Kitty Fisher was the forerunner of modern celebrities Think today's newspapers bang on for too long about the same tired showbusiness sagas? In March 1759, Fisher fell off her horse while riding through St James's Park. She wasn't badly hurt, but that didn't stop the non-event being written about for months. Whole books were brought out on it. The concept of kiss-and-tell is nothing new, either. In the 1790s, Margaret Leeson, a prostitute and brothel-keeper from Dublin, published her memoirs. In three scalding-hot volumes, she detailed her encounters with some of the most prominent men in the land, and reproduced letters from her lovers. Personally, I find all this information oddly reassuring. It's all too easy these days to swank about on the moral high ground - rather like I did in my opening paragraph - and scold the modern age for its prurience and vacuousness. The cheering reality is that many of our 18th-century ancestors were every bit as boorish and trivial as we are. Possibly even more so. Imagine if those grotty Georgians had invented the internet. At least we humble citizens of 2012 spend some of our time online enjoying innocent pleasures such as Wikipedia and photographs of cats with theoretically humorous captions. If the Georgians had had Wi-Fi, they'd have devoted their whole lives to gawping at the web's darkest recesses. Gulliver's Travels would never have got written, Captain Cook would never have discovered Australia - and we'd have been crushed in the Seven Years" War. Fatherly advice from Fitzgerald Dipsomaniacs aren't widely noted for parental wisdom. Doing the rounds online, however, is some advice that F Scott Fitzgerald, the hedonistic author of The Great Gatsby, gave his daughter Scottie when she was 11. It's a list of things in life that are worth worrying about, and those that aren't. Among the former are "courage," "cleanliness," "efficiency"; among the latter, "the past," "boys," "failure unless it comes through your own fault." It still holds true, though I doubt many parents today would urge a daughter to worry about "horsemanship." Sadly, the thing Scottie most needed to worry about was her father: he died of a heart attack at just 44. And I say this again to you... How do you write a speech for a political leader? Listening to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband this week, I think I've cracked it. In the past, speeches needed hard policy and stirring rhetoric. Happily, these are now considered obsolete. Instead, ask your leader for a list of words he wants voters to associate with him. Miliband, for example, wants to be seen as tough and determined. So, type out those words lots of times, with a bit of space between each one. Now fill in the spaces any old how, as long as it forms a grammatical whole. The aim is to allow Mr Miliband to say "determined" and "tough" so much that, hypnotised by repetition, voters think, "Determined, isn't he? And tough! I told Mr Miliband that I was sick of such cynicism. "Tough," he said. Britain's divorce could get messy The SNP leader Alex Salmond says that, should Scotland win independence, his newly formed nation will be entitled to seize the regiments of the British Army with words such as "Scots" or "Highland" in their name. Dividing up possessions after divorce is always messy, but with a country as closely integrated as Britain, it may be particularly problematic. If Mr Salmond insists on reclaiming everything he believes to be Scottish, the English may respond just as pettily. English inventions include the cat flap, the fire extinguisher, the lawnmower and the seat belt, and England may demand them back. Enraged, Mr Salmond may then demand that the English return such Scottish inventions as the telephone, the kaleidoscope, golf and logarithms. At which point, England may order Mr Salmond to make all future demands in Gaelic, since the English are reclaiming the English language. Oh, Mr Salmond - can't we stay together, if only for the sake of the children? It was a game of two haves Occasionally, David Cameron is pictured watching the football team he purports to follow, Aston Villa. It seems his enthusiasm for the game has caught on at his alma mater. Last year, the First XI at Eton reached a schoolboys" cup final, where they took on Charterhouse. Throwing themselves into the spirit of the occasion, Eton's supporters devised some ingenious chants with which to regale fellow spectators. These apparently included: "You're going to work for us one day"; "Two princes and 19 prime ministers"; and my favourite, "You're just a minor public school." Perhaps thinking these chants unchivalrous, Eton's defenders proved rather more welcoming to the opposition: Charterhouse won 2-0.