Throughout the whole saga that has been Amy Winehouse's life for the past year or so, you don't really hear much from mum Janis; it seems Mitch Winehouse has become the unofficial family mascot and mouthpiece - although why this came about may be made clearer now that Janis has revealed she suffers from MS and has done for 30 years.

In this piece she talks about her determination not to let the crippling disorder rule her life, and mentions that symptoms are exacerbated in times of stress (i.e. ARE YOU READING THIS, AMY?), and generally seems like a pretty damn awesome, right-on kinda woman.

We're just not so sure about the Mail's choice of headline:

Then again, Janis sounds like the sort who wouldn't stop short of a laugh at her own expense (so long as she was making the joke), so we'll let it slide provided AMY STOPS STRESSING OUT HER POOR MAM.

And while we've got your attention, there's always time to make a donation towards funding MS research and services for people with MS, so off you trot to www.msaustralia.org.au/donate/ - just don't tell them Janis Winehouse sent you, she probably wouldn't be down with that.

Evidently tonight on It Takes Two, ironwoman and lass about town Candice Falzon will be appropriately kitted up for the celebreality show's disco night.

This means a stupid wig, a stupider wig on partner/mentor Anthony Callea (the pair have previously smooched onscreen in a gimmicky pash about as "hot" as an Eskimo Pie), and, it seems, a rather short frock.

But, what's that, Confidential, you have something to say about her dress and its lack of fabric? Please, do go on!

Really though, it's not as if internet users haven't seen it all before.

Hmm! We wonder if Confidential might be making a rather snide reference to the incident known memorably as "Dunny Gate", in which Falzon and Sonny Bill Williams decided to get frisky in a toilet cubicle, only to find themselves the stars of the latest celebrity nude upskirt oops debacle?

No, they'd never imply something like that...

We've spoken at length before about our love of the UK's knack for coming up with incredible celebreality television concepts, from Celebrity Wife Swap sending Freddie Starr's wife to play lesbians with Sam Fox's lover, to Kerry Katona's fly-on-the-wall series.

Well, those crazy Brits have outdone themselves AGAIN, this time managing to make us drool unfairly by combining car crash television with our other great loves, musical theatre and child performers!

They come from all over the country and from very different backgrounds but these 12 boys are all prepared to do anything to be Oliver.

The contestants are the dozen finalists in the BBC's latest collaboration with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

On offer to three of the boys is a coveted part in West End musical Oliver!

The shortlist has been whittled down from 3,000 and all 12 of the finalists are aged 10 to 13 with nine from England, two from Wales and one from Northern Ireland.

Jordan, 13, from Wrexham, is a Chelsea fan who has set his heart on a career in musical theatre. He says his idols are Ant and Dec.

Gwion, 11, from Carmarthen, names Harry Potter actor Gary Oldman as his ideal co-star and has ambitions of going on to be a director.

Meanwhile Kwayedze, 13, from Kent, wants to pursue a song-writing career, says his favourite group is Boyz II Men and would love to work with Johnny Depp.

Etc, etc - there are 12 of the plucky little buggers! The show is also pitting 12 young female performers against each other in the bloody fight to win the role of Oliver's guardian angel/scrag with a heart of gold, Nancy.

Apart from anything else, the whole thing is so massively, fantastically camp - look at the official site!

What makes us even more seething with jealousy is that this is the third installment in the series; previously How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do found new stars for The Sound Of Music and Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat respectively.

No fair! We'd give our right arm, and probably our left one too, if we could get Grant Denyer and Erica Heynatz off the tele and something like this on it!

We told you recently that the Food Network in America were apparently horrified by the size of TV chef Nigella Lawson's behind (like a horse's, apparently); much groaning ensued.

Well, the seemingly irrelevant "news" of her weight gain continues to inspire rabid editorial, as the Daily Mail has reported that Lawson is apparently so mortified at putting on weight that she is seeing a personal trainer in a clandestine manner more suited to secret drug drop-offs than exercise, one would think.

The domestic goddess, who admits to a weakness for calorific treats, has embarked on an intense exercise regime in a bid to lose weight.

Says a chum: "Nigella has been secretly meeting a personal trainer to do an aerobic work-out session tailored to help her get back into shape."

Is that so, "chum"?

The problem seems to be this: Nigella Lawson is and has always been referred to as "sexy" or "hot". Current media/celebrity theory also tells us that to be hot, one has to be slim. You can be "ugly" and fat, or maybe even "funny" and fat, but you can't be sexy and "corpulent" (thanks, odious Age editorial).

This whole thing makes us feel more ill than we would if we ate one of Lawson's cream and butter stuffed honey baked ham lard sandwiches deep fried in chocolate - honestly, WHO CARES what size she is. Who cares what size anyone is! She's a chef for crine-outloud!

It's taken them some time, but it looks like Rhys Ifans and Sienna Miller are finally engaged!

(And when we say "finally", it's only because in Hollywood, getting engaged at any point past the, say, three-month anniversary is like, totally taking it too slowly. And staying married for more than six months is a long haul worthy of a telegram from the Queen, or something.)

Who do we have to thank for distributing this happy news? Why, Ifans' mum, naturally!

Ifans' mum Beti-Wyn Evans revealed she's delighted at the prospect of having Miller as her daughter-in-law.

She said: "They adore each other and I am so pleased for them. They make a fantastic couple. We think she is lovely, absolutely fantastic."

No doubt this will be vindication to poor old Rhys, who was rather unfairly used to illustrate this Daily Mail story on beautiful women being more likely to have happy relationships with ugly men.

Come on, Rhys, ugly? We'd tap that, even in his grotty Reg Grundies from Notting Hill! Actually, come to think of it, especially in them...

It's probably safe to say Sir Paul McCartney didn't really enjoy dragging his recently deceased marriage through the courts these past aeons months - however, that's not the norm for he of the perky eyebrows, as he's quite happy to get sue-tastic when it comes to his baby, The Beatles.

This is somewhat at odds with his other favourite pastime - making lots and lots of money - so we were slightly surprised to see that Apple Corps are going to court to attempt to stop the release of a 'bootleg' quality recording of an early (1962) Beatles gig, given they okayed the neverending Anthology series, so haven't seemed to have any issues with shiteful-quality recordings in the past if they were shifting megabucks units.

A £7.5million lawsuit argues the poor quality recording at the Star Club harms the image of divorce-row Macca and the other Beatle legends.

It is unclear how US firm Fuego Entertainment got hold of it. But a Fuego spokesman said: “It’s unfair to millions of Beatles fans not to allow this recording.”

Given that much of The Beatles' time in Hamburg involved a) prostitutes and b) getting around the strip with toilet seats around their neck, we guess it's possible that the recorded performances might not be up to scratch.

But maybe Paul just needs to read Fuego's statement again: "millions of Beatles fans" - MILLIONS. Each paying MONEY. Delicious MONEY. YUM YUM YUM.

(It's okay, we're trained hypnotherapists; we're close personal friends of Jackie Stallone and her psychic dogs, too.)

Over a month since the press release regarding Olivia Newton-John's fundraising venture the Great Walk to Beijing was sent out, we've finally looked closely enough at the fine print (well, the print in general) and realised that - goddamn it! - the entire thing appears to be the most brilliant concept ever for a reality television show!

Olivia Newton-John says she is "excited and proud" to announce the team joining her epic, cancer, fundraising journey, the Great Walk to Beijing.

The team joining Olivia includes international stars, Joan Rivers, Sir Cliff Richard, Dannii Minogue and Jane Seymour. They will be supported by Australian music industry legends, Jimmy Barnes, James Reyne and Kirk Pengilly. Television celebrities from across the globe have committed too with our own Alison Cratchley, and Rachel Gordon from Home and Away, Sunrise presenter Monique Wright, and Biggest Loser host, Ajay Rochester being joined from the US by, Carrie Ann Inaba of Dance War and Leeza Gibbons of Entertainment Tonight, fame and from the UK by actors, Gemma Atkinson from Hollyoaks and Martina Laird from Casualty. and more. Olympic and sporting heroes have also agreed to tackle the challenging journey for wellness, including, Kieren Perkins, Sam Riley, "oarsome foursome" men, Nick Green and Mike McKay and 7-time world surfing champion Layne Beachley.

So just to sum up that AMAZING collection of folk who will be trekking through the Gobi Desert together like, erm, some sort of crazy fucked up family of people who enjoy nothing more than trekking through the Gobi Desert...

· ON-MOTHERFUCKING-J!
· JOAN RIVERS!
· CLIFF RICHARD!
· DANNII MINOGUE!
· KIRK PENGILLY!
· JANE SEYMOUR!
· KIEREN PERKINS!

Can you imagine it?

The team will face a tough physical and mental challenge, trekking 228 kilometres over 21 days along the Great Wall of China. The journey will begin with Olivia's team on a mountain trek with 40-degree gradients, winding through dust storms into the Gobi Desert as they head to Beijing over 21 days from 7th April 2008.

We have visions of Dannii and Joan Rivers arguing over something trivial, but then Sir Cliff steps in and the two women turn on him - and leave him a quivering mess curled up in the sand, softly singing the refrain of 'Some People' under his breath while rocking back and forth in shock. Dr Quinn and Olivia attempt to play the roles of Respected Elders of the posse, but their holier-than-thou front is shattered when Kieren Perkins stumbles across the highly intoxicated pair (the duo having earlier 'confiscated' a hip flask of highly potent rocket fuel from the backpack of one Ms Joan Rivers) giggling loudly near camp in the middle of the night and exchanging bawdy one-liners about the size of certain celebrity members.

Kirk Pengilly stays happily under Laybe Beachley's thumb for most of the journey, but in the rare moments she's busy talking fitness with Sam Riley, he shares extremely libelous tales of his time with the Hines family. James Reyne keeps morale up during the long walk by singing 'One More River' incessantly, and Jimmy Barnes recreates the glory years of the Tin Lids by belting out 'When Your Love Is Gone' (with the Oarsome Foursome stepping in to play the roles of the Barnes children), bewildering and frightening the Americans and British who have no idea what Jimmy is actually screaming at them, or why the men in matching zoot suits are absurdly dancing behind him and eating tinned fruit during this blood curdling performance.

Okay, obviously we're letting our imagination run away with us, but can you blame us? Dear god, may someone be filming this fantastic and epic journey so we can all enjoy it repeatedly on DVD at some point. It'll be like an intoxicating mix of The Biggest Loser and The Surreal Life, and we're already craving a hit.

Each participant will support Olivia by appealing to their friends and fans to sponsor their steps via the Great Walk to Beijing website, www.greatwalktobeijing.com , where progress reports on the trek and the ability for everyone to donate to support their favourite celebrity will be available.

Regular progress reports? Hell yeah. We'll be checking in regularly once it all kicks off in April.

Oh, John Mayer. With each passing day, we here at Defamer fall a little more in love with you.

Here's John's latest blog entry.

Guffaw!

Everybody's been enjoying poring over George Clooney's recent interview with Esquire, yes? If you haven't seen it, go here and have a read - it simply confirmed our massive Clooney crush as something which should be pursued full time (it tends to peak whenever it is Oscars season and we get to see the man in a suit making quips that leave us breathless and flushed, but then we forget about him by late March and begin ogling pictures of Gale Harold from Queer As Folk for the rest of the year instead. Mmmm, Brian Kinney gay goodness...).

During the interview process, George was shown a website which had a list of famous women they believed he's bedded during his time as a Hollywood heartthrob, and George helpfully confirmed or denied the couplings for the Esquire journalist. The full list wasn't included in the original published interview, but Esquire have popped it online as an "outtake". We found it enlightening, and you probably will too. We haven't worked out the average breast size for the confirmed Clooney conquests, so we cannot tell you definitively if he really is an enthusiast of all things flat-chested, as News Ltd so recently feared...

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Our beloved European Correspondent and full time gay Will just sent us the following YouTube clip of a Kylie Minogue song with a note saying "Kylie has not compromised herself at ALL. Listen to her first single for the US and Canada - it doesn't even sound like a Kylie single! Her rapper is called Mims which is a slang term for vagina".

Why? WHY? She sounds like a flaccid Janet Jackson accompanied by a Bi-Lo version of Kanye West?!

Her next single in Australia will be In My Arms, which is quite good (ie: better than that ridiculous Mims-assisted rubbish above).

Obviously we didn't Google as hard as we needed to earlier this morning when searching for online evidence of the whole Julie Andrews pashing Carol Burnett story. Well, actually - we did Google hard enough, we just didn't click on the mystery link on this page which handily popped up the following nugget of lesbiotic tongue-comedy gold.

In January, 1965, Mike Nichols, Julie, and Carol had been summoned to Washington to perform at President Johnson's inauguration. It was in the middle of a snowstorm, so Julie arrived by train, skipped a party at Perle Mesta's, had an early dinner, and returned to her hotel, the International Inn, to wait for Nichols. When he did arrive, Carol invited him to their room on a different floor. Julie, in her inevitable slacks (ED: IS 'INEVITABLE SLACKS' SOME SORT OF CODE FOR LESBIAN?), and Carol in Joe Hamilton's bathrobe, went out to the elevator to wait.

Do you want to know what happened when they left for the elevator, Mary Poppins in "inevitable slacks" and Carol in a bathrobe? Of course you do. After the jump, folks.

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Chace Crawford, the Gossip Girl star so pretty that one bat of his lashes is enough to instantly knock crowds of his tweenage fanbase clear unconscious, has been linked quite a bit lately to former NSYNC member JC Chasez. Not even a suspiciously timed and worded Page Six item describing the actor as being "surrounded by women" seemed to quell the rumours regarding these frequent bunk buddies. Now, via cameraphone-equipped operative, we bring you this latest addition to the Defamer Citizen Paparazzi files. It's an eyewitness account of what Chase and J.C. (can we just give them a celebrity couple's name already? Chésee it is!) were up to over this unseasonably warm L.A. weekend:

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Our beloved friend Will rang us from Paris the other evening and screamed down the phone "Check your email at once!" We did so, and saw that he had sent us two YouTube links. The first was to the new Janet Jackson video clip for 'Feedback' which he insisted we watched until the end so we could fully comprehend the genius of the next clip he'd sent us. As we are always obedient, we did as the man asked.

Do the same, please.

So now you will - like us - appreciate the brilliance of the following.

The cat in the Janet hairpiece actually resulted in us weeping tears of joy.

The Daily Mail has been running some excerpts from Mary Poppins star Julie Andrews' new autobiography Home: A Memoir Of My Early Years, and from what we've read, it appears to be a rather interesting piece of work, with Julie sharing tales of complicated family life (at fourteen, having her drunk mother inform her that the man she's just met at a party is her real father strikes us as a rather traumatic moment for a teenage girl to live through) amongst other things. You can read the whole thing here.

But the bit that leapt from the page and beat us about the head screaming "DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS? DID YOU? HAS EVERYBODY HEARD THIS RUMOUR BUT YOU?" was the following.

Just before she left the Broadway cast of Camelot, Andrews filmed a TV special with the American actress and comedienne Carol Burnett, her closest friend. It was titled Julie And Carol At Carnegie Hall.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, Andrews discovered that she was pregnant. When her daughter, Emma Walton, was born on November 27, 1962, Carol Burnett became her godmother. But was she also a lover?

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In these politically charged times, we are hard pressed to think of four more qualified individuals to address the delicate issue of race and religion than three comediennes and a former reality show contestant. That said, we don't cast The View, we just watch it. And this morning's show featured a real humdinger of a Hot Topic, as the conversation between the ladies of The View turned once again towards the controversial subject of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. As Whoopi and Joy attempted to bring Elisabeth to the realisation that she may have unfairly slighted Obama by equating his views on race in America with his Reverend's, the backed-into-a-corner Liz broke out one of the more ridiculous analogies we have ever heard air on public television. Expect a lawsuit from the good people at JIF and Smucker's to be filed within the hour. [The View]

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What wonderful news with which to start our post-long weekend recovery period! The papers have just informed us that Lara "Intellegent" Bingle and Michael "Pup" Clarke have gotten engaged while in New York for a romantic getaway!

Cricket star Michael Clarke and his model partner Lara Bingle are engaged to be married after the test player popped the big question while holidaying in the US.

Clarke, who turns 27 next week, asked Bingle to marry him in New York's Central Park - offering a five carat pear-shaped diamond ring, reportedly valued at $100,000.

$100,000? Expensive and impressive, sure, but not if you are Kylie Minogue's liver.

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In case you thought there were too few 6-year-olds refining their perfect suplexes, piledrivers and generally beating the shit out of each other in the schoolyards of America, World Wrestling Entertainment has stepped up with a new program just for the little 'rassler in your life: WWE Kids, a magazine, Web site and eventual TV program finally bridging the gap between the sophisticated staged violence of adult WWE (with its males age 12-24 demographic) and the tender, smaller youth who need it dumbed down just a smidge for maximum enjoyment. "A large percentage of children in America get introduced to our brand from 6 to 10 years old," WWE marketing VP Geof Rochester told Variety. "We said, 'We have a strong kids audience; let's embrace that.' We want to have a lifelong relationship with these kids." Alas, with their mommies fitting them for costumes and hauling an unlucky minority off to the emergency room, "these kids" were unavailable for comment at press time. [Variety]

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After passing along word of the new CureConnieAndPatrick.com Web site devoted to getting the word out about a possible "cure" for pancreatic cancer -- and the site's unauthorized use of the disease's most famous afflictee -- Defamer heard from Patrick Swayze's publicist Annett Wolf. The news didn't sound terribly good: "Patrick is not aware of this Web site, and he has no association with it or the medication it advertises," she told us. "He is not affiliated with the woman from the site; Patrick had no knowledge of her." So even if it's a good cause, would Swayze align himself with what essentially amounts to a campaign against a pharmaceutical manufacturer?

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Mono-polared rock legend Courtney Love recently fought back against TMZ, who, working in collusion with the Anaheim Police Department, attempted to paint the singer as being a few babydoll-dresses short of a full wardrobe when she claimed white-collar criminals had bilked the Cobain estate of nearly $70 million. (The fighting-back consisted of several angry MySpace blog posts, in which she notably dropped the trademarked pidgin English that made every visit such an indecipherable good time.) Now, reports the Daily Mail, Love has decided to quit America's quick-to-diagnose shores for England's far more tolerant, let's-wait-until-she- kills-someone- before-we-really- start-throwing -around-words-like-"crazy" embrace:

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While the direct effects of the WGA Strike have been well-documented ($3.2 billion in economic impact, the cancellation of the Golden Globes, the greenlighting of Quarterlife), it's harder to quantify some of the strike's more indirect effects. For example, if the Writer's Strike had never happened, Heroes probably would not have gone on hiatus until the summer, which means that the world would likely never have been subjected to the latest nonsensical video ravings of Milo Ventimiglia's Divide Social Club. The group, which consists of the aforementioned Mr. Ventimiglia and two of his meathead buddies, was founded in March of 2006, but it wasn't until Milo found himself without steady employment a few months back that the group's work began to take off. And by take off, we really mean devolve to a level of inanity that makes Chris Crocker look like Daniel Webster. Take, for instance, the video clip above, which documents Milo and his pursuit to eat poolside nachos ... with sour cream.

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Speaking as someone who once had his own life threatened by a fairly powerful, decidedly unhappy source, I particularly empathize today with Anita Busch, the former star trade reporter whose receipt of a dead fish, a rose and a note screaming "STOP" foisted the Anthony Pellicano investigation horror on an unwitting Hollywood nearly six years ago. Rapidly approaching her testimony date in the Pellicano trial, Busch granted a rare interview in a NY Times profile that is about the biggest bummer we've read since, well, maybe ever:

Ms. Busch's discovery of the tap on her phones, prosecutors say, led to another search of Mr. Pellicano's offices and a new phase of the investigation -- one that metastasized into racketeering and other charges against him and more than a dozen accused co-conspirators.

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· David O. Russell's next movie, a romantic comedy called Nailed, adds James Marsden, Catherine Keener and Tracy Morgan to an all-star cast that already includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel. As thrilled as we are to see Morgan's movie career graduate to the level of a Russell production, we fear what mayhem might arise from combining the highly combustible auteur and the manically unhinged actor. [THR]
· Overseas audiences love 10,000 B.C.! So much so that Warner Bros. has ordered 9999 more sequels, at which point they'll have Roland Emmerich take a stab at the Nativity Story, in which the baby Savior will fend off bloodthirsty sabre-toothed manger goats. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are close to signing Nanny McPhee's Thomas Sangster to play the lead role in their motion-capture Tintin trilogy. Do they really have to make it motion-capture? Nothing good ever comes from motion-capture. Let's just leave it in the early '00s, like we left sundried tomatoes in the '80s. [THR]

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On last Wednesday's The Tonight Show, Towleroad notes, Ryan Phillippe popped by to promote Stop-Loss. Host Jay Leno--a man being courted aggressively by studios and networks, with promises of eight-figure contracts and brand new theatres bearing his name--opened the interview with questions about Phillippe's first paying job on One Life To Live.

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The news of Patrick Swayze's cancer woes have drawn support from virtually every corner of the Web. Few have organized the type of outreach conjured by the family of Connie Loughman, however, whose press release hit Defamer HQ this morning with the curious subject line: "CURE POSSIBLE FOR PATRICK SWAYZE & INDIANA FAN SUFFERING FROM PANCREATIC CANCER":

An Indiana family is hoping for an Easter miracle - in the form of obtaining access to a revolutionary new treatment that holds the potential to cure both Hollywood legend, Patrick Swayze, and their beloved mother and wife from the ravages of pancreatic cancer - one of the most deadly forms of cancer.

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The Washington Post's Peeps Show II, possibly the greatest Peep diorama competition in history, has posted photos of this year's 37 semi-finalists, culled from over 800 entries featuring the brightly coloured, recoiling Easter treats. There's way too many gems here--from the plumber crack to the Olympic diving competition to Marion Barry's bust--to single out just one, but if you were to hold a marshmellow gun to our heads, none brought us more delight than the one above: A slavish, all-Peep recreation of 2007's biggest viral video sensation, the Filipino prison "Thriller" showstopper. We've included one more below the jump--it's a fierce tranny hot Peep mess.

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While we're mildly impressed by the $1 million take in limited release for the bourgeoisie torture-snuff opus Funny Games (especially considering the overwhelmingly negative reviews), no story speaks higher of director Michael Haneke's success than that of one Kate Johnson, who recently gave new meaning to "box-office gross" following her trip to the movies:

Finally when it was over and my "friend" looked like a deer in the headlights -- I was physically sick. I demanded my money back from the box office only to have the girl laugh at me -- at first. I threw up on the floor right in front of her -- and it splattered.

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Still reeling from the shock of close friend and colleague Anthony Minghella's sudden death last Tuesday, Harvey Weinstein's hope for a quiet week around the office was vanquished late Friday as resistance mounted for two of his company's upcoming projects. And you have to know that when you've made enemies of groups as diverse as Bob Marley's family and Star Wars fanboys, things really aren't going your way.

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You wake up cold and confused, naked except for the half-singed bonnet on your head, and surrounded by hundreds of empty Peeps boxes and decapitated chocolate bunnies. Damn it: You've surrendered to another Easter weekend bender. Enjoy the last pulses of glucose shooting through your veins as you peruse the box office numbers:

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In an environment as volatile and prone to bullshit as the film business is, we tip our caps to the guileless souls who keep it real when things are looking down. Particularly people like MPAA president Dan Glickman, who, when asked by Time Magazine how the industry's '08 crop of retreads, sequels and adaptations might weather the sluggish economy, steadfastly refused to toe the company line:

"When times are bad, our business seems to buck the trend," says Dan Glickman. ... "The movies are great therapy. It's a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist." ...

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