Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Compton Street?

We all know that Twitter is de rigeur for any celebrity wishing to air their dirty laundry in public. Courtney Love famously begged her daughter for a reconciliation in a rambling series of 140-character missives. Lindsay Lohan documented the end of her adventures in Lesbeteria on the micro-blogging site. And Tila Tequila - well, the less said about that train wreck the better.

So it was interesting to see the blogosphere all abuzz this week with the news that a household name has taken to Twitter to announce their status as an out gay man. If you thought the news about Ricky Martin was the entertainment industry's least surprising revelation, this one will have you wondering why it was ever considered a secret in the first place.

Over the weekend, Bert, one of Sesame Street's long-term residents made the announcement we've all been waiting for, in characteristically oblique fashion:

Given that he and his perennial 'roommate' Ernie have been sharing a bedroom for over forty years, the clues were always there. Whereas Ernie is the playful, mischievous one, Bert has always been more conservative and reserved - which makes it all the more shocking that he would be the first of the two to announce that he's a 'mo. Perhaps he's a member of the muppet branch of the log-cabin republicans.

Likewise, whilst Ernie spends most of his time in the bathroom (playing with his rubber duckie - euphemism alert!), Bert is so unconcerned with personal grooming that he's allowed his monobrow to have full run of his forehead.

The makers of Sesame Street have always denied claims that the fuzzy fellas were more than just good friends, pointing out that Bert even serenaded his 'girlfriend' with a song. The fact that it was called "I want to hold your ear" simply confirms that Bert has been dealing with intimacy issues for some time.

Despite their denials, the Children's Television Workshop should be applauded for their commitment to progressive representations of modern life on the show. After all, Cookie Monster has struggled with substance abuse for years, and Big Bird experienced gender disclocation decades before Chaz Bono went under the knife.

A hole by any other name...

Apparently, Courtney Love is dead.

But before you break out the crack pipe and have a commemorative toke, bear in mind that it was Courtney Love herself who broke this astonishing story.

Rather than a Tweet from beyond the grave, which would actually be pretty cool (and might even be grammatically correct for once), this was Courtney talking to music mag NME.

She's finally woken up to something that everybody else realised about fourteen seconds after she first stepped into the limelight - we're all sick of Courtney Love. So she's decided to make a change and say goodbye to her old self.

That might have worked for David Banner, who could just throw his denim jacket over his shoulder and thumb a ride into the next town, but Courtney's no Incredible Hulk.

As a way of distancing herself from her previous life, Courtney's already adopted the third person when talking about her destructive impulses: “We love her when she goes onstage, but I don’t need her in the rest of my life." From now on, she wants a new name for her new start - “Courtney Michelle. The name Courtney Love is a way to oppress me.”

This may all get rather confusing for her fans, especially since Courtney has reteamed with her old band Hole, ahead of a new album called Nobody's Daughter this month. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

In addition, she's also said that she no longer wants to answer questions about her husband Kurt Cobain, who shot himself back in 1994, “I am not his spokesperson on Earth. I don’t know what he’d be like now, he could be into society girls, he could be into fat girls, he could be homosexual. We don’t know, he died at 27.”

It's a noble aspiration, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Courtney finds it hard to lay those old habits to rest. Just try asking artist, musician, author and peace activist Yoko Ono what she's famous for.

TMI*

If you're ever tempted to take a long look at your life and you find yourself wondering where it all went so wrong, here's an instant feel-good solution.



Trust me, it works everytime.

Courtney Love has never been a role model of exemplary parenting - having clearly graduated from the Candy Spelling/Kerry Katona school of motherhood. But this week, things went from bad to worse, as Frances Bean had herself successfully emancipated from Courtney so that she could live with her grandmother Wendy O'Connor.

The legal decision to make O'Connor the girl's temporary guardian was hardly surprising, given that Courtney's struggle with sobriety is almost as troubling as her ongoing battle with cosmetics - too much, too often, always ends up a mess.

What surprised more people was the fact that, as a response to the ruling, Love decided to take the opportunity to condemn her own daughter on Facebook. The posts may have been removed, but quick thinking bloggers managed to capture the juiciest nuggets of Courtney's free-form ranting. For example: "[Frances] thinks she has all this money, [but] the point is I have all the money she has ... I don't care really, I hate to sound cold, but any kid of mine who pulls this shit has lost her position."

When Facebook and Twitter first came along to capture the public's imagination, the world was thrilled at the prospect of more direct interaction with its favourite celebrities. Real-time updates, the chance to feedback, and a 'follow me' option that wouldn't necessarily end up with a restraining order - what's not to love?

But I wonder how fans of Courtney Love (assuming such creatures exist) must feel when they see the object of their affection ranting about her own daughter on a public forum. It's like the drunk girl at the party who insists on taking her top off. No-one's encouraging her, and they secretly feel mortified for her, but they can't help but watch to see what might happen next.

*Too Much Information

Flicking the Bean

No-one ever said being a teenager was easy. The acne, the growing pains, the awful self-indulgent poetry. And if you though your formative years were tough, think how much harder it must be doing it in the intense glare of public scrutinty.

It's no wonder that most celebrities end up raising children with all the appeal of a Jiffy-bag full of anthrax. Because for every well-balanced, smart and polite child like Lourdes Leon, there's a whole slew of Kellies, Pixies and Peaches. Loathsome, self-absorbed, talentless brats with an extraordinary sense of entitlement, and absolutely no discernible talent.

Let's face it, if you're born to famous parents, the chances of you growing into a gracious and appealing young person, are about as good as Bruce Forsyth ever retiring.

Helping to underline this point is Frances Bean Cobain, the large-faced offspring of one of rock music's most influential figures (sorry Courtney, I don't mean you). Although she started out by shunning the limelight, her suicide-themed 16th birthday party was a clear indication that she was keen to ruffle more feathers than Rod Hull's right arm.

This week she made good on that promise by writing an angry open letter on Twitter. Ironically, the target of Frances Bean's ire was another product of the celebrity breeding ground, Ali Lohan - little sister of Lindsay.

Ali's crime? Recording a Christmas song (and accompanying video) with all the high quality production values of those TV ads for Christmas voucher saving schemes. Even if YouTube is unable to show the video in certain territories for fear of breaching the Geneva Conventions, the anger that Frances shows is surely misplaced.

In a letter filled with typos, spelling mistakes and incomplete thoughts, Cobain Jr start out by stating "Your not entitled to anything simply because your sister has a recognizable name." She has a point - nepotism is an ugly thing, and I hope she takes it up with the people at Rolling Stone who gave her an internship, despite writing skills that make Katie Price look like Angela Carter.

She continues, "it will be the formality of fame that puts you on the covers of tabloids, while the public idly watches you plumit into the murky abyss..." The good news here, is that even if she inherited none of her father's talent for music, she could at least earn a crust co-authoring lyrics with Tanita 'Twist In My Sobriety' Tikaram.

The sad thing is, Frances Bean clearly believes that she's a cut above all the desperate, second-generation wannabes that currently fill the supermarket tabloids. But unless she learns to turn a more compelling phrase, she can only ever hope to be known as 'the daughter of Courtney Love'. And that's a fate I wouldn't even wish on a Lohan.

Flash in the pan

Imagine the horror. You're at an event, you need the bathroom and you decide to use the conveniences. With a rudimentary understanding of toilet stall etiquette, you give each door a nudge to see if the lock is engaged. Finally, you find a door that's unlocked, it swings open and you're confronted with an image so nightmarish that it could see you living out the rest of your days with your arms tied behind your back taking your liquified food through a straw.

Courtney Love, a woman who seems to spend most of her time looking like an early make-up test for Heath Ledger's Joker, is sitting on the toilet, with her skirt around her ankles. Your eyes meet, and before you have a chance to apologise or run screaming from the room clawing at your face, she launches herself at you like a screaming banshee.

For pharmacist Sebastian Karnaby, this traumatic incident was no hypothetical scenario. He found himself face-to-sort-of-face with the one-time Mrs Cobain as he was trying to leave a party at the Standard Hotel in New York. Although Love has, in the past, been quite happy spending time in bathroom stalls with pharmacists, this was clearly a step too far, and she attacked Karnaby screaming, "I am going to get you thrown out!"

Reflecting on his brush with fame, the clearly traumatised Karnaby spoke for the entire world when he told reporters "I never wanted to see Courtney Love on the toilet. It wasn't a pretty sight."

Perhaps next time he's in a public bathroom, he'll be safer if he just calls Candyman's name five times in the mirror.