Five signs that Justin Bieber could be losing it

The fondue, the acoustic album, a washout birthday and now he has kept his fans waiting at the O2 in London. Is it all going wrong for Justin Bieber?

• appearancetgdavis0.blogspot.com, but the defining image of his UK visit appeared in the press last week. In a carpark outside a venue, a shirtless Bieber poses on a Segway, the vehicle of choice for only the most discerning pop pranny. He's wearing driving gloves, of course; one is raised so that he can show two fingers to the photographer. More tellingly, behind him, ignored by a star preoccupied with having his photograph taken and kept at a safe distance by steel security gates, a pack of fans struggles to make contact. But while a dismissive attitude to fans is one thing, is there more to 

1. The drugs

After Bieber was photographed at a Lil Twist soiree holding what looked like a spliff, he declared that he was "trying to be better". He certainly seems to have got better, if only at making sure he is not photographed with things that look like drugs.

2. The cheese

On last year's otherwise excellent single Boyfriend, Bieber advocated the use of fondue. In the future we will all know that the warning signs were there, yet we did nothing.

Justin Bieber - Boyfriend on MUZU.TV.

Reading this on mobile? Click here to view the video

3. The acoustic album

Bieber's quest for the approval of his desired peer group flits between the ridiculous and the hopelessly endearing, but his current project, an acoustic collection designed to show that he is a real artist, is particularly noteworthy. As keen pop-watchers will be well aware, this is a reliable signifier of Imminent Oblivion.

Reading this on mobile? Click here to view the video

4. The bad birthday

"Big night ahead," Justin tweeted over the weekend, on the evening of his birthday. All went quiet for a few hours, leaving 35 million Twitter followers to imagine the high-spirited celebration LOLs being executed by Bieber and friends. With exquisite comic timing, Bieber's next tweet, the following morning, was a simple two-word message: "Worst birthday". It turned out that some of Bieber's friends had been turned away from the club he wanted to visit for being underage. Heartbreaking.

5. And he was like tardy, tardy, tardy oh

Nobody who has subjected themselves to the endless stream of portentous selfies on Bieber's Instagram account will be remotely surprised that the formidably self-obsessed teen didn't bother apologising to fans until the next day, when a PR disaster was threatening to affect his career, and even then only with phrases such as "I'm not OK with things being exaggerated" thrown into his statement.

Despite all this, let's not get ahead of ourselves. "Weed is not necessarily a problem," one fan recently noted. "He should just enjoy his life; nothing's wrong, he's not doing anything bad or anything."Admittedly the fan in question was Mike Tyson, but if a stand-up guy like Mike reckons there's nothing wrong, there's nothing wrong, right? Right!