Words of warning for the Arctic Monkeys. You must get into the charts again, keep weaving that uncertain spell that put you for weeks at number one – number two next time would be hell – but you mustn’t get journalists cross by being too clever-by-half. Don’t make the second record too great or they’ll…
for Chantelle, winner of Celebrity Big Brother “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Eleanor Roosevelt By all means “live the dream” – whatever it is – just make sure it’s a beautiful one, that you control it, because dreams can be fickle inexplicable, cruel prone to be forgotten…
Written after reading that Nicole Kidman is likely to return to Catholicism after a long dalliance with Scientology. If work is thin on the ground and your weight’s increasing, if booze is not helping and your accountant’s been fleecing you dry as a biscuit whilst your partner’s affair makes headline news – or even if…
Psalm 22 from The Book of Common Celebrity Prayer Last week, actress Holly Hunter gave birth to twins. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that actress Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are expecting twins. Give me fertility or give me death, give me two babies, give me IVF. Give me a c-section, give me a simple…
The Sun Newspaper reported that nervous TV bosses have axed an episode of South Park which outs a fictional Tom Cruise character as gay — because they are scared the real actor will sue. Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise is not amused by satire or cartoons. If they suggest that he is gay, with lawyers he…
Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin claim that they are being haunted by the ghost of Adolphus White – a Royal College of Music professor who died in 1902. Coldplay star Chris is convinced the spectre affected his creativity while he was writing the band’s last album ‘X&Y’. I hear his footsteps, late, within my…
Psalm 3 from The Book of Common Celebrity Prayer “The lure of celebrity is so great among teenagers that almost one in 10 would abandon their education if they had the chance to appear on television.” The Independent, January 13, 2006 Oh, slip me between the clean sheets of fame, cast me in crystal, televise…
Britney Spears has just been named the worst-dressed celebrity for dressing like an “over-the-hill Lolita”. She is sixteen going on thirteen, in a tight school uniform dressed to kill. Pigtails pulled tight she is dancing, dancing like she wants to be dirty, is enjoying the old men’s thrill. Soon she will be wallowing deep in…
Written to mark the moment when unknown office temp and model, Chantelle Houghton, convinced her Celebrity Big Brother co-contestants that she really was famous. Welcome to the ghost game of celebrity, the trick-or-treat vision of fame. Welcome to the hope that money and power will quickly devour the shame. Welcome to the restless world of…
for Charles Kennedy who, at the time of writing, is still leader of the Liberal Democrats. The drunker the drinker the slower the thinker, the less that gets done in the chamber. The drinker who’s drunker gets less chance to tinker, fiddling instead with liquids of amber and lies that are swallowed hook line and…