Divide and conquer

It's long been a Hollywood tradition that when something successful ends or at least begins to stagnate, it's customary to pick out a core element that worked and transpose it into a new setting. It's called the spin-off, and over the years has given us Frasier, Mork & Mindy and Private Practice. Of course, it has also given us Joey.

So congratulations to Katie Price who has taken the principle of the spin-off and applied it to the reality TV show that is her life. Those cynics who speculated that Katie and Peter's split was a short-term fly in the stretch-mark ointment, obviously never counted on Ms Price's willingness to do absolutely anything in front of a camera.

It was announced this week that Katie and Peter have both signed up with ITV for rival 'reality' shows depicting their post-split lives and the gruesome details of their divorce. Since neither of them has any shame at the best of times, the bitterness and ignominy is likely to be at near toxic levels. And if they look like this when they're happy together, you can just imagine how ugly this is going to get.