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It’s been a while since I’ve written about Britney Spears, or even alluded to her in a faintly disgusted, offhand kind of way.

This isn’t due to general frustration at her omnipresence in the media, or even a deliberate reaction to her hellacious weave.

It’s more the fact that since Daddy Jamie took over, things at Casa Spears have been (whisper it) relatively normal.

Britney Spears stars in American sitcom 'How I met your Mother'

Spears is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. This is French for “comeback,” although I’m ill inclined to use this word for fear of prompting more head-shaving/vagina-flashing/Ritalin-chomping episodes. Or more budget stripper outfits. The torn and laddered fishnets upset me for weeks.

But no. Recently a toned, smiling, newly blonde Spears has been keeping busy, with nary a scary Lutfi-Svengali-Max Clifford figure in sight.

First came her album, which definitely didn’t suck, no matter how much you listened to it. Then her well received cameo performance in CBS’ “How I Met Your Mother” (Spears is due to reprise her role as a goofy receptionist, it was announced yesterday).

Then came the mind-boggling news that Spears was teaching dance classes to children.

Ignore all the obvious questions that arise, like whether she’s teaching them to gyrate over a pole or a chair, and why someone who can’t be trusted to look after her own offspring should be trusted with the well-being of others’. For once, Britney Jean is doing something not entirely solipsistic. It’s quite extraordinary.

So what can we make of this new, smiling, apparently correctly medicated pop phenomenon?

In the last month, I’ve been lucky enough to catch two enablers of the Britney Machine: Harvey Levin from TMZ.com, and Francois Navarre, owner of the controversial photo agency X-17.

Levin was convinced that Spear’s erratic past behaviour is due to serious mental illness. Well, no shit. No one consistently goes shopping at Rite Aid at three in the morning every day unless they’re under the influence or losing the plot.

According to Levin, Spears suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, and this is why she frequently talks in an English accent. Now if only one could say the same for Madonna.

Navarre, speaking at an entirely redundant panel discussion for Atlantic Monthly (you know things are getting better when the “serious” news magazines do cover stories about pop stars), declared that he thought the paparazzi were a “catalyst” for Spears’ mental breakdown.

Another blindingly obvious statement. It’s a bit like saying that Spears is “kind of” famous. Both Navarre and Levin seemed to have cheerfully gloomy predictions of Spears’ early demise at the hand of photographers. Probably because it would sell a hell of a lot of pictures.

 But Spears seems to be proving them wrong. We haven’t seen her coochie in a couple of months, her new hair extensions almost look good, and Osama Lutfi’s restraining order has been extended until July.

With any luck, the remarkable renaissance of Miss Britney Spears will last longer than her second marriage.