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Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas perform on Dancing with the Stars. Photograph: Adam Larkey/APFinally, there is troubling news from the set of America's Dancing With the Stars, where Sarah Palin's shy and retiring daughter Bristol is one of the contestants. Mommie dearest was in the studio to watch Bristol take on the quickstep this week, but just prior to her beginning a supportive interview, a wave of booing swept through the audience. "Why is there booing?" wondered show host Brooke Burke. "There's booing in the ballroom . . . I don't know why." I've got an inkling meself, Brooke – but it's encouraging to find people have since suggested the boos were for something else entirely. Still, Sarah does have a preternatural gift for calling black as white. Lost in Showbiz read her enchanting book Going Rogue last weekend, and while it's hard to pick a favourite passage, special mention must be made of the bit where she explains that the New Deal caused the Great Depression. Based on this model of thinking, there's every reason to believe the boos were correlated, not causal, and we must wish Bristol all the best as she continues to embody the lives of ordinary Americans through the medium of lucrative primetime dance.
A young Paris Hilton with Nancy Reagan. Photograph: parishilton.comBehold, above, a newly unearthed photo of one of the key American figures of recent decades, granting an audience to Nancy Reagan. On the right, of course, is Nancy, pictured during her time as first lady of the United States. On the left, however, is a little lady who would go on to eclipse even the B-movie actress who ended up in the White House as a symbol of the transformative power of the American Dream, and the infinite possibilities of life in that golden land. She is, of course, Miss Paris Hilton – heiress, celebutante, DUI star, and coiner of mid-noughties hipster catchphrase "that's hot". Now, you might assume the picture to be part of a newly released presidential archive, or perhaps the centrepiece of a major Smithsonian exhibition entitled something like: "Eleanor's Heirs: from Roosevelt to Richie." But it was in fact tweeted this week by Paris herself, who elaborated that the historic meeting took place at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, presumably some time in 1983. The pair's body language will not have escaped your attention – see how Paris's determined forward advance evokes the pioneer spirit, while Nancy's ignored hand is more reminiscent of the pliant helpmeet tradition without which America could never have been built. As for the minutes of this extraordinary meeting, they remain undisclosed. Perhaps a second after the shutter snapped, Paris gave definitive intellectual shape to the still-sketchy series of decisions that would come to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, and urged the invasion of Grenada. Then again, perhaps she simply burbled "talk to you never" at the first lady. But we must salute her generosity in posting the picture now, clearly anxious that Nancy's twilight years should not see the American public forget with what interesting individuals she rubbed shoulders – and indeed shared carpet time – over the years.
Charlotte Church, who decided not to marry Gavin Henson after he appeared on a reality show. Photograph: Simone Joyner/Getty Images EuropeA New Jersey restaurateur, Joe Cerniglia, killed himself in New York this week. His body was found in the Hudson river. Normally, the lonely death of an indebted father of three would make few headlines. But Cerniglia had appeared on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and been told that unless he sorted his business out it was "about to fucking swim down the Hudson". See that coincidence? Newsworthy. It's not only that though. Another person, Rachel Brown, who had been on another Ramsay show, Hell's Kitchen, also killed herself, also in the US. This death wasn't newsworthy until now, under Oscar Wilde's rule about misfortune and carelessness. What, quite, is being said about Ramsay here, though? That appearing on his show makes people suicidal? The Cerniglia family has nothing but praise for Ramsay, whose advice helped Joe to turn around his restaurant, if not his debt. What possible influence Ramsay had on Brown remains entirely opaque. Maybe it all just feeds the belief that being in the presence of celebrities is "transformative" for better or worse, or that reality shows are weird and creepy. Take Gavin Henson. His former partner, Charlotte Church, says his appearance on the reality show 71 Degrees North changed him, and prompted her decision not to marry him. What was the specific problem, though? Had he become a bit cold?
Celebrities routinely complain about popular newspapers. But editors are quick to point out that the bellyaching celebs are happy to do business with them when it serves their purposes. Two examples in the past week are Russell Brand and Coronation Street actor Bill Roache. Brand, in a wonderfully entertaining Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman on Friday night, made a lot of sense in talking about the cult of celebrity. At one point he railed against the Daily Mail and Rupert Murdoch for using the incident in which he and Jonathan Ross were damned for their phone messages to Andrew Sachs in October 2008 in order to pursue their campaign against the BBC. Fair enough. But which paper was given serialisation rights to Brand's latest book? The Sun (prop: Rupert Murdoch). Which publisher produced the book? HarperCollins (prop: Rupert Murdoch).* Then there is Roache, better known as that Ken Barlow off the telly. In his latest memoir,** he has devoted a whole chapter to his infamous 1992 libel case against The Sun (which he sued for calling him as boring as Barlow). Having turning down an out-of-court settlement of £50,000, he eventually won, but the costs led him into bankruptcy. So which paper has been carrying extracts from his book? None other than the News of the World, The Sun's stablemate. *Booky Wook 2: This time it's personal (HarperCollins, £20)**50 years on the Street (Mainstream Publishing, £14.99)
Hoarders: Tony Curtis and Tutankhamun. Photograph: CompositeTony Curtis was buried on Monday with many of his earthly possessions, according to the Las Vegas Sun. But how does he compare with that other famous tomb hoarder? Tony Curtis His Stetson hat. Seven packets of Splenda. An iPhone. A travelling bag packed full of favourite photos and letters. A model of his 25th-anniversary Trans Am. Driving gloves. Cash. A pair of his grandson Nicholas's baby shoes. Two watches. Stones he had collected. Tutankhamun 139 ebony, ivory, silver and gold walking sticks. Musical instruments. Lamps. Six chariots. Two thrones. Ritual beds and headrests. Gilded statues. Chests. Clothing, including tunics, kilts, gloves, scarves and headdresses. Ebony gaming board. 30 jars of wine.
Gamu Nhengu was eliminated from The X Factor on Sunday night. Photograph: Ken McKayDeath threats, Robert Mugabe, comments from the foreign secretary, calls for a judicial review – ladies and gentleman, it's popular light entertainment show The X Factor! A few decades ago, ITV's early evening slot was occupied by AJP Taylor, who garnered ratings in their millions for delivering straight-to-camera lectures on subjects such as the great war and the Russian Revolution. (TEXT 50741 if you think Lenin invented the Iron Curtain, or 50742 if you think it was essentially constructed against him by the capitalist European powers.) But as you'll be more than aware, Toto, we're not in Kansas any more, and the presiding genius of today's schedules is a man whom any regular readers of this column have come to know as the Karaoke Sauron. He is, of course, Simon Cowell, and he's currently beaming his subliminally hypnotic masterplan into your home twice-weekly. Taylor's programmes were widely regarded by fellow academics as frightfully vulgar, so one can only speculate about what the professors and proletariat of yesteryear would have made of the endless cavalcade of snot and tears that now constitutes primetime entertainment, or indeed of the Facebook group "Cheryl Cole to die a painful death", or the viral BlackBerry message informing the Chezza that "Every1 has a bullet for you". But first, a recap. On Sunday night's edition of The X Factor, nation's sweetheart Cheryl Cole opted against putting the sweetly talented young Zimbabwean Gamu Nhengu through to the live studio rounds of the competition. Instead, she preferred to advance two ladies who had . . . well, I believe the technical term is "lost their shiz" during their auditions, one of whom presumably reminds Cheryl of a particularly damaged version of herself. Alas, Gamu has since suffered what tabloid journalists traditionally refer to as a "double blow", in which two disproportionate setbacks are yoked together to imply some kind of parity, when none exists. A classic "double blow" would be Jordan failing to land some knicker contract in the same week as discovering her child was blind and afflicted by a growth defect. And so with Gamu. Not only has she missed the chance to lose out on a quarter-finals place to 1 Direction's version of You Raise Me Up, but she is likely to be deported back to Zimbabwe, after her mother's visa expired in August and the application to extend it was turned down. It seems that not only did Mrs Ngazana make an administrative error, resulting in the application being judged "out of time", but she has reportedly claimed benefits to which she was not entitled. Well. I need hardly tell you that the Sun, Mail and Daily Star have finally found the sort of benefit-dependent immigrant family they can get behind, and their ability to hold two contradictory positions at once has rarely been more grimly hilarious. Thus it was that Cheryl woke to bleeding heart Mail headlines about Gamu's "visa woes", with wickedly disingenuous reports larding on the accusations that she'd sparked a "race row". So Cheryl's security has been stepped up after imbecilic threats on her safety, while the roads arounds Gamu's Clackmannanshire home were closed after crowds gathered bearing banners protesting her X Factor elimination. Encouragingly, the matter has already reached the offices of state, with foreign secretary William Hague accosted about it at the Tory conference, only to declare: "We mustn't do things differently just because people are in the news." It's not a view shared by Scotland's external affairs minister Fiona Hyslop, who has written to the home secretary and the immigration minister asking them to reconsider on the basis that: "Gamu has demonstrated that she is a hugely talented singer and a great asset to Scotland and the country's music scene." Meanwhile, the family's lawyer seeks a judicial review, while Gamu's MP Gordon Banks has written to the Scottish secretary. "What we've got to hope," Gordon tells Lost in Showbiz, "is that the media doesn't just focus on this one case, but looks at the whole issue of the way out-of-time cases are handled." Good luck with that . . . If only Chezza Cole could be involved in them all. "Yes," sighs Gordon wistfully. "I feel sorry for the others." And yet, even among such stiff competition, arguably the most absurd aspect of the whole business is the suggestion that Cowell has made a misstep in excluding Gamu. To get some perspective on his "howler", let's consider a previous observation of reality TV ubermensch Mike Darnell, president of alternative programming for America's Fox network and a man we might reasonably decribe as post-moral. Mike was once asked if he rued anything about Who's Your Daddy?, in which an adopted woman was invited to guess which of a group of men was her father. His only regret? That the inevitable controversy the show generated was "outside the programme – so it doesn't translate into ratings". It seems reasonable to suspect Cowell holds a similar worldview. So if the Gamu saga results in significant numbers of viewers switching off their sets in disgust, then we can start talking about missteps. But if, come Saturday night, The X Factor's ratings only increase, then I think we may chalk up another victory for Sauron, and salute him once again for creating a system so devilishly shockproof that the house always wins.
Jeremy Kyle: public intellectual? Photograph: Ken McKay / Rex FeaturesIt was barely a month ago that this column speculated that Jeremy Kyle was attempting to rebrand himself as a public intellectual, so imagine its delight to note him sharing a platform with George Osborne at this week's Tory conference. Jeremy was chairing a fringe meeting entitled Getting Britain Back To Work, during which he said clever things such as: "Here is a lady who wants to work and says she can't afford to. That ain't right, is it?" Despite such invaluable contributions, a potentially tragic pattern seems to be forming. Last month Jeremy had dinner with Peaches Geldof; this month he's palling round with George Osborne. There are less provocative ways to goad someone into ending it all for you, Kyle, and if next month finds you taking tea with that woman who put the cat in the bin, we pray you'll seek the help you so desperately need.
Know the rules and when to break them. Photographs: Corbis; Gallery Stock; Getty Images. Digital retouching by Philip Partridge for Guardian Imaging As tiny, pretty mega-talent Cher Lloyd stepped on to the X Factor stage last month in shimmer foundation, squashed-spider eyelashes and over-pruned brows, only for Louis Walsh to trill, "You're 16? Wow! You look much older!" my heart sank. Poor Cher, she'd truly Turned Her Swag On, but the world of beauty is befuddling. We're bombarded with wild expert advice every single day, when what we really need is a list of rules average women can live by. Thankfully, I've written some:
Your routine
Wash your face. Clean, mud-and-dried-ketchup-free skin is the cornerstone of being more bonkable. This sounds obvious, but it doesn't stop lab coat-clad fembots leaping out at you in department stores, haranguing you on "your routine". Always say: "I cleanse, tone and moisturise twice daily!" Never say: "I fall into bed spangled drunk twice a week, leaving a perfect Turin Shroud of me on the pillow." For pure amusement, try questioning one of the lab coats intricately on what toner actually does. Like Yakult, Kerry Katona and your appendix, nobody actually knows.
Eyebrows
Carefully plucked eyebrows transform a face. It's also like safe-cracking in its precision. During my "beauty journey", I've had Ming The Merciless peaks of evil, a bald patch like Vanilla Ice and a period drawing the whole lot back on in pencil stripes. The latter gave me a scary claymation Medusa effect, which wasn't entirely what I'd hoped for. Do: let an expert pluck them and then maintain yourself. Don't: tattoo your eyebrows in, unless you own a white tiger and are part of a magic troupe working out of Vegas. And remember, you can always stop plucking altogether and let nature run amok, if you don't mind looking like a monobrowed Cro-Magnon woman lurking in a pit awaiting the invention of Superdrug.
Facial hair
General rule of thumb: ladies, try to be less hirsute if you're in the market for straight men. Never shave facial hair unless you want to look like Brian Blessed. Under-25s, take advantage now of easily manageable facial hair, because post-35 it will take a venomous turn and begin growing spikily from the lip region downwards, complementing your ever-accentuating neck wattle. Enjoy. X Factor contestants about to expose themselves to high definition TV, learn from my mistakes: start bleaching/waxing now before an avalanche of cheery, helpful emails arrives saying, "OMG – You iz well hairy like Snuffleupagus off Sesame Street, innit."
Foundation
A good base foundation should be virtually undetectable, mirroring the precise shade of one's skin, chosen with time, love and care. Or, in reality, chosen on the hoof, in a lunch hour, with one eye on handbag thieves, under harsh strip lighting, on a patch of wrist skin three shades different from your face. Choosing foundation sucks. Women's dressing tables are littered with too-light "Nosferatu" foundations (suitable for use only on the two days leading up to a planned sickie) and tubes of far-too-dark gloop viable only after a holiday circumnavigating the sun. Important: YSL Touche Eclat is a concealer to be used sparingly, not a lifestyle choice to counteract a daily bottle of sancerre.
Lipstick
Full, pouting lips are crucial to any look, so it's important for women to find their perfect lip shade. Do this by wasting money every two weeks on at least one expensive rouge lipstick that, once you have left the shop, turns out to be too berry, too Royal Mail-box red, too silt puddle brown or too zany raspberry for your skin pallor. Eventually, by sheer chance, you will find the lip shade of your dreams; one that complements your skin, makes your eyes "pop", a mere sweep of which makes you feel sensuous and infallible like red-carpet Angelina Jolie. It will run out, whereupon you'll visit the department store beauty androids, who'll tell you it's now discontinued. Thoroughly beaten, you'll return to an old unsuitable dark purple lipstick, secretly aware your friends call you "Beetlejuice".
Neutral lips
At least twice a year you will be informed by beauty sections that "neutral make-up" is "a big story". This will be accompanied by a photo of otherworldly creatures such as Rose Huntington-Whiteley or Giovanna Battaglia wearing lip colours called things like "Nude", "Now't There" and "Jack Shit". You will obediently scamper off to buy a sheer lipstick that makes no impact on your face whatsoever and serves only to remind you that you're a mere mortal who, sans make-up, terrifies the recycling man.
Eye make-up
Women don't use their wedding-day photo as their Facebook/Twitter avatar out of deep respect for the institution of marriage. No, it's because it was the only day a professional did their eye make-up and showed them the extent of the woman they could be, if they only had someone with 15 years' experience, on £200 an hour, following them around each day, titivating their eye sockets with 10 different brushes. Doing your own eye make-up is fiendishly impossible; try one of the "simple smokey-eye" tutorials on YouTube, which will be a woman sat on her bed screaming, "Blend the grey into the black, then take the brown over the socket and blend to the grey!" which you do, making your face look like a child's painting of a blizzard. Other general rules of eye make-up include: Purples, teals and navys worn together will always make you look like Angie Watts off EastEnders circa 1985. Never wear false eyelashes during the day, unless you want to look like a day-shift lapdancer popping out for a pasty. Glitter: ask yourself, "Am I one of the Scissor Sisters?" No. Will the people in the Nuneaton branch enjoy my news of the voluntary redundancy package more, just because my eyes say, "Party!"? Liquid eyeliner curls and flourishes: if you must, but you're supposed to look like Betty Boop, not someone out of the Piecrust Players' version of Wicked. Most important: make the choice. Big eye make-up or strong lipstick. Never the two together, unless you're appearing in La Cage Aux Folles.
Fake tan
If you can't face daily make-up, at least be bronzed! There's no shame in it! Many intelligent, independent women today are in utter denial as to their true skin tone, wasting oodles of their life stood in paper knickers in a portable tent being sprayed Walnut. "You might want to put some old sheets down to sit on for the first 24 hours till it's set!" my woman often says, milking me of cash and leaving me the colour of Lidl chicken tikka. Warning: fake tanning is highly addictive. In fact my own husband had no real idea of my true ethnicity until several years after we married when he pulled back the duvet one morning, between appointments, to find my real-life bottom shade is akin to Farrow & Ball Borrowed Light. "I thought I saw you peeling once, and we'd not been on holiday," he muttered sadly. My ancestors didn't traverse over the Egyptian deserts on camels, they traversed down Botchergate, Carlisle, in a Vauxhall Rascal. I'm not sure what part of Northern Ireland Christine Bleakley's family comes from, but it was clearly the Latin Quarter.
Russell Brand can't count Michael Parkinson as one of his fans. Photograph: Steve Mack/FilmMagic Breaking the most welcome of silences this week comes Sir Michael Parkinson CBE, whose attacks on both modern talkshows and Russell Brand are immensely significant. They signify he's got a new book to promote – and according to Michael's own website, "Parky's People is witty, always perceptive, often wise and never less than compelling reading." How we've got through two full sentences without observing that Parky came from humble mining stock I do not know – Sir Michael himself would never dream of covering such a syntactic distance without foregrounding the heritage that equipped him to burrow up the backsides of a thousand celebrities, armed with only a Davy lamp and the hardhitting inquiry: "May I say you're looking beautiful?" As indicated, this week Parky took it upon himself to lament the "foolish ambition" of celebrities who think they can be chatshow hosts, as well as going on Five Live to call Russell Brand pointless, artless, unfunny and creatively dull. "I would say he has been a very lucky man," expanded Parky, so adept these days at keeping the bitterness out of his public pronouncements. "I mean, Rin Tin Tin had a very big career in Hollywood and he was a dog." Well. Lost in Showbiz admits it only saw the trailer for Russell's most recent movie Get Him to the Greek, and spent much of the ensuing main feature staggered at his apparent inability to deliver a line – for an accomplished standup to fall short of even a one-note performance would appear quite a feat. But I doubt Brand could give two hoots. He is apparently entirely untrammeled by self-doubt, affianced to a gorgeous popstar, and milking a period in which misguided folk keep giving him lucrative movie roles. Indeed, were anything to make one reflexively warm to the old chancer, it is surely his having incurred the disapproval of Britain's pre-eminent paradigm of professional Yorkshire-dullard smugness. As for Parky's wholly unwarranted slight on Rin Tin Tin, one can only conclude that having spent so long entombed in those celebrity colons, he lacks the perspective required to appreciate what F Scott Fitzgerald called "the whole equation" of motion pictures. Rin Tin Tin could open a movie, and did so time and again. For years, he was Warner Bros's most bankable star, and it was his pictures that saved the studio from bankruptcy. He was only retired after the advent of talkies, at which point his natural limitations were exposed, but until that time he could take direction and emote as well as, if not better than, most of Hollywood's humanoid silent stars. The German shepherd certainly possessed better timing than Parky, whose chief means of reminding us of his existence over the last few years has been to pop up at other people's moments of extreme distress and make some desperately called-for interjection. It was he who judged the days after Jade Goody's death to be the perfect moment to brand her "ignorant" and "puerile" and just another one of those "poor benighted people making arses of themselves". Of course, it would take a staggeringly benighted person not to see that every financially motivated moment of Jade's last days was informed by her desire to bequeath her sons a better life than the grimly abusive childhood she herself had endured. Yet preferring instead to fart out ovine observations on broken Britain, Parky missed this most tragically interesting aspect of the woman, once again proving Craig Brown's brilliantly sparse observation that "he has a complete lack of curiosity about anyone". Unable to turn that laser-like focus on himself, Parky has always failed to realise that part of the reason people embraced reality-TV contestants was because they had come to find the packaged and managed celebrity machine epitomised by his show utterly dull. A significant portion of viewers grew so fed up of watching the likes of Parky lube up celebrities for another confected anecdote that they actually preferred to watch talentless no-marks argue about blinking, if only for a bit of authenticity. Still, with his website informing us he is "now an international celebrity himself", do consider Sir Parky the last word in self-effacement. To this end, we shall play out with Lost in Showbiz's favourite passage from his autobiography, which finds him recalling his days as a club cricketer for Barnsley. Though Parky's ambition to play for England was "thwarted" – in fact he was laughed out of trials for Yorkshire – one who did make county was his Barnsley teammate Geoff Boycott, of whom Parky scrupulously observes: "He wasn't the most greatly gifted player on our team." Well of course he wasn't. Poor old Boycs, though – he only had his second-string cricket skills to make the best of, whereas you sense the real talent on that Barnsley side could have had his pick of opening for England, becoming an international celebrity, and quite possibly leading the free world, if he hadn't felt so very, very privileged just being little old him on the telly for more than 40 years and for more money than you could dream of. 'Appen there's nowt so radged as pikelets, and so on.
Joan Collins: 'I'm not into Botox.' Photograph: Erik Pendzich/Rex/Rex Features Time for a proper celebrity, as darling Joan Collins invites Hello! readers into the gracious home she shares with her husband Percy, a mere 32 years her junior. A preposterous urban myth has Joanie coming off stage somewhere and announcing: "I'm desperate for a fag – and I don't mean my husband", but Lost in Showbiz has always regarded the couple as entirely devoted to each other, and so they seem during an adorable interview in which Percy explains that he doesn't want to spend any time away from her, especially when "at any time, this gift of life could be taken away from you". As Joan once joked: "If he dies, he dies." (A line nicked off Anna Nicole Smith's old man, J Howard Marshall, but we forgive her.) But it is the erstwhile Dynasty star's lament for the dearth of modern glamour that has made the headlines this week, with various newspapers taking ludicrous offence at her suggestion that she "can't think of any really beautiful actresses" other than Angelina Jolie, pointing out that Jennifer Aniston is "cute" but could hardly hold her own with the likes of Lana Turner or Ava Gardner. "Wrong," honked the Daily Mirror, who proceeded to suggest that Katherine Heigl was a dead ringer for Ingrid Bergman. Oh, Daily Mirror! No, no, no . . . Really, no. Anyway, all that remains is for Joan, 77, to once more refute those tired rumours of plastic surgery, when as she has repeatedly explained, she does it all with Vaseline and makeup. "I'm not into Botox or 'lifting'," she declares. "Believe me – I've seen such sights, it's put me off totally." What can you say? Other than: Joanie, promise never to be a stranger.
Cheryl Cole sings – but not in her own words. Photograph: Daniel Gilfeather/Rex Features This week's most overspun showbiz story is Cheryl Cole's "revenge" on Ashley, in which we are encouraged to believe that a track on The X Factor judge's new album is a vicious attack on her former husband – even though it was written by someone else entirely. "Cheryl didn't write the song herself," the Sun explains breathlessly, "but she approved the lyrics." Don't you love that "approved the lyrics"? Clearly, the styling signifies a progression from the "Because we're worth it" catchphrase Cheryl has already made her own – in fact, it smacks of nothing so much as a US political campaign ad. This column simply will not be happy until every one of madam's public utterances – from individual X Factor judgments to unchallenging R&B videos – ends with her facing the camera and dimpling: "Ahm Cheryl Kerl, and ah approve this messudge."
You're the top! / You're the Coliseum / You're the top! / You're the Louver museum / You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss / You're a Bendel bonnet / A Shakespeare's sonnet / You're Mickey Mouse / You're the Nile / You're the Tower of Pisa / You're the smile on the Mona Lisa… Those, pop pickers, were the musical stylings of Mr Cole Porter, which last week showed once again how desperately they have dated as Forbes named Michelle Obama the most powerful woman in the world. Naturally, the Forbes rankings were far from the only power list gifted to a grateful planet – Entertainment Weekly slung one out, in which Johnny Depp was voted the most powerful entertainer (sorry, Oprah), plus there was an art power list, and a Bald 100 for the follically challenged, while football commentators were able to gibber that Montenegro is ranked 40th in the world, below even Burkina Faso. Clearly, it would take all of Porter's genius to rhyme the likes of "You're the unpopular president's missus", "You're the slaphead from the Federal Reserve" and "You're Spain until the 58th minute". But much more importantly – in fact, call it seven arbitrary rankings more importantly – it would be an utter waste of his time, because the one thing we know about the modern pestilence of the "power" list is that the strain will have mutated by next week, when poor old Cole would be obliged to apply scansion to Lee Westwood, or musically digest the fact that Lady Gaga has been deemed more influential than China. May I hasten to say right from the start that this is the type of column always ghettoised with the tag "a very personal view", as this newspaper is of course no stranger to the power list format. I did enjoy the recent movie one, in which Johnny Depp was deemed to have more influence over film viewing in the UK than the bosses of Warner Bros, Disney, Fox, Universal and Paramount. I must also foreground the fact that the silliness of such lists is a theme to which I have warmed previously in this space – so, given the sheer volume of power lists that have appeared since its last outing, do consider it one of the top 10 most profoundly uninfluential themes abroad in the world of newspaper comment today, placing above even Melanie Phillips's Londonistan thesis, and stuff the ladies at the Telegraph did last weekend. Obtaining definitive figures on the allure of these endless lists is three spots above my pay grade, yet the heartbreaking assumption must be that they are an excellent way of driving traffic and selling papers or magazines. But at what cost? There must come some notional point at which publishing animal porn is marginally less intellectually compromising, and though I'm loath to make a definitive call on where that point lies, I'd guess it's about the moment you start deciding that model-turned-telly presenter Heidi Klum is the 39th most influential woman on the entire planet. Naturally, one can sympathise with the doomed desire to impose order on the formless tide of human experience. But in any civilised world, the only people who could thrill to such lists would be the 100 or so who make the cut – a journalist once sent to interview John Madejski clocked that a copy of the Sunday Times Rich List had been placed conveniently on a table nearby the charmless Reading Football Club owner, presumably to draw attention to his entry. (Note: this list is known as the Rich List simply because People With Lots of Money Who Journalists Have Heard Of is less catchy, even though its compilers are still obliged to come up with ways that enable them to print a picture of Cheryl Cole, which is why we get subcategories like Successful Singing TV Presenters Under the Age of 28). Still, as indicated, such confected "publishing events" really must draw the readers, meaning that they do provide a definitive perspective of a sort. To wit: in terms of shifting copies or garnering hits, anything I could possibly write, ever, will rank an innumerable amount of spots below the notion that Heidi Klum is the 39th most influential woman in the world. That is not, as Spinal Tap's David St Hubbins once remarked, "too much fucking perspective". It is a most seemly amount of perspective for the majority of us members of the so-called fourth estate – anyone not engaged in war reporting or campaigning for justice, basically – who should be powerfully aware that the most important thing we will ever do in our careers will be infinitely less important than the least important thing happening anywhere else in the world at the same time. Indeed, even among all the almost dizzyingly unimportant things one can ever do as a journalist, being involved in the construction of a power list is not merely up there – or rather down there – with the best of them. It is the absolute, undefeatable zenith of pointlessness – the Rupert Murdoch of inanity, the Bill Gates of meaninglessness, the Rafael Nadal of inconsequentiality, the Warren Buffett of triviality. I can only urge the serial listocrats to accept the honour – this is really no time for delusions of self-respect.
If you're a novice on the slopes, you could learn to ski for free. Photograph: Getty Images
Culture and entertainment
Watch the blockbusters first If you are prepared to jump through a few hoops, you can see most new movies before they are even released – legally, and without paying. Simply sign up for preview tickets with a website such as seefilmfirst.com or tellten.co.uk. When a screening that suits your tastes and location becomes available, they email you with a code. The first people to enter it online get the tickets. It can be quite competitive, so act fast. And keep an eye out for new codes on forums such as moneysavingexpert.com and hotukdeals.com. Very satisfying when it works. LB Get your brain working It is easy to see why the public lecture is becoming popular once again. This week, for instance, without paying a penny, you could see BBC Dragon James Caan talking about entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics, and next week there's a discussion on the future of transport at Blackwell's bookshop in Manchester, or a speech on the aesthetics of litter at Leeds University. Check lecturelist.org, the Guardian Guide, the listings in the back of Prospect magazine or the Saturday Review. LB Sneak a peek at a theatre rehearsal If you enjoy new writing, then it does not come any newer than the "rehearsed reading". This type of performance allows a play to be shown to audiences cheaply and quickly, helping all those involved to hone the production before it reaches the stage. For around £5, you can watch a play as it takes shape, and often even contribute to discussions. To find one, contact your nearest new writing theatre, such as the Royal Court in London or the Tron in Glasgow. LB Mug up on your art Many galleries offer free tours and workshops. In the coming days, kids visiting Manchester Art Gallery can make themselves into human machines while adults can listen to a panel discussion on the subject Design = Art? at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery, or visit the British Museum for a lunchtime talk on the art of the kingdom of Gandhara. LB Stirling Castle is offering free entry on St Andrew's Day weekend. Photograph: Getty Swap your old books The problem with your personal library is that it contains precisely those books that you do not want to read, because you've read them already – or given up. So why not exchange them for someone else's? Visit a site such as readitswapit.co.uk, bookmooch.com or bookins.com, list your books, send them off, and then search for others to exchange your credit for. All you pay is the postage. The principle works just as well without the internet, of course, at organised events such as the Firestation Book Swap (£5 entry), which is based in Windsor and also tours the country. LB Join a choir As Gareth Malone unceasingly demonstrates on television, singing in a choir can be tremendous fun. Large amateur groups are the perfect place for an inexperienced singer to start building confidence. For many, the most obvious option is their local church choir. If that's not to your taste, there may well also be a choral society or community choir nearby. Scan the links on choralsociety.org.uk, or check your local paper. LB Watch a radio or TV recording It shouldn't really be possible to see some of some of Britain's most popular performers live, in small venues, for no money. But by visiting bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/tickets or tvrecordings.com you can do it pretty much every week. Currently available are seats in the audience for Harry Hill's TV Burp, Celebrity Mastermind and The Hairy Bikers' Cook-Off. Be advised: the best shows are often in London. LB Meet a celeb You don't have to pay anything to stand around and watch how awkward interactions play out, and if you are prepared to fork out for a book, you earn the right to share a moment with the celebrity in question. Be sure you get your money's worth by asking them the question no one else dares to. Today alone Simon Pegg is at WH Smith in Manchester's Trafford Centre at lunchtime, Gok Wan at Waterstone's in Liverpool from 5pm, and Manolo Blahnik at Liberty in London at 6-8pm. SP Brush up on the midterms Join Tariq Ali in a discussion about the US midterm elections, The Obama Syndrome, at the Free Word Centre, London, next Monday. Email info@freewordonline.com. SP
Travel
Become a courier Pickings are slim, but British Airways still offers big discounts on flights for people willing to work as couriers. There is only one route at the moment – to Tokyo – and the discounted price is around £300 for a return ticket (although you only take the package one way). Flights until the end of the year are booked up, but next year could be a good time to find out more (0870 320 0301). HK Take a train through Ireland A four-day Golden Trekker pass for all trains in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is completely free – as long as you're over 66. And if you want to take in the country at a more leisurely place, simply apply for more than one pass. HK Sleep in someone else's bed House-sitting may not pay well but it does offer the chance of a break in someone else's life (and sometimes swimming pool). Adele Barclay from Homesitters says: "There are a variety of homes, from flats in central London to remote country properties." In return for free accommodation, and a tax-free food allowance, you have to feed any pets, look after the pot plants and not leave the property for more than three consecutive hours in the day or an hour at night. If you fancy more freedom and far-flung locations you could try a home swap – where you exchange your home with holidaymakers in your destination of choice. Or if you don't mind staying on a sofa, there is always couchsurfing, which not only offers a free place to sleep, but a way to meet locals around the world (couchsurfing.org). HK Go back to university Cheap rooms in college halls are a great way to keep holiday costs down. The accommodation may be basic but the chance to wander through the corridors of historic halls and explore ancient colleges should make up for the wiry carpets and single beds. Bath, Oxford, Cambridge and London all offer beds in beautiful buildings. Book a room at universityrooms.co.uk. HK Enjoy splendid isolation at a remote bothy. Photograph: Ashley Cooper/Alamy Get away from it all – and we mean all – at a bothy These are simple shelters in remote parts of the UK that are free to stay in, but definitely without home comforts – by which we mean a water supply or a toilet. Think of it like indoor camping, but what is lost in luxury can be gained in breathtaking scenery and splendid isolation (mountainbothies.org.uk). HK Learn to ski OK, not completely free – you need to book your flights and accommodation through one of six approved operators – but for a lot less than usual. The Association of Snow Sports Countries is offering novices free skiing tuition, lift passes and equipment hire as part of its Freshers Ski Weeks for seven days from 22 January or 19 March. Choose from 25 resorts. HK Free castles, cathedrals and palaces On St Andrew's Day weekend (27 and 28 November) a huge number of historic sites – including Edinburgh Castle, Iona Abbey and Stirling Castle – will open their doors for free. For more information, see www.historic-scotland.gov.uk. HK
Food and drink
Review a new restaurant Mystery shopping is a great way to eat for free if you don't mind where you end up. This is how restaurant and cafe owners (as well as supermarkets, theme parks and everywhere else) do their own quality check before the critics find them. If you sign up to mystery-shoppers.co.uk you will receive an assignment and could find yourself reviewing a fine dining restaurant with up to £75 to spend – or a local cafe with a fiver. But beware of scams where agencies try to charge you to sign up with them. HK Make a gourmet dish from weeds It's a bumper year for hedgerows, according to forager Robin Harford, and now is the perfect time to start picking your own meals. "The drier fruits are really lush this year. Try picking rosehips and making a syrup or a cordial – rosehips have 20 times as much vitamin C as oranges and taste absolutely fantastic. Dandelions are also good at this time of year – after they have flowered and seeded. Pick ones that have grown in the shade, saute the leaves and serve them with bacon." For more recipes and wild food, go to eatweeds.co.uk. HK Go down the pub With 50 pubs shutting every week, it is practically your civic duty to go to your local and be cheered up. Lots still offer free sandwiches if you take part in the pub quiz (a few even throw in chips). Try The Porter Brook pub in Sheffield or The Stamford Arms in Bowdon, Cheshire. HK Sniff out a free wine tasting at Majestic Wine. Photograph: Getty Images Volunteer as a Victorian and get a free lunch Not only will you achieve a saintly glow by helping others, but working as a volunteer can get you free dinners. At Blists Hill Victorian town in Shropshire, an open-air museum, history buffs can dress up in specially made costumes, earn a lunch voucher to spend at the fish-and-chip shop and get free entry to all of the 10 Ironbridge Gorge museums along with a guest. Teachers can even take on the role of Victorian schoolma'am to tick off kids the old-fashioned way. Contact the volunteering department on 01952 601044. HK Become a wine connoisseur Osborne and Cameron can presumably rely on the reserves of their family wine cellars when the going gets tough; for the rest of us there is Majestic Wine. Its shops not only offer free tasting, but also a free two-hour introduction to wine session for their customers. So even if you can't quite afford to turn your nose up at cheap booze any more, at least you'll know when you ought to. HK
Fashion, beauty and shopping
Get a free haircut Trainee hairdressers need to practise on someone, and that someone could be you. Toni & Guy has academies in London and Manchester where eager apprentices will chop your locks for just £5, or tint it for £20. Even better is the Headmasters senior academy in London where qualified hairdressers will do it for free. The only drawback is you won't be able to choose what you look like. NJ Kit out your makeup bag Department-store beauty halls are a great source of free samples. The key is to have a cover story. Try: "I've heard wonderful things about this new moisturiser, but I've got terribly sensitive skin. Is there a sample I could try at home first?" Before you know it, eye creams and lip rejuvenators will be pressed into your hands too, in the hope you might later invest in the entire set. Ensure the counters you target are not in sight of one another, otherwise the jig will be up. NJ Attach a bulldog clip to your jacket - a la Richard Nicoll. Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Get hip fast Fasten your jacket with bulldog clips, as seen at Richard Nicoll's catwalk show. Or swing a pair of binoculars around your neck, for the Hussein Chalayan touch. SC Refresh your wardrobe Exchanging unloved items for someone else's rejects got trendy just as the recession was hitting hard. The concept is still going strong, with swap-shop soirees among friends and strangers now 10 a penny. One of the originals is Swap-A-Rama Razzmatazz, which raucously demands that you make a trade each time a klaxon sounds, is holding a Halloween event in London on 30 October. You can also swap online at sites such as bigwardrobe.com, swishing.org and posh-swaps.com. SP Spruce up your home This needn't always be expensive: a designer fake is just as good as the real thing, and more satisfying. B&Q's outsize Tecton floorlamp will add a dash to your living room for £79, compared with £2,200 for the real-deal Giant Anglepoise from Heal's. Alternatively, cosy up in a classic Eames lounge chair by bagging yourself a bargain for £369 from milandirect.co.uk, compared with the authentic design at £3,805 from Aram. If this is too hard on your wallet, get creative with what you've got. Move your sofa to a new spot. Stack your books in a tall, elegant column for a loft-style look. Frame some favourite photographs. And raid the garden for fresh flowers. HB
Health and fitness
Try a free workout Most gyms happily hand out free passes to lure you into signing up, but there is no obligation to do so. In fact, there are enough different chains now that you can get in pretty good shape by doing the rounds of all the trials available. Simply call in and feign interest, and treadmill and steam room access is yours. Nuffield Health and Esporta will give you a day's access, LA Fitness three and Fitness First five. SP Take a dog for a walk Everyone knows that owning a pet, particularly a dog, can make people happier and healthier. But it can be expensive, tricky and hard work. Which is where the Cinnamon Trust comes in. The charity matches elderly, ill or housebound pet owners with volunteers who offer to walk their dog, or look after it while its owner is in hospital. The owner gets to keep their pet, you get to spend time with a dog without full-time responsibility, and the pooch gets a walk. Everyone is happy. ES
Angelina Jolie has run into conflict over her directorial debut, an as-yet untitled film set during the Bosnian war. Photograph: PacificCoastNews.comAngelina Jolie's directorial debut has run into a little local difficulty. Madam is currently shooting a love story set during the war in the former Yugoslavia – but alas, her efforts do not appear to be meeting universal acclaim. Or as one Bosnian official reportedly told the Daily Mail: "With one film, Angelina Jolie is in danger of restarting the war all over again by herself." Goodness. As someone who makes much of her work with the refugees of various conflicts, it makes sense that Angelina would eventually wish to backward integrate and begin causing conflicts herself. But that doesn't seem to have been the aim in this case. Apparently, Bosnian politicians and women's groups are not charmed by suggestions that the movie's plot features a Bosnian Muslim woman who falls in love with a Serbian soldier who raped her during the conflict. "Among thousands of testimonies by women raped during the war," fumes the Women Victims of War association in Sarajevo, "There is not a single one that tells of a love story between a victim and her rapist." Well, that's the sort of romance people go to the movies for – or as Angelina responds: "any dramatic interpretation will always fail those who have had a real experience." Which is fair enough. I know a lot of real-life husband-and-wife assassins felt totally let down by the way Mr & Mrs Smith cheapened their profession. Meanwhile, there is also Serbian disquiet, with one tabloid headline raging: "Angelina Jolie portrays Serbs as evil." So although her ban on filming in Bosnia has now been overturned, Angelina is on the defensive. "There are many twists in the plot that address the sensitive nature of the relationship between the main characters," she stated this week. "My hope is that people will hold judgement until they have seen the film." Yes, this touchiness doesn't become anyone. Fortunately, the movie's producer Edin Sarcik is miles less wishy-washy. Branding the emotional debate "unnecessary", he points out: "It's a big thing for Bosnia that such a mega-mega-star is coming to Sarajevo." Indeed. Don't look a celebrity angle in the mouth, Bosnia! The ingratitude of some countries is quite astounding, and we look forward to Angelina dragging the artless yokels up to speed.
Jedward say the Michael Jackson-signed sheet is 'really good stuff'. Photograph: Beretta/Sims/Rex Features Exciting entertainment property Jedward are a pair of hyper-quiffed innocents abroad in a confusing world. The former X Factor contestants now claim to have £2m in their bank account, but as a rule, say they don't like to spend it. However, it seems that the young Grimes brothers recently persuaded their financial carer to let them withdraw £20,000 – a full £3,000 of which they spent at auction on a piece of so-called pop memorabilia that Lost in Showbiz can hardly believe exists. It is a bedsheet, autographed by both Michael Jackson and his erstwhile child-buddy, Macaulay Culkin. "It's really good stuff," Edward explained this week. "Nobody else in the world has it." One imagines they don't. In light of subsequent events, Michael probably stopped co- autographing bedlinen with minors – or at the very least, any other works in the series would remain under his former lawyers' lock and key. So Jedward must be congratulated on their shrewd eye. The purchase represents a canny first acquisition for what will doubtless one day be regarded as the world's leading collection of aberrant celebrity relics.
Jennifer Aniston . . . dog days. Photograph: Barry Wetcher Smpsp Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world . . . Yes, take refuge in Yeats and bleach daiquiris, my darlinks, for something has upset the fragile equilibrium of the defining entertainment psychodrama of our age. To wit: Now magazine claims Jennifer Aniston's dog is depressed, seeing a therapist, and entertaining suicidal thoughts. I know what you're screaming, and you're right – there's no suicidal dog in this never-ending mystery play. There are only three characters: Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Their endless, presumably entirely confected interaction is perhaps the ultimate celebrity magazine formula: a cavalcade of imagined break-ups, make-ups and jealousies so die-hard it could survive a nuclear winter. Like I say, you knew where you were with that. Angelina was hot and transgressive and had Brad, and Jen was sad and childless and not on Ban Ki-moon's speed-dial. This carefully calibrated set of certainties was nothing less than the lodestar of modern life, the fixed point used by humanity to navigate every dilemma from how to cut defence spending to how to sell innumerable copies of meretricious celebrity magazines. And now what? Suddenly we're supposed to process a suicidal dog? Listen to me, Now magazine: you can't just throw in another character and expect anything other than meltdown. This is bigger and more ruinous even than the introduction of Scrappy Doo. You might as well just toss a suicidal dog into the Nativity story and affect surprise when Rome burns. But before we proceed, allow Lost in Showbiz to furnish you with the so-called facts, as reported by Now. It seems that Jen has a corgi-terrier cross – "the one steady male presence in her life", the magazine can't resist pointing out sympathetically – who was accompanying his mistress on the set of her film shoot in Atlanta when he went missing for a night. "When he was found," we learn, "all was not well. Now he rarely wants to go for long walks and he doesn't respond to Jen, 41, like he used to." Sweet Jesus. What in the hell happened to Norman during that dark Atlanta night? Had it been Utah or Nevada, you'd have made the obvious assumption that he had been abducted by aliens, then anally probed, and is now functioning as some kind of canine drone, gathering intelligence and beaming it back up ahead of an invasion. But this was Georgia. The Others have never shown the slightest interest in the Peach State. "He came back dazed and lacklustre," is all Now will say, "and often doesn't seem to recognise her." So according to the mag, Jen took Norman to a canine shrink, who diagnosed what Churchill called the black dog, and prescribed antidepressants. And what of Poor Jen? "She's concerned it could be it for him and she's devastated," says "a source close to the actress". "She's hoping to coax him out of it herself," adds "an insider". At this point, a word about the anonymous sources who populate second-tier celebrity magazines. Naturally, anyone over the age of four assumes these are simply made up by the publications, whose business is peddling ludicrous stories that stay just inside libel laws, and which – despite being openly disproven week after week – they never have the self-respect to retract, preferring instead to fart out the next string of "close pals" to make unsubstantiated claims in convenient tabloidese. Like I say, this is the assumption – but it really could not be further from the truth. In fact, the reporters of Now magazine, and all others like it, spend months, often years, cultivating a network of high-level whistleblowers, who are met bi-weekly in underground parking garages, where they dispense history-altering investigative advice such as "follow the money" and "Kerry begs Mark: take me back". So if we know anything about this story – and I think we know EVERYTHING about it – it's that Norman will be depressed for one of three reasons. 1. Because Jen can't keep a man. 2. Because Jen worries about whether she'll ever have a baby. 3. Because Jen is receiving late-night phone calls from Brad in which he begs: take me back. Then again, why should it be a vicarious thing? Maybe Norm himself can't get a bitch; maybe it is he who wonders if he'll ever have a puppy – maybe his former ladyfriend ran off with some studlike little chihuahua and this new glamour couple now have a vast rainbow mongrel litter which they parade around the world, at the same time as making showy mercy missions to places of great canine suffering, such as Helmand or unapologetic restaurants in downtown Seoul. All we can say for sure is that the eternal Jen/Brad/Angie story just went one-and-a-half dimensional. Consider the blood-dimmed tide officially loosed.
On a scale of one to 10, how bad has the last year been? 'Eleven,' Cole says instantly. The dressing-room door opens and a lapdog jumps off Cheryl Cole and scurries across the floor. "Hello, dog," I say. "How are you?" "Hello," says Cheryl Cole barely moving her lips, "my name is Blue and I'm very well, thank you." Blue jumps back on to Cole's knee, and before I know it they're swapping soppy, sloppy kisses and I feel as if I'm playing gooseberry. "He's not my dog," Cole says. "He's the son of one of mine." She looks into his eyes – great, dark, wet pools, not unlike her own. "He's a gorgeous boy. Very cute. He looks like his mam." She smiles her X Factor smile – warm, gentle, empathetic. Cole recently said, "I don't trust anybody in my life except my mother and my dogs." Not surprising, really. While she has enjoyed huge success as a solo singer and as part of Britain's most successful female pop group, Girls Aloud, and perhaps most of all as a judge on The X Factor, her private life has been hellish. Her split from footballer Ashley Cole was played out in the tabloids, with evidence of her husband's infidelity splashed across the front pages. When she didn't talk, the press speculated whether Our Cheryl was having a breakdown, was anorexic, had lost it as a judge, had fallen out with Simon Cowell, was seeing other men for revenge, was seeing lawyers for the ultimate revenge… Probably only Princess Diana and Posh Spice have obsessed the media as much. But even when it was announced Cheryl was divorcing Ashley still she didn't speak. Ten months on, she's sick of having words put into her mouth and has agreed to do one television interview (with Piers Morgan) and one newspaper interview, with the Guardian. After this, she says, that's it – she will never discuss her private life in public again. On a scale of one to 10, how bad has the last year been? "Eleven," she says instantly. She starts off with marriage, but mid-sentence changes to malaria. The disease, which she contracted three months ago while holidaying in Tanzania, is an easier place to begin. "It was the day after my birthday when the symptoms first started. I put it down to that I'd been drinking vodka the night before, because I'm not a regular drinker. I put it down to just a big hangover. It got gradually worse and worse." What were the symptoms like? "I was exhausted and having flushes, goosebumps one minute – blue lips, blue fingertips, blue toes – to then being boiling hot. My skin was wet. I couldn't breathe properly." She was diagnosed and admitted to intensive care at London's Hospital for Tropical Diseases. Is it true she thought she was dying? "Yeah," she says quietly. "You want to know the details? I had no liver function, no kidney function, I was swollen with the fluid, I had no oxygen in my blood, I literally had 24 hours to get fluid out of my body, otherwise my insides were going to pack in. You know how sometimes you feel ill and say, 'I feel like I'm dying'? Well, I actually felt like I was dying. I asked the nurse outright – was I going to die? She said, 'There's a possibility.' " She comes to a shocked stop. Was she terrified of dying? "No, I was too tired to be scared. Honestly. I can't even describe to you – I was just like, I wish it would hurry up." She asked if she could make her will, and was told that if she didn't improve in 24 hours she should. The critical state lasted 36 hours and she was in hospital for 10 days. She is still spooked by the illness, not least by the fact that the previous year she had climbed Kilimanjaro to raise money for malaria sufferers. "It is weird, isn't it?" she says, almost to herself. Today, she still looks a little fragile. I offer her some of my sweets. "I'll have a wine gum," she says. "What's wrong with jelly babies?" "I don't like the flour on them. It goes through us." ‘I know to a lot of people the headlines and the stories they read are like some soap opera, but it’s my life.’ With Ashley in Germany during the 2006 World Cup. Photograph: PA Cole is about to release her second solo album, Messy Little Raindrops. The subject of the album is lost love. More explicitly, it is about being cheated on, the desire for vengeance and the recovery of self-respect. It couldn't be more personal. The only thing missing is a namecheck for her former husband. The songs are so specific, I assume she must have written them, but they have been written for her. On Happy Tears, she sings, "I cried when I heard you were cheating, I cried when I said I was leaving, I cried when my heart stopped believing… I cried when I slashed all your tyres, I cried when your suit hit the fire, I cried cos I knew I'd never see you again… but those were happy tears." Let's talk about those lyrics, I say. She gives me a wary look, and stresses that she didn't write them. So she cried about the cheating? "You're not going to say obvious things, are you? That wouldn't be very fun." Did she slash his tyres? "No." Did she feel like slashing his tyres? "Yes, sometimes." And did she feel like setting his suits on fire? "Sometimes." "It's all so recent," I say. "You must still feel that anger?" "You know what? I've dealt with anger for two years now, so I'm on top of it." It was two years ago there were first allegations of Ashley Cole's cheating. At the time, Cheryl said it was just malicious gossip. Did she know then that he'd been unfaithful? "Yes." And she gave him another chance? "Yes." Did she already know the first time, or did she learn about it through newspapers? "I don't know. I'm a bit numb. I've dealt with a lot of it. A lot of it on my own," She's speaking faster and louder now, and you can hear the upset in her voice. "A lot of emotion and feeling. More than anger." Did she feel embarrassed? "Of course. I'm a human. I'm still a person, you know. I know to a lot of people the headlines and the stories they read are like some sick entertainment or soap opera, but it's my life and I'm really dealing with it, and it's really happening. It's my real life. Of course I was embarrassed." The strange thing is, she's so widely adored and loved by people who don't know her, and yet her husband just goes off with a stranger who means nothing to him. "I don't think either is the case," she says. "When you're going through stuff or turmoil, whatever, I don't wake up in the morning and think, 'The world loves me.' Nah!" She says even if she had, it wouldn't have helped. "Nothing is much comfort at times like that. Nothing." She pauses. "Maybe music." What was she listening to? "I had…" She stops. "God, that feels really personal to tell you that… no, I won't tell you that. I listened to an album." What kind? "Soulful. Music is a big healer." One thing that emerges strongly from the new album is that Cole does not regard herself as a victim. "I have met a lot of young girls, and they said they'd watched my actions and it had inspired them. It had helped them through a situation, and that's the best feeling ever." Can she trust men now? "You know what? I haven't had time to deal with everything yet – even to reach that point where I'm thinking like that. It's not like I'm talking to you about something that's in my past. It's very present. If it had happened five years ago, it might be easier to answer your question." Cole always hated being talked of as a football Wag – she made it clear she had her own successful career. "Footballers' wives are just as bad as benefit scroungers – it's just a higher class of scrounger," she said in 2006, soon after marrying. At The X Factor studios, we are a few yards from Wembley Stadium, where the wives and girlfriends would turn out to watch their partners represent England. It must be a relief that she no longer has to do that, I say. "I thought 'Wag' was a derogatory term. It put you in the position of not being a person, just being the wife of someone, and I'm very uncomfortable with that – not in terms of going to Wembley to support your husband, but in terms of what that tag means and how you're perceived." Cole is not the first woman whose footballer partner cheated on her. This year, it seems that half the England team have been on the front pages for the same thing. Why is what happened to her so common in the football world? "Mmm," she mutters. "Yet all the other women have stayed with their footballers," I persist. And now she really is upset – whether it's with me, or my wording, or everything we're talking about, I don't know. "I don't feel it happened to me. I hate that. 'It happened to you.' I just hate it. It didn't happen to me. It's someone else's actions. The malaria happened to me. I just hate it. Hate it. Hate the whole fucking thing." It's the only time in our conversation that she swears. She gulps, and chokes back a tear. "Hate this year." "Sorry," I say, pathetically. "It's all right, there's a new one coming." She smiles, and recovers her calm. Look, she says, the fact that Ashley Cole is a footballer isn't relevant. "It doesn't matter what occupation they've got. When your heart is breaking, your heart's breaking – it makes no difference what either of you do." She returns to the partners who have stayed with their straying footballers. "You can't judge somebody on their decision, because that's up to them. Just for me personally, that was my choice." Cole, now 27, always wanted to be a successful singer. Not famous, she stresses, just successful. She grew up on a rough council estate in Newcastle. So many kids drank and took drugs and ruined themselves before they'd even embarked on adulthood. Her parents separated when she was 11, she was suspended from school twice (for fighting, and for swearing) and her brother was in regular trouble with the law. But there was always something special about young Cheryl – she won Boots' bonniest baby competition, was named World Star Of Future Modelling at the age of six and appeared in TV commercials for British Gas. When she made her first appearance on Popstars: The Rivals, the show that created Girls Aloud, she looked like a pretty little street fighter. She had crooked teeth, a bit of a belly, and was at home in her tracky bottoms. I ask if she's seen the oft-repeated TV show documenting her transformation from "chav" to "people's princess". She smiles. "I still am very street – I just have nicer clothes. I'm not ashamed of that. I love that. You know what, a lot of people that don't have that are worse off because they're not street-smart." How did she become the people's princess? "I have no idea. I find it all a bit… weird." Of course, she says, she was different when she won – back then, she was a teenager; now, she's a woman. Has her character changed? "No, I was the same as I am now. I might have chilled out a bit and grown up a lot." Was she angry then? "I definitely had teenage syndrome." And some. Just after winning Popstars: The Rivals, she almost killed her embryonic career. In January 2003, Cole got involved in a fight with a nightclub toilet attendant and was charged with racially aggravated assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The prosecution said she was "high on fame" while the judge described the attack as "an unpleasant piece of drunken violence". Cole pleaded self-defence. The jury cleared her of the racist element, but found her guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. She was ordered to pay £500 to her victim, £3,000 in prosecution costs and sentenced to 120 hours' community service. Did getting into trouble back then strengthen her in the long run? "Yes, 100%. It wasn't just a little bit of trouble, it was a big thing." With the media storm, did she think, "God, my career's over"? "No, my career hadn't really started. It was a few weeks in, and I actually thought, 'This is the real ugly side to fame.' People say the street and whatever, but the beauty of the street is that people are really loyal and honest. Brutally so. And this was my first experience with the opposite." Did she think that if she'd been at home, nothing would have been made of it? "Nothing would have been made of it. That's how you're bought up – to stick up for yourself." This mix of the hard and soft is one of the most fascinating things about Cole. Often, depending on the context, she is described as one or the other. One day she might be the stoic saint coping with marital adversity or the Mother Teresa of The X Factor, smiling beatifically as her kids perform for her; the next she might be the hard-nosed bitch who lip-syncs her way through a "live" TV performance while her X Factor wannabes have to do it for real, and who is happy to advertise L'Oréal shampoo while wearing hair extensions. Both versions, she says, are a caricature. "I'm not saintly at all. I do have a toughness. That's what's embedded in us, to be tough." Can she live a normal life when she goes home? She laughs. "I can act normally, and I can go out, but people around you don't act normally. If it was normal, I'd go out and have my dinner and nobody would be video-phoning me eating my dinner." Has she heard that young girls have started stapling their cheeks together to recreate her dimples? She looks as if she could be sick. "Yeah, I heard. Oh God. What on Earth am I'm supposed to say about that?" Don't do it? "Yes. Don't. It's funny, because having dimples is something I always struggled with growing up." It's late afternoon. The dressing room is dimly lit and largely empty – no photos, no good luck cards, just huge tubs of Butterkist popcorn and bottled water, Diet Coke, a cigarette packet and a box of matches. She gives Blue a quick cuddle, stuffs some Butterkist in her mouth and I ask a series of random questions. "If Simon got down on his knees tomorrow and said, 'Marry me, baby,' what would you say to him?" "What's the punchline?" "There are rumours that you have fallen out recently." "I don't know where these came from. If anything, we're the closest we've ever been." "He's helped you when you've been down?" "Why has everything got to be gloom and doom? We have funny conversations. He checks I'm OK, he reads me really, really well. I can't hide anything from him." "Why did you hire a group of singing dwarves for his birthday present?" "That was great, wasn't it?" She laughs. "What d'you get Simon Cowell for his birthday? Singing musical dwarves! You want some popcorn?" "How will your beloved Newcastle be affected by the Tory cuts?" "I was brought up Labour and it is pretty shit times. But I also think pop music helps that. And that's what I'm going to focus on – being a pop star. I'm not a politician." "The perfect politician's answer," I say. "But you are still Labour in your heart?" "Yes, absolutely." She stands up to wash her hands. "Sorry, I'm all sticky." For the first time I notice how tiny and slight she is – skinny legs, virtually no bottom and a giant tattoo across her lower back. "What is that tattoo?" I shout a little too loudly. "It's just times in my life, I suppose. More specific times when you felt certain things or whatever…" How many tattoos has she got? "Three." Which is her favourite? "I like the one on my hand, the little one. Just an abstract thing… it's cold in here." She seems to have forgotten two of her other tattoos – one on her bottom and the other on the back of her neck saying Mrs Cole. Does she want to get rid of any of her tattoos? "No… I'm not ashamed of anything. I've got nothing to rub away." There have been stories of yet another tattoo, dedicated to the dancer Derek Hough. Soon after she and Ashley Cole separated, the rumour mill went into overdrive – Hough was her new boyfriend, Hough was a cover for her new boyfriend. I ask if she really is going out with him. She replies with a fabulous evasion. "I know one thing for sure. I have spoken about everything that's been written about just to put everything to bed, close the door on this year, close the door on this chapter of my life, and start afresh. And from now on in I will never talk about my personal life again." What is it she most wanted to say? "Not want to say. I had to say. I just wanted to say, right, this is from the horse's mouth. And then I can move on, and try to have as much sanity and normality as possible." Outside the studio, there are paparazzi perched on their ladders trying to peer in. Is she aware of them? "Yes, it's sick. You know the worst thing is, when I was in intensive care, they were outside the hospital. There's people in that hospital dying, there are families going up there to sit with people for the last hours of their lives and there are 30 photographers outside." Perhaps it's impossible to reconcile such a high-profile career with a desire for privacy. Does she ever think, "Sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm getting out?" "Yeah, I've thought that a few times, but I'm not going to let them ruin my dreams. I want to make music." I do think she is being sincere, and that she does want to get stuff off her chest. Yet I'm equally aware that she is promoting a new album, which focuses on the breakdown of a relationship. For what it's worth, there is certainly no sign of a boyfriend. My feeling is she's still trying to get her life back together. I tell her about a 10-year-old girl who insists on calling her Cheryl Tweedy because it is empowering and Tweedy is her true name. No, she says, she's staying as Cole, and that's the truly empowering thing to do. "I don't feel sentimental about the name. If I went back to being Cheryl Tweedy, I'd be… I'm not ashamed of my marriage, it's a period in my life. And I am Cheryl Cole. That's how I feel." Cheryl Tweedy is who she was as a little girl, she says, and that's a lifetime away. And Cheryl Cole is who she's been most successful as, and Cheryl Cole sounds a cool name, and Cheryl Cole is a great brand. Why shouldn't she keep hold of the positives from her marriage? If she's sticking as Cheryl Cole, does she think that one day she might get back together with Ashley? This time she opens her mouth and it just stays open in shock or maybe horror. "We've been divorced. That's a pretty big ending. Maybe we can be friends… one day." Does she think he regrets lousing up their marriage? "I can't speak for him. You'll have to ask him that." Then she grins. "Maybe ring his publicist." • Cheryl Cole's second solo album, Messy Little Raindrops, is released on 1 November.
Gordon Ramsay's blustery, loud-mouthed persona is not going down so well with the public these days. Photograph: Channel 4 Gordon Ramsay has been no stranger to bad news in the last couple of years. His restaurant empire has faltered; he has been accused of torrid sexual wrongdoings; former proteges have turned against him. Through it all, the two central relationships in his life have appeared to stand firm: that to his wife, Tana, and to his father-in-law and business partner, Chris Hutcheson. Last week, however, the second of these was shown to be less resilient than was thought when it was announced that Hutcheson had left his position as CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd. It isn't yet clear what caused the rupture (all we know is that it followed a blazing row) but the implications for Ramsay cannot be anything other than extremely worrying. More than any other setback to have befallen the Glasgow-born chef in recent times, this one surely casts severe doubts over his future. It isn't much of a secret that Hutcheson has been integral to Ramsay's meteoric rise over the last 12 years, acting as his adviser, role model and even surrogate father, and effectively overseeing the day-to-day running of the business while Ramsay was busy turning himself into a TV celebrity. It could be argued that Ramsay is now big enough (and rich enough) to flourish without his former mentor. After all, after a rocky patch following the credit crunch his business is no longer in the red financially (it posted impressive profits of £4.2m in the 11 months leading up to August) and he'll no doubt be able to find someone else to run it for him. Moreover, his fame won't disappear overnight. The truth, though, is a bit more complex. Ramsay's success has always rested on a delicate balance between three things: his reputation as a chef; his acumen (aided by Hutcheson) as a businessman; and his fame as a TV personality. The three have reinforced each other in a sort of virtuous circle; remove any one from the equation, and it's hard to see how the other two would survive. Ramsay's greatest current difficultly, arguably, is that, although he is still doing well in purely financial terms, the other two prongs of his success – his culinary reputation and fame – are beginning to look somewhat tarnished. The reputation of his restaurants is no longer what it was. Back in the early 2000s his flagship Royal Hospital Road restaurant was rightly seen as the most exciting place to eat in London, if not Britain. In the newly published 2011 Harden's guide to London's restaurants, it is ranked just 17th. In addition to his own (much neglected) skills in the kitchen, Ramsay's other great strength has always been his ability to discover and nurture talent. But his two most brilliant proteges – Marcus Waering and Angela Hartnett – are no longer with him. Restaurant empires are ultimately propped up by the chefs, and Ramsay's, these days, seems worryingly lacking in this respect. And while he remains very much a presence on our TV screens, there is evidence that here, too, the Ramsay shtick is starting to wear thin. People have grown tired of his all-swearing, tough-guy persona. But his attempts to convince us that, beneath the bluster, he is really a kind soul – the subtext of his voyage of discovery round India in Gordon's Great Escape this year – have so far proved unconvincing. Nor does his latest series, Ramsay's Best Restaurant, based on a segment from his magazine show The F-Word, seem set to revive his reputation: in both critical and audience terms, it has so far met with an unenthusiastic response.The one thing we can be certain of about Ramsay is that his will to succeed is incredible, and it is much too early to write him off. But without Hutcheson these will be severely testing times for him both professionally and personally. Those close to him may have to get used to a lot more swearing.
Katy Perry covers herself with a jacket as she arrives with Russell Brand at the airport in Mumbai. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty ImagesThe singer Katy Perry and entertainer Russell Brand were married on Saturday at a "private and spiritual ceremony" at a wildlife sanctuary in India. The wedding took place at the Aman-e-Khas luxury resort outside the Ranthambhore tiger sanctuary, 80 miles from the "pink city" of Jaipur. A spokesman for the couple said a friend of Perry's family conducted the service. A hotel official said Brand and Perry wore traditional Indian clothes, with the bride and female guests in saris. Brand's wedding procession from a nearby resort was said to include 21 camels plus elephants, horses, dancers and musicians. PA
A baby elephant marked Russell Brand's arrival. Photograph: Digital Zoo/Getty ImagesRussell Brand and Katy Perry tied the knot in India over the weekend at a luxury resort within a Rajasthani tiger reserve. The most extravagant wedding of the year reportedly featured: ▶ A Bollywood banquet with drummers, dancers, fire eaters and snake charmers. ▶ Camels, horses and a baby elephant for Brand's arrival, a tiger named Machli as a gift for his bride, and another that got into the wedding party to the horror of security staff. ▶ 1,380 cans of soft drinks and 4,800 bottles of mineral water. ▶ Celebrity attendees including P Diddy, David Walliams and Jonathan Ross. ▶ A fortune-telling parrot, who informed the newlyweds they would have a long marriage, children and, most importantly, successful careers. (William Hill is offering odds of 7-2 on a break-up before the end of 2011.)
Wayne Rooney. Photograph: Tom Jenkins Naturally enough, the first thing I did on hearing that Wayne Rooney had squeezed another £42m out of Manchester United was wonder what economists would make of such a jackpot. The second thing I did was read a bunch of monographs to find out. Yes, I'm serious. No, I can't help it. Stop shaking your head. Pug-faced footballers interest me about as much as conveyancing solicitors, who have had far more impact on my life. There was even a brief period at school when I thought this Man U everyone else was talking about was actually a Burmese military dictator. So if you want an in-depth discussion about whether Rooney just wanted to play alongside his mate Carlos Tevez, then my advice is to move on to the sports section, whose writers will take good care of you. What interests me is how a striker who has only scored one goal this season, who had a terrible World Cup, who is in what's widely described as the worst form of his career, can command a weekly wage reportedly between £200,000 and £250,000. And for that, economists have some answers. Even better, whether left or right, Chicago or Cornell, their arguments yield some common suggestions for what can be done about it. Best of all, in these austere times, those suggestions involve imposing higher taxes on the people who earn such huge amounts. We can even call it a Rooney tax, and demand that George Osborne introduces one in his next Budget. The first thing economists suggest about the explosion in players' wages is that there is little incentive for the clubs to stop paying out so much. Put bluntly, clubs pay top dollar for top talent because it keeps them at the top of the table. Studying the performance of 40 English clubs over two decades, the sports economist Stefan Szymanski found that their wage bills accounted for 92% of the variation in their league positions. In Italy, the link was a tad stronger at 93%. Set aside precise calculations of value for money, put out of your mind the (very real) prospect that a manager might overpay for a forward who then spends most of his time on the bench or in physio, and turn a blind eye to the recklessness that some clubs have shown in running their finances. The implication of this finding is clear: a club that wants to go places is under a huge amount of pressure to spend a lot on players. The same goes for directors hiring staff at investment banks and producers casting actors for a film. I'm lumping Cristiano Ronaldo together with Bob Diamond and Robert Pattinson for a reason: they're all examples of what economists sometimes refer to as superstars. And the second thing economics teaches us about superstar pay is that it is fruitless to work out whether Yaya Touré really is that much better than other midfielders. In The Economics of Superstars, published in 1981, the Chicago academic Sherwin Rosen argued that those generally agreed to be the best in their field generally scoop the vast majority of the rewards. "If a surgeon is 10% more successful in saving lives than his fellows, most people would be willing to pay more than a 10% premium for his services," Rosen wrote. The other point Rosen made was that when it became possible for more people to witness a brilliant performance, then the top performer would make even more money. And if you think about it, audiences from Nepal to Nebraska are better able than ever before to witness the same performances – through satellite TV, DVDs and iTunes. Rosen's work on superstars is probably the most widely quoted in the entire field – proof perhaps of his own theory. As a description of a process it is both ingenious and elegant. But it is less good for football and other team pursuits (banking, films) than solitary sportsmen and novelists. Still, here is the main point to take away from his argument: a significant sum of the wages paid to superstars is not merited solely by their talent, but by the simple fact that they are in pole position in their field. It is the rank that is being rewarded, not the person. Put that argument together with Moshe Adler's work on superstars. Adler believes that people are naturally attracted to what other people value – it gives them something to talk to others about, and a common culture. So it is that hordes of people will read the latest Dan Brown or teenage girls will all get into the Saturdays. Ranking, the spread of technology, and the development of a common culture: superstars benefit from all of these and yet have little to do with any of them. There is therefore no reason why film stars, footballers or financiers should hold on to so much of their earnings. The lesson from Rooney's negotiations, according to my economics monographs, is that we would be quite entitled to levy a higher rate of tax – call it the Rooney rate – on superstars. It's hard to see what harm it would do. RPattz is unlikely to throw in his job to work at Tesco. Tevez is unlikely to retrain as a corporate lawyer. As for Rooney, it might even encourage him to spend more nights indoors with Coleen.
Jedward obeying the 'Do not climb on luggage trolleys' rule at Heathrow airport. Photograph: Infphoto.com Airport security. A place where queuing is mandatory. Where answering, "Of course not, my people see to that" to the question "Did you pack that suitcase yourself, sir?" is not going to go down well. Where your stash of smack is considered neither creative nor cool. In short, one of the few places where celebs have to play by the same rules as the rest of us. No wonder so many come unstuck. The latest to fall foul of it are Jedward, who claim they are being repeatedly stopped for being famous – we're using that term loosely – rather than out of understandable curiosity to check whether they are, in fact, human. So on the off-chance you are a celebrity, here's a list of Don'ts to make your next flight easier: Don't look like an idiot If you really don't want to get held up, then don't backcomb your hair so it stands two feet in the air. Don't treat airport staff as if they were your own This one's for Diana Ross. Your minions might be grateful for the odd beating, but it goes down badly elsewhere. PS, the staff aren't trying to cop a feel, as you claimed in 1999: they are searching you for drugs and weapons. It's their job. Not that you know what a job is . . . Don't take any drugs with you As John Lennon memorably said when Paul McCartney was busted at Tokyo airport, "What the hell did he think he was doing? We've got people to do that sort of thing for us" (or words to that effect). Whitney Houston take note. Don't forget to count When a sign says "Only one piece of hand baggage allowed" it doesn't mean "Apart from Sharon Stone".
