Friday, September 26th, 2008, 5:08 am
For years we all waited patiently while the Queen Mother held on, and on, and on, and on, and on...
But for some reason that level of restraint appears to have disappeared following a spate of 'premature death' stories recently.
First, gangly TV presenter Vernon Kay was forced to release a statement denying he had fallen off a yacht in Greece and drowned. The story had circulated after a 'prankster' posted on Kay's Wikepedia page.
Oh, how we laughed.
And today, the tabloids are keen to inform us that contrary to reports, Paul Gascoigne is also alive.
The Sun carries a photo of Gazza with 'a mystery blonde' - the smile on his face emphatically ramming home the point that he is, in fact, not dead.
This, of course, is good news for them because it means they can still pay someone to follow him around with a camera (with any luck they may even capture the moment when he does finally kick the bucket).
Meanwhile, this latest reporting trend has apparently prompted a host of celebrities to release statements confirming they are still alive although it is thought Bruce Forsyth's declaration has been widely discredited.
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Wednesday, September 17th, 2008, 6:22 am
As the world's major banks continue to go into meltdown, the price of fuel, food and anything else that's really important when it comes to keeping us alive continues to rocket and we steam head-long into total oblivion, one man has come up with a novel way of beating the credit crunch.
While lots of old people play scissors, paper, stone to decide whether to gamble their pensions on food or heating this winter, it must be something of a comfort to Damien Hirst that he is still able to sell complete tat for ridiculous sums of money.
Hirst has just pocketed £111m from a two-day sale of his work that, as far as I can make out, consists of various animals in tanks of formaldehyde. Well it worked with the sheep...
Top of the shop was a bull in a tank of....wait for it....formaldehyde, which went for a tidy £9.2m.
But it wasn't all good news for Hirst. One of his signature pieces - a zebra in a tank of, you guesed it, formaldehyde - sold for a disappointing £1.1m. Ooh, tough call Damien.
And if you were at all conerned that a psuedo-intellectual with pretentious glasses selling lots of dead animals to people with more money than sense for millions of pounds is one of the most obscene things you've ever heard, don't worry.
It's art.
Tomorrow: How you can beat the recession by putting your pets in formaldehyde and selling them at a car boot sale
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Monday, September 15th, 2008, 5:34 am
It's a sign of getting old when all the institutions you once held sacred gradually start to disappear.
It all started with Rainbow and Play school (may Big Ted rest in peace) being pulled from our screens.
More recently we've lost Top of the Pops, Wispa bars and Um Bongo.
But today will see the last meaningful vestige of the eighties finally put to bed as Grange Hill, that one-time staple of playground conversation, airs its final episode.
No more Tucker Jenkins, Gripper Stebson, Mrs McClusky, Mr Bronson, Zammo, Roland, Gonch, Ziggy Greaves, Pogo Patterson, Ronnie Birtles or Danny Kendal.
The programme that first burst onto our screens like an agressively-thrusted sausage during lunch break, in 1978, has been axed because 'it no longer reflects modern children's lives'.
For the record, my personal favourite memories have to be Zammo Maguire's dramatic battle with drug addiction (Just Say No! and all that) and Roland Browning's selfless campaigning to raise funds for the terminally ill Danny Kendal.
More recently, the programme has become a bit wishy washy - not much in the way of bullying, classroom violence or anything that would vaguely make a kid scared of going to 'big school'
So, as the final school bell rings and the bike sheds are locked up for the last time, spare a moment to ponder a childhood forgotten, a rose-tinted TV world that has since been swamped by multi-channel madness. There's nothing Tucker can do to save the day this time...
Grange Hill RIP.
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Tuesday, September 9th, 2008, 4:44 am
There's still a fair few wars going on around the world, we're about to enter into a global recession, and we keep being told that if we don't stop using so many plastic carrier bags the planet is going to over-heat and blow up.
But the real news gripping everyone this morning is the earth-shattering revelation that Victoria Beckham has a new haircut!
Not your standard women's haircut (sit in a chair for a couple of hours, get it washed, bit of a blow dry and hand over £100), Posh has gone the whole hog and had it chopped off so she looks like a boy.
She paraded her new Barnet during the launch of her new clothing line at New York Fashion week.
Seen here holding hands with Jennifer Lopez (not sure why), the reduced weight on the top of her head appears to have eased the pressure on her brain, resulting in an unusually frank admission...
She said: 'I was never going to be the world's best singer, but I hope I can be a good designer.'
Well, you're half right love.
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Thursday, September 4th, 2008, 5:27 am
Believe it or not, it's a constant struggle being Usher.
Yes, he's a schmoove R 'n' B sex god Mr Lover man who lurves the ladies. (And is also married with a kid but don't mention that)...
The daily problem he is faced with, however, is how to keep all the ladies of the world happy at the same time.
It's a tricky conundurum, I think you'll agree.
But, thankfully, he has started to address the problem by organising a tour 'for women only' to promote his new album.
With one hand on his crotch, he said: 'There's only a few artists that can pull that off.
'I feel like I've had such a connection with my audience. This album, I felt like, was definitely the type of one that was more intimate. So what better way to get up close and personal than to make it all women?'
Randy old so and so.
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