Peaches blossoms

I am dreading this. I am really, really dreading having to sit opposite the ghastly Peaches Geldof, trying to coax her out of a spoilt sulk, attempting to bat off the inevitable insults loaded with adolescent judgements and endeavouring to make sense of the pretentious idiocy that is bound to pour from her no doubt hungover, moronic, newly married mouth. And then it dawns on me that I'm nervous. Damn her, I loathe her already. How dare she. How dare she write a Sunday newspaper column at 14, write and present a television documentary at 15, design a collection for the fashion label PPQ at 18 and marry her brand-new boyfriend at 19.

As Peaches has got on with being a teenager in her own, undeniably inimitable way, the world has watched and worried. Most recently she has provoked disapproval for her drug-taking, her marriage to a boyfriend of ten days and her subsequent comments that she doesn't expect marriage to last forever anyway. She is horribly famous. She is studied and reviled, fair enough. Or is it rather unfair, all things considered?

Peaches is the middle of the three daughters from Bob Geldof's long-term relationship with and then marriage to Paula Yates. He was the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, she was a music journalist and television presenter. Later, of course, he became a saint and she became a cautionary tale. Fifi, the eldest, was born in 1983. The couple married in 1986, Peaches was born in 1989, with Pixie arriving in 1990. Paula left Bob for Australian rock star Michael Hutchence in 1994 and their daughter, Tiger, was born in 1996. Bob and Paula had joint custody of the three oldest girls and when Paula died of a heroin overdose in 2000, Tiger moved in with Bob and her three older halfsisters. Peaches was 11 when her mother died. 'I have seen videos of myself when I was little and I was always doing some weird dance routine with Pixie,' she says in her upwardly inflected, transatlantically accented, privately educated voice. 'I used to pretend I was a dog all day when I was about six, which was weird. My father says I always had a frantic mind.' She is still a keen thinker.

Peaches, for all her extemporising on subjects from media - particularly female, tabloid journalists - to fashion to music, is straightforwardly loving about her family in a way that most teenagers aren't. She finds her father 'hilarious. He's a demagogue and he's so eloquent and well-read.' She feels she has been given everything she needs in the way of nurture. 'I think it's a very stagnant and old-fashioned view that you need a woman in your life,' she says. 'I don't. My father grew up surrounded by sisters and his mother died of a stroke when he was eight, so he can relate to stuff like that. It was never awkward. I never felt like I needed a woman there. Of course I missed my mother, but I never lusted after a female presence and I had my stepmother.'

Pixie, 18, has now joined Peaches in the spotlight and under the microscope and the general consensus seems to be that the elder sister must be furious that the younger, more mysterious, gamine one has stolen some of the attention. 'Why would I be in competition with my sister?' says Peaches flatly. 'I grew up with her. I love her. I've been through so much with her. I've never felt anything but admiration for her and I've never said anything to suggest that I feel in competition with her. It is completely wrong. I find it insulting and I know she finds it difficult. I hope she achieves everything.'

'When I open up a magazine and see these deadeyed, anorexic, Scandinavian models staring out, they've got nothing. And then I see Pixie, who is this completely enigmatic girl who can change into anything. It's always a delight to see her being so beautiful. No one really knows but she's a singer/ songwriter and she's so talented and she's got such a way with words, which is weird because I always used to tease her about being terrible at spelling and reading and now she's writes this poetry. I have nothing but respect for her.' All this comes out in one great torrent - super-fast and superclear. In general, Peaches has unusual clarity about what she feels. Tragedy can do that; blurred feelings suddenly threaten to make you mad so it's best to be as sure as you can about everything, even if that involves a fight.

At 25, Fifi is the oldest girl. She works in public relations for Freud Communications and is the private one. 'Fifi was the sister who wanted to go to boarding school because there were horses and she was always the horsey, jolly-hockey-sticks one,' says Peaches. 'Me and Pixie were going to dive bars in Camden and we are closer in age so there is an obvious connection, but I have a connection with Fifi, too. She lives on the King's Road with her affluent and sweet boyfriend, Joe, who is a banker and looks like the BFG, and they are very happy together. They are probably going to get married and then she'll have kids and be a really good mother. She's very down-to-earth; she's a lot more quiet and safer really.'

On the up side, Peaches enjoyed school and managed to write a column and make a documentary by the time she was 16. Apart from her collection for PPQ, her early column and her television work, she has won a place to study English and film at St Mary's College, part of the University of London. She says she has deferred it because of her recent marriage and subsequent move to New York.

However well-adjusted she seems, the angry child within sometimes gets the better of her. There have been reports of her stealing, shoplifting, having tantrums, buying drugs, overdosing on drugs and generally behaving badly. 'A lot of it is complete bullshit,' she says. 'I would say that a huge amount of it is bullshit or grossly amplified.' Last July an ambulance was called to her rented Islington flat and it was thought that the panic was drug-related. She was well enough to attend the premiere of The Dark Knight the following evening looking radiant if mischievous. 'I have taken drugs and I have had bad experiences with drugs and I haven't taken drugs for a while,' she says. 'I haven't even had a social drink for a while. I decided that I couldn't be bothered and I might as well nip it in the bud.'