First we had grouchy receptionist Frank in TV hospital drama "ER" getting a rare hold of a celeb tabloid and commenting "What's Britney done now?!" I love how her name can be spat out with such vehemence. It could be a new expletive for the new century.

Then we had a scene with a mysterious nanny and her young charge in "Six Degrees". It went like this: Little girl: "I LOVE the Rolling Stones!" Nanny: "What about Britney?" (spat out again....) Little girl: "My mommy says Britney's the devil and Keith Richards is god." Nanny: "Smart lady!"

Next, UK crime-comedy caper series "The Invisibles". Here a character was compared to "Britney Spears and the Royal Family put together". An impressive juxtaposition and a fine level of fame for the girl once known in New Orleans as the Bayou Bunny.

Then while driving in Ireland, I turn on the car radio and within ten seconds they're playing "Piece of Me". When it finishes, the DJ just says one word: "Britney". No ironic remarks or social commentary, because playing Britney on Irish radio is totally acceptable to the audience and to them she's still a megastar.

The latest episode comes from "grotequely obese and proud of it" singer Beth Ditto. To her, Britney is the OBVIOUS poster-girl for celebrities who have beautiful bodies and aren't fat. To her, Britney is therefore "hideous". There a lot of skinnier celebs than Britney, but she was the one who sprang to mind.

The world is talking about Britney, at the very moment that the lady herself is doing nothing more controversial than going to the gym most days.

And, in that context, it’s been interesting to see the character of press comment on Britney’s bikini pictures over the past couple of weeks. It tells us a lot about the nature of the whole celebrity commentary business.

It’s becoming obvious that gossip columnists don’t really look at a picture of a celebrity and write a remark based on their observations; nor do they construct a “story” based on a consecutive series of such observations. What they do is create - in advance - a storyline for the soap opera of a celebrity’s life, then interpret all available facts and pictures in ways that fit and support the storyline.

In other times, the media would have jumped all over the pictures showing an apparently very obviously pregnant Britney smoking out back of her house. There would have been a lot of adverse comment on her unfailingly fertility and seeming ignorance of birth-control, the lunacy of having another baby at this crucial time of her life, the sluttiness implied by the fact that we don’t know which of various men the daddy would turn out to be, the irresponsibility of having another child when she’d already lost custody of two... and much more.

In the not-so-distant past the gossipers wouldn’t have hesitated, or held back till they were sure that she WAS pregnant. They’d have gone for the jugular in a second because all of this would have fitted perfectly with their expectations and asssumptions and would have been the natural continuation of the storyline they’d been writing for her for so long.

But in fact, the predominant media reaction was doubt and caution. The tabloids went so far as to talk about a “suspicious-looking bump” and wondered with an almost endearing bewilderment if it could possibly be that she was pregnant again. Nobody seemed to want to believe it.

Similarly, the recent pictures of Britney on the beach in Costa Rica would in the past have provoked a great deal of ridicule concerning her “flabby” tummy, her fat bottom, her thunder-thighs, etc. etc. But in fact, all of the media comment I’ve seen has been almost perversely positive, and has concentrated on how healthy she looks, how she’s steadily improving, and how her body looks “great”.

It has rarely been more obvious that the interpretation of, and commentary on, celebrity pictures is “in the eye of the beholder”. Paparazzi pictures aren’t just pictures in a vacuum. They have to be invested with meaning, and the meaning is taken from the current consensus on the state-of-play in a celebrity’s life.

Gossip writers have a strong moralistic streak and their present mindset is to reward Britney’s genuinely strenuous efforts to get her life back to where they think it should be. What we have to watch for now is what happens if Britney shows signs of deviating from the script they have already written for her. It will tell us a lot more about gossip writers and about the script than about Britney herself.

Well, Britney actually recorded the songs for "Blackout" a long time ago, and it probably doesn't feel like "too soon" to her. Also, she's beginning to look as if she's finally accepting the changes that had to be made in her life. It looks like she's a more willing participant in the "new, reborn Britney" project. For months she was scowling for the cameras, but now we often see her in a brighter mood.

In addition to THAT, we hear reports that both her Conservator dad and Larry Rudolph believe that to aid her lengthy process of psychological healing she needs to be kept busy, and to have the sense of structure created by a work program put back into her life. OK, she may just be laying down some tracks for fun, or to bank them for the future, but she probably needs some kind of target or timetable to give conviction and reality to the next year or so, and the release of a new album would provide that.

Personally, I can't see a new album being released at the end of this year, but some people are already talking up the head-to-heads it would create, and who would win them. A revitalised Whitney Houston has been mentioned, for example. Another is Britney's traditional supposed-rival Christina Aguilera, and some have been so rash as to assume that Xtina would automatically whip Britney's ass.

But why? It's not as if Britney would fail to get marching on the promotion trail this time around. The regulation answer is always that Xtina has "credibility". I'm not so sure how much that's worth when you unpack the concept. Indeed, I think that in many people's eyes Aguilera actually lost some credibility with her last album. It was like she had become a jobbing singer rather than a "conviction" artist, and wasn't too sure where to go with her music.

But, in any case, countless musicians have "credibility" if they make their music to a high standard, have their distinctive styles and uniqueness, and retain their fans. What annoys me is the suggestion that Britney - who has those attributes in spades - somehow lacks credibility. Those who make this suggestion may be confusing a chaotic life with a creatively invalid one - and a look at music history shows how dumb THAT is. Many great artists have had lives that were a mess.

What intrigues me is that the UK tabloids that take such joy in making fun of Britney's life are the same ones who rate her highly as an artist. The Sun's Victoria Newton has called her "one of our brightest and best stars" and The Daily Star's Joe Mott has reported enthusiastically on all her new releases since 2003. Meanwhile, turning to the "quality" newspapers, the Observer/Guardian has never written a bad review of her music, and has compared her favorably with her peers, including Kylie, Beyonce AND Xtina.

But what is particularly telling is that, in its revelations about this alleged new Britney album, The Sun had no problem in reporting that Britney was "on fire" in the studio. You don't say that kind of thing about lightweight artists, or about those who have no credibility.

But here we have this guy claiming that she hit him at "15 to 20 mph" and she "may have been putting make-up on just before the crash" and now he has to see a chiropractor urgently. Well, pal... if she hit you at 20 mph the back of your car would be bashed in by about 3 feet and HER car would be undriveable. In fact there was barely a scratch on either car. I would estimate the ACTUAL impact speed at around 1 to 2 mph.

About the "make up" story? Well, it's a traditional scam to pile the pressure on someone who is clearly to blame for an accident. If you can throw some rumors around that they may have been doing some dangerous or careless driving, they'll be in a BIG hurry to pay up and pay well, won't they?

And as for the chiropractor..... Just about EVERYONE who gets hit gently from behind says they're OK - and indeed they ARE OK, but when they think about it later they realise they can claim for back pain because nobody in the entire medical profession can prove or disprove their claim.

Anyway, that's all standard stuff. What's disturbing about this "story" is that it IS a story at all. The media still want a piece of Britney, despite her Dad's best efforts to impose a low profile on her. They're hungrier for Britney news than ever, and getting increasingly desperate.

But because they're getting so little from her now, every tiny little thing that happens in her life is being picked apart and blown out of all proportion. If she scratches her butt on the street now, it'll be a news story. And I'm not joking or exaggerating.

The mindset that motivates people to make those kinds of remarks is an extremely depressing one because -

(i) it seems to arise from arrogance - the specific meaning of which, in this context, is a tendency to claim the right to make assumptions about OTHER people's states of consciousness and the deliberateness of their intent;

(ii) it seems to go along with a tendency to want to bully everyone else into sharing that mindset by calling them "retards", "deluded", "weak", "sheep" and "naive", accusing them of "making excuses" and so on... and to refuse to accept that anyone else's viewpoint is a valid one;

(iii) their position doesn't actually LEAD anywhere, except to a load of frequently baseless assumptions. Some people seem to have difficulty understanding this point, so let me explain. Once you have pointed your finger at someone and decided they're guilty of something ("it's her own fault" etc. etc.) you really don't have anything left to say because you've already acted as judge and jury and found the accused guilty of whatever it is you think he or she has done. The case is over. You've said all there is to say, apart from passing sentence;

(iv) people who think like this see EVERYTHING in terms of "guilt", "fault" and "who's to blame". It's a tabloid journalist's (or celebrity blogger's) mentality. The former editor of one of the UK's biggest-selling tabloids once articulated this activity as follows: "We give everybody somebody to hate every day". He seemed proud of it, but this encouragement of tabloid readers to make judgments on others has led to a cynical, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, "I would never do it" attitude. To me, the old "there but for the grace of God go I" attitude of humility seemed a lot healthier.

(v) the "guilt allegers" and "fault attributers" don't leave the discussion with anywhere to go. While most of the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" are actually trying to find out what really happened and pick the bones of reality out of the morass of speculation, they're being lambasted by these judgmental bullies for "making excuses" and not rushing to judgment themselves.

But what's worse, the "judgmentalists", by their "she's to blame and that's all there is to say" attitude, also have the effect of distorting and inhibiting discussion of how their "blame figure" (in this case, Britney) should take positive steps to get herself OUT of the mess she's in. By insisting that "it's her own fault and she should take responsibility for her actions" they don't seem to be leaving her with many options other than to confess her guilt.

But THEN what? Their position seems to imply or assume that everything she has done has been done consciously, deliberately, and either maliciously, recklessly or irresponsibly. Society usually considers that when somebody has "fessed up" to a bunch of that, punishment is in order.

So is the problem for "judgmentalists", and the cause of their bitterness and frustration, their unease that Britney (or Jamie Lynn or whoever) has somehow managed to ESCAPE punishment and that the "retards", "sheep", "deluded fans" etc. etc. seem content to let her get away with it by "making excuses"?

The whole "judgmentalist" mode of argument seems to hang on the twin assumptions (whether conscious or unconscious) by the people who take that attitude that (i) THEY know what Britney (or whoever) is REALLY thinking and why she REALLY did what she did (and anyone who disagrees is deluded, dumb or insane - or all three); and (ii) that everything that's happened was because of her own deliberate choices.

The fact that she's turned out to be mentally ill has thrown some of them into disarray but the more determined "judgmentalists" are now trying to rewrite history. The latest twist is that the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" didn't want Britney to get help. They wanted her to drive around Hollywood forever with Sam, Adnan, Alli and her 50 personal paparazzi. They didn't care if she never got her babies back. They didn't care if her career had hgone to hell. Apparently THEY were the ones who believed that she wasn't mentally ill.

Judgmental people seem to be an irony-free zone but to the rest of us it seems ironic that they've tried to hijack the very reason why the "retards", "sheep" and "deluded fans" were "making excuses" for her in the first place. Now it's not an "excuse" - it's an explanation. Ironic too that the entire judgmentalist case ("she's to blame" "it's her own fault" etc. etc. - remember?) has always been based on a firm belief that all of her actions were conscious, but reckless and irresponsible, and that's why she was fully liable for "blame".