The Australian media, so fond of letting us all know when an Aussie DOESN'T win something abroad, will be pleased to hear that ex-Home & Away hottie turned The Young & The Restless starlet Tammin Sursok did not, we repeat, did not win the Daytime Emmy she was gearing up for late last week.

However, the nation will be heartened to know that Tammin took the loss in her stride, and partied on "like a winner" - with her mum.

But you can't keep a good party girl down for long, with Sursok one of the first to prop up the bar at the gala after-party - on the arms of her Young And The Restless co-stars Vail Bloom and Adrienne Frantz.

Still keeping her mystery American beau under wraps, Sursok did make the most of the Tinseltown experience, spotted snapping up free designer shoes at the pre-awards gift suite, with her mum Julie in tow.

That's the spirit! You take those freebies, you take them hard!

Anyway, cheer up, Tammin; you can be safe in the knowledge that no matter what happens in Tinseltown, you'll always be the Most Popular New Female Talent Logie-winner to Defamer Australia!

You know, the bulk of Winegums Watch has consisted of "Ohh Ammmyyyy!"-style pieces about the Troubled™ singer getting back on her feet and then falling down twice as hard again, then getting back on her feet again, and so on and so tiresome, but this past week has felt worryingly like it might be headed towards some actual news - and, like most things to do with Amy over the last year or so, sadly it is not good.

It looks like Amy's mysterious collapse - which everyone was quick (myself included!) to laff up and blame on the crack pipe - has led to a more sinister diagnosis. If we are to believe dad Mitch, it looks as though Amy has emphysema.

In an emotional interview the cab driver told how doctors have warned his daughter - who was rushed to hospital last week - that she may be forced to wear a permanent oxygen mask to survive if she doesn't follow medical advice.

'To think this could be my beautiful 24-year-old daughter's life is preposterous. But if drugs mean more to her than breathing properly, then so be it.

'But the doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs it won't just ruin her voice, it will kill her.' He said.

Winehouse collapsed at her North London home last week and was taken for tests at a London hospital by her father.

You know, I've probably said words to the effect of "this should be the wake-up call she needs" approximately 126 times throughout the history of Winegums Watch, but if those words ever needed to be reiterated, it would be now.

Here's hoping the name "Amy Winehouse" doesn't come to be associated forever with the phrase "tragic waste of talent", and that she gets the help she needs. For serious this time.

Having discussed the Australian media's apparent obsession with the fact that celebrity chef and loudmouth Gordon Ramsay sometimes says a few rude words, I am pleased to present another installment in that particularly Aussie genre of journalism!

To wit: Gordon Ramsay swore a bit at a press call in Sydney! They gave him a swear jar! You know, because he likes to swear sometimes! With his foul mouth!

Etc. Anyway, those wacky Libs got all hot under the collar and Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi gave Ramsay a verbal dressing down for Corrupting The Minds Of Our Innocent Children, or something like that, and Ramsay's response was to blame Channel Nine. Which, incidentally, is our way out of any sticky situation.

"I'd like to give Channel 9 a big telling-off for making my name bad in Australia," Ramsay, 41, said.

"Has no one got an edit suite and not broadcast those naughty words before 9 o'clock?

"I'm getting flak for it everywhere I go."

See? It wasn't just us - evidently Australia's media is keen for us to keep up our reputation as mildly annoying and yet lovably amusing Colonial fools, and they're doing a good job with Ramsay. Next they'll be thanking him for taking the time to visit our little country, and making him pose with a koala bear and some Indigenous Australians in traditional ceremonial dress.

Particularly if Channel Nine has anything to do with it.

Reet reet! This just in at the Two Day Old Week Old News Desk TM!

Many folk around the nation found themselves worried about the state of Daniel Johns after the Silverchair frontman picked up a gong for APRA Song Of The Year at a ceremony last Monday night and delivered an acceptance speech which had some people wondering if Mr Johns happened to be slightly off his tits by that stage of the evening.

Whether you think Daniel is simply shy and awkward when facing a roomful of his peers, or whether you believe him to be a booze-swilling party boy who is happy to make an idiot of himself publicly, it doesn't really matter. The fact is, dude won a prize. He doesn't have to be a saint - if he feels like accepting a major award whilst appearing a little worse for wear, so be it.

That said, the following opening few lines from music journalist Kathy McCabe's defence of Johns' APRA Awards night behaviour amused me a little.

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Little known fact about Your Editor. Often when I am strolling the streets of Melbourne while wearing my iPod, trying to look all deep as though I am listening to Suicide or Leonard Cohen or whatever, I am in actual fact listening to amazing ballads of yesteryear. And one of my favourite ballads of yesteryear is Gyan's Wait.

Can you imagine how I just about SHAT MYSELF WITH GLEE when I hit the YouTube homepage to discover one of the channels I subscribe to had banged up the official video clip to the song? I didn't even know the song had an official video clip! Best. Monday. Ever.

I think these days Gyan's living in Byron and putting music to Leunig drawings or something, but when you're responsible for the most powerful and stirring Australian anthem of the late eighties, you can do whatever you want for the rest of your days, as far as I'm concerned.

You know, sometimes there are stories - usually including, but not limited to, the British tabloid newspapers - that for all intents and purposes write themselves.

When you see a headline that reads "Kerry was a prostitute who sold her body for money: Katona devastated as mother writes shocking tell-all book", you can pretty much be certain this is one of those stories!

That sound you hear ever so faintly in the background is Kerry "Chipshop" Katona hurriedly ringing the repo man so she can recover every Mother's Day present she's ever sent to her mum.

Sue Katona has reportedly signed a six-figure deal for the book in which she will make several shocking claims - including that her daughter once worked as a prostitute and that the 27-year-old's husband Mark Croft tried to seduce her.

The autobiography is another blow for Kerry who has been rocked by allegations of Mark's alleged cheating and a custody battle with former husband Brian McFadden.

In the book Sue discusses her daughter's drug habit and accuses the mother of four of getting her hooked on cocaine.

She boasts about propositioning the former Atomic Kitten star's lovers and claims to have slept with one of her former boyfriends and admits she tried to sleep with Ex-Westlife star Brian.

What! Her mother tried to sleep with the Potato? Her mother was unsuccessfully seduced by her daughter's husband?? There are so many subtle levels of "wrong" in this story, it's almost too good to be true! Someone nominate the Katonas for Family Of The Year!

There's a midday movie in all this - starring Jennifer Coolidge as Mrs Katona and Lindsay Lohan as Kerry, and guest-starring Devon Sawa as Brian "Potato" McFadden. Someone see to it that it gets made, there's a good lad.

There are some stars who are such tragic creatures of habit that reporting on their constant antics becomes something of an eye-roll-inducing event. Members of this elite squadron include Amy Winehouse, Shane Warne, and the topic of today's groaning, Naomi Campbell.

I've actually lost track of where we're up to in Campbell's history of belting people left, right and centre, but apparently she's set for some community service work after pleading guilty to going batshit crazy on a British Airways flight recently.

As well as the community service - which has to be completed within 12 months - she was ordered to pay £200 ($A415) to each of the two police officers she assaulted, and £150 ($A312) to the aircraft captain.

The 38-year-old subjected the captain of the British Airways flight and police to a barrage of foul-mouthed abuse, spitting and swearing and accusing them of victimisation because she was black, a west London court was told.

Campbell, who last year was handed community service and forced to undergo anger management therapy after admitting assaulting her maid in New York, pleaded guilty to six charges in relation to the incident on April 3 this year.

The catwalk star'slawyer said she was "genuinely apologetic" for her behaviour.

Given her history of confirmed and alleged assaults, Campbell's actual grasp of the concept of "genuinely apologetic" is perhaps open for discussion, but let's see if she can keep it together this time, shall we?

After all, if Amy Winehouse and Shane Warne can change their ways, anyone - oh.

Greetings, dear readers!

Your Editor is finally back on the interwebs after a troubling week or so moving house (and ending up with no electricity for longer than I care to remember - how stylishly Amish). Clem did a sterling job steering the SS Defamer Australia solo style, and I salute her for her efforts.

During my week without the ability to connect to the world wide web, I found myself mentally commentating on all manner of pop cultural things - from smarmy articles about Daniel Johns to missing Gretel Killeen, and let's not forget to mention the world's most excruciating profile which I happened to read in last week's paper (about Defamer Australia favourite Jackie O, no less!). I had pointless opinions, and nowhere to unload them!

So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to kick our famous Two Day Old News Desk TM team into overdrive this week, and see whether we can pump out a couple of "pieces" about week old news (while still covering current events, of course).

Bear with me. It's good to be back, but I have to remember how to drive this thing once more! Perhaps I'll start with a YouTube Clip Of The Day and go from there...

x

We told you a week or so ago about Daniel Johns' new lady love, Up And Coming Model™ Louise Van de Vorst; both parties remained tight-lipped on the new romance - which is off to a flying start only six months since Johns' divorce from Natalie "Boog" Imbruglia.

Tight-lipped, that is, until someone waved a tape-recorder near Louise, who in typical Up And Coming Model™ fashion, couldn't help but spill a few loving words about her APRA and ARIA winning mans.

She was one of 15 models who made the early morning call for a Sportsgirl shoot, to launch their new super flagship stores, at Fox Studios in Moore Park.

And it wasn't just the body make-up that had the bikini-clad 20-year-old glowing, with Van de Vorst saying she is over the moon about her new relationship with the Silverchair singer.

"I'm really super happy," she said.

...

While Van de Vorst didn't do the red carpet at the APRA awards on Wednesday night with Johns, she was still boasting about the stash of three awards he brought back to their Hilton hotel suite.

"I'm really proud of him," she gushed. "He's very talented."

If there was an implied ending to that article after the mention of the Hilton, it's likely it was something only the sensitive radars of Boog would've picked up: "...he brought back to their Hilton hotel suite, where they then bonked like crazy people for approximately eight hours while bathing in a shower of Moet & Chandon and diamonds, before Johns got out of bed at 11am to write a song about how his new girlfriend is so much better than his ex-wife."