[garinda]

I've just watched BBC's Arena programme on Pete Doherty.

There he was smacked up to the eyeballs, drawing in a book with his own blood from a syringe. Feted as the poetic voice for the new centuries youth. A modern day Baudelaire. Proust with needle tracked arms, and a silly hat.

Interviewer-'What was it like in prison, the last time you were in?'

Doherty-'It was like a prison.'

Very profound.

I wanted against my better judgement to like him, and his band. They aren't bad, but then again they aren't any better than a lot of other indie bands around. Musically they reminded me of a provincal sixthform band's take on punk, circa 1979. Slightly missing the point, and the beat. I like boundaries being pushed, but this man is no Thin White Duke, no Hendrix or Joplin, who used narcotics to push their creativity over the edge and into the abyss.

Most of their audience seemed fairly straight. Concert goers who had followed his media life in the tabloids, and thought it was too good an opportunity to miss what could always be his last concert if he highballed just a bit too far.

The press just seem to write about him because in a manufactured boyband world he is relatively bad, and being engaged to Kate Moss does at least make the stories more photogenic to look at. But if you are going to die young and live forever you really need a strong body of work to back up your claim to infamy. It would also help if you were pretty, rather than looking like an anemic Bushbaby.

Am I getting old, and just don't recognise his talent, or am I right in thinking he's all hype and no substance?

Will anybody even care in five years time, and did Arena chose the wrong singing junkie to focus on?