Today at work I met and chatted with a very lovely woman who turned out to be Katarznya Figura, a rather prominent Polish actress.

She’d been to a film festival in Reims and decided to nip down to Paris for a bit and visit her favourite wine bar here. (That’s where I come in).

In May she’s back in Paris doing a play and she’s promised to come back and bring me tickets.

(Nicolas Sarkozy’s brother also dined with us this lunchtime, but I liked the actress more).

You know when people are like, “ugh.. it’s a long story,” well this actually is a long story but it has an important message so keep reading.

Basically I went out with some work colleagues last night and we ended up at an all-night restaurant for a three course meal at 5 o’clock in the AM. We were happily chatting amongst ourselves when all of a sudden in walks Mickaël Vendetta. Who?

Well there’s this French television programme called La Ferme Célébrités (The Celebrity Farm) which I’ve never seen but from what I gather it’s a similar concept to I’m a Celebrity… but set on a farm in Africa and the ‘celebrities’ have to do really shit, menial tasks around the farm instead of eating kangaroos’ testicles. Mickaël Vendetta has just won this year’s series after having shot to fame in 2008 as a ‘blogger’.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve never seen this programme and unfortunately I don’t watch much French television so I had never, ever seen this man before in my life.

So back in the restaurant this guy and one of my colleagues exchanged eye-contact; they seemed to know each other, and from what I gather they had something of a ‘rencontre’ once. A few minutes later he comes over to our table and says hello to my workmate, who then asks me to take a picture of them on his iPhone, muttering that he has a friend who’d love to see this. For some reason I didn’t think anything of this series of events so far but in retrospect, seeing as I didn’t realise this Mickaël was a ‘celebrity’, the whole situation was actually rather bizarre.

Anyway, we were discussing whether or not we found him attractive when someone said, “yeah.. he’s taller than he looks on TV.” What? On TV? It was only at this point that I understood who exactly this guy was. And it all started to fit into place: the cocky walk, the entourage, the hideous shiny jacket, the bleached blonde hair, the plastic face. He seemed all in all a horrible man.

Once he had finished his meal he came over to our table again and shook the hand of my colleague that he knows, then - and this is the powerful part which seemed to last an eternity - he offered his hand to me but I was in the middle of taking a sip of wine and I wasn’t expecting this sort of introduction so I didn’t react. His hand hung there in front of me for a painfully awkward three or four seconds before he gave up offered it to my other colleague.

At first I felt bad about having snubbed him - being the well brought-up English boy I am - but then I felt quite powerful, like I’d taught him a lesson. He so arrogantly assumed I would want to shake his hand because he’s this ‘celebrity’ who’s just won some trashy show with absolutely no credibility. But the joke’s on him because I had no idea who he was. The perfectly preened hair, each lock expertly and so purposefully positioned; the designer clothing; the superior attitude. None of it stood for anything. And in that ever-so brief moment of rejection, I cracked through and saw crumble the insincerity and the shallowness that personifies many of society’s ‘celebrated’ people; the disgusting side of today’s ‘celebrity’.

Celebrity Culture 0 - 1 Matthew.