This morning, on Ireland AM, Mark Cagney and Alan Hughes were having a bit of verbal to-do regarding the sudden death of Peaches Geldof. Cagney was in the "The news has been reported, that's as much as we're entitled to know. Everything from here on in is just gossip" camp. Hughes, on the other hand, said "I'm interested, I'd like to know what happened... did she take her own life... the first thing I thought of last night was 'Oh, was it suicide'... was it Paula Yates all over again, and that's just human nature that you want to know that, and the majority of people there this morning want to know that, they want to get to the bottom of it..."

For those who fall into the latter camp, here is what has been "reported" today so far. Her death has been deemed as "sudden" and "unexplained". The Daily Mail are raising the question of Peaches' juice diet, while reporting on a tribute posted on Instagram by her older sister Fifi.


"My beautiful baby sister ... Gone but never forgotten. I love you, Peaches x"

The "all-important postmortem examination results", according to Sky News, will be out within the next 48 hours. Incidentally, Sky News are broadcasting a "special report" on Peaches Geldof's life which they're airing at 4:30pm, 6:30pm and 8:30pm. They've also just interviewed Midge Ure on his thoughts regarding her death.

According to The Sun, friends of Peaches are quoted as saying: "Everyone is in complete shock. She was devoted to her children she was always with them... The reason she was so thin is because she had an underactive thyroid and when she got pregnant, that went mental. She wasn't on drugs, well, not that her friends knew. We'd have stepped in otherwise."

Another added: "She had her mother's temperament. It's like she had a daughter/mother death wish. I think she thought dying young was somehow romantic - you leave behind a myth."

And so the snowball of speculation trundles on...

For those who are more Mark Cagney in their thinking, why is it human nature to want to know the details of someone elses demise? Is it some warped form of self preservation or just nosiness in the extreme? Famine, hard graft, and daily peril in general are things of the past in our part of the planet, so we sit at our desks all day trying to keep our brains occupied… is that why 'human nature' is to speculate, and generally be a lamenting limpet over a topic that has - in the grand scheme of things - nothing to do with us?

Imagine a loved one has just died suddenly. Now imagine everyone on the planet wanting to know how and why it happened. It would make dealing with your grief needlessly insurmountable. But what are you going to do? It's human nature.