Jasmine's Jottings

Kerry's bust (thank you, The Sun!)

(I've just realised that I haven't blogged here for over half a year! Shocking - so let's start again!)

I couldn't resist that headline from the Sun - say what you like about them, they've got a sense of humour when it comes to titles!

But poor old Kerry Katona. Seriously, I do feel sorry for her. She had a really difficult upbringing and her mother's still making her life a misery. It's understandable that she's turned to drink, drugs and over-spending to try to make herself feel better. Obviously, though, none of them have helped in the least. In fact, as always, they've done the opposite. Now, even though she makes hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, she's been made bankrupt.

It just shows, again, that what the economists say is true: when it comes to being rich, the amount you spend is more important than the amount you earn. It really doesn't matter if you make millions. If you spend more millions then you're going to have problems. Look at Michael Jackson. He makes even more than Kerry but he's had problems because of his massive spending habit.

Kerry needs to feel loved and whole and worthy (who doesn't!?) Like so many, she's trying to fill an emotional and spiritual void with all the wrong things. I'd like to sit down with her and go through what she feels is wrong and find out ways to put it right. Until the underlying problems are dealt with she will continue to lurch from one crisis to another.

She's incredibly resilient and even if this bankruptcy sticks (according to her agent, Max Clifford, it will be annulled next week when cheques clear...hmm, we'll see) I think she can bounce back. I have a few friends who have been made bankrupt in the past and they've learnt from it. Sure it's tough, but it's by no means the end of the world. It can be a good wake-up call and can make you determined to have control of your money and never be messed around by it again.

Our article on bankruptcy on Moneymagpie gives you the facts. It's not pretty and it does mean that you won't get any credit at all for a few years, particularly in today's financial climate. But it doesn't last forever and there are ways of cleaning up and rebuilding your credit record afterwards as this article shows.

I'll be interested to see what Kerry says about her experience in her OK! column. If I were her, from now on I would set aside a good proportion of the money she gets from that column into a special savings account to pay her tax and VAT. It's the only way. If you work for yourself you just have to keep doing that, every month, so that when the dreaded bills come in, it's not such a horrible shock.

Conflict

I have just been to an excellent debate at The Frontline Club about the Baker report and the situation, generally, in Iraq. The wonderful John Snow (the thinking woman's Gregory Peck) was hosting it and the speakers were the Iraqi ambassador, the Syrian ambassador (an odd a mix of 'Comical Ali' and a second hand car salesman with a few stunning insights thrown in), head of mission at the US embassy (on message) and the middle east correspondents from the Times and the Independent.

The general themes were: that Iraq - Baghdad in particular - is descending into anarchy and general meltdown; that, according to the Iraqi and Syrian ambassadors, Iraq was not sectarian until America moved in; that the Baker report seems to have been completely pointless as Bush has ignored it totally and that Iraq and all its neighbours have, and always have had, terrible human rights records and are guilty of far too much corruption and cruelty.

For me, the most telling comment was made by John Snow at the end who said, in substance, that many things had been said by each person during the debate that everyone basically agreed with, "it's just the person that they disagreed with". How true, and how very much that is the case with so many millions of disputes, small and large.

Are you?

I've just heard a new phrase - "Persona non Grazia" - meaning someone not famous enough to be in the magazine (or perhaps just not vacuous enough). Like it