Time to get my nose back to the grindstone again, having just returned several kilos heavier from a – gulp – family holiday, courtesy of my almost unreasonably generous parents, in the absurdly beautiful location of Lago di Garda, a region whose aesthetic grandeur is matched by its superb cuisine. Between meals I had the opportunity to follow the Paris Hilton saga, and though I don’t usually take much of an interest in the lives of vacuous, famous-for-being-famous celebrity scum, I was surprised to find myself in agreement with the great lady’s pronouncement that she spices up our mundane lives, having found myself the beneficiary of unexpected volumes of mirth at the apparent injustices she has been dealt.

I returned to find an e-mail referring to the same subject from one of my oldest friends – such a good and trusted friend, in fact, that I shall withhold his name, for fairly obvious reasons. I quote:

“Hope she gets gang-banged in prison. By a big, poor, disabled black woman with a cock, and AIDS. Then she'll know how life is. I reckon her Chihuahua should get it too. Maybe I'm too bitter?”

Make up your own minds on that one. Taking a leaf from the book of his eminency Pope Benedict XVI, I shall distance myself and refuse to take responsibility for the above quote.

“It’s not right”? Oh yes it is! Happy holidays, Paris!