LOATH as I am to add more, however few, inches to Pete Doherty's press cuttings, it is time to take stock when even your parents know who the drugaddled indie shyster is.

Doherty ranks alongside the likes of Jordan and Jodie Marsh in his talent for making the papers for doing little or nothing at all (the stories are hardly ever reporting on his band, Babyshambles).

Likewise, his former band The Libertines rarely made headlines outside of NME until Doherty was thrown in jail for burgling his band mate Carl Barat's flat in 2003, and ever since the mediocre musician went public with his crack and heroin use, his press coverage has rocketed and it has not hurt his new band either.

Since then, Doherty has had many much publicised failed stints in rehab clinics and last week he checked out of yet another clinic, where he had spent two weeks as part of bail conditions for a robbery charge. (He was accused of stealing a documentary maker's bank card and demanding 22,000 from him after he sold photographs of Doherty taking heroin to a tabloid. ) But, as tedious as Doherty's regular appearance in the press is, he is also a victim. The tabloids encourage Doherty's drugfuelled behaviour and you can almost smell the bated breath with which they await his untimely death at his own hand, a Kurt Cobain for the new generation. But then again, should that happen, there would be a small question of musical legacy.