If you’re going to flaunt your brash lifestyle for all to see, then remember the words of your mum and wear decent underwear

The “news” in this country seems to revolve around unknown people “opening up” about slightly better-known people.

Recently, Justin Bieber did something naughty – it doesn’t really matter what – and immediately all of his closest friends revealed their versions of his glamorous and oh-so-fascinating lifestyle.

Of course, by “closest friends” we know to read “people”: just any people, anywhere, who may have vaguely heard of him, or even perhaps caught a sideways glance from him once.

For the right price, they will always find something to say.

This is the age of opening up. The world wouldn’t spin if people weren’t metaphorically falling over with their legs in the air while others stand around, pointing and commenting on the colour or cleanness of their knickers or whether they need to wax.

Where would we look if celebrities weren’t purposefully bursting out of their dresses?

What would we do if we didn’t have the persistent distraction of salacious gossip, about nobody we know or care about?

This kind of thing used to be spread over garden fences, or around coffee tables but at least it was about someone you spoke to in the grocers or down the pub.

Someone you could actually point at in the street. And it was usually a higher calibre of tittle-tattle, too.

Now we do it all online. And we Brits seem to be one of the worse for it.

When the French Prime Minister’s apparent affair with an actress went public nobody in France seemed to care about it.

Many of them were interviewed on TV saying they didn’t give a flying frog so long as their country was run correctly, fairly and without undue delays.

But in Britain? We couldn’t get enough of it. And we can’t even get our trains running correctly, fairly and without undue delays so I don’t know why we give two shakes of an actress’ tail about what Monsieur Hollande is getting up to of a Friday evening.

Yes, I suppose that a bit of opening up does us good: opening up to our best friends, to our mums over a cuppa or even to an audience if we happen to be an exotic dancer or Miley Cyrus.

Actually, Miley Cyrus is the epitome of what’s wrong with this open house society: she’s brass, she’s crass and, to add insult to serious injury, her underwear isn’t even pretty.

If you’re going up on stage practically naked hoping to start a Twerking Trend on Twitter (try to say that with a mouthful of marshmallows) at least wear some decent underwear and not ones the colour of rubbered tea-stain.

“Always wear nice undies” my optimistic mother always said “lest you be struck down in a car-crash and defrocked on the rush to hospital”.

Miley had her own version of a car-crash live in front of millions and gave nary a thought to her smalls. Open up if you must, but at least make sure you’ve got a good story to tell, because there’s nothing worse than bad gossip.

Or ugly underwear.

Soon, people will stop reacting to it at all...