In a former life, I used to present a very worthy program on the wireless about business. It used to have a lot of listeners all over the world, but it's fair to say that exciting it wasn't.

It was called Business Daily because it was about business and it was on daily, and I used to think it was quite interesting as business programs go.

But then fame struck. Oh, yes.

It turns out that I had a walk-on part in The Real Housewives of New York City (or RHONY as it's known to TV aficionados). As a humble business reporter, I went to New York to interview Jill Zarin (Google her), and the RHONY crew were there and filmed it.

The mega-successful reality TV show is currently streaming in Australia - and the emails of congratulation in my inbox have piled up. It's the price of fame.

All the weighty interviews I did on the radio about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, leveraged buyouts and accumulated depreciation are as nothing compared with being on the telly.

I've never seen the show and that's mostly because I've never owned a television.

Even when I worked as a rather shouty television reporter, I couldn't be bothered watching the box.

There's loads of good stuff on it (like RHONY, no doubt) but I just never got into the habit of watching. A night in the pub talking politics and lesser gossip seemed like more fun.

I've never understood the "cult of celebrity" where a person is famous for being famous - famous for being on television.

It strikes me as false because a lot of television is false.

It's a medium of dressing up and appearing like you aren't in reality. Do you think the presenters on the news shows really dress like that when they're off-camera? It's a show. It is about performance. It's about putting on a smile and slapping on the make-up.

And being on television can rot the brain.

In my unglittering, pre-radio career as a TV reporter in Old South Wales, I got to realise that people thought they knew me. They would start to greet me in the street as someone they vaguely knew, and then realise that they didn't - they had just seen me on the evening news show.

That can be very flattering and I know a lot of people in television whose heads were turned by it. They got to imagine that their thoughts were important. They became figures in the land who got seduced by their own minor celebrity.

I left television and I haven't looked back. I'm pleased to say that I'm a radio and words person.

The grand British journalist and poser (or "poseur" as he would have put it) Malcolm Muggeridge is thought to have coined the phrase "famous for being famous".

"In the past if someone was famous or notorious," he opined, "it was for something - as a writer or an actor or a criminal; for some talent or distinction or abomination.

"Today one is famous for being famous. People who come up to one in the street or in public places to claim recognition nearly always say: 'I've seen you on the telly!'"

There is now a disconnect between achievement and glory. Wanting fame isn't new, but the means of achieving it is.

The British philosopher Angela "Angie" Hobbs said: "The only way for an Ancient Greek to obtain glory or fame was to do something of notable benefit to society which was going to get talked about or discussed."

But now the Kardashian effect is pervasive - get on the telly and then get on the telly some more because you've been on the telly before.

Stars in one field leverage their genuine talent into a brand for a quite unrelated field. David Beckham, the fabulous footballer with a squeaky voice, gave the world Homme, which "creates a fresh and aromatic atmosphere when worn" (not when worn by me it doesn't).

Celebrity, too, can trap. In my previous career as a ragged BBC reporter, I spotted Paul McCartney in a box in the theatre and thought I would wait for him and ask for an interview at the end of the show.

I waited and waited and then, with the theatre empty, I opened the door. He had gone. I was told later that he didn't stay until the end of a show because that meant meeting the crowd.

I imagine a world where famous people never see the end of a show. Paul McCartney's huge talent and achievement made him famous but there is a cost (his partner in the creation of magical music, John Lennon, would know that)

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But my sympathy for the "golden cage" in which celebrities live is limited.

I once asked Mick Jagger about the perfectly legal tax arrangements of the Rolling Stones. It was at a "press conference" in New York where the Stones played six numbers from the stage first (including Brown Sugar), and then took patsy questions from adoring journalists.

I got grumpy at the soft treatment so I asked my difficult one, at which the other journos booed. You're supposed to play the game of adoration. Can't you feel the aura?

Then Jagger and Keith Richards (both of whom I really do adore) went into a riff about me being "bawrin'". I was from the Bawrin' BBC. It was the Bawrin' Broadcasting Corporation.

I never got an answer, but I did feel the aura. I had been noticed, even though their celebrity was untouchable.

And so we come to Donald Trump, as we must. He is surely the ultimate triumph of the phenomenon of being on the telly lending credibility and an aura of authority.

He is wealthy, certainly, but it's his personal branding which has taken him to the most powerful position in the world.

As presenter of The Apprentice his image entered millions of homes. People thought they knew him.

When we worship celebrities we are worshipping created images. It is not reality.

We should stop. It's dangerous.