THE TRAGIC MEDIA TRAJECTORY OF JADE GOODY

This blog is usually resolutely NOT about my personal life but as this morning I had to visit my GP for a routine check-up it's made me think about the media circus around the life - and seemingly death - of Jade Goody.

Famous initially for being stupid, she's actually not that daft as she's made millions since she appeared on Big Brother and courted publicity to the nth degree in the seven years since.

Last year, she returned to the show only to be drummed out after making racist remarks. Now she is clearly dying - and making money out of the process. Unashamedly , and with some bravado, she has said that any cash she is likely to receive for the many prurient accounts of her illness which have appeared in the media is not for her but for the two small children she will leave behind.

But the fact she's now in the final stages of cervical cancer is, according to the medics, almost certainly down to her foolishness .

As many women of my acquantaince are only too aware, this is one of the few cancers which can be cured if preventative steps are taken once you become a sexual being. Namely regular check-ups - and follow-up treatment if there is something wrong.

Thanks to a new generation of vaccines, younger woman will hopefully not have to endure the frankly unpleasant indignity of the smear test. But for most of us from an earlier generation it is a necessary procedure.

Jade, whose anguish I do not belittle, has herself admitted that she ignored the warning signs that what seems to have been a horribly aggressive form of cervical cancer had returned. And, sadly, it seems that is likely to lead to her premature death. There is a tragic irony in the fact that someone who became famous on Big Brother on account of being stupid will now die because of it. And, maybe, a salutary lesson for many other women too.