Newkey-Burden - Amy Winehouse

I t was when Amy Winehouse learned that during a meeting of the United Nations she had been held responsible for African poverty that she knew she had heard it all. For so long, this talented singer had been an obsession for the tabloid press and had learned to live with their relentless glare. However, when Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, singled her out, saying she glamorised drug use and was thus causing another disaster in Africa, she must have wondered if the world had gone mad.

The report came at a busy time in Amys life a period of activity that was in turn weird, wonderful and woeful. The media, of course, were there to document every moment of it. She called her audience monkey c**ts during a shambolic performance in Birmingham, and, that same evening, a crossdressing stalker was ejected from the venue, despite his pained insistence he could look after her while her husband was incarcerated. Most reporters and fans had little good to say about the show; it was left somewhat bizarrely to Andrew Lloyd Weber and David Frost to defend her, insisting as they did that the performance had many merits. To add to the surreal atmosphere, Lloyd Webber went on to write an open letter to Amy in the pages of Hello! magazine.

Not that the musical maestros support meant the media were about to turn the temperature down on Amy. One newspaper claimed some burnt foil was thrown from her tour bus and another asked, Is it impolite to ask if youve been to powder your nose, Amy? after she was photographed with a white circle inside her nostril. By the time a video clip of a recent concert surfaced on the Internet showing her retrieve something from her beehive and move it towards her nose, nobody seemed interested in admitting that, studied properly, the footage seemed to show her doing nothing more sinister than wiping her nose with a tissue.

Soon, she was causing raised eyebrows in the air. Our famous little friend is smoking in the toilet,meowed a sour air hostess during Amys flight to Scotland. Naturally, raised voices were heard as the singer jostled her way through the airport. News that her tour manager had quit did little to calm matters and before long her family were showing their increasing concern. Her brother Alex surfaced on television, telling the GMTV viewers that Amy was fine and then, after she returned to the capital, her parents called an ambulance to her home in the early hours after she had disappeared. A sick rumour shot across the Internet that the twenty-four-year-old had died of a drug overdose.

However, Amy was alive and receiving help and plaudits from all manner of people. Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud spoke of Amys talent; Duran Durans Simon Le Bon said he wanted to give her a good feed and admitted he was worried about her breasts. (Wild boy!) Then, rockers Queens of the Stone Age paid tribute to her live on stage. Her notoriety was becoming truly global. No wonder she was voted the Most Buzzed About Star by a leading American entertainment magazine.

Back on stage, Amy was dedicating songs to her imprisoned husband Blake. I can only phone him before or after EastEnders, she told her audience during an insightful mood. Away from the shows, she signed up for yoga lessons and chuckled when she learned that controversial Big Brother star Jade Goody and her fella had done a photoshoot dressed up as Amy and Blake. It didnt look half as ridiculous as one might have thought. Finally, the media reported with some shock the tumultuous news that Amy had got a taxi home after a concert in Brighton. It was really strange, said a shaken eyewitness. Hold the front page!

From being blamed for poverty in Africa to her shock-horror south-coast taxi stunner, via burnt foil, Simon Le Bon and so much more, it had been a busy week in the land of Amy.