What's all the fuss about celebrities?

A few years ago my favourite thing to do was to buy Closer magazine, climb in the bath and devour each and every page. I'd get sucked in by the sensationalist front page promising juicy celebrity gossip and hungrily read about how Katie Price feared she was getting fat, to the soundtrack of bubbles slowly melting alongside my braincells.

When I look back now, I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking. I'm not saying I'm fully reformed in all matters of intelligence-diminishing content - I somehow find myself compelled to watch the first half of Take Me Out every weekend before realising every episode is the same and something else grabs my attention.

But these days I have absolutely no interest in celebrities. Not the normal kind, anyway. I follow Jon Ronson on Instagram and I often wonder if I'll ever meet the Dalai Lama - but that's about as far as it goes.

I'm well aware that I'm turning into a grumpy 50-year-old trapped inside the body of a 10-year-old, but I'm still quite perplexed as to why being obsessed with celebrities isn't something we seem to all grow out of.

I was recently in a situation where everyone around me was talking about celebrities in the kind of familiar way you'd talk about friends. Am I missing something?

Living in Shoreditch, I've unwittingly walked past numerous celebrities only to be told afterwards. And then I usually don't recognise their name, anyway. Apart from the time I walked past Louise from Made in Chelsea - another guilty pleasure I'm not proud of. But I just cannot see the fascination, so here are nine things I would rather do than keep up-to-date with celebrities:

Rearrange the order of my shoes into size order. Then colour. Then frequency of use. Then by countries they were made in.

Wash my make-up brushes. Then watch them dry. 

Make a list of potential names for my future pet skunk. So far the number one choice is Sylvester but I think I can do better.

Spend some time truly figuring out whether I prefer red or purple skittles. 

Test whether talking to bananas can help them ripen quicker. 

Find out what Disney songs last about the right length of time to boil an egg. 

Drop my phone in the loo and remember what it's like to be a student.

Transcribe an episode of Friends and see which font it suits the most.

Transcribe an episode of anything with Jack Whitehall in and see if it's funny once his lines are deleted.