Out to lunch over the `It' girls

It is hard to recall many matters of such little consequence that have got us so excited as have the already wearily infamous "It" girls. By God, but they make us wild. We've all been at it over the past week - even The Guardian and The Independent - huffing and puffing at their silly little ways, for all the world like they actually mattered.

The "It" girls, as few can now be unaware, are a fairly forgettable bunch of Chelsea girls who quite like going to parties. Other crimes include: 1. Spending lots of money on dresses. 2. Being rich, on account of having rich parents. 3. Saying some pretty crass things ("The working classes have less things to worry about than we do, other than putting food on the table and paying bills"). 4. Being unaccountably Famous for Being Famous.

Mildly annoying, but not exactly Nuremberg, is it? This hasn't stopped the full force of our righteous liberal indignation letting rip, though. I bet Tamara and Tara and Caprice and co are really worried now we've found them out. They're in trouble now! How much did she spend on that dress? How many parties did she go to last week? Just what gives her the right to think she's so special?

Well, actually, we do. We can't get enough of them. And who on earth, in Tara/Tamara/Caprice's shoes, wouldn't have taken the chance of a bit of fame? There they were, happily trotting along the Kings Road, squawking only at each other down their mobile phones, until we decided we all needed to know a whole bunch more about what a nice time they were having. Like Mary Whitehouse watching every blue movie right to the end, just to make sure she doesn't miss any particularly disgusting bits, we just can't leave them alone. Channel 4 had a good look, with the documentary Daddies' Girls, The Sunday Times gives Tara a page each week, and The Spectator invited her to contribute some thoughts the other week.

And boy, did we ever have something to say about what we saw. It's all lunch, lunch, party, lunch with you girls, isn't it? Why don't you get a proper job, like everyone else? And next thing, blow me down, the damned girls go and get a job - and now we're really mad. Tamara's gone and got a bloody chat show! And Caprice is the new Wonderbra girl! As if they needed the money. The nerve of it. Yeah, well, anyway, they only got the jobs because they're famous.

And whose fault, exactly, is that?

Of course they're vain and vacuous and silly and spoilt. And? Like we didn't know people like that existed? The only truly troubling thing going on here is our morbid fascination with these girls.

"I am a little bit over this socialite heiress thing now," yawned Tamara in an interview last week. As well she might be. We, on the other hand, are sadly showing no sign yet of anything as respectable as boredom. We're still a long way off growing out of being pitifully impressed by pretty, pampered lives. The "It" girls have been charmingly frank about their good fortune ("Unbelievable. I just thank God every day"); the same cannot be said about our wholly disingenuous interest in them. This, I would say, is a cause for considerably more concern than the cost of Caprice's new frock.

We did exactly the same thing a few years ago with models, when they started getting Super. God, we tutted, they're only models. Thick as anything, total airheads.

Well we're not so scathing now, are we? Uh-uh. Downright envious awe soon shut us up, and before we knew it, there they were, Cindy and Kate and Naomi and the rest, unassailable superstars. We concede their right to major-league celebrity status, and all that goes with it, without so much as a murmur.

And we'll do it with the "It" girls, too. Soon enough we'll forget we ever said they were silly, and there they'll be, bona fide fixtures on the celebrity map, enjoying all that stardom accords. And probably laughing like hell.