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Recently I bought some new shoes. You may have read about them in Heat magazine. I'm told there were many pictures of me walking along the street in them, and much comment too. Apparently, no one likes them very much.

So, it's come to this. We are now so celebrity-obsessed that when someone from the electric fish tank buys a new pair of shoes, magazines and newspapers think it is important. Heat magazine could have run a story about how Mr Brown may be overthrown by the grey men in the summer recess. It could have run a report on the guidance systems in Iran's new rockets. But it did neither of those things. It decided my new footwear was more important.

This brings me on to Jamie Oliver. We're told that for every £1 Sainsbury's spends on adverts featuring the chirpy young cook, it gets £30 back in increased revenue. I dare say Walkers would have much the same thing to say about Gary Lineker and that Morrisons will soon be reporting bumper sales thanks to Hammond.

We've reached a point, in fact, where you probably couldn't hope to sell anything unless it's attached in some way to a celebrity. Seriously. You might develop a way of converting soil into gold, but unless you get Jane Fonda to say it works, the kits will sit on the shelves gathering dust.

I know my wife bought a Nespresso coffee machine because of George Clooney. And get this. Even when it turned out to be rubbish, she went out and bought another. If His Georgeness told her to fill her bottom with cement, she'd be on the phone to Travis Perkins.

It's much the same story on television. Big Brother is reasonably popular with people who are fat, stupid or 13 years old. But when Celebrity Big Brother comes along, everyone wants to see Vanessa Feltz throwing a wobbly and George Galloway licking Rula Lenska.

I was thinking about all of this while watching the recent German Grand Prix. It was all the usual stuff: some cars whizzing about, and then the one prepared by the team with the most money won. And I thought; hang on a minute. If we now have pro-celebrity golf and pro-celebrity tennis, why can we not have pro-celebrity motor racing?

It should be based on the British Touring Car Championship of the early to mid Nineties, when Volvo was fielding an estate car, the drivers were plainly out there to have fun and you absolutely never could tell whether the race was going to be won by Renault, Ford or BMW.

As was the case back then, each manufacturer would field two cars; only under my system, one would be driven by a professional racing driver, and one by someone from the performing arts. This way you could have Jason Plato partnered by Moira Stuart and Tiff Needell, partnered by - er - Tiff Needell. Their points from each event would be added together, so that the pro would be forced to help the am where possible.

The good thing about tin-topped touring cars is that the on-board cameras can see the driver's face as he bumps and bashes his way through corners. You'd need that, if you had Valerie Singleton at the helm. You'd want to see her cheeks puffed out in terror as she took the old hairpin at Donington, side by side with Darren Turner.

Of course, punters would be encouraged to turn up and watch the races, but they would never be shown live on television. Ever. This was the joy of Touring car racing in its heyday. We, the armchair fans, only ever saw the edited highlights, the crashes, the overtaking, the stuff. The long dreary bits where they were just doing motor racing was put where it belonged, in the cutting room bin.

And finally, because the series would be overseen by a Minister of Common Sense - and that job would be mine - it'd be very cheap for the motor manufacturers. If any of them turned up with an aero package, like Alfa Romeo did in the mid Nineties, they could argue all they like that it was within the letter of the law, but I'd simply tell them to go back to their pit and take it off. And dock them five points for being twats.