What's the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute?

A prostitute will stop screwing you when you're dead. OK, it's an old one, but this has been a particularly tough week as regards legal interference, and it's been getting on my tits somewhat. But I think we are now through the worst of it, and the geldof/live 8 section of the film has finally been signed off after a year in the cutting room, which is something of a record. One of the key points of contention was whether or not we could describe Ten Alps plc as "bob geldof's company". Lots of to-ing and fro-ing over this (as geldof is by all accounts extremely litigious), but we managed to dig up a quote from the man himself describing it as his company, so it looks like we are in the clear. Though this film is going to have to make more money than star wars to pay off these effing legal bills. Anyway we are now almost finished, bar a few tweaks to the grade and the sound mix, and ready for things to kick off this week. Can't really give any details, but you might want to keep an eye on the guardian website...

Elsewhere in the media, we have a strong contender for the Most Blatant Piece Of PR Pretending To Be News Award. The PR company for the insurance website confused.com came up with the idea to do a pointless survey of what confuses people. They then blatantly rigged it to make sure that Cheryl Cole featured prominently in the results, and fed it to every last part of the news media. The British press predictably leapt on it as it meant they got to run a story about Britain's top wag, and in so doing gave acres of free advertising to an insurance company. News organisations who proudly cut and pasted this advert and dressed it up as journalism include:

The Telegraph
The Sun
The Metro
Sunday Express
Irish Herald
Newslite - we knew it was lite, but not that lite...
Wembley and Kingsbury Times

and our dear favourite The Times of India who really will print verbatim whatever drivel the celeb press in britain spew out.

please send in any other examples of this, and we'll have a little awards ceremony at the end of the year.