The formerly ‘esteemed journalist’ Johann Hari this week issued a second full-and-frank apology following his suspension from The Independent, due to plagiarism and sock puppetry (sabotaging rival journalists’ Wikipedia entries). In his apology, Hari stated;

I did two wrong and stupid things. The first concerns some people I interviewed over the years. When I recorded and typed up any conversation, I found something odd: points that sounded perfectly clear when you heard them being spoken often don’t translate to the page. But I was wrong. An interview isn’t an X-ray of a person’s finest thoughts. It’s a report of an encounter. If you want to add material from elsewhere, there are conventions that let you do that. You ...

Don't tell the bride, BBC3 Despite a wedding being a union of two people, making the promise to spend the rest of their lives together, it is tradition that the groom should have no say whatsoever in how the day pans out. Desperate to end this cruel stereotype ONCE AND FOR ALL, BBC3 are doing sterling work in promoting the rights of grooms to choose how their bride is packaged on their big day. In fact, Don’t Tell the Bride has been running for five years now, making countless men very happy indeed. Tonight it's the turn of rugby lad Josh, trying to please his demanding fiancée Stacey. Will he give Stacey the most romantic day of her life? Josh is just ...

Nobody's favourite fashionista Liz Jones is all a-tither. And what's the problem? It turns out that some nasty Americans are picking on Kate Middleton: The debate was sparked when one American fashion commentator declared of our future Queen: ‘If you take Kate out of the royal family, put her on a street in New York, you wouldn’t look at her twice’. It didn’t take long for others to join in the assault, berating her sense of style and doubting that the ‘Kate Effect’ would stand the test of time. You hear that? Our future Queen! How dare they! Liz just can't understand, asking "Why does the fashion world hate Kate Middleton?" In an interesting non sequitur, she says: "She should also ignore the ...

Katie Price is frustrated. Years and years have gone by, endless interview after interview, and no one is asking the questions she wants to answer. Why are no journalists grilling the former glamour model on how to prepare the perfect Sunday roast, or how she loses a few pounds when she's feeling bloated? Driven almost to despair by her inability to communicate these crucial facts to her loyal fans via her preferred medium- numerous autobiographies, her website and Twitter don't count, if it's not set down on thick, glossy paper, it's not real- Katie has been forced to craft a magazine all for herself. It will cost you just £3.99 to discover that she likes to mop the kitchen floor ...

Novelty T-Shirts appear to be a massive market, which – for me – shows the real failure of capitalism. Some may say ‘yeah, but what about crippling debt and widening inequality?’, which is also a downside, but the fact that this economic model has allowed people to make cash out of tops with ‘If found please return to the pub’ on it makes me sick. Perennial tax dodgers and spawners of the hipster culture ‘TopShop/Man’ have decided that novelty ‘lad’ t-shirts is the next market to bring their fledging brand into. However, as with the head of any multi-national conglomerate, when you funnel your obscene profits through Monaco in order to not have your cigar reserves to pay a nurse’s wages, ...

Such is the strength of my commitment to the Shouting at Cows’ Paris Hilton Season I managed to track down a complete episode of her new reality TV show, The World According to Paris! The show concentrates on Paris’s attempts to grow up as she approaches her 30th birthday, and each episode begins with the following voice-over from Paris: 'Drama always seems to find me. At some point we all have to grow up. I'm almost 30 and I want to settle down and have kids someday, but I have so much going on. I'm starting to realise that my actions have bigger consequences, I can't even eat like I used to. I knew that things would have to change eventually, ...

When eBay arrived on the internet, roughly at the same time as Lolcats, it changed the way people shopping for bargains, soiled clothes and stolen goods. Although the hype around it isn't quite what it was - it is still going strong. But for every bargain you can get and hidden gem, there is a pile of crap. So, what can you, YES YOU, buy on eBay right now. Paperclips "Hmm, I really could do with some paperclips. I'm sure if I looked in that draw in the kitchen or the one by the phone, I'd find one or two. Failing that, I could go to 'Smiths. Or even the Post Office. In fact, I reckon my local newsagent sells them. But, actually, ...

Because we haven’t been paying enough attention, we get TWO lots of audition mayhem this week! Assaulting our eyes and ears with booming graphics and shouting and snap editing, we’re assaulted onto the sofa, incapable of doing nothing more than watching with a lingering sense of doom that Christmas is coming and we have to do out shopping on time this year because if we buy presents from the garage again, we're dumped. They’re in Manchester. Apparently Boss Eyed Gary has something to do with Manchester. He made the other judges go and see him perform as some sort of pop beat combo by the name of Take That. Louis seemed surprised that Kelly hadn’t seen Take That before, forgetting that ...

Paris Hilton Week Continues with some Arts n' Crafts! I'm sure you're all enjoying Paris Hilton week from the comfort of your own home, but you're probably thinking, 'is there any way I can enjoy it in a more tangible way?' And the answer is yes, my friends you can because now you can make your own Paris Hilton doll. Perhaps your daughter, niece or baby sister is a big Paris fan? Or maybe you want that special something for your mantlepiece? Follow these simple instructions and that dream can become a reality. You will need:   Cheese (preferably Edam, nothing crumbly - the rubberier the better) A Pepper Pickled Onions (or olives) Humus or Guacamole Sliced Meat A Glass Bottle A Knife (ask your parents' permission, kids!) 1) To begin, we'll need the cheese If ...

As a nation, we always look for role models in the wrong industries. Footballers for example; overpaid, semi-literate individuals, whose occupation involves belting a dead cow round a pitch should be given a wide berth when we form our heroes, yet routinely when another roasting session or prostitute scandal emergences, middle England howls at these men not setting a better example to our children. Fashion is no different. Fashion - described by Oscar Wilde as ‘a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months’ - and the fashion industry at times exemplifies this. High fashion is like art. An exclusive club of abstract visionaries who are labelled as ‘geniuses’ for having the foresight to send ...

We’ve never really watched Strictly Come Dancing in the past – the Saturday shows have clashed with the X Factor, and the prospect of spending an hour with Brucie is almost too much to bear.  Tonight’s preview show is all about meeting the celebrities, and finding out who their dance partners will be, so we’re on board.  Are you excited?  Are you?  Are you really? We’re not sure what the criteria are for pairing them off, but we suspect that some of the celebrities’ spouses will be sat in the audience praying for an ugly dancer.  Really, it’s just an extended excuse for Bruce to imply that each pair will be doing more than just dancing.  It’s not like it was ...

Sky Living Special! This week I decided to watch nothing but Sky Living. Now you can watch as the feminist in me shrivels and dies and is replaced by a horrified orange husk, too afraid to wear a bikini. Pushy and Proud, Sky Living Allegedly, the British obsession with looking good has never been stronger. This mostly seems to be the case in Essex, where Mum of two Michelle has opened the first pamper parlour exclusively for kids. Since the salon opened, the press have accused her of sexualising children with fake tans and make up. Personally, I don't see how anyone can find an orange child remotely sexual. Perhaps it is they who have the problem. We join Michelle and her children for ...

Previously on The X Factor, screaming, shouting, awfulness. This week? Screaming, shouting and awfulness. Kelly still thinks she’s going to find an icon. Tulisa wants some urban awesomeness and Gary wants talent. Louis knows this thing inside out though and just wants someone who wants to be a pop star. Much more achievable. The producers have evidently decided we’ve not had enough freaks yet so they shove David Wilder in our faces. He wants to be a rock legend like Jagger. No, no I go that wrong. He wants to be like David Wilder. OF COURSE. He thinks Bowie is the way forward and goes right into the judges’ faces as well and then into the audience. They love it. Who wouldn’t? ...

It's Paris Hilton Season on Shouting at Cows. Welcome to your nightmares. Meet Nate. He's your average 20-something year old guy, looking for the right girl - we all know what it's like (swap the genders around, as required), right? Well, it turns out he already has the perfect girl in mind and he's been in love with her since he was six years old: Paris Hilton. Or her character, whatever. She was the prettiest girl in his class and everyone loved her, but her best friend was the ugliest, loserest girl in the class - a Nottie. We jump forward to the present day: Nate's being dumped by his lunatic girlfriend. She hates that he writes silly songs about all the ...

This is a guest post by Jenny MacDonald, who occasionally blogs about her life here. With the surname MacDonald, I've heard every tedious joke about the fast food franchise.  But sometimes I just need a McD’s breakfast.  A day in 2005 was one such day.  I walked in and the local paper stared back at me, with a photo of Richard Whiteley on the front.  He had died. Despite hosting it for nearly twenty years, Countdown has continued without him, and thank goodness for that, but for many months it was impossible to even watch a repeat of the show without wanting to burst into tears.  That is how integral Richard was to the show. He was the first man to appear on Channel 4, ...

If you thought Deal or no Deal was too complicated, that Justin Lee Collins’ Heads or Tails wasn’t long-winded enough, or that The X Factor didn’t have enough Simon Cowell contracted artists on it, then ITV are on the case. Welcome Red or Black?, a week-long £15m gamestravaganza, inevitably and effortlessly hosted by Ant and Dec.  An arenaful of people are asked to guess the answer to a 50/50 question, around the theme of red or black.  Will Leona Lewis open a suitcase with red lining, or black lining?  Everyone who gets it wrong goes home, and the other 50% wander on to another challenge. And so on, and so on. The challenges are dull and seem to run forever.  Lewis sings her ...

When the writing team at National Lampoon were first approached to make a movie starring Paris Hilton, they were clearly aware of her acting limitations and so wrote the character of Victoria English to be, well, her. The result is Pledge This!, the annoyingly-punctuated comedy movie that IMDB readers have voted the 11th worst movie EVER.  Worse than The Tony Blair Witch Project and Fat Slags.  We're going in.  We should note that while the film is narrated by Victoria English, Paris had clearly had enough by this point, and they got a voice double in. Victoria English is the sorority princess at her college, and is a bit of a bitch.  She slates her friends for having the wrong nail colour, ...

DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually watched any of this series so far. But then, who has? Anyway, I can't imagine it'll be too hard to grasp what's going on. Brian Dowling wanders into shot. Hasn't he done well for himself? He's no Davina though. Bobby, Darren, Lucien and Tara are up for eviction this week. I only know who one of those people is, which, when I think about it, is pretty impressive. I'm doing well. Now it's time for a recap. This week Jedward have been forced to dress as babies, and the house-mates have been subjected to a garlic eating challenge. Kerry and Lucien keep kissing, not put off by the garlic. SERIOUSLY though, who is Lucien?'You need to go and ...

Ladies, the love child of Zoolander and a 1960s Ken doll walks amongst us, and it is right that we worship him. I speak, of course, of Gavin Henson. It is week three, and Gavin is no closer to finding a soul-mate to clasp against his plastic chest. Time for more pointless dates. There is just time for some stock footage of Gavin doing topless press-ups on the beach, as Carianne and Danielle receive invites to the first date of the episode. Only one of them will be coming back. Tense! 'You're intelligent, you're so smart,' Laura tells Carianne, 'Let him see that side of you.' Yes Carianne, we want to see that side of you. Desperately. They are being taken in a helicopter ...