and chanting 'swapshop....'- the competitor to his program Tiswas. Eventually he roared off in a fit of rage. Celebrities are useless and we know it. They are famous for being famous. And yet when you meet one and they are nice to you it is as if the sun just came out...kind of.

Freecelebrity.com is a service where celebrities offer themselves free to people who feel they need a bit of celebrity oomph. Celebrities are notorious for being self serving in their choice of 'good deed'- getting as much publicity for themselves as the cause. In freecelebrity.com they get nothing back as the event will not be publicised. It is merely for local gratification. For example, your garden club wants a bit of a lift- so Alan Titchmarsh comes along for free but no one is told until it happens. I see it as a kind of voluntary community service for celebrities. By signing up they lose control over what event they will be celeb-rating. This way punters know they are for real. Everyone wins.