Community service, Lindsay Lohan-style: selfies with the fans or trips to Chiltern Firehouse with some workies
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Version 0 of 1. Related: Blue’s Lee Ryan says ‘I had a dream’ – and sparks a million feline nightmares Today, Lost in Showbiz finds itself wrestling with legal matters. It hastens to add that these legal matters do not concern Lost in Showbiz itself. For once, its week has passed without incident. No noisome conversation involving a policeman keen to know how it came by that much diazepam without a prescription. No altercation outside the local Co-Op with a store detective, quick to cast aspersions about how a half-litre bottle of budget vodka and a copy of OK! magazine found their way into the folds of Lost in Showbiz’s fashionably voluminous coat, yet unwilling to listen to the mitigating circumstances: “These are my essential work supplies – I’m physically unable to read the latter without first drinking the former as quickly as possible.” No, this week, the legal matters concern celebrities and the vexing issue of community service. Until recently, LiS’s absolute favourite example of what happens when these two concepts collide was the case of dimly remembered 90s R&B singer Mark Morrison, of whom it was a huge fan. It loved him from the moment it read an interview during which the Return of the Mack hitmaker unexpectedly stuck his head out of a car’s sunroof and shouted triumphantly: “I AM THE KING OF LEICESTER!” You wouldn’t have thought that was such a hotly contested title in the world of 90s R&B, but who knows what secret designs Montell Jordan or T-Boz from TLC might have had on the home of Europe’s largest outdoor covered market? But it loved him most of all when it transpired that Morrison had paid an imposter to do his community service for him while he went on tour. But did he get thanks in return for this rare combination of blue-sky thinking, entrepreneurial spirit and, indeed, job creation? No, he got 12 months in the pokey and a load of guff about “an arrogant contempt for the order of the court” off a judge. Related: Gladiators’ Tornado: ‘a gentle, beautiful man that gave everything to help humanity’ LiS thought that no one could take Morrison’s crown, either as King of Leicester or King of Celebrity-Related Community Service. Until this week, when the full and highly intriguing saga of Lindsay Lohan’s community service was revealed. She had to do 240 hours of it following a 2012 conviction for reckless driving. She was permitted to do it in London, in order to enable her to star in a West End production of David Mamet’s Speed The Plow, but alas, in November, when the date came to show proof of completion, her lawyer informed the court that she’d done “nearly half of it”. Clearly impressed by the tireless dedication that had led her to do “nearly half” of what she was supposed to do, the judge granted an extension until earlier this week. It’s at this point in the tale that the fun really begins. First, reports began circulating that Lohan “wasn’t even close to finishing” her community service, but at least there were extenuations. First, the community service centre in London was apparently “closed for two weeks”. Next, Lohan apparently contracted an incurable disease called chikungunya while holidaying in Bora Bora. Lost in Showbiz regrets to inform you that this second piece of news was greeted not with concern, but a distinct hint of chinny-reckon from the media, some of whose representatives started callously implying that an element of “sorry, the dog ate my community service” was creeping into Lohan’s story. It was noted that chikungunya’s name was derived from a word in the Kimakonde language meaning “to become contorted”, and suggested that more sceptical Kimakonde speakers might apply the same word to Lohan’s excuses. But it turns out that chikungunya is a serious business indeed: fever, joint pain, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash. Even so, a further outbreak of callous scepticism was caused when, three days after being diagnosed, Lohan posted a photo of herself posing in her underwear on Instagram with a message suggesting that her designer knickers had helped her fight off the disease – a message that concluded with the word “hehe” and a kissy-face emoticon. In fairness, the World Health Organisation’s chikungunya webpage makes no mention of designer knickers as a possible antidote to the disease, but who among us can blame her for turning her back on the evil ministrations of “big pharma” and opting for a more holistic approach to recovery? In any case, it was announced on Wednesday that Lohan had indeed completed her community service. But instead of offering their heartfelt congratulations, carping voices suggested that the description of what her community service entailed should give us pause. Eighteen hours of it apparently comprised “meet-and-greet events” after performances of her London play. Furthermore, five of these meet-and-greets seemingly lasted longer than three hours, which seems an awfully long time, but perhaps they were slow-roasting a pork shoulder or playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or listening to the four-CD live recording of Laurie Anderson’s magnum opus performance art piece United States: that’s three entirely plausible explanations for starters. Better yet, London Community Service Volunteers gave five people 70 hours’ “work shadowing experience” with Lohan. Those who suggest that being Lohan’s work experience sounds like a fairly mind-boggling concept to start off with might be further perplexed by the news that it apparently took place during a period when Lohan wasn’t actually working, thus raising the prospect of five people suffering a gruelling, unpaid internship largely involving going to and from Chiltern Firehouse. Admittedly, this doesn’t sound a great deal like Lost in Showbiz’s idea of community service, which it was always led to believe tended more towards, say, dredging a canal in the company of two petty criminals, a drug dealer called Ketamine Bob and an imposter claiming to be Mark Morrison. But instead of criticising and moaning about leniency, it sees the story of Lohan’s community service as evidence of a happy new dawn, evidence that the world of judicial punishment has finally embraced some out-of-the–box thinking. It fully expects the same treatment when that unfortunate business with the bottle of vodka and the copy of OK! comes to trial. |