Jamie Theakston’s recent brush with the tabloids did wonders for his image. Was this a cunning PR stunt or has the media changed its tune? Jamie’s future looks extra-rosy to me. His image is now nicely tarnished with a tantalisingly grungy edge, a frisson of unpredictability and danger, that makes him just a little cultishly appealing.

Mike Tyson’s yobbish antics at a press conference last week show he has a lot to learn about handling the media. The industry’s very own Nutty Professor, Don King – a carnival huckster barely bettered since the days of PT Barnum – is firmly established as the ringmaster supreme.

Dollar signs are guaranteed to stiffen up interest in the limpest of stories, and so it proved this week. Apparently, the glorious, gorgeous, stunning, mysterious, sexy, charismatic and talented (etc etc) cracker that is Catherine Zeta Jones, has signed a five-year film deal worth $54m. Not bad, eh?

The Advanced Hair Studio hair replacement system is brilliant. I know. Not from personal experience, you understand, but because Graham Gooch, most of the tabloids and half the broadsheets tell me so.

The Daily Mail is now the official drug capital of Fleet Street. According to the Mail, one in 10 people entering the UK from Jamaica is a hired mule stuffed with 100 condoms of cocaine which is subsequently released onto the British market by laxative-toting Yardies.

How many PR executives does it take to change a light bulb? The PR shock horror shock that shocked the nation this week relates to Cardew and Company’s £339,000 bill for so-called “external press support” for the Dome since its closure in September 2000.

A rumour of William Shatner farting during an interview pushed sales of a Star Trek video beyond the final frontier. Shatner vehemently denies he was the culprit. He says it was Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy says it was the sound man. The sound man says it was a passing truck.

Is the Mirror on a mission to rewrite tabloid journalism after shafting Mick Jagger’s PR? Looking from inside the industry, it’s difficult to assess the level of the public’s awareness of the trade in information and access that shapes much of the tabloid media agenda. Mirror showbiz editor Kevin O’Sullivan clearly thinks people are relatively na¿ve, because his article in Friday’s Times is entitled “The Dirty Secret of Celebrity Splashes”.

The newly pregnant Liz Hurley has benefited greatly from reporters’ love of speculation. Speculation, after all, promotes the self-importance of the writer.

Celebrities – we love them. They wear horny clothes, shag each other, sob at awards ceremonies, and get caught where they shouldn’t, looking dreadful. They’re magnets for paparazzi, jailbait and kiss ‘n’ tellers.

The evidence showed that war support was wobbling. So Tony Blair’s inner circle of spin went all Sergeant Jones about the business, tried not to panic, and got itself in an uncontrollable muddle. All in a tizz, they rushed to launch a smart bomb aimed at the jugular of negative public opinion, but the bomb blew off both their feet.

Anyone expecting to see a Blue Peter-accredited sticky tape expert at Tuesday’s National Television Awards will have been sorely disappointed, as scores of b-list babes in Top Shop frocks gradually came unstuck over the course of the evening.

Until last week, Barney lived in a tank at the Kaspia restaurant in London. The head chef decided Barney was just too old and fat to be drizzled with a piquant tofu, walnut and cranberry consomme and served on a bed of braised watercress a la nouvelle paparazzi.

People tell me Afghanistan makes the Middle Ages look hi-tech and, certainly, in PR terms, the country is missing every opportunity in the book. Rule one – for warmongers everywhere – is let the opposition journalists in.

Publicists and journalists know that there’s a solid, dependable roster of proven no-hopers with the magic “MP” after their names. These guys – too talentless to gain high office, too self-important to sit in backbench obscurity – can push a piece of TV trivia right up the news agenda.

We want our stars to live lives of non-stop, high-profile, high-energy drama and excitement. We want them out there, for us. We don’t want their long-term, loving relationships. After all, we can have one of those ourselves. Take a look at Kylie and Posh Spice.

We’ve entered the world of the semantic attack – and it is an insidious web phenomenon. Semantic attacks target the way individuals assign meaning to content. If something appears in print or on screen, we tend to believe it. We do not check the facts rigorously. We can’t.

Radio 4’s Today programme ran an interview with Geoff Capes during which the icon of the coronary classes put in a plea to save the British takeaway. But what’s this? Horror! It was a stunt!

England v Germany. The media is setting up an exciting array of pre-match excuses for England’s lousy performance, defeat and subsequent failure to qualify for the World Cup.

The story that they tried to hide has finally broken: Penelope Cruz is taking time off to relax after a number of films, and will be doing a course in photography. Cue one third of a page including photo in the Daily Express.