Front Row Dress Circle

The sad news that actor Micheal Douglas has been diagnosed with Stage Four throat cancer comes at a time in his life when he has more than enough stress to cope with. By his own admission it has been ‘a very long year’ and revealed what we all know - that cancer feeds on stress and anxiety.

The actor has spent the past year dealing with his son Cameron’s drug problems and court appearances and the latest news has it that his ex-wife, Diandra, is suing him for half his earnings from his latest film where he reprises his iconic 80’s role as Gordon Gekko. Correct me if I am wrong, but when you have been divorced from a man for more than a decade you should have moved on, especially when you already received a sizeable chunk of his fortune. One would think the woman would be well set up financially for the rest of her life but we all know these Hollywood wives - they hang onto their married names (Priscilla Presley is a good example…) because they open doors long after their marriage has bitten the dust and they have bled their ex-spouse for every penny they could get. If this woman pursues the poor man throughout his illness - and she probably will - I hope every door she ever encounters again slams right back in her face.

Micheal Douglas, looking more like his dad Kirk with every passing year, has been happily married for ten years to Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones and is the dad of two young children - let’s hope he can defy the odds, which honestly are not that great, and live to see his kids grow up.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Just lately I have been seeing the name ‘Justin Bieber’ appearing in articles all over the place and I cannot work out just who on earth he is. From what I see he is young, very young in fact, he appeals to very young females and seems to have a frightening (for their parents anyway) effect on their hormonal output…

That’s him in the above picture, wearing a suit bought in the boys department of the local store - and no that’s not his glamorous Mum, that’s another person whose name is everywhere but for life of me I cannot work out who she is or what purpose she serves on this planet…Kim Kardashian. Now, I understand that wee Justin’s over-excited fans want to do a lot of very nasty things to Ms Kardashian at the moment ever since she joked about being his girlfriend…is he old enough to even have one? I’d say she would do a boy his age a lot of damage - if she could decide first whether to f**k him or feed him!

Whatever - but the teenyboppers tempers apparently went into overdrive, took her seriously and have threatened to do angry-teenybopper things to her. Oh wait - this all rings a bell now…when I was 14 I was devoted to the Bay City Rollers and, along with several million other teenage girls, was convinced I was going to marry Eric one day. He would notice me, and only me, in the audience of a concert, send a bodyguard to get me and we would meet…the rest would be history. Well it wasn’t of course but I do remember what happened when the BCR’s appeared on a tv show with Marie Osmond and the guys all claimed to have fallen in love with her…we fans all wanted her head on a tartan stick!

Justin’s fans sound seriously psycho - they even knocked his poor Mummy over in New Zealand recently while trying to meet him…these hormonal little girls don’t seem the type you’d want to mess with - and I reckon wee Justin wouldn’t want to touch them with a barge pole either…

Popularity: 40% [?]

British television has produced some of the best entertainment ever seen, and continues to do so, why then can the industry not pull it together and give viewers a decent awards show anymore? last night’s Brit Awards was, in the words of mediocre compere Peter Kay, “twenty minutes of entertainment stretched over two hours…”

And he could not have been more correct and even those twenty minutes was a stretch. The two things that can really make a show like this work brilliantly is a) the host and, b) the writers. You had Peter Kay as host, one of the UK’s top comedians and yet he was let down badly by what he was given to say presentation-wise. I have to be honest and admit that Peter Kay’s appeal in the funny-stakes escapes me, I like a really dry delivery - which is what he has - but I just cannot find him funny enough to laugh at. Maybe it is because I’m not from ‘Up North’ - I have seen Micheal Parkinson almost fall out of his chair laughing at this guy, well he would wouldn’t he…?

The awards were given out to some really run-of-the-mill acts, except I guess for Lady GaGa…her stuff is starting to sound the same to me though. Unless she becomes the queen of reinvention a-la Madonna you will be hearing Poker Face type songs from her still in ten years time. Liam Gallagher - what can you say about this twat other than “grow up you imbecile”. That ‘moody, cool swaggering’ might have gone over fine when you were a young fella Liam, but now you just look like a cantankerous old twit - and as for your giggling-idiot of a wife Nicole Appleton…a has-been if ever there was a never-would-be.

The British television industry has some of the greatest comedy writers in the world - just look at Yes, Prime Minister; One Foot in the Grave; Dinnerladies…all a brilliantly varied mix of biting satire and comedic genius and yet we get productions like last night’s effort. Where are the great writers when the producers are putting these shows together! find them, use them, and get a host who can deliver the goods. And one last thing: Put Jonathon Ross out to pasture.

Popularity: 47% [?]