On Amy Winehouse: an apology

“Experience,” said Oscar Wilde, “Is the name we give to our mistakes.”

Many, many years ago, I began to realise that I was often wrong. It was probably the fairly late arrival of something approaching maturity.

Then my mother said to me: “It costs nothing to say you’re sorry, Drayton, and it usually makes someone happy.”

Well, Amy won’t be any happier because I admit to taking a few cheap shots at her a while ago in these pages; in fact she won’t know, and wouldn’t give a hoot if she did.

So, yes, she is talented; and yes, it is a shame she is a bit of a druggie and got involved with the oaf Bert Sidebottom before he changed his name to Blake Fielder-Civil.

BUT it is appalling that our disgusting media squander so much space on people who seem to spend their entire time behaving stupidly. And it is astounding that she did actually get a visa to go to the U.S. for the awards. Talk about double standards!

And I always remember another singer with a drug problem who had a good excuse having been forced into prostitution at 15 - and maybe twenty times more talent.

She was called Billie Holiday