I’m thinking of complaining to Rupert Murdoch about the acres of Scandinavian forestry cynically squandered by his tabloid editors on Wayne Rooney this week. Vandals. If only the Sun and the News of the World would face the fact that Rooney will never be another Beckham. Why won’t he? It’s harsh I know, but however many goals he scores, he simply isn’t pin-up material. People outside football are into Beckham. People of both genders fancy him rotten. People who loathe and detest all forms of sport, even they have a soft spot for David Beckham. Wayne Rooney? It’s called a…

Good to see the Royal Princes out in public this week, even though the occasion was a sad one: their granny’s funeral. I’m reminded of the ancient Chinese fable in which a young and foolish man goes to an older, wiser one to ask for the secret of perfect happiness. “Easy.” says the sage. “Grandfather dies, man dies, son dies.” “What?” says the young one. “Three deaths? How can that bring perfect happiness?” “Because” replies the old man, “that’s the right order to die in. Any other order and you’re in trouble.“

Good to see the Royal Princes out in public this week, even though the occasion was a sad one: their granny’s funeral. I’m reminded of the ancient Chinese fable in which a young and foolish man goes to an older, wiser one to ask for the secret of perfect happiness. “Easy.” says the sage. “Grandfather dies, man dies, son dies.” “What?” says the young one. “Three deaths? How can that bring perfect happiness?” “Because” replies the old man, “that’s the right order to die in. Any other order and you’re in trouble.“

The US military’s attempt to hide the returning corpses of US soldiers from the media has backfired spectacularly, writes Mark Borkowski, and it might just cost Bush the election The US military’s PR men can usually be relied upon to elide uncomfortable facts with a good euphemism, but mutilated, putrefying corpses returning to American soil have generally posed a bit of a problem.

Enjoying a front row seat at Wednesday’s main feature, Attack of the Purple Condoms (cert.18, dir. Roger Corman), must have been a genuinely horrifying experience for our honourable representatives in the House of Commons. The Daily Mirror’s Paul Routledge described the scene in detail, referring to the perpetrator throughout as a ‘nutter’ and declining to name the organisation the said nutter was attempting to promote. Paul made the point that irresponsible behaviour shouldn’t benefit those in pursuit of publicity.

I’m sure my powers of prophesy should be applied to more profitable ventures. A few weeks ago I suggested, to anybody prepared to listen, that after the Loos Affair had melted back into the night and the heat had died down, we’d see some extraordinary PR strokes from the Beckham camp as they redefined and fine-tuned the Beckham brand. And, verily, so it came to pass this Sabbath just gone, as an agenda-setting story appeared following a leak to all the Sunday newspapers. A ‘leak’?: A full-blown flush.

That the drawn-out crucifixion of the Beckhams’ public image should coincide with Holy Week and the Easter holidays has certainly helped enhance the story’s poignancy. It has also highlighted how very removed from normality this extraordinary couple really are. Just think: if you or I were facing such a crisis in our marriage, whether anyone had ever heard of us or not, the overriding priority would surely be to find somewhere – anywhere – where we could get to the bottom of the facts, and then review our subsequent feelings in private. However hurt, shocked, or embarrassed, and whether ‘guilty’…

Do people truly think that if you’re in the public eye, you can somehow escape scrutiny? Either Sven was naïve (and he continues to express puzzlement at the rules of celebrity culture – viz “It is always difficult to understand that whoever has this job should be a saint, should not earn a lot of money, should not have a private life, and should not listen to other possibilities in life”), or he was a little less than naïve and knew that the long lenses would be trained on Kenyon, which would give the FA a heart attack, which would…

I have just completed work on a BBC3 documentary entitled Iraq: How the War was Spun My contribution to the programme is an investigation of the role of PR in promoting the Gulf war, and in controlling our perceptions of the conflict. The ineluctable conclusion is that you and I and anyone with an ounce of humanity thinks of war in terms of death, destruction, horror and pain, but some PR companies simply regard it as a lucrative business opportunity.

Embedded: Simpson could not know the publicists’ sophisticated manipulation of his reports I have just completed work on a BBC3 documentary entitled Iraq: One Year On. My contribution to the programme is an investigation of the role of PR in promoting the Gulf war, and in controlling our perceptions of the conflict. The ineluctable conclusion is that you and I and anyone with an ounce of humanity thinks of war in terms of death, destruction, horror and pain, but some PR companies simply regard it as a lucrative business opportunity.

I’ve just completed work on a BBC 3 documentary entitled “Iraq: One Year On”. In my part it investigates the role of PR in promoting the Gulf War, and in controlling our perceptions of the conflict. The ineluctable conclusion is that you and I, and anyone with an ounce of humanity, think of war in terms of death, destruction, horror and pain: but some PR companies simply regard it as a lucrative business opportunity. In January 2003, I wrote an article about how the US administration set about persuading the American people to back the first Gulf War. I don’t…

What’s wrong with tap water? I drink it every day. And if someone can give some good old British water a bit of a hi-tech going over, it’s got to be even better. Better than that poncey stuff they dig out of holes in the ground in the Alps. And what’s the real thing in this respect? Why, Coca-Cola’s Dasani.

So to the Dasani debacle. Before I go into all that PR apocalypse stuff (which actually just boils down to lazy thinking) let’s just step back from the furore for a minute. What’s wrong with tap-water? I drink it every day. And if someone can give some good old British water a bit of a hi-tech going over – blast it through filters, stick in a few minerals, oxygenate it – it’s got to be even better. Better than that poncey stuff they dig out of holes in the ground in the Swiss Alps. And what’s the real thing in…

A great couple of weeks on the brands-discover-how-to-get-media-by-setting-up-a-stunt front. First there was the big Barbie/Ken Valentine’s Day break-up. I’d seen it coming: she’d been playing around with girls all over the place for years, and she’s got quite a history of making an exhibition of herself. Then there was Ultimo’s masterstroke of dumping Rod’s current leggy blonde in favour of his ex leggy blonde in the year’s biggest split-crotch brassiere modelling contract shock horror debacle. This generated front page headlines incorporating the product name (Rod’s ex delivers ULTIMO insult) and an important opportunity for some sober investigative journalism. So which…

It’s been a great couple of weeks for brands discovering how to get media coverage by setting up a stunt. First there was the big Barbie/Ken Valentine’s Day split. I’d seen it coming; she’d been playing around with girls all over the place for years, and has quite a history of making an exhibition of herself.

There seems no point to rush to judgement and speculate on how long the media and marketing community are going to focus on the I am A Celebrity Crowd. Perhaps I will revisit all my rash predictions in a month or so to see if their true potential has been capalized upon. Watch as their so called tabloid mates feast on any failings when the stopwatch of opportunity passes the allotted 15minutes. Its smash and grab time for all their agents and listen very carefully as the whine of their re- discovered zeal drowns all objections on the road to…

Fox News called last night, wanting an opinion on the collapse of the BBC. I told them no collapse had happened, so they terminated the interview, thanked me for my time and rang off. Clearly it didn’t suit their agenda, which was to gloat over the supposed decline of a once-great news-gathering institution.

John Lydon doesn’t need fame, he doesn’t need fortune and he doesn’t give a flying. He has no flagging career to revive, he has no desire to persuade people to love him, and he thinks I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is mainstream rubbish. His persona is sneering and arrogant, and everything he does he does on his own terms entirely.

Louisiana, as I’m sure you well know, is a community property state. Which means that in the absence of a pre-nuptial agreement, the bride and groom are entitled to share equally the earnings amassed as of the start of the marriage. According to the marriage licence, both Britney and Jason are residents of the state.

The vacuous celebrity pack is being challenged by a team of genuine sporting heroes – but can the rugby team’s victory in Australia prove a media watershed?