I worked in the area of PR for a time and I know that everything, without exception, that you read in the newspapers or that you hear on the radio or that you see on the TV is spun, as much as Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold. Personalities are created and destroyed, white lies abound, elaborate masks worthy of the Venice Carnevale are fashioned by the PR gurus of this world. Best practice in dealing with it is to use the same rules that apply to packing a suitcase for your holidays – put everything that you want to bring on the bed and then halve it. So, consider how much of the media hype that you actually believe and then halve it.

You don’t have to have blue blood to be an attractive commodity to the media but if you happen to be 6 foot tall, with leonine locks and a smile that Julia Roberts would be proud of and your maternal grandfather was the Duke of Collywobbly, well they will find you, and it’ll be hard to refuse when your only other claim to status is a crumbling estate on the edge of some tiny hamlet that google earth satellites haven’t yet discovered.

The only thing that is more attractive to the PR gurus is the hard luck story come good, or come good and gone bad again. In reality, these wizards can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, no question about it, but they can as easily make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. Just watch them. The victims don’t really need to do anything other than exist and even when they cease to exist, they continue to be exploited.

But we all know the obvious applications of PR. More sinister are the subliminal applications where you don’t actually realise that you are being manipulated. As artfully as Derren Brown’s mind-reading and illusion, politicians and other devotees of the PR guru’s magic powers are dressed in particular colours and trained to use specific techniques to win over an audience.

As for us mere mortals, well we do it too. We’re doing it when we throw our heads back and stride into a meeting and effusively shake hands despite having chucked cold water on our faces in the loos just minutes before and engaged in a series of deep breathing exercises. Behind it, we are all little slaves just wanting to show the world that we’re little braves and the only difference is that some of us get a whole lot of help and encouragement along the way.

Did anyone see Jodie Kidd on Top Gear last night? She was fabulous and stunning and funny and meek and competitive and as tall as Jeremy Clarkeson! Most of all she seemed very genuine. Which is interesting as it is tv and at the end of the day she can probably be whoever she wants to be on tv. So what causes me to doubt my own intuition? Maybe the glossy world of tv and celebritydom makes it hard for us to trust our intuition? It blurs our radar, in the media everything is either perfect or complete meltdown.  So why does Jodie Kidd get the bad press? Does she really live on the wildside? Is it true or is it just the media? We will never know. Maybe the most simple explanation is the obvious. The scandal clearly sells  papers and magazines!

That aside, Jodie Kidd came across as being a genuine energetic, fun loving young woman (31 actually) with a healthy interest in cars.  Which is really what intrigued me. It seemed like a change in gear for her, if you pardon the pun, beauty and the mechanic and all that…. Or maybe it’s not so strange, maybe its like Delia Smith and our own Football Mum with their football clubs…..what may seem poles apart may not be as diverse as they appear?

For me, last night Jodie Kidd was fabulous. Chair Mum.