CNN is now the Michael Jackson network....

Ok, I have had it with Michael Jackson...enough...

So Michael Jackson's body was going to be returned to his ranch at Neverland, where it would lie in state in a glass coffin for his helplessly grieving fans to say their goodbyes.

It would be borne there in a white 'fairyland' horse-drawn coach as sobbing crowds line the route. Then would come the bad-taste funeral to end all bad-taste funerals, an orgy of saccharine camp with yet more artificially whipped-up sentiment.

You will start to feel, if you do not feel already, like someone who has turned on a cold shower tap hoping for some refreshing water, only to be bathed in warm, sticky syrup.

Michael Jackson's death has prompted an extraordinary outpouring of grief across the world

Michael Jackson was a remarkable performer who more than earned his fame and popularity as a pop singer. And he had many fans who are perfectly entitled to feel sad that he has died.

But he was also a sad little weirdo, possibly a child molester, and it would be wholly inappropriate to mourn his passing with too great a weight of solemnity.

Michael Jackson's promoters want to make this death into a new Princess Diana funeral moment. A global Jade Goody weep-in. They stood to make a fortune out of Wacko's London series of concerts, and are now determined to reap the benefits of the revival of his reputation in the charts.

They are not going to allow us simply to think: 'It's sad about Wacko - now who's the next big star coming along?'

They want us to wallow in artificially created grief. And the reality is that so many of us are prepared to go along with this grotesque commercial ruse.

What has happened to our society to make us so keen on phoney, self-indulgent grief? Partially, of course, it is the changing nature of the people we hold in esteem compared to our heroes of old.

I am glad I am just old enough to remember Winston Churchill's funeral on the television. Here was a man of titanic greatness.