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 birth, give me a personal trainer to decrease my girth. Give me a perfect body in a couple of weeks and please let my children not grow up to be geeks. Give me enough money, give me the right schools give me two children who’ll…

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 communes; his whale-like ego quails at the blunt, inaccurate harpoons of gossips and of South Park and other teacup-sized typhoons. Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise will quickly lose all measure of respect for within that grin there seems to be no humour to detect. The Scientologist’s…

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 house. The clock ticks midnight like a vicious drum. He’s come to tell me I’m a common louse. Again. And that my music’s empty, dumb. I tell him: “Look at the charts, you ectoplasmic git of music past!” But he just moans: “I care not…

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 my thoughts. I want the chance to exorcise my shame, forget all those lousy school reports. I want to be the dream boy for a host of screaming girls or boys. Whatever works. I want money, power. Champagne and toast for breakfast every day. Patent…

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 misery, used in her videos then cast aside. Seeking empowerment in her early twenties all she will know is that virgin bride is a look that lasts – in terms of pop video – for a couple of years before becoming passé so she’ll up…

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 the tabloid spread, the cult of the breast on Page Three. Welcome to the Faustian pact of a life on the blag and nightclub entry for free. Welcome to the jet-streamed, ephemeral hell of Frankenstein’s TV set where the ghosts of celebrity present and past…

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 sinker get every face in the House pinker and pinker – the voice of the backbench takes a dissatisfied timbre. The drinker who’s drunker then looks like a plonker, despite having given it up. The drinker must hunker down with political clunker – with all…

Advice for wannabe celebrities Kiss and tell all, it keeps the world turning if the love in your heart is burning, burning. The world is your oyster and the press wants your pearls – especially if you’ve slept with hundreds of girls. Kiss and tell all if you’ve slept with a royal. Diana’s dead, there’s no need to be loyal. Gay, bi or straight, there need be no taboos. If someone complains, you were ‘loaded with booze’. Kiss and tell all, it keeps the populace quiet. If you are celibate, invent a new diet. Money is mandatory. Food and sex…

Robbie Williams has been warned by an obsessive fan not to travel to Berlin in case he is abducted by aliens. Robbie took off in a beam of light as the encore of Angels began and all Robbie’s fans got such a fright that a thousand lighters burned a thousand hands but Robbie didn’t blink or start, Robbie didn’t struggle or sway. “If this is the Rapture,” Robbie thought, “It’ll prove that I’m not gay.” As Robbie ascended more rapidly Berlin’s lights blurred and faded and he raised his arms delightedly, like Superman, only more jaded. “I could be worshipped…

(Newly elected leader of the Conservative Party) Ah David, poor David, you’ve clasped the poisoned chalice of Tory party leadership, entered a world of malice only an election victory can end. And David, poor David, will you beat off Gordon Brown? Can you really win elections? Can you reposses the Downing Street crown or will it end in tears again? Ah David, poor David, it’s killed off better men’s careers – though William Hague might disagree – but will you be the one who steers the Tories out of history’s u-bend? And David, poor David, what, in the end, can…

16 Lines in honour of 50 Cent’s new range of bedroom (and bathroom) accessories Blue, it is said, is the colour and 50 Cent clearly agrees as he’s wooing his female fanbase by inches and degrees with an extravagantly proportioned dildo, a big blue watertight, motorized cock ready for use in the bathtub that he hopes will make a thousand worlds rock. But this is the modern age, so what about multi-tasking? Will the ersatz penis play MP3s? Is it too much to be asking for a dildo that dishes out dirty beats and raps as it hums in the…

Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, God’s modest son, that full-bloodied Christian replete with a gun who last got his kicks flagellating Christ (because a violence-free movie would not have sufficed) has now got his teeth into the Mayan apocalypse – a subject that could simply fry every synapse – and with a million quid paid to film in Hurricane Wilma’s Mexican aftermath, hopes are not high that the Australian filmer’s intentions are anything other than dinning into the audience his own version of sinning. Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, God’s modest son, that full-bloodied Christian replete with a gun. Does he know…

Elizabeth Taylor apparently wants her ashes scattered in the grounds of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff because they are naming a new theatre after Richard Burton. She’ll take her ashes when her lifeblood pales on an airline ticket to romantic Wales. Oh her heart must have wings if every time a Welshman sings she’s reminded of you. A tinkling piano in the adjacent studio, those stumbling students wanting careers in radio. What a fresh dole cheque brings. These foolish things will remind her of you. A wind-bent daffodil on the first of March, pints of…

Pretty as a picture, blunt as a spoon, Offer her silver, she’ll ask for the moon. You can’t cheat on Paris, she’s got too much class. There’s no hitting on her friends in an underpass.