Good morning, beautiful

It's always nice to get a reminder that those glamorous Hollywood stars are just like the rest of us. They still have to separate their rubbish for the recycling bins, their skin occasionally flares up, and they even get parking tickets when they leave their hazard lights on to nip to the shops.

Now, diehard star-spotters can add another perfunctory moment of ordinariness to their list of celebrity-doings: the walk of shame.

Don't pretend you don't know what it is - skulking home in the early morning, looking like you just lost a hair-pulling fight with Diana Vickers. Still wearing last night's outfit, your breath smells like an ashtray full of cocktail umbrellas, and your underwear is stuffed into your handbag/back pocket (delete as applicable).

Because no-one really goes out expecting to pull. It's just a nice surprise at the end of the evening - even better than finding an empty taxi rank or a KFC that's still open at 3am.

Unfortunately, it means that even though you might have spent the night before looking a million dollars, you come home resembling the loose change down the back of the sofa.

That's a pretty accurate description of how January Jones looked this week, when she was papped clambering out of a cab at 10.30am, following a glittering night out at the perplexingly-titled Oceana World Oceans Day Party. The disheveled mess arriving home the morning after looked nothing like her character Betty Draper, Don's troubled wife in Mad Men.

We all know that the hit AMC show is a triumph of art direction - in the last couple of years Betty has weathered a difficult pregnancy, the death of a parent and a nervous breakdown, without even smudging her lipstick. But the sight of the glacially impeccable Betty Draper, staggering up her lawn with a black bra poking out the back of her cocktail dress, shows us just how much work must go into the show. It's no wonder they clean up whenever the awards season rolls around.

Boris gets in a muggle

When they're not busy claiming duck houses and moat cleaning services on expenses, politicians can always be counted upon to weigh in on the issues that matter. So even though Britain is teetering on the brink of an economic disaster that's set to make Dickens-era London look aspirational, Boris Johnson knows what we're really worried about - the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Florida.

Oh Boris! The man elected to the Mayor's office because half of London thought they were nominating a new Dean for the Clown's College. Apparently, he's got a real bee in his barnet about the forthcoming 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter' - the $265 million attraction that opens next week in Orlando.

Promising an authentic recreation of Diagon Alley, and a variety of exciting thrill rides that drop visitors straight into Hogwarts (the most dangerous secondary school outside of Hackney), the Harry Potter experience has been meticulously created by the production designers who worked on the movies. They've even got fake snow on the roofs of Hogsmeade, even though Florida hasn't seen a white Christmas since it was part of the same land-mass as Africa.

But Boris isn't happy, because he thinks that the theme park should be here in the UK. Writing in The Telegraph, he argued that the attraction is the "crowning insult" to the loss of British intellectual property, and should have been built in London instead.

He's clearly read the books - he even gets worked up about the preferred entry point to the Ministry of Magic (through a phone box if you're interested) - and identifies with the quintessentially British boarding school environment in which they're set.

It shouldn't really come as any surprise that Boris is all caught up in Harry Potter's fictional world - he's about as grounded in reality as Spongebob Squarepants. He even urges readers to write to Warner Bros in order to "bring Harry home" by relocating the attraction. Not sure how Universal Studios would feel about Warner Bros requisitioning their property, but anyway...

The real issue here is that Boris thinks that building a Harry Potter attraction in the UK would be a good idea. The last time someone tried to open a theme park in the UK, we were given a muddy car-park, a collapsible gazebo and a couple of diseased reindeers. People paid £25 for the privilege of wandering around it and complaining to the press about what a shit day they'd had.

The Orlando attraction cost a quarter of a billion dollars, and that was really just giving a Harry Potter-facelift to existing rides. Imagine how much it would cost to build it from scratch, and how much fun we'd have complaining about the astronomical ticket prices.

Sorry to say it, but the 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter' is too good for us. No candy floss, no mistreated donkeys, no sewage outlet pipes - that's not what we expect from a Great British holiday. If only Boris understood what really makes the common people tick.

If you have a problem, and no-one else can help...

The only thing better than the fuzzy glow of nostalgia, is having everything you ever enjoyed remade so that you don't have to waste precious brain cells trying to remember it.

So our thanks go to those generous Hollywood moneymen who think nothing of ravaging our childhood like a Vermont priest (see yesterday's post) to save them having to come up with an original concept. In terms of fondly-remembered TV properties, few score higher than the A-Team, which is conveniently the latest TV show to be fed through the film industry's sausage machine.

The story of four wrongly imprisoned Vietnam veterans, the A-Team was everything a child of the eighties could wish for. Improbable action, cunning disguises (that usually involved a bushy grey moustache) and enough impromptu engineering to give Isambard Kingdom Brunel the horn.

Despite living off the grid to avoid recapture (the opening credits voiceover doubted anyone's ability to find them), the A-Team were regularly called upon by comely young ladies to protect their farms against ruthless developers with their own private militia. Every week the gang would show up, bicker and flirt, then get locked in a barn and have to devise a way of breaking out by cunningly building a cabbage-firing tank that could blast a jeep 18 feet in the air.

Although the show's concept has been updated to reflect modern reality, with the team now Iraq war veterans, director Jo Carnahan has promised to keep things light-hearted, claiming "You can … make a film that reflects on the real world without losing the great sense of fun and the velocity of action in a classic summer popcorn film."

Although fan-boy anticipation is understandably high, the movie's imminent release has been soured somewhat, thanks to a few thoughtless remarks made by Ultimate Fighter Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, who is following in Mr T's jewellery laden footsteps.

When the Los Angeles Times visited the set, Jackson stated that “Acting is kind of gay. It makes you soft. You got all these people combing your hair and putting a coat over your shoulders when you’re cold. I don’t want a coat over my shoulders! I’m a tough-ass!"

Before anyone even had time to pity the fool, critics were calling him a homophobe and insisting on a boycott of the film. Since then, the beefy Bo Selecta-looking action star has been forced to retract his comments and issue a rather rambling apology on his personal website.

He's fine with gays, as long as they don't touch him, buy him drinks or 'hound' him. And besides, as Rampage points out, "MOST straight fans act GAYER than any guys that was at this gay bar that I visited." So as long as gays don't do anything too gay, like looking or acting gay, he's fine with that.

But, see, now I'm wondering whether he actually intended to go to that gay bar in the first place. Maybe he was ranting about "I ain't going in no damn gay bar, no fool ain't getting me in no gay bar." Then Hannibal gave him a glass of milk, he blacked out... You see where I'm going with this?

Caught in the act

Remember the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct? If you weren't momentarily distracted by a flash of Sharon Stone's raw talent, you may recall a moment when she shot down the suggestion that she might have been involved in the ice-pick murders.

Snapping through a cloud of (verboten) cigarette smoke, the knickerless suspect argued: "I'd have to be pretty stupid to write a book about killing and then kill somebody the way I described it in my book. I'd be announcing myself as the killer. I'm not stupid."

I'm reminded of Catherine Tramell's ingenious alibi, having seen the front cover of the new edition of Vermont Catholic magazine (obviously I never miss an issue). Someone obviously thought it was a good idea to show a priest cradling the head of a young man kneeling before him - it's called Ordination apparently.

If your eyebrows aren't already levitating over the top of your head like Penfold discovering his wife in bed with another mole, then consider recent events in Vermont. Only last week the diocese agreed to an $18 million settlement to be divided amongst 26 plaintiffs who had been abused as altar boys over the last 30 years.

Adding insult to internal injury is the fact that this particular issue of Vermont Catholic even features a letter from Bishop Salvatore Matano, aplogising for the scandal and attempting to lay the matter to rest. He's probably wishing he'd waited until the Summer issue to post that particular piece.

As the Catholic church continues to weather the storm of the ongoing child abuse scandal, this cover must come as a real blow to the powers that be. The editors might protest their innocence (much like the offending priests themselves), but it's all a bit much to swallow. Too easy?

Tricks of the trade

Everyone knows that Hollywood is the world capital of recycling. Anything that isn't nailed down is chopped up, rehashed and re-served like a Turkey Twizzler. These days, the 're-imagining' of a film is already in pre-production before the original hits DVD shelves.

But it's not just the ideas that keep getting reused. For instance, if you listen carefully, whenever someone in a movie gives their phone number, you'll notice that it always begins with an area code '555'. It makes sense really, since nobody wants to be inundated with crank calls from stupid viewers dialing the number they saw in a movie.

It's nothing new - the Wilhelm scream is the stuff of Hollywood legend. A one-size-fits-all sound effect of a screaming man, it was first used in 1951 for a film called Distant Drums, but since then has turned up in everything from Star Wars to Indiana Jones.

Now a Picassa user with way too much time on his hands has unearthed yet another example of Hollywood using the same old props and it makes for quite a cool photo gallery.

Apparently, it's more fuss than it's worth trying to find a newspaper or magazine for characters to peruse, since rights have to be negotiated and headlines have to be checked with the legal department. Instead, canny set-dressers use the same newspaper time and time again, making Mrs '3rd Brightest But Hard To See' the biggest TV star of the last decade.

Check out the images - she's been in almost every hit show in recent memory. And for once, there are no stories about what a bitch she is to work with, or how she doesn't get on with all the other women on set.

Lighting the touch-paper

OK, I admit it. I suffer from road rage. 90 percent of the time my temperament is about as mild as a lukewarm cup of herbal tea, but stick me behind the wheel and in a matter of minutes I'm swearing like a Tourettes sufferer being audited by the Inland Revenue.

I've often argued that it's cathartic to have the occasional outburst (it's an argument that usually falls on deaf ears) - however, Giles Coren has written an article for the Daily Mail making the exact same case. Apparently, scientists at the University of Valencia have found that the occasional outburst can increase blood flow to the pleasure-points in the brain.

This must come as a great relief to readers of the Daily Mail, since the paper goes out of its way to trigger their anger receptors as often as it can. Everything about the paper, from its editorial style to its typeface, seems expressly designed to needle and agitate, leaving its loyal readers in a constant quivering state of annoyance - ready to blow at the merest infraction.

Coren, however, attempts to distance himself from that mindset, claiming that he's been mischaracterised as Mr Angry: "Not that I’m an angry person myself, I should say. I am a man of great phlegm and restraint. Until provoked. When goaded, I will admit, I can fly off the handle ever so slightly. But not over anything minor. It takes something big."

I'm not sure how this correlates with his 1000-word rant to the sub-editors at the Times who foolishly tinkered with one of his articles. Although only one word had been changed, Coren raved on as though someone had set fire to his house, only for the fire service to then have to smash his car windows to reach the hydrant.

He also got into trouble earlier this year when he tweeted that his neighbour's 12-year old son was annoying him by playing his drums incessantly. Rather than phone the council to complain to the noise pollution team, Coren theorised about raping, killing and burning the boy. Which is surely a perfectly reasonably response.

It's Coren's belief that most of what's wrong with 'Broken Britain' can be directly attributed to our attempts to be more civilised and empathetic with one another, leaving us mired in a "world of cowering, timorous individuals mired in a culture of greed, terror and dismal dead-end jobs, call-centres, wars, stupid blasted iPads for dopey morons to play rape-and-murder video games on the way to work, and pointless anger-bleeding-management courses".

That's the problem with anger - when the red mist descends, logic and reason fly out of the window. As a result, Coren's article leaps from one mindlessly aggressive attack to the next, without a trace of cohesion or relevance. He takes pot-shots at 'paella-munching boffins', 'so-called kebab shops' and 'clipboard bashers' amongst others, without ever managing to connect any of the dots.

Anger is good, he says. Anger is what makes us human, and helped overthrow the great evils of modern civilisation - Apartheid, Communism and the Poll Tax. And you'd better believe that those other blights on modern life will follow, just as soon as we all connect with our inner Hulk. Giles' targets? The hunting ban, bendy buses and one-way traffic systems. Well, he is writing for the Mail after all.

Or maybe he forgot where the article was going? Because after raving about the fact that scientists can't agree on whether anger is healthy or harmful, a Mail sub-editor has helpfully added links to two other stories on the paper's website. Their headlines? "It's official: Anger really CAN kill you" and "Getting angry is good for your health".

Honestly, it's enough to make you lose your rag all over again.

I can see your Cox

After all the chatter on here about gay dating websites and fast-food hook-ups, it's nice to see a straight dating site hitting the headlines for a change. Miami Living magazine (your guide to everything pastel) has found itself in hot water for unwittingly running an ad with 'adult' content.

The new spring/summer issue features a full-page ad for dating service EstablishedMen.com, a relationship site which claims to connect "ambitious and attractive girls with successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestyle needs". A whore by any other name and all that.

They say there's someone out there for everyone, and this site proves that men whose wallets are as bulging as their pants can easily find a willing young trollop to play house with. As long as they're not too concerned about finding their next ex-wife on Dial-A-Sugar-Daddy.

However, it's not the site's core offering that's causing controversy, it's the ad's somewhat creative use of Photoshop. At first glance, it all seems so innocent - two comely young lasses in lingerie, reclining seductively and giving their best 'come hither' glances.

But what's that looming over them? Could that be the shadow of an erect penis? Saints be praised - it IS an erect penis, in glorious silhouette.

Of course, the magazine's editorial team is shocked that they could have let a penis slip into their publication without them realising. Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Pascale told Fox News "This was just now brought to our attention. Miami Living magazine would like to apologise for not noticing the image. We hope that our audience recognises that we were just as surprised as they were to find this out. I myself have looked over the magazine dozens of times..." Hmmmm, I bet she has...

Making matters worse is the fact that the the phantom phallus found its place in what's been dubbed as the 'Cox Issue' thanks to its front-cover feature on ex-Friends star Courtney Cox-Arquette.

I'm sure the advertising team at EstablishedMen.com are slapping themselves on the Hugo Boss-clad back for staging such an amazing coup, even though the ad is somewhat disingenuous. If they really wanted to represent what young women get out of the arrangement, surely they would have Photoshopped in the shadow of a money clip.

When the shirt hits the fan

There's always been a tang of homoeroticism to the celebration of football successes. The crying, cartwheels and somersaults are one thing, but when players lie down on top of each other, or race around the pitch with their colleagues legs wrapped around their waist, it can set tongues wagging.

When questioned, players are keen to stress that it's simply the excitement of the moment, and the kisses don't mean a thing. This then sends a signal to the fans that they can emulate their heroes' behaviour. That's why the view from the stands is often much like the view from your average mardi gras float.

With the World Cup now just days away, the merchandising machine is in full swing, with every competing country rolling out all manner of branded tat to ensure that the fans at home can feel like they're part of the experience.

This year's award for most innovative product comes from the Netherlands, where the fans are being encouraged to go the whole hog when it comes to celebrating the big moments. With the players' faces printed upside down on the inside, these bright orange shirts enable Dutch footy fans to really get caught up in the moment.

Although it's a great idea, it's worth exercising a little caution. After all, the fans don't always have the same sculpted abs and perky pecs as the players they're following.

Now I know why Ronald McDonald's always smiling

Here in the 21st century, we're fortunate to have so many places where gays can congregate - nightclubs, bars, the public toilets at Kings Cross. But if you really want to be where the boys are, there's a new venue to pencil into the back of your Spartacus Guide - and it's marked by a pair of golden arches.

According to a bold new ad running in France, McDonalds is the latest gay hotspot, inviting you to 'come as you are' - giving a vital clue as to what goes into that special sauce.

The ad features a handsome young man mooching over a class photo and whispering sweet nothings into his mobile, as his Dad buys them both lunch. Returning to the table, Dad reminisces about his school days as a ladies man, and laments the fact that his son goes to an all-boys school. Zing.

It's a bold move for a company which represents the ne plus ultra of American big business, and one which might encourage other corporations to take notice of the fact that gays use their products and services too.

More excitingly, it offers a tantalising glimpse into the potential for a new hanky code - enabling fast-food-favouring gays to send subtle signals about their sexual proclivities using harmless menu items.

Just looking for a quick, no-frills hook-up? That'll be a Big Mac. Like them young? A McChicken sandwich it is. More than one at a time? Gotta be the McNuggets. And chubby chasers can content themselves with a Quarter Pounder.

Gym bunnies can go for a garden salad, and bisexuals can opt for the Filet-O-Fish. On the other hand, if you order the Chocolate thick shake, you're letting everyone know that you're into the kind of depravity seldom seen outside of Ancient Rome.

One thing's for sure, everyone's going to say yes when given the opportunity to 'go large'.

Reid between the lines

Time to break open the Bollinger and line up those body shots, everyone's favourite party girl is back on the scene. And she's flashing the flesh like there's no tomorrow.

Although technically listed as an actress, Tara Reid is a one-woman wrecking ball who somehow manages to make Lindsay Lohan look like the model of sober professionalism. After a reasonably successful start in films like The Big Lebowski, Urban Legend and American Pie, Tara discovered she was more interested in mojitos than method.

Tactfully described by the US press as a 'Party Girl' (generally considered to be a euphemism for 'drunken slut') Tara likes to raise a ruckus when she goes out - she's been on more table tops than a napkin dispenser.

It's an image she's battled hard to dismiss, complaining that "I think I’m just so misunderstood as a person…It’s like every time you see me out they’ll only show a picture of me, like, with a cup in my hand. They won’t show all the benefits I’m involved in with children. They never show anything positive." Which isn't really fair, since by the time the photographers catch sight of Tara, the cup has been drained, along with the complimentary perfumes in the bathroom and the bar's drip tray.

Actually though, Tara's problems run deeper than the fact that collapses like a camping table. She's also had a troublesome history with plastic surgery, showing off a pair of poorly augmented breasts that looked like the goggly eyes on fairground stuffed toy.

Not that she meant to show them off, one of them just happened to slip out at P Diddy's 35th birthday - "I didn’t see [my dress] fall down, so I’m smiling like an idiot, not even knowing that it’s there.” But the paparazzi knew it was there, and went to town on her botched, blotchy boobs.

Since that incident made the papers around the world she's been struggling to rebuild her shattered confidence. However, that all changed this week as she proudly unveiled her new 'bikini body' at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, she seems to have borrowed it from Joan Rivers.

She may be "a young woman with confidence" (as she told Playboy in December), but someone needs to point out that she looks as though she's been stitched together using the contents of a bag of beef jerky. And if these are the new and improved breasts, she really needs to crack open the Webster and look up 'improved'.