RIP TPT.

The papers yesterday were full of stories about the colourful life and sad death of Tara Palmer-Tompkinson – socialite and archetypal “It Girl”. Her problems and addictions were well-documented, especially her septum-destroying coke habit. But some correspondents were still amazed that this privileged, pampered party girl adapted so well to life in the jungle in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I wasn’t surprised at all. She came from that hale and hearty “stuff & nonsense” upper class background where four-year-olds are packed off to boarding school and the greatest insult is “Don’t be so wet”. When Old Etonian Jonathan Aitken was jailed for perjury, he famously said “Any man who’s been to an English public school will be quite comfortable with prison”. Tara Palmer-Tompkinson was similarly resilient. If she’d seen the Sunday papers lamenting her tragic death, she’d no doubt have said: “Don’t be so wet”