Reality bites

Reality TV has rarely ever done what it says on the tin - namely, given us any accurate picture of reality - until this year's Celebrity Big Brother. Finally, thanks to Jade Goody's relentless racist bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, reality TV has shown us the uncomfortable truth. We might be a multicultural society but that doesn't mean there is racial tolerance or understanding, particularly among the ignorant of which Jade Goody is surely the flagbearer.

For someone who can't see that calling someone 'Shilpa Poppadom' is racist until someone else points it out to her, Jade Goody has been remarkably clever about milking her moment of reality celebrity. She's already raked in £50,000 for telling her side of the story since leaving the Big Brother house on Friday. Follow-up stories of her profound contrition (and rising bank balance) will surely follow. It just goes to show; ignorance pays. And here's where it started paying out in its full technicolour glory. http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/jade1.shtml