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being chased by an incandescence of paparazzi. She ditched her car in the hope of sneaking into L’Ermitage, but the hotel was full. Had she succeeded in getting a room, it would have been the worst at -tempt to escape the press in the history of Los Angeles, since staying at L’Ermitage for an E! channel, pre–Golden Globes international press week are almost two dozen celebrity-watching journalists from around the world. And me.
    Before I was invited to LA, I did not know what E! was (I thought it was a show; it is a channel); I did not know what the Golden Globes were (I thought they were TV awards; they are movie and TV prizes granted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association); and I did not know what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was (but that is okay, because nobody else does, either).
    I quickly learn that E! specialises in celebrity gossip and reality TV. Its best-known show in Australia is
Girls of the Playboy Mansion
, which purports to chronicle the supposedly polygamouslife of Hugh Hefner and his three blonde consorts. During the week to come, we will interview Hef and many other stars of E!’s highestrating reality shows and ask them what can be done about Britney.
    I have a luxurious “smart room” at L’Ermitage and, predictably, it is much smarter than I am. When the room turns on background music, I cannot turn it off.
    Once I have persuaded my room to let me out, I join journalists from Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Germany,
OK
magazine and Adelaide in L’Ermitage’s breakfast room annexe to await the arrival of the Kardashians. I do not know who they are, either.
    It turns out they star in the E! show
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
, and they are LA fashion-industry identities of indeterminate ethnicity and perplexing celebrity. The three daughters—Kim, Kourtney and Khloe—are the children of the late Robert Kardashian, one of O. J. Simpson’s trial lawyers, and their mother, Kris, who performs in infomercials. Kris is now married to former Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner, who also makes infomercials.
    Mother and daughters are dark and sultry and dressed entirely in black and white. Before they file into the interview room, E! PR consultant Paul Gendreau asks how many of us have had a chance to catch their show. Nobody raises a hand.
    Consequently, the first question the Kardashians face is about Britney.
    Britney, apparently, has said Kim has an “amazing figure”. What is her secret?
    â€œI work out a lot,” reveals Kim, “but my New Year’s resolution is to eat a little better, because I eat way too much sugar.”
    â€œKim actually just finished shooting her new work-out video,” says mom Kris, infomercially. “And it’ll be up on officialkim-kardashian.com .”
    The key word here is “official”. There are many Kim Kardashian sites on the internet, but most of them point to a 30-minute hard-core sex tape made by Kim and her then boyfriendRay J, a rapper and actor who is known for neither his rapping nor his acting.
    The tape,
Kim Kardashian Superstar
, is notable for its unusually high production values, and looks more like a pilot for a series than Kim’s friend Paris Hilton’s single-camera tragedy. Episode one of the first season of
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
deals with Kim’s mortification about the sex tape, and her appearance on
The Tyra Banks Show
to talk about it. In a later episode, she attempts to put the notoriety even further behind her by posing nude for
Playboy
magazine.
    E! has barred questions about the sex tape, so there is not much to ask the Kardashians.
    What kind of a man does Kim like?
    â€œI think that now I definitely want someone who has a really good body,” she says, “who’s really fit. I’ve dated people who haven’t, and now I’m like, ‘What was I thinking?’ I’ll never, you know … look