Books

Harry Potter has made JK Rowling richer than her wildest dreams - but if you try to make money out of Harry Potter, JK Rowling will crush you in her mighty fist.

Harry Potter fan Steven Vander Ark is slowly coming to realise this, because he's trying to publish a third-party Harry Potter reference book, Harry Potter Lexicon, and JK Rowling is doing her best to sue his balls off about it.

It just goes to show that JK Rowling won't allow any unauthorised Harry Potter merchandise to hit the shops. But, hey, that doesn't mean you have to tell her about that container of shoddy Far-Eastern lead-painted Dobby The House Elf choking aids that we've just had shipped into the country, OK?

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Ever wondered who's influenced the Olsen twins the most? No, us neither - move along.

No, wait, come back. Just because you don't care who influenced the Olsen twins, we don't care who influenced the Olsen twins and we'd be frankly stunned if even the Olsen twins cared who influenced the Olsen twins, the Olsen twins are writing a book all about the people who have influenced them.

The book - tentatively titled I Totally Like That, You Know, Old Film Guy Who's, Like Dead And Stuff - doesn't have a release date. But that doesn't matter, because if you're thinking about buying the Olsen twins' book, we'll come and beat you up.

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First off, let us just say that Larry Birkhead is a hack. We don't find it a coincidence that Dannielynn's DNA magically turned out to match his - no not by a long shot.

Her true father, the mighty and good Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, had a piece of his posterity ripped away from him when Birkhead somehow harnessed the power of science to biologically change every single chromosome in Dannielynn's body moments before a father-determining court inquisition. It was quite rude, actually.

Most of the world fell for this - not us though. There was never any doubt in our mind that when Freddy wasn't stuffing romance down the throat of thousand year old Zsa Zsa Gabor, he was spraying down Anna Nicole Smith like a beagle in heat.

You don't believe him? Well he's putting out a book to prove it.

A book we said - one with words and what-not.

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Being involved in a marriage primarily because it furthers you as a brand and gives you more shitcake anecdotes to fill your endless mind-numbing autobiographies with must be quite hard.

So it's no surprise that Jordan got smashed on drugs not so long ago and wound up contemplating suicide.

But here's the thing - although she's admitted drug use, Jordan won't say what drug she took. But she has ruled out cocaine, which means that Jordan wanted to kill herself after a binge on either heroin, prescription pills, non-prescription pills or Fisherman's Friends. And when was the last time you saw Jordan with a cold, huh?

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Hecklerspray tried writing a book for children once.

It didn't get that far. Apparently - according to those 'publisher'-types - children just aren't interested in post-New Labour reinterpretations of Milton Friedman's economic theorising. Apparently that's all a bit 'complex' for them, and we'd be much better off with some predictable tract about a cat looking for a balloon. Christ almighty - no wonder they're all so stupid, the pram-dwelling little bastards.

God bless those celebrities, then, eh? God bless 'em. Better than us mere mortals in every way, they've decided to show us how it's done.

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OMG guys, OMG!!!! OK, let’s all calm down. We know it’s hard! (No pun intended – OMG – we actually did intend that pun!! OMG what are we like!?!?) But let’s all take a breather and compose ourselves.

Tits!! Sorry.

Tits. Sex! TITS SEX TITS BOOBS! No! Really sorry guys!

OK. Phew.

Right, we really have calmed down now. Sorry about all that but, taking it as read that you, dear reader, are human and are aware of the potent brain retarding powers of the sexual image, then you can no doubt fully empathise with hecklerspray’s frat boy like reaction to the extraordinary nipple sighting of one of Britain’s most respected authors, Katie Price, at her latest book launch.

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You heard right - there's a competition to write the theme-tune to the new James Bond.

Relax, nobody wants you to write the theme-tune to new James Bond film A Quantum Of Solace - the least rhymable 007 movie since 1977's The Spy Who Loved Oranges - but the new James Bond book Devil May Care. Interested? Then read what we've just been sent:

Musicians and James Bond fans across Britain have the rare chance to be a part of 007's iconic history as Penguin announces its search for the theme tune to Devil May Care, the eagerly awaited new Bond novel written by Sebastian Faulks. From today visitors to uk.myspace.com/devilmaycarebook have the chance to create an original piece of music for the new Bond book which is published on 28th May, the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth. The winning track will become the book's official theme tune and will be featured on the Devil May Care audio book, published on the same day. This will be the first theme tune to accompany a James Bond book and will later be available as a free digital download.

OK, it's not quite as prestigious as writing the theme-tune to a James Bond film, but this is clearly an opportunity not to be missed; Devil May Care rhymes with everything. Breville-Made Hair, Level-A Bear, Dishevel Day Fair, Bevel Clay Square - see? Everything.

If you do fancy having a pop at this songwriting challenge, remember that your entries have to be in by February 25. And if you could fit in a verse about finding out about the competition on a blog called hecklerspray that can sort of be quite good every now and then, we'll love you forever.

Read more:

Devil May Care MySpace Competition

You should never rip off one of Jay Leno's jokes - mainly because it's bound to be so unfunny that you'll lose your job, be dumped by your girlfriend and end up dying alone on the streets.

But also there's a chance that Jay Leno will sue you and win. And that's what's just happened. Jay Leno has just won a lawsuit against Judy Brown, who published compendiums containing jokes stolen from his routines.

And as a result Judy Brown will have to publish something less funny instead, like… nope, there isn't any less funny than one of Jay Leno's jokes. 

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Whether it's Will Smith's freaky near-conversion or Tom Cruise's weird garbled video, it's not a great time to be a Scientologist.

Especially if you happen to be John Travolta. As a minor Scientologist, John Travolta has escaped a lot of the recent backlash against the church, but now his luck appears to have run out. Michael Pattinson, an ex-Scientologist who signed up at the same time as John Travolta, has claimed on video that Travolta joined the church to be 'cured of homosexuality' while adding that he knows one of John's ex-boyfriends.

The video of the interview is after the jump.

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Want to know exactly what was going through George Michael's mind when he waggled his todger at a policeman in a public Los Angeles toilet?

Oh, come on, yes you do. You do. Just like you want to know how George Michael felt when he called up Richard and Judy to defend getting caught wanking off a stranger in a bush.

And soon you'll know, because George Michael has just announced that he's to write his autobiography, and it'll include every single important event from his life apart from all the bits that he forgot because he fell asleep in the middle of them.

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Let's say you're a movie studio and the insanely profitable series of books you've been adapting for six years is coming to an end - how do you keep the money flowing?

Simple - you start charging people twice to see one story. If reports are to be believed then Warner Bros is keen on chopping the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows movie into two separate films, possibly with Steven Spielberg directing.

Halving the last Harry Potter would make sense, because one film could focus on the battle with Voldemort and the other could deal with the part where - spoiler alert - Harry Potter jets to Venus to fight the space piranhas.

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Tell any man that his daughter was created with the sperm of a dead religious leader and they'll probably get angry - look at Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise's lawyer is on the warpath after Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography by Andrew Morton was published, a book that makes all sorts of wild claims about Tom Cruise's Scientology beliefs while alluding to claims that Tom Cruise's daughter Suri was sired with dead Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard's sperm.

Plainly ridiculous, we know. Everyone knows that Tom Cruise has dried Hubbard's sperm out and uses it as a creepy pesto seasoning.

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