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.
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.
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.
It isn't the most credible way to flog your album, but with seven million viewers a month and no annoying interviewer asking probing questions about your private life, it could prove a canny choice. On Monday, Charlotte Church performed live on the cable shopping channel QVC (which in 2009 posted sales of £367.9m) to sell her new album, at a bargain £9.99. In June, Cat Deeley went on the original US channel to sell her range of jewellery. But these are what have done really well.
Currently the channel's top UK sellers are: Acer laptop Its current highest earner – priced at around £450 – has racked up £1.7m in sales. Emu boots Similar to the more famous Uggs, more than £1.5m worth of these sheepskin boots have been snapped up. Liz Earle skincare QVC has sold more than £1m worth of one particular item from the Liz Earle beauty and skincare range. Fuji camera The highest-earning gadget for the company, racking up sales of £800,000.
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.
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.)
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".
Gossip Girl stars Penn Badgley and Blake Lively have ended their three-year romance, a rep for the twosome exclusively tells the new issue of Us. OMFG!
They called it quits in mid-September, amicably. "They’re professionals," an insider says of the pair. "They're still good friends and hang out on the set."
The duo, who met as preteen actors in L.A., then began dating as their characters were dating on Gossip Girl, "kept this news to themselves for a while."
Blake Lively and Penn Badgley have broken up after almost three years.
Indeed, they have always taken a drama-free approach to their relationship, and that includes the breakup aspect of it. They just go about their business.
Even those closest to the twosome may be shocked to hear the news. "Nobody on set had any idea," says the insider. "They're really just private."
We're sorry to hear about this breakup news, although it does put a new spin on Blake's rumored hookup with Ryan Gosling earlier this month.
Audrina Patridge may have been voted off Dancing With the Stars for no reason last night, but at least she received some unrelated good news to lift her spirits.
Her new reality show got the green light!
"The show with Mark Burnett got picked up by VH1 so the journey continues!" she told Us backstage Tuesday. "It's a reality show about me and my family."
From The Hills to DWTS to ... The Audrina Show?
"Everything that people have wondered about me, they'll now get to see! And I hope Tony [Dovolani, her Dancing With the Stars partner] will be on it! I'd love to make some trips to NY to see him because we are such good friends now!"
As for getting the boot on Dancing With the Stars despite great efforts, Audrina Patridge said, "There's nothing I can really say. It was meant to be, I guess."
"I've learned a lot about myself. I've found a new confidence. I feel like I'm maturing more. There are so many things going around in my head right now."
No word on what her new show will be called, but we're happy for The Hills alum, and hope this softens the blow of last night's absurd elimination somewhat.
Teen Mom made Maci Bookout an overnight celebrity.
Now the 19-year-old may be moving to Hollywood!
An insider tells OK! that the mother of two-year-old Bentley is planning to relocate from Tennessee to Tinseltown - because of her new reality show in the works!
TEEN MOM SHOCKERS: They're a dime a dozen these days.
While an MTV rep says Maci Bookout "is not considering moving to L.A.,” an insider insists a show of her own, and the move to California, are imminent.
We'll see what Ryan Edwards and Kyle King have to say about that one.
In other Teen Mom crisis news, it's been more than six days since two-year-old Leah has heard from her mom, embattled rage-a-holic Amber Portwood.
Not a single visit, phone call, text or even a simple “I love you” since the troubled reality star smacked around Gary Shirley once again last weekend.
“She’s doing her thing,” says Gary’s pal. Hopefully her thing is therapy.
David Arquette won't stop blabbing to Howard Stern.
For the second time since his separation from Courteney Cox, the D-list actor called up the radio host and over-shared about his personal life. Arquette admitted that waitress Jasmine Waltz is not the only woman he's slept with since leaving the actress.
"I'm pretty sure I'm up sh-t's creek right now," he said after dishing on some Australian blonde. "After the first girl I slept with I was crying. I know that's not very sexy... what it does lack is that emotional love that I always have with Court."
Arquette also said he does not have a prenup with Cox, which could actually cost the actress half of her fortune because she earns a lot more than her rarely-employed ex.
Confronted with the report that Cox has also started dating - she's been linked to Cougar Town co-star Brian Van Holt - Arquette described the actor as "a cool guy."
"Everyone has their problems but she is incredible. Any guy would be blessed to be with her," he said. "I don't have any hard feelings for anyone. This is life and we are just going through it publicly."
Yes, David, that's because you keep calling Howard Stern!
Whether she's claims to be pregnant or in possession of a successful music career, Tila Tequila is typically the one making wild allegations.
But a photographer that used to date this trainwreck is the one who came out this week and accused Tila of kidnapping his girlfriend and holding her at gunpoint.
According to legal documents obtained by Radar Online, Garry Sun alleges that Tequila broke into his Texas home last week and tried to extort Shyla Jennings, his lover.
“Shyla was kidnapped from her home in Houston, TX and was flown to Los Angeles. Thien Nguyen [Tila’s birth name] drove to my home address with 4 armed men with guns threatening to kill me and threatened my father... who was home. This event later led to extortion in order to save my life," the documents read. Sun filed for a temporary restraining order yesterday. Tila denies these accusations and says her lawyers are handling the details.
We might actually believe her for once. After all, it sounds like way too much planning and action for someone who spends most days in an Ambien-induced trance.
Bet you didn't see this celebrity couple coming. Or maybe you did, who knows. It's Marilyn Manson. How surprised can you really be by this guy anymore?
We wouldn't have picked America's Next Top Model winner CariDee English as his newest girlfriend, but hey. Whatever makes a goth shock rocker happy.
"They met when Marilyn helped CariDee on her album," a friend of Marilyn's says. "They've been seeing each other since. She loves how different he is."
CARILYN: Somehow, they make it work. For a few weeks anyway.
Marilyn was last linked (and engaged) to actress Evan Rachel Wood, with whom he had an on-and-off relationship. They broke up for good this past August.
CariDee English, who has gone from blonde to dark hair, as Marilyn Manson playthings tend to do, has even covered his song "Coma White." Sounds awesome.
"Marilyn Manson inspires and supports me in my music," CariDee says. "He makes me feel comfortable and beautiful with who I am as an artist and a woman."
Demi Lovato can't make up her mind.
Sometimes, she goes blonde. Other times, the hair is up. And still other times, you guessed it, the locks are dropped down.
Now, the younger singer - who has been touring for weeks with The Jonas Brothers and played Mexico City this week - has gone back to brunette. She clearly needs your help, THG readers, so please take a moment to compare and contrast below and then vote...
