Lord Byron and Britney Spears

I've been reading a wonderful book, The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein, about the writing of the novels Frankenstein and The Vampyre. While reading, I was struck by how, throughout history, creative people have had "unconventional" lifestyles. Consider this:

Frankenstein was written in the summer of 1816, on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, by Mary Godwin (later known as Mary Shelley). At the time, Mary was an unwed mother, shacked up with Percy Shelley, who had a wife and child back in England. They were daily visitors at a villa rented by Lord Byron, then a 28-year-old poet and celebrity. He was "vacationing" there too, having fled England (and a wife) because it had come out that he was shagging his half-sister. Mary's step-sister, Clara Clairmont, pregnant with Byron's child, was also in attendance, although Byron, "the most dangerous man in Europe" (at least where the getting into of women's knickers was concerned) was trying to get rid of her. Even by the undemanding standards of Regency England, this was scandalous enough that a nearby hotel was renting telescopes so people could spy on the villa!

Now consider Britney Spears. Although probably not Bryon's intellectual peer, she's every bit as famous now as he was then. Moreover, Lord Byron was at least as concerned about his notably handsome physical appearance as his writing. At any rate, Spears marries Kevin Federline, a man who dumps his girlfriend while she's pregnant with baby #2, has two kids (Irish twins) then divorces him. Now she's been photographed having topless pool parties with boys and girls.

They say history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. I guess "telescope" and "telephoto" are close enough.